Land Policies in Georgia, 1783-1833

Date: 1783 to 1833
Location: Georgia, United States

Land Policies in Georgia, 1783-1833

Summary.^[1] Georgia, named after George II of Great Britain (estab. 1707), was the last of the original 13 colonies to be founded. English settlers, led by James Oglethorpe, arrived in the present-day Savannah area during 1732. Seventy years later at the beginning of the 19th century, white settlers were mainly on lands along the eastern boundary of Georgia – roughly about a third of the state’s land. The Cherokee Territory in NW Georgia comprised about 15% of the state land and the Creek Territory occupied the majority of the state’s lands in the early 1800s. By 1840, both the Cherokee and Creeks had been driven from the western parts of Georgia. See separate source with map dating when Indian land areas were ceded to Georgia.

Up to about 1782, most land grants in Georgia were given to veterans of the Revolutionary War. From 1783 until 1804, a "Headright" system was used whereby the "head" of a family would receive the "right" to 200 acres of land for the nominal cost of registering a deed. An additional 50 acres was awarded for a wife, each child, each servant, and each slave - up to a maximum of 1,000 acres. Land affected by the Headright policy lay to the east of the Oconee River. After the Yazoo land scandal, Georgia lost its territory west of the Chattahoochee River (present day Alabama & Louisiana) to the Federal government, who paid off fraud claims resulting from Georgia's 1795 Yazoo Act. With a much reduced land area, Georgia switched to a land lottery system; eight lotteries were held between 1805 and 1833.

In 1786, just two years after its creation, a large portion of northern Washington Co. was used to create Greene Co. because of the area’s rapidly growing population. Just one year later, Greensboro, the seat of Greene Co., was attacked by Indians. Hancock Co., GA was established seven years later in 1793 from the southern part of Greene Co. and the northern part of Washington Co. It is only about 20 miles from central Hancock Co. to Greene Co. Hancock County included all the land between the Ogeechee and Oconee Rivers, which in the 18th century was part of a 30-mile-wide buffer territory dividing the homelands of the lower Creek Indians to the west from the English settlements to the east.

Research Notes

1. ↑ This summary was found at the profile of Edmund Knowles, Sr (1747-1835), but is more widely applicable. The summary is based on and links to the powerpoint presentation "Land Policies in Georgia", at the Paulding County School District site, but the author is unidentified. The same powerpoint can be found at other locations on the Internet.

Sources

• Paulding County School District. "Land Policies in Georgia", 2016. [PPTX].
• Wikipedia: Georgia_Land_Lotteries
• Online at Slideplayer: "Land Policies in Georgia", with links to other related presentations.