36b - evaluate the impact of land policies pursued by Georgia to include the headright system, land lotteries, and the Yazoo land fraud
Headright System The Headright system was set up so that the head of the house (mainly the father or husband of the house hold) could own up to 1000 acres of land with his family. This helped poor white settlers. Georgia had much land to give away, because they had the land of the states Alabama and Mississippi. However, in time Georgia loses all of this land due to the first fraud in US history.
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Landlotteries After Georgia loses land from the Yazoo Land Fraud, Georgia no longer had a lot of land to give away. With not much land, Georgia opened what was called land lotteries. One person would be entered once for a drawing for either 50, 100, or more acres of land. Widows and others with problems could be entered twice. Many people were disappointed with how Georgia delt with this crisis.
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Yazoo Land Fraud The Yazoo land fraud was the first fraud in US history. What happened was that many of the Genral Assembly were bribed into giving big companies much more land than 1000 acres at below- market prices. When the federal government found out about this, they had to take action. They made Georgia cede land in Alabama and Mississippi as a result from the federal government having to pay millions to settle the fraud claims.
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