1. Land Lottery

2. The Land Lottery
With more land came a decision to change the way Georgians received land. The headright system granted land in odd shapes and was difficult to keep track of. Allowing land speculators to purchase land resulted in fraud, so a more “equal” method was created – the Land Lottery.

3. Lot sized varied depending on the quality of the land.
Under the land lottery, surveyors would divide the land into square-shaped lots.
The lots were smaller than the headright system, to encourage more families to move into the land.
Lot sized varied depending on the quality of the land.
In the Pine Barrens, lots were 490 acres each.
In the Piedmont, they were acres each.
Later, in the former Cherokee Territory, lots were 160 acres, and some that were known to contain gold were 40 acres.

5. The Drawing
After the land was surveyed, the state held a lottery (or drawing).
Every white male U.S. citizen who had lived in Georgia for 12 months and was at least 21 years old was allowed one chance.
If he had a wife and child, he got two chances.
Widows and orphans also got chances.

6. People who wanted land would register at a county courthouse.
Their names were sent to the state capitol where their names were written on tickets and placed in a barrel.
In another barrel, tickets were numbered to represent each of the parcels of land.

7. State officials would draw names and numbers from the barrels at the same time.
Those who received land were called “fortunate drawers.”
Except for a recording fee of $4 for every 100 acres, it was absolutely free.

8. The first land lottery was held in 1805.
During the next 28 years, five more lotteries were held.
Under the lottery system, Georgia distributed about 30 million acres of land west of the Oconee River to more than 100,000 fortunate drawers.
QUESTION: Which seems more fair, the headright system or the land lottery? Why?