Methods For Distributing

Land

Headright SystemAnd

Land-Lottery System

Headright SystemHeadright System

Each head of family received 200 acres.

50 additional acres were given for each family member.

10 additional acres were given for each slave owned. (Given to the family not the slave.)

No family could earn more than 1,000 acres.

Each head of family received 200 acres.

50 additional acres were given for each family member.

10 additional acres were given for each slave owned. (Given to the family not the slave.)

No family could earn more than 1,000 acres.

Land given out during the Revolutionary War

Georgia offered land to men willing to fight for their state.

100 acres was guaranteed for each soldier who enlisted 3 years.

If you stayed in the war until the end, you received an additional 250 acres.

Land given out as a rewardLand given out as a reward◊ Land was given out often after the war to war heroes.

◊ This was to reward them for their excellent services.

◊ Land was given in sizes from 1,000 to 20,000 acres.

◊ Land was given out often after the war to war heroes.

◊ This was to reward them for their excellent services.

◊ Land was given in sizes from 1,000 to 20,000 acres.

The Land Lottery System

How The System Started

In 1802 Native Americans West of the Oconee river were pushed off their land.Georgia wanted to encourage people to settle this area as quickly as possible.Georgia also wanted to make a profit off of selling lottery tickets.

How the System Worked

The land was divided into square lots of 202 acres and were assigned a number.

Pieces of paper with land lot numbers were put into a box along with an equal number of blank pieces of a paper.

Whites males who were at least 21 years old that paid a small fee to were allowed to draw from the box.

Men that pulled out a piece of paper with a number received land, while men that pulled blank pieces received nothing.

YAZOO LAND FRAUD

At the time, Georgia’s western borders were the Mississippi River and of its tributaries, the Yazoo River.

Included in these borders were the present states of Alabama and Mississippi.

YAZOO LAND FRAUD

4 land companies bribed Governor George Matthews and the General Assembly to pass a bill so that the companies could buy this land.

The General Assembly passed the bill.The 4 companies then began buying the

35-50 million acres of land for $500,000.This equaled about 1 1/2 cents an acre.

Reactions of the Yazoo Land Fraud

Protests occurred all over the state when the people found out.

Grand juries met to look into these unfair practices.

Results of the Yazoo Land Fraud

Legislators that were involved were voted out of office.

The new legislators repealed the law.All records of land sales were burned in

public at Georgia’s capital at the time, Louisville.

The state offered to refund the money from the land sales but many people who bought land wanted to keep their property.

In steps the federal government

The government resolves the issue by paying over $4 million to settle the Yazoo land claims.

This was the biggest political scandal in Georgia history.