The colony of Georgia was founded in 1732 by James Oglethorpe who received a royal charter to establish the colony. Georgia served as both a "debtor colony" providing relief to debtors and poor people from Britain, and as a "buffer colony", located between Spanish Florida and South Carolina to act as a military barrier against Spanish expansion. The colony aimed to be a Protestant colony with a diverse population through bans on slavery, Catholicism, and rum as well as attracting German, Swiss, and Jewish religious refugees.