ABSTRACT
British authors who had never been to America wrote a large number of tracts debating whether the focus on colonial mercantile trade was good for the country. Representations of the American landscape using imperial motifs had two distinct audiences within Britain. Many works addressed themselves directly to potential migrants. Most of the literature regarding the formation of an empire with the American settlements at its heart was written from Britain with a British audience in mind. In order to understand the motivations of the Lords Proprietors of Carolina we have to understand their relationship to the land of Carolina. As in the case of the Proprietors of Carolina, the Trustees controlled all land distribution until Georgia became a royal colony in 1750. The promotional literature misrepresented the flora and fauna, while the imperial theorists relegated colonists to dependents and second-class citizens.
