Chapter 6 The Age of Expansion

1. Chapter 6The Age of Expansion 1783 to 1838 Pages 177 to 203

2. How was land east of the Oconee River given to settlers? • Given to settlers under the “headright system” • Under this system, each white male counted as “head of the family” and was entitled to receive up to 1000 acres • Replaced by the land lottery in 1803

3. How was land east of the Oconee River given to settlers? • Head-Right System- Each white male counted as “head” of the family and had the “right” to receive up to 1,000 acres

4. What replaced this system? • The land lottery system in 1803

5. What replaced this system? • The land lottery system in 1803

6. A brief history of headright • Many revolutionary war soldiers were given land under the headright system • It was however, a corrupt system. Military commanders would give those serving under them papers promising land, and then the soldiers would turn the land over to the commanders.

7. What are public domain lands? • Public domain lands are those lands owned by the state or federal government • These lands were opened for settlement and distributed by means of a “Land Lottery”

8. What are public domain lands? • Lands owned by state or federal government

9. Describe the land lottery • For a small fee, any white male twenty one years or older could buy a chance to spin the wheel and win land • Heads of household with children, war veterans and widows were given extra chances

10. Describe the land lottery… • For a small fee, any white male twenty-one years of age or older could buy a chance and, on the spin of a wheel, win land.

11. More information on land lotteries….. • Eight times between 1805 and 1833 Georgia held lotteries to distribute land, the largest held in the United States. The lotteries followed a simple pattern: • The General Assembly passed an act that authorized the lottery and spelled out who would be eligible to participate and the grant fees that would apply. • Eligible citizens registered their names in their county of residence and paid a small fee. The names were sent to the governor’s office at the state capital. Beginning with the second lottery the names were copied onto slips of paper called “tickets” and placed in a large drum called a “wheel.” • The land to be distributed was surveyed and laid out in districts and lots. The surveyors sent the district and lot numbers to the governor’s office. These were placed in a separate wheel. (At first, blank tickets were added to this wheel, so that the number of tickets would equal the number of persons drawing.) • Commissioners appointed by the governor drew a name ticket from one wheel and a district/lot ticket from the other wheel. If the district/lot ticket was blank, the person received nothing. If the ticket contained a district/lot number, the person received a prize of that parcel of land. A ticket that contained a number was called a “Fortunate Draw.” With later lotteries (after 1820), when blank tickets were not added to the prize wheel, individuals whose names remained in the second wheel were considered to have drawn blanks. • Anyone who received a Fortunate Draw could take out a grant for the lot he drew, after paying the grant fee. If he did not take out a grant, the lot reverted back to the state to be sold to the highest bidder.

12. Describe the Western boundaries of Georgia in 1795. • Western boundaries: Mississippi River and its tributary, the Yazoo River

13. What is the Yazoo River? • A tributary of the Mississippi River • Part of Georgia’s western boundary in 1795

15. What was the Yazoo Land Fraud? • Four land companies approached Gov George Matthews and the GA General Assembly • The land companies bribed the officials into allowing them to buy the western lands (present day Mississippi and Alabama) – between 35 and 50 million acres for $500,000 • (that’s about 1 ½ cents an acre)

16. Why did the officials go along with this? • Georgia was too weak after the Revolution to defend its vast western land claims, called the "Yazoo lands" for the river that flowed through the westernmost part. Consequently, the legislature listened eagerly to proposals from speculators willing to pay for the right to form settlements there.

17. What happened to the members of the Georgia legislature involved in the Yazoo land fraud? • The citizens were angry about this practice and voted the involved legislators out of office.

18. What land settlement occurred under governor George Matthews? • Yazoo land fraud • The state government sale of land to companies for about 1 ½ cents an acre - citizens called for the resignations of the legislators involved – this became called the Yazoo land fraud. While the law was repealed and records burned in public at Georgia’s then 1796 state capital in Louisville, citizens refused to move.

19. On Feb 21, 1796, all the records of the Yazoo Land Fraud sales were burned in the Capitol building in Louisville.

20. What happened to Georgia’s boundaries as a result of the Yazoo Land Fraud? • They lost land rather than gaining. • Spain renounced its claims to the area, • the federal government contested Georgia’s right to it. The long aftermath of the Yazoo affair created bad feelings among many of the state’s citizens, and they appealed to the legislature to give in to the federal government. • Therefore, in 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

21. The federal government resolved the matter by paying over 4 million dollars to settle the claims • Georgia lost land from the Yazoo land fraud – Georgia giving up land west of the Chattahoochee River and making the river Georgia’s western boundary

22. But was it legal to rescind the contract? • Northern speculators who had acquired land from the Yazoo companies pressed Congress for payment, but for more than a decade congressmen sympathetic to Georgia rebuffed them. Frustrated claimants sued for redress. In the case of Fletcher v. Peck (1810), Chief Justice John Marshall ruled that the Rescinding Act had been an unconstitutional violation of the right of contract. Finally, in 1814, Congress resolved the issue, providing $5 million from the proceeds of land sales in the Mississippi Territory to be shared by the claimants.

23. What was the Yazoo land fraud? • When Assembly enacted the bill, the land companies bought between 35 and 50 million acres of land for $500,000- which is about 1 ½ cents per acre. • Citizens called for legislators resignations • 

24. The nation, however, was growing. Thomas Jefferson doubled the size of the country with the Louisiana Purchase – the United States extended to the Rocky Mountains • The US wanted this area so that it would have New Orleans and therefore a port for the Mississippi River • Total purchase price: 15 million

25. How did the United States change in size in the 1800’s? • The size doubled due to the Louisiana Purchase.In 1803, President Jefferson bought the Louisiana Territory from France for $15 million. • This transaction, which was known as the Louisiana Purchase, doubled the size of the country. The United States now extended west to the Rocky Mountains.

26. CHECKPOINT 1. • What two methods were used in Georgia to distribute land in the late 1700’s and 1800’s

27. Headright and Land Lottery

28. What happened to the members of the Georgia legislature involved in the Yazoo land fraud? • They were voted out of office

29. Compare the Yazoo Land Fraud to our present day economic situation….

30. What member of the Constitutional Congress was involved in the Yazoo Land Fraud?

31. James Wilson! • “Such men as James Wilson of Pennsylvania, signer of the Declaration of Independence and at the time a Justice of the US Supreme Court, General Wade Hampton of South Carolina, and Senator James Gunn of Georgia were also members of the companies which bought the Yazoo land.”

33. What about land ownership for free black men? • Problem # 1: Slave tax was in place and not only taxed slaves, but free black men – the rate was actually higher for free black men than white men or slaves • If a free black man could not pay his taxes, his land was seized and he was sold at auction as a slave • In Chatham County, 1806, there were 45 free “persons of color” listed in the tax assessment (Chatham County population in 1806: 13,540 compared to 241,000 today!)

35. What 1803 transaction between France and the US doubled the size of the country? • The Louisiana Purchase

36. Section 3: Economic Growth in Georgia

37. How did the Revolutionary War cause financial difficulties for Georgia? • The state had no money to pay it’s huge war debt • Few citizens had money to pay taxesThe state had no money to pay its huge war debts, • and few citizens had money to pay taxes. When the British left Savannah toward the end of the war, one thousand Tories went with them. They took • with them the equivalent of thousands of dollars, plus four to six thousand slaves and indentured servants.

38. How did the revolutionary war cause financial difficulties for Georgia? • State had no money to pay war debt, thousands of Tories left Georgia after the war and took their wealth with them • However, Georgia’s future was a bit brighter due to technological advances

39. What land disputes arose in Georgia post revolutionary war? • Torie land was given to soldiers as a reward for their service • As a result, several families had claims to the same land!

40. What were the main crops in Georgia post revolutionary war? • Cotton and tobacco

41. What invention changed the agricultural landscape of Georgia? Describe this invention. • Cotton gin • Mechanical Reaper

42. What invention changed the agricultural landscape of Georgia? Describe this invention. • The cotton gin, it had wire teeth on a turning cylinder. It worked, but lint got caught in the wire teeth and stopped up the machine. • The mechanical reaper, it had wooden paddles fastened to the harness of a horse, when the farmer guided the horse, the paddles turned and cut the grain.Before its invention, a worker • might have been able to separate six or seven pounds of cotton seed a day by hand. After the cotton gin’s introduction, workers were able to separate about fifty pounds a day.

43. How did the mechanical reaper differ from the cotton gin? • Cotton gin- helped make cotton by separating cotton from the seeds • Mechanical reaper- helped cut the grain

44. What industries and inventions were part of the Industrialized Revolution? • The development of mechanized farming tools, steamboats, railroad engines and advances in industry, business and commerce were all part of the Industrial Revolution in America.

45. What led Eli Whitney to discover the cotton gin? • The request from a family friend, Catherine Greene Miller, who lived at Mulberry Grove Plantation • Mulberry Grove was also the home of Nathaniel Greene – Revolutionary War HERO • While visiting Catherine Greene Miller, Whitney, a known inventor from Massachusetts, was asked to make a machine to separate cotton fibers from seed!

46. How did the cotton gin change the Southern economy? • Cotton was very labor intensive – with the invention of the cotton gin, a worker could separate about 50 pounds of cotton per day – compared with the previous amount of 6 or 7 pounds • Now large scale plantation agriculture WAS very profitable

47. How did the mechanical reaper help with improving profitability of GA farms? • The reaper, invented by Cyrus McCormick, had wooden paddles fastened to the harness of a horse. The paddles turned and cut the grain. The farmer could cut six times more grain in a day than he could do with a hand held scythe.

48. What was the panic of 1837? • With the improved economy in the South and the increasing demand for land, the price for land also increased. Under President Jackson, the federal banks required “specie” or gold/silver to purchase land. Local banks, lacking the gold and silver themselves and having changed to a bank note system, had to call in all loans in order to exchange these loans for hard currency (gold or silver). This resulted in a depression – individuals stopped investing, the global community also experienced the depression and decreased their importation of goods.

49. How does this relate to today’s economic concerns?

50. What was the panic of 1837? • The period that improved ways of farming that helped Georgia’s economy become strong after the revolution. The boom period ended suddenly, causing the panic of 1837- it lasted until the 1840s • Improved ways of farming helped • Georgia’s economy become strong after • the Revolution. However, the boom period suddenly ended, causing the Panic of 1837. This was followed by a depression (a sharp • economic downturn) that lasted into • the early 1840s. During the depression • years, many businesses failed, banks failed, some closing for good. At the height of the depression, only eleven banks were open in Georgia