In early colonial records, Colonel Barnwell wrote of an Indian village that inhabited the site of Fort King George "for 40 acres round." Thousands of sherds of Indian pottery, along with the remains of 15 crude wautle and daub houses, have been found here. The Guale, decimated by European diseases, were attacked in 1661 by a tribe from the north, and their village was burned. After escaping to nearby Sapelo Island, their home was never reoccupied.