The Pursuit of Land

 The student will explain significant factors that affected the development of Georgia as part of the growth of the United States between 1789 and  B. Evaluate the impact of land policies pursued by Georgia; include the headright system, land lotteries, and the Yazoo land fraud.

 Hunger for independence  hunger for land  HEADRIGHT SYSTEM:  Heads of families were entitled to 200 acres plus 50 acres for each family member including slaves.  The limit was 1,000 acres  Cost: surveying fee  Advantage:  Farmers came looking for fertile land  Ranchers came looking for grazing areas for their livestock  Problem:  Government corruption  LAND FRAUD  Dishonest officials gave more than 1,000 acres of land to families  Granted more land than actually existed to make a bigger profit  Land speculator: someone who buys property expecting that its value will increase and it will be sold at a profit

 Georgia’s western borders were the Mississippi River and one of its tributaries (branches), the Yazoo River  Present states Mississippi and Alabama  Four land companies approached Governor George Mathews and members of the General Assembly  Bribed them to pass a bill allowing the land companies to buy the western lands  Bribe: money paid to someone to get him or her to do something  When bill was enacted, the land companies bought between million acres of land for $500,000 - about 1.5 cents an acres

 The public quickly learned of this and were FURIOUS!  Became known as the Yazoo Land Fraud  As a result, legislators were voted out of office.  The new legislature repealed the law that had allowed the land to be sold.  All records of these land sales were burned in public.

 The state offered to refund the money from the land sales  Many people who had bought the land from the companies and wanted to keep it  Federal government resolved the matter by paying over $4 million to settle the Yazoo land claims.  1802  Georgia ceded (gave up) its land west of the Chattahoochee River to the federal government for $1.25 million, making the river Georgia’s western boundary

 Public domain lands (lands owned by the state or federal government) opened for settlement  Lottery land  For a small fee, any white male 21 years of age or older could submit their names to the state and pay for the ticket  Put their names in one drum while the lots bearing the numbers of the lots would be in the second drum  Pad an average of seven cents per acre  Heads of households with children, war veterans, and widows were given extra chances in the land lotteries  Held 8 lotteries between 1805 and 1833  Georgia sold 3/4 th of the state to 100,000 families and individuals  Shift of power  any man could become a landowner  Power and wealth began to be distributed more evenly among white men in Georgia.