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Born March 21, 1697 Zittau, Germany Died 1744, St. Simons, Georgia, United States | ||
Christian Gottlieb Priber (March 21, 1697 - 1744) was a German lawyer and scholar who immigrated to the British Colonies of North America to establish a utopian commonwealth among the Cherokee.
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Early life and Work
Christian Gottlieb Priber was born on March 21, 1697 in Zittau, Electorate of Saxony to Friedrich Priber, a linen merchant and beerhouse owner, and Anna Dorothea Bergmann. Priber studied law at Erfurt University where, in October 1722, he would publish his dissertation: The Use of the Study of Roman Law and the Ignorance of that Law in the Public Life of Germany. In November 1722, he wed Christiane Dorothea Hoffmann—the daughter of a merchant, printer, and Senator—with whom he would have five children.
His activity was centered among the Cherokee people who accepted him as a "beloved man" because of his affection for Native American culture and his opposition to, as he viewed it, a thoroughly corrupt European culture. At the time, the Cherokee people occupied a powerful position in southeastern colonial America. Priber sought them out particularly because they were an ideal people to actualize his visions. He advocated a communal society based on Plato's Republic united into a confederation made up of all the native tribes in the region, one that would play off the different colonizers, Spain, France, and England, in order to strengthen their hold on tribal land.
Death
Because of his position against private property and his policy to provide refuge for runaway slaves and debtors in Cherokee territory, his surrender was demanded by the British authorities in 1739 and when on his way to New Orleans in 1743, he was caught by British-allied Creeks and handed over to the British colonial authorities, eventually dying under imprisonment in Frederica, Georgia.