ta ~~.c4o
MISCELLANIES
OF
Historical, Biographical  Descriptive, Etc
HCHAPPELL
Ht HAPPELL.
IN THREE PARTS.
FR    Iio
PROEME.
CHAPTER 1.-THE OCONEE WAR.
CHAPTER 11I.-THE OCONEE WAR CONTINUED.
CHAPTER III.-ALEXANDER MCGILLIVRAY.
CHAPTER IV.-GEN. ELIJAH CLARK.
CHAPTER V.-COL. BENJAMIN HAWKINS.
JAIMES F. MEEGAN,
ATLANTA, GA.
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BY'
ABSALOM
\ll 
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by
ABSALOM H. CHAPPELL,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.
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TO TiHE
IloN. THENRY R. HARRIS,
IMEMIBER OF CONGRESS  FROM GEORGIA,
TO WHOMt THESE SHEETS ARE BEHOLDEN FOR SEEING THE LIGIIT,
THEY ARE INSCRIBED
BY HIS KINSMAN AND  FRIEND,
THE  AUTITOR. 
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PROMET.
I have gotten beyond the Scriptural term of years allotted
to man on earth.  I have outlived my three score and  ten.
But although old age is fully upon me, I do not as yet feel its
weight.  I)eep in the mid winter of life, I have not as yet
felt its chill. I am sensible of no decline of physical health
or mental alacrity, or warmth of heart.  At no period have
I enjoyed more consciously that great blessing, a sound mind
in a sounrd body.  In this respect I sometimes almost feel
entitled to lay claim to what Cicero lauds in his immortal
work De Senectute: Eani senectutem qu(e fundamentis ado lesentie constituta est:-That old age wvhich is built on the
fouzd(ations of youth.  Where these are sound and well laid,
both mind and body are apt to bear up bravely under  a
pretty heavy superstructure of years, and to acquire hardness and strength, rather than incur premature decay from
time.
Whilst, however, sustaining thus well the weight of age,
I cannot hell) at the same time feeling how near my end
really is. To me the horizon of life no longer recedes as I
advance. It stands still and awaits me, and I must soon
reach it and disappear beneath it from earthly view. But I
recoil not from the near seen event. God has been pleased
to grant me a length of years beyond the common  lot.  It
saddens me to think how little good use I have made of them,
how much I have been wanting to Him my Maker, to myself and to my kind. Yet I have some comfort in the reflection, that though I have fallen very short of my duty and
of what I might and should have done in my day and generation, still I have striven throughout life, and I trust not
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ineffectually, against the downward tendencies of my poor
human nature and have sought to keep my soul erect and
aspiring towards God and Heaven, and may I not humbly
hope that when it shall pass from earth, it will be received
into that celestial home for which it vyearns.
I have reached a stage at which the mind has ceased to
dwell over-fondly on things of the Present. Rather do I
find myself inclining more and more to ruminate on my long,
multifarious Past, and to ponder on the short, precarious
future lying before me. Day by day I feel more strongly
that thie little time I have left is quite too little, in my actual circumstances, for any important worldly effort or effect, and every day I long, with growing solicitude and misgiving for somewhat to do or attempt, that may promise to
rescue my remaining days from the stitgma of an inane and
useless existence.'
Were I in the zenith or not too far beyond the zenith of
life, I would disregard the ruin war has brought upon me
and set to work unitiringly to retrieve my  fortunes; to
which end I would have but to repeat, to live over again
my past life, and upon the simple principle that like caiises,
if they have but time to operate, wil! )rodllce like effects, I
would be sanguine of being able to rei lace the lost fruits of
the past with another ample store.  I ut I have neither time"'
nor strength left for this repetition,-for planting and cultivating such another, or indeed any other crop.  My downfall has come upon me too late in life to admit of recuperation, and there is no alternative for me but to sit and die
amidst its ruins.  But still I would:)t sit idle and be utterly useless in the dear little ciicl which confines me. I
would fain keep my mind  bright a   elastic and worthily
at work in some way to the very lasrs f it were but for my
own sake;-and for the sakle of the b, C)ved ones involved in
my impoverishment and to whom I can no longer bequeath
money or money's worth, I would fain leave something behind me, which, if I can but be happy inii its delivery, may
be, if not a compensation, at least a consolation-something
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2
PROEME. 
that will be precious to their hearts when I am gone, and I
pray Heaven, solidly profitable to them for time and for
eternity.
Behold here, why and for wl-hom the impulse to write first
seized me! Aye, it was for the loving hearts and partial
eyes of those to whom nothing that relates to me or pro  ceeds from me, can ever be devoid of interest! It was for
those to whom I feel that I am ever the same, though for tune is no longer my firiend, but has deserted me, and now
instead of ]ier, age and poverty are my companions, grimly
escorting me to an humble grave which  no marble will
adorn or iron inclose. But little to me, marble tonlb or
iron inclosure.  For I shall rest in thy bosom, Georgia!-thy
skies over me, thine earth and air albove and around me, thy
sons and daughters, fromt generation to generation, side by
side with me, and on thy maternal lap, beneath thy sacred,
conscious sod, I shall sleep proudly, though sorrowfully,
forever sensible of thy i obleness and worth, f,)rever mourning thy wrongs and rein.  A  son's strong love for thee
unites with a father's for his children to impel my pen, and
it'may be I have seen and known and heard enough, and
felt and thought enough about thee and thine, to make some
things that pen shall tra,ce not wholly uninteresting to thy
1rue children too.
3
PROEME. 
I 
CHAiPTJ1 I.
THE OCONEE WAR.
In the first year of the present century, the Oconee river,
three miles from. which I was then born, in HIancock county,
was still the dividing line between a powerful, ever aggres sive Anglo-American civilization on its eastern side, and the
imnmemnorial Indian barbarism which reigned as yet all the
way from its western bank to the shores of the Pacific.  But
my, then clear and beautiful, native stream, on whose bright
bosom, with its glorious garniture of towering, overhanging
trees in their rich autumnal attire, I first gazed enraptured
as the light canoe bore me, a child, swiftly across its placid,
broad-seeming wave, safe in a mother's encircling arms and
a father's skilled rowing hands, was not destined to retain
much longer the distinction of being so important a boundary.  The relentless tide of the white man's insatiable landgreed was already beating heavily against it, and soon
swept over it, and in less than another year the red man
was pressed back another and to him sad remove towards the
setting sun.  For it was the very next spring, in the month
of April, 1802, that the Federal Government  entered into
the famous compact with Georgia, long celebrated in her
annals, known as the Articles of Agr  melnt and Cession,
by which Georgia ceded to the Unit(    iates the whole of
her territory lying between her presf-, western boundary
and the Mississppi river, comprising ne.arly all of what now
constitutes the two great States of Alabama and Mississippi.
In return for which, besides g million and a quarter to be
paid in money, the United States also stipulated to extin
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THIE OCONEE WAR.
guish for Georgia the aboriginal title to all the lands still
occupied by the Indians within her thus reduced limits.
And before the end of the year the National Administration,
heedful of the obligation it had taken upon itself, hastened
to take the first step in discharging it, by purchasing of the
Muscogee or Creek Nation the fertile and beautiful tract of
country spreading out west from the Oconee river to the
Ocmulgee.
At this period, not twenty years had yet elapsed since
Georg,ia had gotten from the Creeks and Cherokees the
whole region, of which Hancock was only a very small part,
commencing far down on the Altamaha, aid lying first between that great river and the Ogeechee, and then between
the Ogeechee and the Oconee, all the way up to their
sources, and from thence across, between lines nearly parallel, to the Savannah and the Tugalo: -A  region nearly
equal in extent, and more than equal in value an(l fertility,
to all of organized Georgia as then existing; a fact strongly
shlowing what an important stride towards future development and greatness the State made when she effected that enlargement of her bounds, and how sagacious our predecessors
of that day were in seizing the opportunity of effecting it,
which presented itself at the triumphant close of the Revolutionary war; up to which time all this country had remained in the hands of the Indians, Georgia having previously acquired from them no more than a narrow strip along
the sea-board from the Savannah to the St. Mary's, and
another narrow strip running up between the Savannah and
the Ogeechlee, comprehending all Wilkes county as originally constituted.   Both the Creeks  and Cherokees had
sided and fought with Great Britain against us, during the
Revolutionary war, and having failed with her and been
left. by her to their fate, they necessarily incurred the fate
of the vanquished, and Georgia, as the victor, having them
at her mercy, dictated such terms of peace as suited her,
and obtained the large cession of lands above mentioned.
But the terms were too hard upon the Indians for a sincere
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THE OCONEE WAR.                       7
and solid peace, and it turned out, as might have been fore  seen, to be a hollow and unreal one.   Treaties of peace
were, indeed, made,  but they brought  no peace.   They
only terminated one war to sow the seeds and pave the way
for another.
The  Cherokees being comparatively weak and unwarlike
and destitute of any very able and ambitious leadership
amrong themselves  the lands also derived from them being
of much less extent and value, the trouble our ancestors had
with them never became so very formidable, and was much
more easily composed.
Not so with the Creeks.  They were by far the most  inu merous, powerful and warlike of all the Indian tribes in
North America, and their name had gotten, during the
Revolutionary war, to strike terror around every hearth stone in Georgia.  To them,  moreover, had belonged the
lower, and the larger and more valuable portion of our new
acquisitions.  Cherishing still the rancors of past hostilty, chafing under what they deemed the enormous price
exacted for peace, and inspired by a supreme chief* of consummate abilities, ambition and influence, and especially
animated by hatred of Georgia, they utterly refilsed to alcquiesce in the cession which a portion of their head men
had made at Augusta in 1783, and resorted to arms against
it and to resist our occupation of the ceded'lands. In the
irregular, desultory manner of savage warfare, they kept up
for many years a struggle, frequently relaxed, sometimes
even intermitted, yet always overhanging and threatening
to break out in fresh incursions and outrages. The Georgians, nevertheless, or Virginians,  as the Indians called
them, thronged in great numbers and undeterred, into the
contested territory and pitched their settlements wherever
they best liked, upon soil which they were liable every
moment to have to defend with their lives. They lived, of
course, in perpetual peril, and were compelled to be always
in arms and on the alert. It would not be too strong to say
of the infancy of this part of the State that it was baptised
*Alexander McGillivray.
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8                    THE OCONEE WAR.
in the blood of men, women and children. The reliance for
defence was in part on a very few United States troops, garrisoned here and there along the Oconee river, and on volunteer horsemen organized under State authority, in small
bands, regularly officered, always ready to take the saddle,
indeed most of the time in it, and actively traversing the
country in all directions, attacking, repelling, pursuing,
intimidating-to whose aid upon emergency all the fighting
men rushed from their houses and fields at a moment's
warning. All this, however, would not have sufficed without the help of other means, and as the best other means in
their power, the different settlements took a somewhat military character, and might indeed have been not inaptly
termned semi-military colonies.   By  their own voluntary
labor the people of each neighborhood, when numerous
enough, built what was dignified as a fort, a strong wooden
stockade or block-house, entrenched, loop-holed, and surmounted with lookouts at the angles. Within this rude
extemporised fortress ground enough was enclosed to allow
room for huts or tents for the surrounding families when
they should take refuge thereini-a thing which continually
occurred; and, indeed, it was often the case, that the Fort
became a permanent home for the women and children,
while the men spent their days in scouring the country, and
tilling, with their slaves, lands within convenient reach; at
night betaking themselves to the stronghold for the society
and protection of their families, as well as for their own safety.
Well do I remember the large, level old field in my maternal
grandfather's plantation, which in my early boyhood, was
still noted as having been the site of one of those forts. Also
the creek near by took its name fromn the Fort, and was and
is still called Fort Creek. My grand-father, however, a
fresh emigrant from Virginia, did not like this mode of life
for his wife and children, and established them for two years
to the east of the Ogeechee in what was then Columbia
county, whilst he with his negroes cleared land, ma de crops
and faced the Indians in Hancock, or rather in what was 
then Washington county. For in February, 1784, the Legislature, acting upon the treaties to which I have alluded,
made at Augusta the year previous, passed a law throwing
open to settlers the whole of the new acquired country from
the Altamaha to the mountains, and forming it into two
vast counties, Washington and Franklin, whose huge size
was afterwards, from time to time, diminished by carving
out new counties, among them Hancock. Thus Washington and Franklin, originally twin, coterminous counties,
became disparted, and now an hundred intervening miles
lie between them.  But no length of time or widthl of space
will ever dissociate the great and venerable names they bear.
CHAPTER II.
THE OCONEE WAR CONTINUED.
This rancorous Indian broil lasted with many vicissitudes
and various degrees of violence for some dozen years before it
was finally extinguished by the treaty of Colraine in June,
1796. All the while too it was intimately complicated with
an obstinate territorial quarrel between the United States
and Spain, growing out of their conflicting claims of sovereignty to the entire Indian country west of the Chattahoochee: Spain claiming as her own all the region occupied
by the Creeks and other tribes between that river and the
Mississippi, upon the ground of having reconquered the
province of West Florida from Great Britain during the
Revolutionary war,-which re-conquest, as contended by
her, covered all that country at least, if not much more.
From this antagonistic Spanish claim sprang Spanish tamperings with the Indians against us, the result from which,
and from the hard, injurious treatment the Indians thought
they had received from Georgia by the treaty of Augusta
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THE OCONEE WAR. 
THE OCONEE WAR.
and the seizure of the Oconee lands, was that the Creek
nation precipitately, in 1784, transferred to Spain in preference to the United States that allegiance or rather adherence
that had just dropped from the vanquished hands of Great
Britain. Their Supreme Chief, McGillivray, greatly incensed by said treaty of Augusta and the proceedings of
Georgia thereon, hastened to Pensacola as both sovereign
and ambassador, and formed with  the creatures of Spain
there what was called a treaty of Alliance and Friendship,
subjecting his people and country absolutely to the Spanish
yoke and sceptre. It is impossible to peruse this document
without being amazed at the excessive subjugation it stipulates, so unlike anything in our Indian treaties, and the conviction seizes upon the mind that a villainous fraud was
practised by the Spaniards on McGillivray in the translation
of it to him.   For  he  was a stranger at that time to their
language, though master both with his tongue and pen of
ours. It can hardly be doubted that he became aware after wards of the atrocious cheat that had been perpetrated upon
him. But he hid the disparaging discovery in his own
proud, politic bosom, at the same time silently ignoring and
annulling by all his action the false, unstipulated matter
foisted by the Spaniards into the treaty.*   For he was alto gether too shrewd to make proclamation of his having been
their dupe; a thing which would have damaged him deeply
A*.merican State Papers-Foreign.flfairs-Vol. 1,p. 278. -Where  this ex traordinary treaty will be found at length signed by McGillivray alone on the
part of the Indians. In the treaty is contained a statement that McGillivray
was made acquainted with its contents by "a literal and exact translation
which was reduced by Don Juan Joseph Duforrett, Captain of the militia of
Louisiana and Interpreter of the English Idiom for his Majesty in said Pro vince."  The existence of this treaty soon became a fact well known, and was,
indeed, never intended to be concealed.  That its precise character and contents,
however, were kept secret for a long time is apparent from a diplomatic letter
of our Commissioners in Spain, Messrs. Short and Carmichael, addressed to the
Mlradrid Government in August, 1792, wherein, replying to a note of the
Spanish Minister bringing forward the pretensions of Spain under that treaty,
they say that its contents had never been made known to them, and therefore
they could say nothing in respect to it.-.dmerican State Papers- Foreign df fairs-Vol. 1, page 276.
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with his own people, besides forcing upon him a breach with
the Spaniards as the only alternative to his own loss of
honor.
But although foul towards the Indians, both in what it
contained and the manner of its obtainment, the treaty of
Pensacola undoubtedly had the effect of attaching the Span iards closely to them as our enemies: not that they avowed
themselves as such and openly took the field against us.  It
suited their ends better to stanrd masked behind the Indians,
and to instigate, sustain and exasperate them in their hos tilities and depredations.  Hence, during the period after
the Revolutionary war that the old Continental Confedera tion was still subsisting as the only tie between the States,
Georgia was all the while harassed by a huge two-fold trou ble pressing upon her conjointly-an Indian trouble and a
Sptinish-and so thoroughly were these troubles conjoined
that it was quite impossible to manage the nearer and more
immediately perilous one, that with the Indians, with any
success separately from its Spanish adjunct, from which it
mainly drew its mischievous energies and means of annoyance.  And yet this latter-the SApanish one-though so
potent in its effects against us, was not only locally distant
and beyond the arni's reach of the State, but was also politically outside of her jurisdiction, belonging, with the general
mass of our foreign affairs, exclusively to the authorities of
the Confederation. *
*Whilst Georgia during the Confederation always exercised a jurisdiction both
of war and peace in Indian Affairs, which was never controverted by the United
States, yet she was careful not to exercise it in any manner that might embarrass the United States in the conducting of the great territorial dispute with
Spain. Hence, although the Legislature in 1785, by way of asserting the title
of the State and protesting against the adverse Spanish claim, passed an act
creating the county of Bourbon, extending from the mouth of the Yazoo down
the Mississippi to the 31st parallel, and as far eastwardly "as the lands reached
which in that District had been at any time relinquished by the Indians," and
which lands the Spaniards were taking steps to occupy and settle, yet Georgia
stopped short with simply creating the county of Bourbon on her statute book,
taking no proceedings of any kind under the law, and in 1788 quietly repealed
it. because shie saw that her attempting to carry it into execution would be
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THE OCONEE WAR. 
THE OCONEE WAR.
It is not surprising that the State got along  poorlv with a
task for which she was thus  disabled at once  by  its distr action and her own want of strength.   She did hir best, however, confining herself to the Indian part of it, while the
Confederation, through that  eminent  statesman, John  Jay,
as minister and secretary for Foreign Affairs, worried to
quite as little purp)ose with the Spanish  lpart.
Georgia, in her sphere, exerted herself  not only  in efforts
of fighting  and  skirmishing,- but also  in  a  good  deal  of
finesse and negotiation with the Indians.    Her first essay in
the last-mentioned way, after the opening of hostilities, was
in the year 1785, and it resulted in the treaty of Galphinton,
which, as to boundaries simply, reiterated the treaty of
Augusta with a further cession of a considerable breadth of
land between the Altamaha and the St. Maiary's, which went
by the name of Talassee or Talahassee.* Within another
likely to increase the difficulties of the United States in their diplomatic strife
with Spain touching that and all the other territory then in dispute between the
two countries.-For the Bourbon County dct and its repeal, see Watkins' Digest
of the Laws of Georgia-304, 371.
*"'Tallassee." is the name applied to this country by our Legislature in the
Act of December 28th, 1794.-Watkins' Digest, 551-See samne Act, dmerican
State Papers, Indian Affairs, J'ol. 1st, 55t, 552.  In various other places in
the State Papers where mention is made of this country, it is called Talassee.
But Mr. Jefferson in his annual message to Congress of December, 18()2 calls
it the Tallahassee country. In old Indian times of the last century the name
belonged to the largest and most important of the political Districts into
which the Creek, or, as it is styled in the treaty of Pensacola, the Tallapouchee
nation was divided. It is the first named District in that treaty, and is men tioned there as consisting of four towns. It undoubtedly embraced at that
time an area much larger than the Galphinton cession. All, indeed, of South
Eastern Georgia, except the old counties of Glynn and Camden, and the larger
part, if not the whole of Southern  and Southwestern Georgia, was compre hended in it; much likewise of Middle Florida-a fact recognized by the
Floridians in the name they have bestowed on their capital. The Indians seem
to have been greatly attached as well to the name as to that part of their
country that bore it. Hence, McGillivray christened his chief residence on the
Coosa "Little Tallassee," and the beautiful spot at the foot of the first falls of
the Tallapoosa river was called Tallassee,-a name it bears to this day.  "Gal
phinton" was a famous old Indian trading post on the Ogeechee some dozen
miles below Louisville.  "Shoulderbone" is the great creek of Hancock coun ty.-For the Treaties, see Watkins, and Marbury' Crawford's Digests.
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year another treaty was needed, and in 1786 that of Should erbone was made reaffirming the cessions o()f Augusta and
Gal)hinton.  All three of these treaties were transactions of
Georgia alone with the Indians.  The United States was
neither a party to them nor had anything to do with them,
and their effect was rather to deepen and exasperate than to
extin,guishl or appease enmity.  The Indians charged that
they were sheer frauds, contrived by Georgia with persons
of their tribe falsely pretending to have authority to treat.
After much investigation at a subsequent period by Commissioners of the United States, a conclusion favorable to the
fairness and authenticity of these treaties was reached.*
The main thing, undoubtedly, which impaired( them in
Indian eves was the expecting of aid from Spain in resisting
them, and the belief that Georgia would be unable to enforce
them against the combined Indian and Spanish opposition.
For savages, not unlike civilized people, are very much inclined, when under the influence of strong passions or interests, to trample on good faith and the sanctity of compacts,
unless deterred by the dread which superior power on the
adverse side is apt to inspire. Hence hostilities continued
to rage, not the less, perhaps even the. more, on account of
these abortive attempts at pacification; and there is no telling what might not have been the disastrous upshot, had
not the new Federal Constitution been adopted, and under
it a new government started in 1789 for our young Federal
Republican nation, strong enough to inspire the Indians with
a salutary fear, and clothed with the whole war-making and
treaty-making power; and also with the absolute control
over all Indian as well as all foreign affairs. By this wise
and happy concentration, all the reins over the subject, as
well in its Indian as its Spanish aspect, were gathered into
one great, commrnanding, national grasp, and were from
thenceforth handled in unrison, and with abundant judgment,
skill and success.
For from the very outset of his administration, Washing
*A.lnerictan State Pape)rs-Itidian Affairs, Vol. 1st, 616.
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TIIE OCONEE WAR. 
TIlE OCONEE WAR.
ton, from lhis lofty stand point at the head of the Goveiment,
and with his large, well-poised, well-braced mind, long versed(
in great, perilous and perplexed affairs, surveyed the whole
field, and kep)t it clearly beneath- his eye.  He saw in all
their magnitude and complication, the difficulties of the case
with which he had to deal, and set -tboult overcoming them
with characteristic wisdom, justice and statesmanship. He
found the negotiations in which the defunct Governimentiof
the Confederation had been engaged with Spain in an exceedin,gly unpromising state, nor were the p)rospects in that
quarter nmuch bettered during the first years of his own
governance.  For Spain was at that period still one of the
proudest, most powerful and  self-sufficient monarchies of
the world, and had evitlently made tip her mind to yield
nothinig and exact everything in this dispute with a newborn, poor and feeble country.  And certainly she was not
far wrong in supposing the Uniited States were at that time
in no condition {or taking strong measures against her, and
she feared not to impinge upon the very confines of insolence in some of her diplomaLtic passages with 1s.
Seeing, therefore, no near or flattering prospect of getting
rid of the Indian war and its numerous attendant ills by
sapping the Spanish foundation on which it mainly stood,
Washington proceeded very soon to address himself in the
most direct and effectual manner to the Indians themselves.
He determined to try what could be done to dissolve their
Spanish ties and bring them under an American Protectorate.  To this end he resorted to the best and most hopeful
means. Early in 1790 he dispatched from New York, then
the Federal capital, a distinguished and singularly suitable
man, well known to him, Col. Marinus Willet, upon a confidential mission into the Creekl nation, accredited to McGi]livray.  Colonel Willet's instructions were  to prevail on
McGillivray and the other great Chiefs to send a delegation,
headed by McGillivray himself, to New York to confer and
treat with Washington, face to face. The mission was successful, and Col. Willet returned to New York accompanied
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THE OCONEE WAR.
by McGillivray and his head men, representing the more
hostile element of the nation.  It was undoubtedly the most
impi)ortant and imnposing Indian embassy that ever visited
ouir Government, and they were received and treated every
where along the route and in New York with extraordinary
distinction and attention, They remained a good( while in
that city.  Many conferences and talks were held, and the
result was the treaty of New York, concluded on the 7th of
August, 1790(), negotiated by Gen. Knox, Secretary at War,
under the immediate eye and direction of Washington. By
its stipulations the Creeks accepted fully the protection of
the United States to the exclusion of Sp)ain and all other
powers, and bound themselves not to enter into any treaty
or compact with any of the States or any individuals or for eign country.  They also agreed to abide by the Altamaha
and Oconee as their dividing line, following the latter stream
along its westernmost branch to its source. Our Govern meInt, on its part, restored to them the Tallassee country, and
also guaranteed the same and all their remaining lands to
them forever against all the world. A treaty more cardinal,
consequential, and even revolutionary in its character, could
hai(lly be imagined. UI)on it as upon a hinge, the Creek
nation  swung  around  completely  and  at once  into
those natural relations with the United States which its interests dictated, but which had been passionately rejected
at the close of the Revolutionary war for a Spanish alliance
and sulbjugation.  It was undoubtedly in gross conflict with
the treaty of Pensacola, and it could( not but have the effect
of creating an early crisis of the nmost decisive kind between
Spain and the United States, whilst it certainly involved the
Creeks themselves in a position not a little embarrassing between those two powers.
]It was a compact, however, on the whole not less wise and
well considered than highly imiportant, and having been
concluded and solemnlyN perfected by the signatures of Gen.
Knox and twenty-four great Chiefs, and the attestation of
the Indian National Interpreter and several of our own most
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THE OCONEE WAR.
distinguished men, the work of the Creek delegation was
done; and now, loaded with presents and assurances of
friendship, they were ready with their train of attendants to
depart for their far distant Southern hunting grounds.  But
their long, and diversified ambassadlorial tour from the heart
of their own country over land to New York  th-roughl so
many States, towns and cities was destined to be strikingly
contrasted l)y the character of the homeward journey that
was in store for them, by the monotonous, though deeply impressive sea voyage arranged for them lby Washington over
ten parallels of lhLtitude from New York to St. Mary's,-a
mode of returning they were led to pr(tfer by certain politic
ideas as well as by somewhat of curiosity.  For they wished
for some ocular knowledge of that nmighlty ocean to which
McGillivray had been long attracting their thoughts by saying they ought to have a free trading outlet to it at the
mouth of the St. Mary's, —and especially were they desirous
of seeing and knowing for themselves that oft commended
harbor and outlet. Hence, mainly their disposition to go
home by water, for little cared they for the considerations
of mere greater ease and expedition that were held out to
them.  Old Neptune, well pleased, grew serene at beholding
them, and greeted with smiles that beamed over the ocean his
strange new visitants —nature's erect, still unsubdued sons
and stoic lords of the woods.  And well might he look graciously on the novel and interesting array they presented to
his view. For never before or since, in all his rIeign, has it
been given him, nor may he hope it will ever be given him
again, to lift his storm-quelling Trident aloft over his liquiid
realm in propitious behalf of such another cargo of travelers on its billowy bosom as these stern, turbaned, plaided,
buskined heroes and kings of I he new world's yet unviolated
wilds, their hearts full of homage to himself, and their
aspect filling with wonderment his Tritons and Nereides
and all his other subject "blue haired" deities of the deep.
Arrived at St. Mary's they quitted without regret the
noble sea ship, which it was certain nevertheless they
I
16 
THE OCONEE WAR.
would  always  remember  with  admiring  love  and  honor,
and,  transferred  to  smaller   craft,  wended  their   way
slowly up the tortuous river to the famous old frontier
Indian  trading  post  of  Colraine.   And   now  they  soon
stood  once  more  on  that  beloved  ancestral  soil  which
they had just recovered back to their nation, large, level lying Tallassee, a land of pine trees an(i the cypress,
dismal emblem of deathl, thlloughl itself so impervious
to decay;  of the hardy perennial wire-grass, nutritious  to
cattle and deer; of ever-green oaks, and the also ever-green
stately magnolia, glorious in the middle and hig,h upper air,
its aspiring branches and lofty top resplendent with grand,
shining, aromatic white flowers; a land, too, abounding in
game of the forest and fish and wild fowl;  swarming with
the honey bee likewise with its generous stores of mellifluous wealth wonrderously elaborated from millions of woodlaltd  leaves  and  blossoms; and scarcely  less  alive  with
wolves,  wild  cats, bears  and  tigers;*   washed  along  its
Northern border by the broad, poetic Altama,t swamp
*"Tigers" was the name formerly given to panthers in this part of Georgia,
and is still their name in East Florida.
"Altama" is Goldsmrnith's poetic contraction for the Altamaha, formed by
tl,e confluence of the Oconee and Ocmulgee. See his beautiful poem of"The Deserted Village" written more than an hundred years ago, at a time when the
emigration of the virtuous poor from Great Britain to the young colony of
Georgia was at its height. The tide of emigration had been setting, when the
poem was written, very strongly to the lower banks of the Altamaha, and
among the emigrants there were not a few who ultimately rose to fortune and
founded families and left names which are a pride and honor to the State.
Here are the fine lines-which our great river, and its scenery and reputationcalled forth in a strain graphic and powerful, though in some respects exaggerated and erroneous:
"Ahl, no! To distant climes, a dreary scene,
Where half the convex world intrudes between,
Through torrid tracts with fainting steps they go,
Where wild Altama murmurs to their woe.
Far different there from all that charmed before,
The various terrors of that horrid shore:
Those blazing suns that dart a downward ray,
And fiercely shed intolerable day;
Those matted woods where birds forget to sing,
But silent bats in drowsy clusters cling;
Those pois'nous fields with rank luxuriance crown'd,
Where the dark scorpion gathers death around;
Where at each step the stranger fears to wake
I
17 
eng,loomed river, lonely and austere, recoiling from the sea,
reluctant and sad to be so far estranged alike in space, in
scenery, and in name firom all its sweet highland springs;
whilst on the other, its southern side, the Immnaculate Virgin Mother's sacred stream laved it with unfailing waters,
ever distilling from the vast and secret Okeefeenokee.*
The rattling terrors of the vengeful snake;
Where crouching tigers wait their hapless prey,
And savage men more murd'rous still than they;
While oft in whirls the mad tornado flies,
Mingling the ravaged landscape with the skies.
Far different these from every former scene,
The cooling brook, the grassy vested green,
The breezy covert of the warbling grove,
That only shelter'd thefts of harmless love."
The river's name pronounced in the usual manriner with a light accent on the
first syllable and a full, strong one on the last, thus  Iwl-ta-ma-haw, sounds
very like an Indian word; and yet quite surely it is not of Indian, but of Spanish parentage.  It is an interesting fact, reflecting light on the first exploration
of the State, and clearing up a part of its history otherwise obscure, that so
many  of the Atlaltic rivers of Georgia have  the Spanish stamp  on their
names,-as the St. Mary's, the Great and Little St Illa, the Altamaha, and
last, and if possible, plainest of all, the Savannah. For no one can ascend that
stream from the sea, or stand on the edge of the bluff, which the city occupies,
or on the top of its ancient Exchange, (which may fire, and war, and tempest,
and the tooth of time, and the felon hand of improvement long spare,) and overlook the vast expanse of flat lands that spread out on both sides of the river,
forming in winter a dark, in summer a green, in autumn a saffron contrast to
its bright, intersecting waters, without knowing at once that from these plains,
these savannas, the river got its name, derived from the Spanish language and
the Spanish word sabanna,-and that it was baptized with the christian,though
not saintly name it bears, by Spanish discoverers just as certainly as the great
grassy planes in South America owed their name of Savannas to the same national source. The case of the Altamaha is equally free from doubt, though
not so self-evident on the first glance. It comes from the old, now disused
Spanish word Altamia, pronounced.ltameeah, signifying a deep earthen plate
or dish of whatever form; a name naturally enough suggested by the character and aspect, deep, broad, still. of the lower end of the river, probably the
only part the Spaniards had seen when they christened it, and which doubtless
looked to them much like a hugh, longitudinal dish kept brimful rather by stagnation of its waters and impulse from the sea than by large, everfiowing supplies from an unknown interior.
* The Okeefeenokee far outsizes all the swamps of the world. Even that
great Serbonian Bog, celebrated by Milton,
"Betwixt Damiata and Mount Cassius old
Where armies whole have sunk!"
was small in comparison. In old times when Morse's earlier editions were
still authority in the Geography of the United States, three hundred miles was
i
i
18
THE OCONEE WAR. 
Thle stalwart, taciturn Chiefs rejoiced to traverse anew, with
noiseless footfall, the great woody expanse, now profaned and
denaturalized by railroads, then only threaded by the tiny,
interminable Indian trail, for which no tree had to be felled
or earth removed; and they exulted to know it again as their
country's unquestioned domain, reclaimed from  the Gal phinton cession and grasp of Georigia by that treaty of lNew
York which their talks had demanded and their hands had
signed.
But just as was their exultation and important as was the
the territory they had regained, their wild countrymen were
far from being satisfied.  They had gotten back very much,
it was true, but not much more than one-half, in supposed
value at least, of what they had eagerly insisted upon and
expected. Nor were the Georgians better content. Nothing
indeed could more strikingly show how difficult and malig nant the state of things was, and how stubborn were the
obstacles which Spanish interference with the Indians and
the bitter temper of Georg,ia towards them threw  itt the
way, than the fact that the combined names of Washington
and McGillivray, corroborated by the strong necessities of
the case and the plainest dictates of policy, availed not to
render the treaty acceptable to either side. The Georgians,
although they had gotten by it the whole of the so much
coveted Oconee country, recalcitrated because it retroceded
to the Indians the above named Tallassee country between
the Altamaha and St. Mary's, and also because of its perpetual guarantee to them of all their remaining unceded
territory.  And although the Indians had gotten this guar
the supposed circumference of the Okeefeenokee. Modern scepticism has les.
sened it one-half, I believe; but it is mere guess work. Its impenetrable recesses
defy the compass and chain, and its outer boundary if not immeasurable,
hlas at least never been measured. The St. Mary's is not the only river it
feeds. It is also the birth place of the Suwanee, a river flowing into the Gulf,
the present name of which is a corruption of the Spanish San Juan,.nglice,
St. John. The St. Johns of the English and of this day was the St. Matheo of
the Spaniards.-Bancroft's Hist. U. S., Vol. 1, p. 61. It may well enhance our
-sense of the grandeur of the Okeefeenokee that it should be the matrix of two
such rivers as the St. Mary's and the Suwanee.
I
I
i
i
II
II
19
THE OCONEE WAR. 
THE OCONEE WAR.
antee, of which they were so desirous, and had also gotten
back the T'allassee country on which they laid so much stress
as an indispensable winter hunting ground, and likewise on
account of its convenience to the sea, by the short navigation
of the St. Mary's, yet they were ill-humored because they
did not also get back the rich gore of land in the fork of the
Oconee and  Apalachee.   Indeed, McGillivray  acquiesced
most reluctantly in this feature of omission in the treaty, and
gave fair notice at the time of the dissatisfaction it woild
cause in his nation. Under all these circumstances the
treaty led not to an entire restoration of peace, to not much
more indeed than a feverish lull of the war. Depredations
and occasional outbreaks of hostility continued to occur and
to impart an uneasy ill-natured threatening aspl)ect to our
Creek Indian affairs.
Washington, than whom  no man ever understood better
the ait of temporizing wisely or knew better when the precise moment to strike and for decisive action had come, was
in no hurry by precipitating things, to endanger the chances
which he saw brightening for the propitious settlement of
the whole trouble, Spanish and Indian, at one time and by
one blow. For now the French Revolution had broken out,
and Spain and most of the powers of Europe began soon to
be drawn within its vortex or to tremble on its verge, aghast
at its fierce gyrations and direful portents.   Meantime,
Washington kept alive his negotiations and grew more positive and urgent as the clouds thickened around Spain in
Europe. Yet he was free from hot haste. For he saw that
the mighty chapter of accidents which God alone peruses
and overrules was now in rapid evolution and likely to throw
forth opportunities felicitous for his country in this and
other important matters.  So he persisted in biding his time
and nursing the negotiation, notwithstanding the impatient
pressure upon him from Georgia for greater energy and
celerity in his measures. At length the European distresses
and perils of Spain reached a crisis so urgent and menacing
as made her feel it madness to enhance her other ills by our
p
I
20 
enmity, and convinced her how utterly hopeless it was to con  tinue to press longer her vast territorial pretensions against
is, under the very shadow of our gigantic and now thrifty
and rapidly growing young Repiiblic.  In the midst of this
crisis, well knowing as she did, that the claim of the United
States was one that could by no possibility ever be surren dered whilst men and muskets relained to us, she made a
merit of the necessity which it was useless for her longer to
resist, and in October, 1795, entered into the treaty of San
Lorenzo, ceding to us all her claims on this si(le of the Mis sissill)i to the north of the 31st parallel and west of the
Chattahoochee. At the same time confirming the old boun dary from the confluence of that river with the Flint east wardly to the mouth of the St. Mary's, tlliis surrendeiing,
on account of the distresses of her own situation, what she
never wollld have yielded up to a sense of our rights; a loss
little memorable, however, by the side of the stupendous
sacrifice she was soon afterwards forced to make of her irm mense and splendid Province of Louisiana to the boundless
ambition and rapacity of F rance.
With this cession by Spain of her cherished claim to all
the Indian Territory that had been in contest between herself and the United States, went her pretensions to a protectorate and sovereignty over the Indians themselves which
were founded solely on that claim.  The Indians were therefore now left to themselves and to us without any chance of
foreign aid or exposure to foreign interference or instigation
for the future.   Every consequence desirable on our side
followed now easily and almost of course. The root of mischief had been exterminated. Friendly tempers and dispositions on the part of the Indians towards us had only to
be duly courted and cultivated on our part in order to insure
their rapid development and growth. Soon the fruit of a
permanent Indian peace was fully in our reach, inviting our
grasp, and ready to drop into our hands as the natural sequel
of the happy Spanish adjustment that had taken place, It
had required nearly the whole length of Washington's
3
i
i
21
OCONEE WAR. 
THE OCONEE WAR.
Administration from its first year to its last to bring things
to this pointt,-to manage and successfully settle this its
great Southern Spanish-Indian trouble. But he finally
brought it to an auspicious termination. By the treaty of
Colraine, concluded as we have seen in the summer of 1796,
the last year of the last term of his Presidency, the boundaries stipulated at New York were recognized and reaffirmed,
and the seal was put to a longed-for and lasting peace, and
our horizon cleared at length of every boding Indian cloud.
For both Georgians and Indians had by this time become
educated and reconciled to those boundaries and were never
again disposed to quarrel about them; a temper of mind in
a large degree induced by Washington's immense weight of
character with both sides, and by their natural feeling of submission to the grandeur of the power, which he represented
and wielded.  All which however might have failed of such
early and full effect on the Indians, but for the dishleartening
fact which stared them in the face, that the territory to the
east of the Oconee and its prongs for which they had been
contending, was already hopelessly lost to them, having,
become, during the contention, filled up and occupied by a
population more than able and intensely determined to hold
and defend it against them forever.
I
22 
ALEXANDER M'GILLIVRAY.
CEHAPTEIR III.
ALEXANDER  McGIILLIVPAY.
Thus lonig have I, yielding to a junst love and partiality
for the section of Georgia in which I was born and in which
the bones of my  forefathers rep)ose, lin,geiedI and dwelt on
the trouiblous and important interval of time whlichl elapsed
friom its first acquisition and settlement (lown to its final
pacification.  And, moreover, it is a portion of the history
of the State well worthy, on its own account, to be recalled
and remembered, for it records a great step,-a  striking
epoch in her progress and development.  But it is impossi ble not to be conscious that the scenes and events of' that
period have had their full day on the world's stage and in
men's minds, and now not only have they passed off from
both, but there is no longer a generation living whose blood
could be made to tingle at their recital.  Andl yet to me,
long accustomed to cherish dearly the memories and traditions of my native soil, it has often seemed that in this protracted, fitful, frontier war for the lordship of the Oconee
lands, there was much in regardcl both to the actors and the
things enacted on which the mind might dwell not lunrewarded, and which Georgians at least oughl t not willingly
to let go down to oblivion.
Particularly has it struck me that connected with this war
there was a signal circumnstance, which rendered it exceptional and ennobled it among Indian wars.  The proud fact.,
I mean, that it was the theatre on which was conspicuously
displayed one of those infrequent, extraordinary characters
that history loves to contemplate, and which, however they
may specially belong to some one people, sect or class, during
I
I
23 
ALEXANDER M'GILLIVRAY.
their active, living career, become the large and general
property of mankind when dead.
Such a character. was Alex. McGillivray, by all odds the
foremost man of Indian blood and raising that Anglo-America has ever seen; one who was universally allowed and felt
in his day to be the very soul of the Creek nation, which
was almost absolutely swayed by his genius and will. And
be it rememberedl, that it was not a petty, confined tribe that
was thus swayed by him, and swayed, too, in a manner and
with an ability which struck enlightened civilized observers
with admiration, but a wide extended Indian commonwealth,
exulting in thousands of fearless warriors and an hundred
organized towns, all under their respective Chiefs,* overspreading a region far greater than all Georgia now is.
McGillivray was Supreme Chief of the whole, freely elevated to that hei,ght by his fierce countrymen because of his
superior qualities and merits, aided also by some considerable advantages of family and connection. He made himself effectively felt all the while throughout his wild domains and the surrounding parts.  His entire country lay
within the chartered bounds of Georgia and Florida, and
the absorbing stu(ly and struggle of his life, after our Revolutionary war, was how to save it from the territorial greed
of Georgia,-a danger fromn which he early augured that
ruin to his nation, which long after his death was so fully
realized. Peace or war with us he clearly saw was alike
perilous to his country, and he would gladly have kept her
away as well from our caresses as from our hostilities, for
they both always equally menaced her integrity, looking as
they invariably did, to still other treaties and other surrenders of land. Fully sensible of the difficulty and peril of
his country's situation, he glanced keenly around in every
direction for extrication and support. There is no doubt
that he had formed and was seeking to accomplish the
scheme of an intimate and permanent confederation of the
*American State Papers, Indian.ffairs, Vol. 1st, p. 15; Gen. Knox's Report
of July 6th, 1789.
I
I
24 
ALEXANDER M GILLIVRAY.
four great Southern tribes, the Creeks, Cherokees, Choctaws
and Chickasaws, of which he would undoubtedly have become the head alike in fact and in form.' lie turned his attention also to Florida and Spain, and became an apt diplomatist and negotiator with the Spanish authorities in Pensacola, Mobile and New Orleans, and our own national arcl-ives abound in proof how well he acquitted himself in all
his transactions and correspondence with our public fuction
aries and commissioners.*
Col. Seagrove, United States Agent among the Creeks, and
other minor national officials, as well as the Georgians gen erally of that day, used oddly enough to inveigh against
him for what they called his duplicity.  The charge, it must
be admitted, was not purely fictitious, though certainly not
very reasonable or just in the quarter from whence it came.
What right have the strong to cast such a reproach on the
weak, whom they are seeking to oppress and dispossess by
sheer means of greater force? And yet it is the standing
reproach, which in all ages, the vis m(ijor, superior, overbearing power has been wont to hurl at the feeble, whenever
they have happened to be troublesomely successful in employing what is stigmatized as artifice and cunning, for their
defense aud safety.  Undoubtedly in the circumstances, in
which MIcGillivray saw himself placed, threatened by Georgia
and the United States on the one hand, treacherously embraced
and instigated by Spain on the other, both powers an entire
overmatch for his own country, he must needs have abandoned that country's cause to ruin or resorted to somewhat
of duplicity for her sake, that is to say, he was compelled to
play adroitly between the two dreaded powers. In such a
situation duplicity changed its nature and became, as practised by him, a high, patriotic virtue, the only one, indeed,
which he could make count for much against two such hollow fi'iends and real rival enemies as he had too much reason
to fear they both were. Accordingly he deserves no censure
from us or from anybody, because, incensed and alarmed at
*See 1st Vol. American State Papers on Indian Affairs-passim.
25 
26                ALEXANDER M'GILLIVRAY.
the deep incision made into his territory by our fathers at
the close of the Revolutionary war, hle hastened to throw
himself into the arms of Spain as a security and resentment
alike against Georgia and the United States. After continuing firm for a number of years to this enforced  Spanish
preference, learning from his ownI keen observation, as well
as fromt all the antecedents of Spain in America, what abutndant cause there was to ba  distrustful of her, he oscillated
back towards the Unitedtl States, attracted by the great confidence inspired by tlle character of Washingto)n, by the
concentration of all power over Indian affairs in the Federal
Government, and by the better terms and stipulations now
held out from our side to his own and all other Indian tribes.
Yet it is obvious that in taking this great turn which culminated so quickly in the treaty of New York, he was far firom
contemplating any breach with Spain.  For he deemed it
his policy to keep a strong, though latent hold on her as a
safeguard against the United States, whom, nevertheless, he
was bent on attaching, as a friend, and holding, moreover, as
a guarantor of the territory of the Indians against all the
world, Spain included.
In the meantime, as already mentioned, hle was scheming
to construct a grand confederacy of the four great Southern
tribes which might serve as a bulwark to the whole of them
against the grasping designs of both the United States and
Spain.  It is not extravagant to say that the most consummate political genius could hardly have devised anything
better or more suited to the circumstances than this, his
plan, in its entirety.  HIad he lived to bring it to perfection
and launch it into operation, there is no telling how much
it might have changed the whole character and current of
our subsequent Indian relations and history, and prevented
many disastrous Indian (and perhaps also Spanish) events
that afterwards took place.  It might even have been that
the Creeks, Cherokees, Choctaws and Chickasaws, instead
of. dwindling away, as they now seem likely to do, unhappy
exotics in theircompulsory Trans-Mississippi homes, would
-.......1  -'                                                                                                                                                   --      - 
ALEXANDER M' GILLIVRAY.
have become, under his auspices, one grand, consolidated,
Indian commonwealth, rooted and flourishing permanently
on their beloved ancestral soil, and destined finally perhaps
to full, fraternal incorporation into our mighty American
system of States.   Such at least was the consummation
which, it is known and recorded, this great Mutscogee patriot
and statesman had conceived and suggested in regard to
his own particular tribe.
Behold here the magnanimous hopes that flattered McGillivray arid occupied his thoughts and fired his ambition!
But he was arrested by death in the midst of these high and
beneficent machinations, and at a time, too, when he was
apparently under a cloud. If his life had been prolonged,
time would probably, however, have vindicated his strategy
and his control over events, and it is likely that a brighter
sun and a broader and more brilliant horizon would have
beamed out upon him than he had ever known.  With endowments such as distinguished him, with such a prestige
as he had with the Indians of his own and all the neighboring tribes, and his strong, easy influence over them, fortune couldl hardly have continued lastingly untractable towards him. His authority with his people had a vitality
which reached beyond his litfe.  Whilst the tone of the
Creek nation went down considerably from the time of his
death, yet for years afterwards the subtle influence that had
long emanated from him and ruled in Creek affairs, survived
him and continued to be felt. Particularly was it an element along with the name of Washington and other causes
that gradually led his countrymen to become reconciled to
the long distasteful treaty of New York, for which he
was responsible as its almost sole negotiator and author on
the Indian side,-his brother Chiefs having been not much
more than machines in his hands in that great piece of Indian diplomacy.
If ever there shall arise a weird pen fitted to deal with
such a subject, it will find in this man's character and
career a theme full of inspiration and demanding all its
27 
28                ALEXANDER M'GILLIVRAY.
power.  The fabled centaur of Antiquity, that marvelous
conception of the human, united with the equine formn and
nature, was but a fiction, though one filll of richest meaning. The scarcely less wonderful union of the civilized with
the savage man in Alexander McGillivray was a hard, tangible reality, the most felicitous comI)ound of the kind ever
seen.  Bothl by lineage and education he was heir to the
two natures, which co-existed in him seemingly without conflict and with great force and harmony of development.
In youth he had what Washington and Franklin had, a
common English education, sufficient to enable him as them
in after life to impress on all men a strong sense of the greatness which nature hlad bestowed, and which fortune and circumstances exercised to the utmost and brought out fiully to
the world's view.  The shlrewdness, the robust sense and
crude force of the Scotch High]and Chieftain were blended
in him with calm Indian subtlety and intensity, and the innate dignity of the Muscogee warrior statesman. He had
great ambition, great abilities, and what is most of all, and
the true imperial sign of greatness, he had great power
of influencing and controlling men on a large scale and in
great affairs.  What an outgrowth of civilization on what
a stock of barbarism! Like most very strong natures, he
was strong at once by his virtues and talents, which were
great and many, and by his vices, which were few but telling, tho,ugh not deformed by Indian ferocity, (for he was a
stranger to the thirst for blood, and his breast was the seat
of humanity) whilst all his qualities, good and bad, were
apt to his situation and the necessities of the part he had to
play. It has been said, more daringly than reverently or
truly, that it took nature a gestation of a thousand yeairs to
produce a Napoleon Bonaparte. The great mother of us all
ought not to be thus slurred in order to add to the renown
of one of her sons.  But this much is certainly true:  Long
intervals often occur without witnessing any of those extraordinary conjunctures, which are necessary to the production
and manifestation of great and extraordinary men, and it is
i 
ALEXANDER M'GILLIIVRAY.
not by any means probable that the world will soon again
have the opportunity of beholding the like of General Mc Gillivray. For to this end, there must happen the coupling
of another man such as him with a fortune and circumstances
as peculiar and extraordinary as his, and which, acting on
him, made him what he was and blest him, moreover, with a
felicity seldom the lot of the great among barbarians, that
of being well handed down in civilized records, and conse quently rightly known  to civilized people-the only arbiters of fame and custodians of glory.  Yet let it not be supposed that his good fortune in this regard, though marked,
was perfect and entire.  In the mention of it, therefore,
there must be somne reserve.  History has not been enabled
to present him fillly. She has only preserved and spread
before us the last half, or it may be less than the last half,
of his pub)lic active career.  When she first takes him up
a,id makes him her theme, to-wit: at the opening of the
Creek troubles with Georgia, soon after the Revolutionary
war,he was already in the maturityofhis greatness, and at the
pinnacle of power.   Of the length of time he had been there,
of the step)s and means, by which he had risen so hi,gh, and
the talents and conduct by which hle had sustained and illllstrated -himrself in that elevation, there is not, there never
was, atny record, so far as I have been able to find out, and all
tra(liti,n in relation thereto, has long since either perished
or become apocryp)hal, except the general fact of his having
at one time served under his father as a deputy in the British Indian Ag,ency during the Revolutionary wer-with the
titular rank of a British Colonel.*
His father was a Georgian, Lacklan McGillivray, who
came in early youth from Scotland and was among those,
who, in the Revolutionary war, sided strongly with G'eat
B3ritain.  Hle was a leading Indian trader, a man of property
and consequence, and his name appears in the acts of confiscation and banishment passed by Georgia.  His mother was
a princi)aLl  Creek  woman of striking personal  charms,
*.,nIeric(an State Patpers, Indiain.ffairs, 2d Vol., 788.
I
29 
ALEXANDER AM'GILLIVRAY.
heightened, it is said, by some French blood in her veins,
and he himself was a Georgian born. The circurnmstances of
his parentage and breeding would naturally have carried
him into the ranks of the enemies of the State.  But tradition and written accounts alike inform us that it was his
father's banishment  andl the  confiscation of his father's
estate that entivenomed his heart an(d filledt it with deep, vindictive hatred of Georgia and her people. Notwithstanding
which, G-eorgia may well feel so-me pride that suchII a maii
was her son, whom destiny, not his own fault or crime,
made her enemy.  For lie who devotes himself ably, patriotically, unflinchingly and untiringly in the higher and more
perilous spheres of service to the cause of his cotuntry's salvation, unimportant though that coutntry may  be in the
world's mouth or mind, mnerits the honmag,e of mankind and
even of those against whomn he has devoted himself in such
a cause.
He died on the 17th of February, 179.3, a peaceful death
on civilized soil, whilst a visitor at Pensacola among those
Spanish friends and allies with whomt he had long been accustomed to work and plot against us, whom at the same
time he too shrewdly understood, an(d too profoundly fathorned, not to see that there was reason why he should watch
them closely and make a fi'iend of the Ijnited States against
them.  And yet, as if fate had decreed that in everything
and to the very last there should be something remarkable
and out of the common course in regard to him, this man,
whom nature and fortune had concurred to make great, dying there on Spanish soil, was spurned when dead by Spanish religion and denied burial in their sacred ground* by
those who had courted and magnified him while living, and
was left to be obscurely interred by private and profane
hands in the garden of his Scotch friend, Panton, the great
Indian trader, where doubtless all trace of his grave has
long since vanished, and the spot will be forever iunknown,
which inhumes the once famous and potential Alexander
.rdner-ican State Papers, Indian affairs, Vol. 1, 382.
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ALEXANDER M GILLIVRAY.
MlcGillivray.  What a contrast to the treatment of the aged
and distingulishled Chloctaw Chief Pushmataha, who, dying
at Washington in 1824, not only found an honored grave
in the Con,gressional burying ground with monumental stone
and inscription, but whose dying wish, "when I amn gone,
let the big guns be fired over me," was touchingly fulfilled
by thle boonling,, of minitlute guiis from Cap)itol IHTill, the roar
of cannon over his grave and all the accompanying pomps
and glories of a grandl and crowded pubtlic funeral.*  But
the indignant shade of MlcGillivray was not left long disconsolate under this poor Spanish slilght.  Precious amends
came soon to soothle auld requite. The news of his death,
traveling by way of the Havana and Baltimtore, reached
Washington in the latter city en route to MIount Vernon to
etnjoy there a few days' repose from the toils of the Priesidency.  That great nature which ever discerned and honored
sterling  worth an(l true nobility of mind and character
wherever they existed, in whomsoever of human found, had
recognized these qualities in McGillivray and felt his kindred
to himself'.  He felt consequently his death, and on arriving
at Mtount Vernon wrote to Gen. Knox informing him of the
event and calling the deceased their friend.  When  we remember what ample and identical opportunities Gen. Waslhington and Gen. Knox had both had of knowing McGillivray well, andcl how chary Waslhington always was of praise,
and how few and chosen were the men to whom he ever applied the sympathetic phrase of friend, this sinple spontaneous testimonial from the greatest of Americans to the
illustrious Muscogee Chief goes to the heart an(d arrests the
min(l by its high value and touchinrg sig,nificance.t
History too often slig,hts and neglects to record many minor thing,s about which posterity feels curious and would
gladly be informed touching distinguished and important
personages.   The Hcroditus of Alabama  has, however,
avoided this fault in the case of McGillivray, and has grati
*Col. McKentny's Indian Lives and Portraits; Tille, Pushmataha.
tSj)lark's Life and Writings of  IJTashington, Vol. 10,p. 335.
31 
ALEXANDER M'GILLIVRAY.
fled us fully in regard to his person, appearance, manners
and other outward circumstances.  He describes him as "six
feet high, sp1are made and remarkably erect in person and
carriage. His eyes were large, dark and piercing. His
forehead was so peculi;arly shaped that the old Indian countrymeni often spoke of it.  It comnienced expanding at the
eyes and widened considerably at the top of his head. It
was a bold, lofty forehead. His fingers were long and
tapering, and he wielded a pen with the greatest rapidity.
His face was handsome and indicative of quick tllou,ght and
much sagacity.  Unless interested in conversation he was
disposed to be taciturn, but even thten was.i polite and respectful.  When a British Colonel he dresse(l in the l3ritishl uniform, and when in the Sp)anishl service hlie wore the nlilitary
dress of that country.  AVhen Washiington bestowved on him
the honorary rank and title of a Brig,adier-Genera], he
sometimes wore the uniform  of the American army, but
never in the presence of the Spaniards.  His usual  dress
was a mixture of the Indian and Amierican garb.  fie always travele(l with two servants, David Francis, a halfbreed, and Paro, a negro.  He was the owner at his death
of sixty negroes, three hundred head of cattle and a large
stock of horses.  Hle had good houses  at the Hickory
Grounds and Little Tallassee, where he entertained free of
charge distinguished Government Ageits and persons traveling through his extensive dominions. Like all other nmen
he had his faults. He was ambitious, crafty and rather unscrupulous, yet he possessed a good heart and was polite and
hospitable. For ability and sagacity he had few superiors."*
It is impossible not to be struck with McGillivray's cranrial development as here given: It is the very ideal of the
sculptor for a head pregnant and alive with combined intellectual and moral power. If any man wants to be well satisfied on this point, let him go and gaze on the bust of the
young Aug,ustus by the Kentucky artist, Harte, which I
saw at the Louisville Exposition in the fall of 1872.
*Pickett's History of dlabama, Vol. 2, Ch. 24, p. 142, 143.
32 
GEN. ELIJAH CLARK.
CLI APTEER IV.
GENERAL ELIJAH CLARK.
And on our own, the civilized side, there was also a prominent representative character, whom we should not overlook; a leading,, sterling, nobly meritorious, yet ufnha)l)ily
before the end of his career, a somewhat erring soldier and
l)atriot, whom it would be wrong aid incomplete to quit the
Oconee war without noticing and honoring, and whom at
the same timte it is impossible to recollect without some leeling of melancholy.
Itf I were asked what man in those uneasy, perilous times
was most formidable to the savage foe, most serviceable to
the exposed frontier, most unsparing of hiiuself, ever foremost in doing or attempting whatever he saw was best for
the security and advatncement of the State; who, whilst he
lived, always made himself strongly felt wherever he took
part, and who, now when we look back, continues still to be
seen in the mind's eye stalking sternly, with his armor on,
across the troublous space he once so bravely filled in our
dim, historic past;  his stalwart, war-hardened form, yet
dominant on the theatre where he was so long wont at different periods to suffer, fight and strive for Georgia, not
against the Indians only, but against the British Tories
also; my prompt answer would be that General Clark, the
elder, Elijah Clark, the father, was that man. I designate
him thus because, distinguished as he was himself, no
Georgian, who lived half a century ago, could possibly recall him without remembering instantly that it was his good
fortune to be further felicitously distinguished, by having a
son, also a General, who during a long striking career
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GEN. ELIJAHI  CLARK.
courted and acquired great eminence, both personal and official, and honorably illustrated, if hie did not augmnent the
name he inherited, leaving it more intensely imprinted( at
least, if not higher enrolled on Famie's proud catalogue.
Thus much one, who was never his political friend, drops in
passing, as a spontaneous tribute to the memory of that
strong charactered, most remarkable man, General Clark,
the son, about whom his fellow citizens were too long and
fiercely divided in his life-time to have become fully reconciled since his death, now about forty years ago.  That reconciliation, will not, if ever, be p)erfect till its cause shall
be pleaded at the bar of an entirely new generation.
General Elijah Clark was indebted in no small (ldeg,ree, to
the fact of his residence in NWilkes county, on the then upper border of the State, for his great conspicuousness in our
past Revolutionary Indian troubles.  Had he lived on the
seaboard or anywhere else far down the country, it is almost
certain that his part in those scenes would not have been so
important, stirring and incessant; neither would he probably have become involved, as a consequence partly at least
of his connection with them, in those more than questionable doings, which in his latter years drew down condemnation for him from the highest and best quarters, and which
have furnished a handle to a recent historian for reflecting
altogether too injuriously on his name and fame.* Residing, however, as he did, in the immediate neighborhood of
the Indian hostilities and depredations, he could not but be
aroused by them to continual vigilance and activity. Moreover, the very high military reputation which he had won
and brought out of the Revolutionary war, made him the
man, to whom all the upper new settlements looked as the
most competent of leaders and the most fearless of fighters.
Hence the universal voice of men, women and children conspired with his own patriotic and pugnacious qualities and
impulses to bring him to the front in every emergency of
much danger and anxiety. On such occasions at his bugle
*Steven's History of Georgia, Vol. 2, p. 404, 405, 406.
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GEN. ELIJAH CLARK.
call, there never failed to come trooping to him fiom the
freshly cleared fields and still uncleared forests, bands of
armed men, at the head of whom he would repel incursions,
and pursue and punish the flying foe even in the distant recesses of his wild woods.
The most signal battle in this whole war, that of Jack's
Creek, in what was then Indian territory, but is now Walton
county, was fought by him in the year 1787, in this way.*
It is striking to read his report of this battle to Gov. Matthlews. No mention is made in it of his having a son in the
battle, though with a just paternal pride, commingled with
a proper delicatcy, he emphasizes tog,ether the gallantry and
coinduct of Col. Freeman and Major Clark, and baptizes
the thereto nameless little stream, on which the battle was
fought, by simply saying that it was called Jack's Creek-a
name then but just bestowed by a(dmiritng comrades in arms
in compliment to the exploits and bravery of the General's
youthful son on the occasion.  Long,, very long after that
son had ceased to be young and the frosts of winter were on
his warlike and lofty brow, thousands and thousands of old
Georgians used to love still to repeat the name of Jack
Clark without prefix of either Governor or General, and to
remember him too as the hero of the well fought and important, though now it would be deemed, tiny battle of Jack's
Creek. For in those days of hourly dread and peril, to be
forward and valiant in defending the settlements from the
* White's Statistics 581; Historical Collections 672. -White in his  Statistics
of Georgia digifies this battle no little by saying that the Indians were commanded by McGillivray; a great mistake, which White himself tacitly acknowl -
edges by wholly omitting any such statement in the account he gives of the battle
ill his subsequent and more labored work, "The Historical Collections of Georgia."  Moreover, if a fact that would have added so much to the eclat of the
battle and victory, had really existed, Gen. Clark would hardly have left it out
of his official report of the battle to Gov. Matthews. And yet Gen. Clark says
nothing about it.  McGillivray's forte and function to which he always confined himself was that of being the great statesman and supreme magistrate
at the helm of his nation, not a leader of the petty bands by which Indian warfare was waged.
35 
GEN. ELIJAII CLARK.
Indian tomahawk and scalping knife was a sure road to
everybody's lasting admiration and gratitiudle.
The sudden, irregular calls thus made by the old General
to armed attack and pursuit of the Indians, and thie pronmpt,
rushing obedience the rural new settlers invariably yielded
him, were merely occasional things, it is true, buit they occurred often enough and were successful enough to make the
General feel what power he had amlong the people Land to
familiarize and endear his exercises of that power to the
people. But destiny, whichi had hitherto been foirced into
being his friend by his irresistable valor and energy, and by
his ardent, uniform adherence to a right conduct in all
things, began at length to be his enemy and to impl)el him
into some imnproper and ill-starred, though not ill-meant
courses.  His first error was his lending himself to the
scheme of the unmannerly, mischlief-making Frenc-h MAlinister, Genet; his next, that of setting on foot the Oconee
Rebellion, as it was called; missteps, both of which, were
owing rather to accidental circumstances existing at that
particular time, than to any intentional wrong doing on his
part. For the Indian war, which, although not entirely
quashed as yet by the New York treaty, was by its influence
greatly crippled and reduced in magnitude, no longer presented a sufficient field for the restless, bellicose passions
which it had nurtured. These passions not having died out
proportionately with the war, were still alive and smouldering in many adventurous bosoms, among others in Gen.
Clark's, at the date of Genet's arrival in the United States,
in the Spring of 1793, and engaging in his insurrectionary
tamp)erings against the foreign policy of our Government.
The French insanity, which had already seized strongly on
the country, now rapidly spread and increased. Most generally, however, it found vent only in a wordy fray intended
to influence the Government and to drive it fromn its neutral
policy into a belligerency on the French side. But Gen.
Clark was by all his temperament, training and habits, a
man of emphatic deeds and substantial daring,, and when
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GEN. ELIJAH CLARK.
the French wild-fire reached him, it ignited a nature which
wanted but opportunity to break out into action, and enlisted a man, who felt assured that his standard, once raised,
would  bring  a numerous  body  of  daring, war-loving
spirits of the South and West around him.  Hence sprang
those two marring and reprehensible incidents of his life
above noticed, namely, his complicity with Genet in his
schemes, and then, as an offshoot therefrom, his Oconee
irregularity.  For it would be the sleerest misnomer to call
it a rebellion.   And as those incidents are both matters
which have been greatly misunderstood and mishandled to
the no little detriment of Gen. Clark's name, a name dear
to Georgia and which she is bound ever to overwatch and
protect with grateful guardianship, I purpose by a faithful
and succinct account to set them both  in a clear and true
light.
SECTION II.
Genet was the first envoy to the United States from regicide, Revolutionary France. Worthy to represent such a
crew as Robespierre and the Jacobins, he came drunk, with
the wild, unschooled spirit of liberty, which in his own
country was then newly broken loose from the despotism of
ages and was insanely exultant there still over the ruins of
an old and the chaos of a new order of things. From the
moment of his landing on our shores, he showed himself
the very impersonation of diplomatic fanaticism, wrongheadedness and indecency, and entered at once on what was
evidently a predetermined course of criminal, unneighborly
intermeddling and agitation. He seemed bent on signalizing his embassy by every audacity and impropriety that
could tend to throw our country into madl excitement and
precipitate it as an accessory into the fiery whirlpool of
French wars and quarrels. How successful he was in kindling the flames of popular fury and stirring up the people
against their own Government for its firm, immovable stand
against him and his machinations, forms one of the most
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GEN. ELIJAII CLARK.
extraordinary passages in American  history.   To  such
height did things get that the elder Adams in his writings
speaks of the multitude in Philadelphia, (which had now
become the seat of the General Government) as ripe for dethroning Washington himself'. *
Genet was artful as well as bold and unscrupulous. This
he evinced clearly from the moment of his appointment.
Sailing from France in a ship under his own orders, he directed his voyage to Charleston, a port very distant from
the seat of Government, and after larding there on the 8th
of April, 1793, and tarrying for awhile, busied in illicit,
inflammatory intrigues, he consumed weeks, devoted to similar objects, in his journey from thence overland to Philadelphia, where he arrived on the 16th of May, and whither the
news of his evil practices had long preceded him.t No
where, however, on his whole route did he meet with greater
encouragement than in South Carolina. The large, very
influential French Hugenot element in the lower part of
that State responded to him promptly with assurances that
went beyond mere expressions of sympathy. Indeed, a
strong feeling of French consanguinity a(l(dded force there to
the universally prevalent sentiment of gratitude to France
as our generous Revolutionary ally. Hence the people's
hearts warmed readily to his appeals. He was greatly emboldened.   _ reckless French enthusiasm that had already
gotten wide hold now spread and grew more intense in all
directions.   It soon  crossed the  Savannah river.   And
nowhere either in or out of Georgia did it seize upon a man
more ardently prepared to be carried away by it than Gen.
Clark. For all his feelings, his whole nature was strong,
and with all his strength and soul he sympathized with
France in her struggle for liberty, and paid back with every
breath what he felt to be the imrpayable debt of love and
gratitude his country owed her, for her aid in our great
Revolutionary contest.  Genet was not long in finding him
*Jno..dars' Life and Writings, Vol. 8, 279.
t'merican State Papers, For. Re. Vol. 1, p. 167, 168.
38 
GEN. ELIJAII CLARK.
out and learning all about him, anti he eagerly pitched upon
him as a man eminently suited in all respects, and especially
by his great military prestige in the South, to become the
leader in the military operations which it was his object to
set on foot against.the neighboring Spanish dominions, and
which looked to nothing less than the seizure of the Flori das and reconquest of Louisiana mainly by means of Amer ican arms seduced to that illegal service.  Hie thought that
the pending war between France and Spain and the French
epidemic now pervading the Unitedl States presented a fine
opportunity for this purpose. Particularly was'liis heart set
on the recovery of Louisiana, that vast region the loss of
which, by the treaty of Paris of 1763, had never ceased to
lie bitterly on the French stomach.  Aside from the zeal for
France by which he was fired, he burned with the personal
ambition and thirsted intensely for the personal glory of
exploiting this great achievement for his nation. And for
the chance of it, he hesitated not to sacrifice all ambassadorial decorum, as well as to outrage our country's laws and
neutrality, and endanger her peaceful relations and important
pending negotiations with Spain.
This last consideration, however, was far from being any
drawback with Gen. Clark. It rather impelled than deterred
him. Nothing would have suited him better than war with
Spain.. For he hated her hardly less than he loved France,
and he felt that she well deserved all his hatred as being
already and for years past the venomous enemy of the United
States, and especially of Georgia, groundlessly, as he thought,
seeking to rob her of a vast territory, at the same time
meanly screening herself behind the Indians and insidiously
instigating them against us. It was his deliberate conviction that in taking up arms against her, though under
French colors, he was acquitting himself patriotically to his
own country. He accordingly refused not the high command which was tendered him.*  Commissions, also, for
* Both Stevens in history of Georgia and White in his statistics tell us he
was commissioned a Major-General in the French service with a pay of $10,00
39 
GEN. ELIJAH CLARK.
subordinate officers were placed in his hands in blank,money and means were likewise furnished him, though in
too limited an amount for the greatness of the enterprise.
His authority was everywhere recognized by the adventurers
whom Genet, his agents and emissaries succeeded in starting
up and enlisting. From the banks of the Ohio to those of
the Oconee and St. Mary's, his orders were obeyed in the
making of preparations and getting tip armaments, and men
thronged from both South Carolina and Georgia to his
points of rendezvous on the two latter streams,t fired at once
by the splendor of the project and the renown of the leader.
But mark! there was no movement whatever, actual or contemnplated, against the Indians or their lands either within
the chartered limits of Georgia or anywhere else. Nor did
the Indians manifest any hostility towards the adventurers,
trespassers, though they were on their hunting grounds.
For it seems to have been made to be well understood by
them that the whole aim was against the provinces of Spain,
from whom the Indians, especially in parts remote from the
Spanish border, were gradually becoming estranged since
the treaty of New York, and were now still more disposed
to be weaned when they were told there was a prospect of
the restoration of the French as their neighbors, to whom
they always had more liking than either to the Spaniards or
Anglo-Americans.  Indeed, the French made it their study
to cultivate the favor of the Indians, who were even solicited
to join in the enterprise. In every way it was sought to
make fair weather with them withl a view to the march of
troops through their country on the proposed errand of
Spanish invasion, while other forces recruited in the West
per annum; and there is no doubt of the fact. But when White further says
that he was solicited by two great European powers to enter their service, it is
giving him a little too much trans-Atlantic military renown. The story is a
figment, which, like the statement that McGillivray was the Indian commander
whom  Gen. Clark defeated at Jack's Creek, must be numbered among  the
pretty fables, parasitical mistletoes, that are perpetually growing out upon the
sturdy oak of history, slowly robbing it of its life and truth.
tA.merican State Papers, Foreign Relations, Vol. lst, pages 455, 458, 459, 460.
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GEN. ELIJAH CLARK.
were to descend the Ohio and Mississippi in boats to meet
and cooperate with the French squadron that was held out
as expected to come to their aid by sea.*
But all this elaborate scheming and ad(lo ended in total
failure, never ripening into such action as was contemplated,
-never reaching the stage at which General Clark was to
stand forth, truncheon in hand, conspicuous and avowed as
the leader of the enterprise. WVashing,ton's administration
was too strong, vigilant and active for Genet and the French
party. Our obligations of neutrality toward Spain were
fully maintained, and all attempts against her within our
bounds were effectually suppressed. The most decided steps
were taken against Genet personally. His recall was demanided, and every proper means used to impair in the meanwhile his ability for mischief. But soon his actual recall
and the coming of his successor, the citizen Fauchet, in the
Spring of 1794, broke down his influence and dashed all the
plans and prospects of those who had become connected with
him.  The consequences tvere disastrous to Gen. Clark.  He
was left standing blank, resourceless, aimless, in the wilderness, with a few troops here and there on the Indian side of
the line, whom the power of his name had brought together,
but whose destined field of employment was now abruptly
taken away. There they were on his hands, awaiting his
orders c.,. expecting the fulfillment of his promises, and
the desperate fortunes and wreckless character of most of
them strongly appealed to him to engage them in some
other career in lieu of that just closed against them, even
though it should be one still more irregular and exceptionable.
It was under these untoward circumstances consequent on
the sudden wreck and abandonment, in the South at least,
of the Genet scheme, that Gen. Clark and his men in May,
1794, began to turn their thoughts upon the Indian territory
*Pickett's Histo-ry of dlabamna, Vol. 2, p. 152, 153; Foreign Relations,  Vol.
1, 455, 458, 459.
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GEN. ELIJAH CLARK.
where already they saw themselves quartered in arms. Nor
did they think long before they took the overstrong resolution of seizing upon the country and setting up for themselves there, with an independent Government of their own
creation,-the rich Indian lands being the tempting prize
oni which they relied to attract the needful men and means to
their standard. In taking this step they were sensible of no
patriotic scruples or impediments; for, to a man, they
regarded the country as already lost to Georgia by the perpetual national guarantee that had in the New York treaty
been made of it to her Indian enemies, and by the State's
seemingly settled acquiescense in that guarantee.   Thus
acquitted to their own minds, they proceeded gravely and
with all due form in their new movement of governmentmaking, unabashed by the contrast between the grandeur of
the thing they were attempting, and the pettiness of their
numbers and resources. A written constitution was adopted;
Gen. Clark was chosen civil and military chief, and the
members of a body politic under the name of "The Committee of Safety" were chosen to exercise along with him lawmaking and other sovereign functions. Whether any name,
or what name was bestowed on the infant State, or whether
it expired without baptism, no record or tradition remains
to tell.  Nor is there any copy of the Constitution now to
be found.    But in the 1st volume of the American State
Papers, on Indian Affairs, there is preserved a letter of Gen.
Clark's, to the Committee of Safety, dated at Fort Advance,
the 5th day of September, ] 794, which places beyond doubt,
the adoption of the Constitution and the other facts of
organization as above stated.*
Thus ended Gen. Clark's connection with Genet's project
for the invasion of the Spanish provinces; and thus it
became changed into a suddenly conceived scheme of seizing
on the Indian lands, on which he found himself quartered,
and erecting there a new trans-Oconee State of his own and
.dimerican State Papers, Indian dffairs, Vol. 1, pp. 500-501.
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GEN. ELIJAH CLARK.
his men's. It is clear that in pursuing this course he acted
under strong duress. The French impulse and support un der which he had thus far been proceeding, had all at once
failed him; French means, to which he had all along been
bellolden, had stop)ped and were no longer at his bidding.
Consequently, French ends could no longer be consulted by
him, and the new turn he gave to things, far from being a
wanton, was a logical conduct on his part. It was the natural glancing in a new and unintended direction of a ball
that had been otherwise launched at first, but which by an
intervening obstacle had been thwarted and turned from its
original aimrn towards another object.
The development which has now been given of the course
and ending of the Genet affair in the South and of the
sl)ringing upof the socalled Oconee rebellion therefrom, shows
how widely both those matters are misunderstood and mistold in Stevens' History of Georgia. In that work the facts
are strangely transposed and misarranged. The Oconee
affair is related as having preceded and led to Gen. Clark's
engaging in the French project, an(d this French project is
set forth not as having given birth to the Oconee attempt,
but as having been itself a misborn, profligate offspring
therefrom.* Such dislocation and misplacement of facts is
tantamount in the effect to gross misstatement and works
not less wrong to Gen. Clark than to chronology. For althoug,h he cannot be pronounced free from blame for his
connection with those affairs, yet the difference is vast in
every point of view, moral, political, patriotic, between his
having become involved in them in the manner I have detailed, and that charged by the historian, who represents the
Oconee part of his conduct as an orignal, wanton aggression
upon Indian rights and territory, carrying with it rebellion
towards Georgia and the United States, and the French part
of it as a lawless, fillibustering enterprise, into which he
had desperately flung himself after his character, fortunes
*Stevens' History of Georgia, Vol. 2,. p440, 405, 406.
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and prospects had been already deeply damaged by the
Oconee criminality.
A very little attention to dates and the actual order of
events would have prevented this harsh, wrong treatment
of Gen. Clark. Let us see: Genet arrived in this country
in the Spring of 1793.  He commenced his intrigues immediately, and it was not long before we find Gen. Clarlk connected( with him, busied in fitting out and freighting boats
on the Ohio with warlike stores, in receiving and dispensing
French funds and commissions, and concentrating armed
men under the name of the French Legion beyond the Altamaha and Oconee on Indian soil; the same being also
claimed asforeign soil, in order to give a pretext for saying
that the preparations there made were no violation of
the territory and neutrality of the United States.* Now
towards these lawless doings the authorities and people
of Georgia evinced no displeasure  for many  months,none, indeed, so long as they wore only a French character and were marked by only a French destination against
the Spanish provinces. But when, upon the miscarriage of
the Genet project in 1794, that character and destination
were exchanged for an aggressive seizure of Georgia's Indian territory,-thenii for the first time popular feeling began
to rise against Gen. Clark. Gov. Matthews began then to
see there was something wrong in his proceedings, and bethought himself of interfering and of denouncing and arresting what he was doing.  The result was that before the
end of autumn the whole Oconee scheme was crushed by the
arm of Georgia, prompted and upheld by Washington, as
the French Genet scheme had months before been defeated
by the arm of Washington alone.
And then upon the back of all and as a clinching disproof
if any were needed, comes the insuperable, silencing fact of
the poverty of Gen. Clark and his Oconee adherents. It is
notorious that they were poor, (as indeed were the people of
Georgia generally at that day, thoutgh far less so than now)
m.dnerican State Papers, Foreign Relations, Vol. 1, p. 311.
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44 
GEN. ELIJAH CLARK.                   45
altogether too poor to have made it possible for him and his
followers and supporters ever to have set on foot by any
means of their own such an enterprise as this was; an enterI)rise involving from the outset an Indian war an(l a heavy
outlay.  Whence it is apparent from the very impossibility
of the thing, that it would not have been started at all but
for the French means and preparations that were on hand
for another very different purpose, and which, upon  the
failure of that purpose, were readily convertible to this new
object.
Having set forth thus fully the manner of Gen. Clark's
becoming involved in these, the only reprehensible affairs of
his life, we feel warranted in pronouncing it such as must
greatly soften censure, and conciliate kindly feelings towards
him.  And more especially in relation to that part of his
conduct in which he was implicated with Genet and his
schemes, may it be claimed that the bare statement of the
facts is all that his case needs. To add any elaborate apology
and vindication would be idle and supererogatory.  For in
that whole matter he but acted in sympathy and accordance
with a powerful and certainly not discreditable national feeling of his day; a feeling fiercely inflamed against despotism
and in favor of liberty and France. And into whatever
of mistake or fault he and his abetting countrymen may
have fallen, it was error rather of degree than of principle.
The undue lengths to which they allowed themselves to be
transported were but the pardonable result  of the overardent French enthusiasm then prevalent, and have long
since been condoned by the freedom-loving part of mankind
as belonging to that class of things in which, although
Governments are obliged to frown and fulminate, yet history
and opinion delight to be gracious and hasten to acquit,
propitiated by the nobleness and magnanimity of which
they savor and which shed a tinge of honor on human
nature even in its lapses and misdeeds.
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GEN. ELIJAH CLARK.
SECTION III.
But as no such proud palliation, closely akin to praise
itself, can be pleaded for his Oconee doings, it behooves us
to give them some further attention, from whence it will be
seen that his memory so far from suffering by a strict scriitiny here will, on the contrary, come out therefrom cleared
of much of obloquy and misconc(epti(on,-cleared sufficiently
at least to save from historic blight the rich wreath of honor,
fame andi public gratitude with which a life of heroic, selfsacrificing services to his country had entwined his brow.
I will not here insist again on the casual and almost coercive, involuntary manner in which he wzIs led into that
Oconee fault.  Enough has been said onl that topic-enough
to show that the way and manner were sulch as greatly to
lighten whatever blame there was. But somewhat else remains that makes in his favor; other facts and considerations
there are which, although perhaps only apologetic in their
nature, nevertheless weigh strongly for him. Let us look
at them as they have come down to us and in the light of
the times in which they occurred, rather than in the altered
hue which the changing circumstances and opinions of fourscore years may nave imparted to them.
Then, as we have already shown in the preceding articles,
violent animosity had long prevailed between the Creek Indians and Georgia.  They became duringo the Revolutionary
war our bitter enemies and the allies of the British. Vanquished in that great conflict, they entered at its close into
a treaty of peace, friendship and territorial cession with us
at Augusta in 1783, whereby we became the absolute owners
of the Oconee country, which, however, we were not allowed
to enjoy in peace. For they kept no faith, and during the
very next year, not only raised the warwhoop again, but
rushed into a Spanish alliance in order to strengthen themselves in their hostilities.  Further, also,  we  have seen
that in the course of another year they composed this war
by entering into another treaty, that of Galphinton, by
46 
GEN. ELIJAII CLARK.                 47
which another large cession of land being made, the Tallassee country became ours. Both at Augusta and Galphinton
General Clark was one of the commissioners on the part of
the State, and as such was a negotiator and signer of both
these highly important treaties.  In seeking and obtaining
the Tallassee cession, he and our other leading men who
cooperated withl him, were less actuated by the prevailing
land-greed of that period than by a sagacious statemanship,
that looked to the means of a permanent preservation of
peace with the Indians, which they knew could only be
effected by cutting them off by a wide interval of territory,
from Spanish neighborhood and instigation.   Long afterwards, at the treaty of Fort jackson iu 1814, Gen. Jackson
avowed himself governed b  precisely the same policy in
forcing the conquered Creeks to surrender a widle strip embracing this very Tallassee region, and stretching from
Wayne and Camden counties to the Chattahoochee, all along
the line of what was then still the Spanish province of East
Florida. But that very policy of isolation from Spanish influence which Gen. Clark and all Georgia had so much at
heart in 1785, and which made the Tallassee cession so important in their eyes, rendered it at the same time extremely
obnoxious to the Spaniards, who consequently exerted their
influence to make it odious to the Indians and to stimulate
them to fiercer warfare than ever against us, indeed,to make
it impossible there ever should be peace without the retrocession of that country. And so, notwithstanding the Galphinton treaty, and yet another hollow peace signed at
Shoulderbone in November, 1786, the war ceased not, but
was continued and kept up by the Indians with a virulence
that prevented even any attempt at pacification from being
at any time afterwards made between them and the
Georg,ians.
In this state things were when the new Government of
the United States was first launched in 1789, and Washington was  called  to the helm.   His attention was very
soon claimed by this war.  On the 6th of the ensuing July,
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GEN. ELIJAH CLARK.
in a report made to him by his Secretary of War, Gen.
Knox, it is emphatically noticed as "a serious war in which
Georgia was engaged with the Creek Indians, that might
become so combined and extended as to require the interference of the United States."*  Up  to this period all affairs
whether of' peace or war, and all treaties and negotiations
with the Creek nation had been, under the old Confederation,
left almost wholly to be mnanaged by Georgia as a sort of
pecli'um of her's-and the rather because all of that tribe
to be found within the United States were located on the
chartered soil of Georgia.   But all this pecutliurm of the
State was now at an end. It terminated by the new national
Government assuming to itself an exclusive and unlimited
control over all Indian affaiirs nd Indian territory, whether
within a State's chartered limits or not.  This it did under
its war-making, its treaty-making and its commerce regulating powers, and by a stretch in construing the same, to
which the people of Georgia never became heartily reconciled, but again  and again protested against it by both
woid ant-d deed as long as any Indian  occupancy existed
within her limits. The men that witnessed and took part
in the bitter, fearful quarreling that grew up eventually out
of this question of power over Indian matters, and at length
got to be chronic between the State and the general Government, are now nearly all gone. But as long as any of them
shlall live, it will not be forgotten how intensely General
Clark's sentiments on the subject continued to be cherished
in Georgia for more than thirty years after his death, nor
will there be any lack of a feeling of indulgence towards
him in regard to the errors of conduct into which those
principles largely helped to hurry him.
This full transference of the whole Indian jurisdiction
into Federal hands was practically exemplified in the length
to which the oft-mentioned treaty of New York went, buying, as it did from the Creek Indians, a promise of peace
American State Papers, Indian affairs, Vol. 1, p. 15.
48 
GEN. ELIJAII CLARK.-                  49
at the price of the retrocession of Tallassee and of a perpetual guarantee to them by the United States of all their territory, regardless of the paramount rights and sovereignty
of Georgia.
And yet high as was the price thus paid to the Indians
for their promise of peace, that promise was not kept. The
better and more informed among the chiefs and warriors
were, it is true, disposed to keep it, but they were unable
to restrain another and a very large portion of their people
who, instigated by the Spaniards, and dissatisfied with the
treaty of New York, because it did not contain all the concessions they wanted, persisted in their hostile incursions
and  depredations on our exposed frontier.
Such, then, was the posture, in which the war of the
Creeks against Georgia stood and presented itself to the
view of Gen. Clatk in 1794, when thie sudden founderingo, of
the Genet scheme left him on their soil in the very embarrassing and difficult situation which we have above described;
and such the circumstances under which he felt that he
would be guilty of no wrong towards these savages in treating them as enemies and turning his arms against them as
such, since they were still every now and then reeking their
hostilities on Georg,ia in spite of so many treaties of peace,
that of New York among the rest. Nor did he feel, either,
that he was at all criminal towards the United States in so
doing, inasmuch as he was simply disregarding and seeking to force to a'proper test things, which he fully believed
to be unconstitutional in that treaty and in thle Congressional legislation by which it was supported, namely, the
retrocession and perpetual guarantee provisions which it contained. And still less did it seem to him that Georgia had
any right to be angry at what he was doing, for the reason
that by submitting to those injurious treaty provisions, she
had in principle and in fact surrendered her territorial rights
and sovereignty, and thereby not only abased herself,
but despoiled her citizens of their great landed birthright,
and consequently was no longer entitled to denounce such
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GEN. ELIJAH CLARK.
of them as should choose to cut loose from her, and by their
own strength and daring occupy the fair regions of which
she had allowed herself to bie so unconstitutionally stripped
and disseized( in favor of her savage enemies.
It was these views strongly entertained that, added to
the pressure of the peculiar and untoward circumstances in
which he found himself suddenly placed, turned the scale
with General Clark, and determined him to a conduct he
had not previously contemplated, namely, that of raising
provisionally and temporarily the standard of private, military adventure, for the conquest of the Creek lands as prize
of war to himself and followers;  flattering himself that
the Government, State and Federal, having been seemingly
supine in regard to his part in the Genet operations, would
continue supine still, and that his fellow citizens, of whose
general sympathy he had no doubt, would not only not take
part against him but would rally to him in sufficient force
of men and means to insure his success.
But he was doomed to utter disappointment.   He  had
erred egregiously as to the manner in which his enterprise
would be regarded and treated. Both. as to the supineness
of Government and the support of the people he had calculated amiss, and awoke  to the discovery that war even
against savages was a royal game sacred to sovereigns and
their subalterns, and that the people, ever jealous of their
rights of property at least, and ravenous of broad, rich acres,
will not tamely permit lands they have been wont to consider as their own and their children's forever, to be ravished away by the sword of any adventurer, however beloved
and honored he may have been. The consequence was that
Gen. Clark was speedily overwhelmed by heavy public censure and total discomfiture. The national and State administrations acted in concert against him and soon put him
down. Washington, wisely holding back, as was his wont,
the heavy Federal arm wherever the authorities of the
States were faithful and adequate to the suppression of disorders within their own bounds, acted only as the prompter
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GEN. ELIJAH CLARK.
of Gov. Matthews in this matter, who, with his Revolutionary
laurels still green, soon to be tarnished, however, bytheYaz,)oo
infamy, was now honorably filling his second term in the
Executive Chair.  The Governor thundered out upon the obnoxious General, in a proclamation of the 28th of July, 1794,
in which he denounces him under the name of Elijah Clark,
Esquire, as a violator of the laws and of the Indian territory. Judge Walton also came out strongly against him,
though in language of marked consideration and respect, in
his charges to grand juries.* But fulminations of this kind
turned out to be inadequate to the case, though they had
a good conservative effect on the public mind. The next
step was decisive.  The citizen soldiery were called out, and
to General Clark's surprise, and utter extinguishment of his
hopes, (for he had flattered himself that they could not be
gotten to march against him) they promptly obeyed the
order.  As the storm thickened around him and his prospects darkened, there were none that came to his succor.
Even his host of friends in Georgia, devoted to him as they
were personally, stood aloof and quietly witnessed his
fall, sad and sanctioning. NVhat an impressive proof that
the great body of our people were even in that early, frontier state of society, a truly orderly, loyal, law abiding people.  They might, indeed, have been too ready perhaps to
seize upon the Creek lands with little or no tenderness for
Indian rights, provided only it was done under regular
governmental authority, and with assurance that the lands
would be made to enure to the enrichment of them and their
children and to the public good. But they were resolutely
averse to any scheme of acquisition not strictly as a public
measure by public means and on public account, and the
more were they opposed to the proceeding attempted in this
instance, because it wts in the very teeth of a treaty made
by Washington himself with the Indians, and which how
muchsoever disliked and regretted by the State, she, in her
sovereign capacity was, nevertheless, treating with a wise
*American State Papers, Indian Affairs, Vol. 1, p. 497, 498, 499.
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GEN. ELIJAH CLARK.
and patriotic, though reluctant obedience and respect, and
consequently could not and would not countenance individiials even the most exalted in violating it.
It redounds to Gen. Clark's honor and atones not a little
for whatever was wrong in his conduct, that ro sooner was
he aware in what a great error he had become entangled,
and how impracticable a thing he had undertaken, than he
abandoned it ere he had done any appreciable mischief or
shed a drop of even Indian blood. Hence his movemnent
turned out to be a shortlived affair of a few months only.
It is, indeed, beyond doubt that hlie never for a moment harbored the thought of raising his hand against any  but the
already hostile Indians and their Spanish  abettor)s, whom.
he might chance to encounter. This explains the ready,
absolute submission, with which, on being assured that he
and his men would be allowed to go unmolested, he at length
struck his colors, disbanded his followers; and returned
chagrined to his home in Wilkes county, on the approach
of Generals Twiggs and Irwin, under the Governor's orders,
with a body of the State militia against him. His proud,
courageous, magisterial nature, that ever exulted in facing
danger and grappling with it, refused not now to calm down
and humble itself at the bidding and in the presence of his
beloved Georgia in arms,-choosing rather to succumb to
her than fight his countrymen, from whom he had expected
sympathy and support, not opposition and resistance. His
several posts were abandoned. The torch soon followed*
and its traces were long to be seen. But now, I ween, there
is a many a dweller along the storied Oconee who never even
heard of Fort Advance or Fort Defiance, and the other less
noted warlike coverts that of yore for one whole summer and
far into the first autumnal month, scowled on the impassive,
race-dividing stream, and frowned trebly from its western
bank on Georgia, the Indians and the general Government.
*American State Papers. Indian Affairs, Vol. 1st, page 499; Stevens' History
of Georgia, Vol. 2, p. 404.
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GE,N. ELIJAH  CLARK.
SECTION IV.
B3ut rising above all other considerations in estimating the
bearing of this matter on Gen. Clark's fame, comes the cru cial question, what was his mnind and intention, what the
real, ulterior object he had in view?  Was it, at bottom,
good or bad, patriotic or unpatriotic? There is, I believe,
nothing on record, or comling down to us by tradition,
that furnishes an answer in terms to these questions.  But
there is enough in the known facts of the case, and in the
whole of Gen. Clark's character and career, from which a
satisfactory answer may be educed.
In order then to a right answer, it must  be remembered that Gen. Clark was not only a superior military man
and a most ardent patriot, but also that he hlad in him no
little of the statesman and political strategist, such particularly as was suited to the circumstances and times and the
theatre in which he had to act:-A fact evinced by the leading part he took from and after the Revolutionary war at
Augusta, Galphinton, Shoulderbone and elsewhere, in and
about councils, negotiations and treaties touching Indian
affairs, (which were then by far the greatest, most difficult
and trying branch of our political affairs,) in all of which he
showed himself hardly less apt and efficient than in commanding armed men, fighting battles and conducting campaigns. To him it was painfully clear that Georgia, with
the Oconee river as a permanent guaranteed boundary between herself and the Indians, could never attain to much
prosperity and importance, but must always continue feeble
and poor, with but little rank in the sisterhood of States in
which she was embraced, and still less security against the
formidable Indian hordes by which she.was surrounded on
every side, except along the Atlantic and the Savaninahl
river. He had an intense conviction that the paramount
point in her policy to which her attention should be directed,
was her enlargement towards the West, over those fine regions forming at this time the heart of what is called Middle Georgia, and which, on being settled and becoming
5.
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GEN. ELIJAHI CLARK.
populous and powerful, would form barriers deterring Indian
hostilities and incursions, instead of being tempting fields for
them, as long, feeble lines of firontier, always were.
This strong conviction was, beyond doubt, an influential
element in impelling him in the spring of 1794, to seize the
opportunity which then courted him, of making himnself
master of the trans-Oconee country by means of the French
resources and preparations to which he had fallen heir, Fully
believing that no considerations of patriotism forbade, on
the contrary, that they warranted him in such a step,'ie
hesitated not to make avail of his French means, and his
unpleasant predicament on Indian soil, to create an Indlian
crisis that would either force a cession or end in a conquest.
The government which for this purpose he extemporised and
which he could, surely, not have intended for apermanency,
pretended to only such faculties as might enable it, to succeed
in attracting by its promises and protecting by its arms and
arrangements the adventurers and settlers who were indispensable to his plans, and to whom the great inducement to
join his standard was to be, as in old feudal times, liberal
allotments of land,-the most'effective device ever yet tried
of inflaming to the utmost the rage of conquest. Such is a
broad outline of the vision which all the circumstances indicate as having floated in Gen. Clark's mind, terminating in
his thoughts in the eventual ie-absorption of himself and his
followers back again into the bosom of Georgia, with all
their fair lands and brave acquisitions. That somewhat of
this nature was the upshot, the aim and end he contemplated is, in the highest degree, probable. His character and
all that throws any light upon his intentions, point that
way. Indeed what other course could there have finally
been for him?  None, certainly, unless we can suppose he
intended to reproduce, under circumstances most unfavorable, that recent abortion, the State of Franklin, with whose
throes of ill success and ultimate total failure, he was too
well acquainted to be in any danger of being tempted to
engage in any similar experiment.
54 
GEN. ELIJAHI CLAK.
On the whole then, we rest in the conclusion that nothing
could be more wrong than to treat this Oconee error as a
misdemeanor against patriotism, or as detracting seriously
fiom a great public dleserver's claims to be cherished  and
honored by his coulntrymen.   Indeed, it was an error
founded no little in Geri. Clark's extreme love of Georgia,
and his resentment of whalt he deemed a great injury to her,
although its main cause undoubtedly was the very difficult,
embarrassing situation, in which he was involved, and to
which we have so fully adverted.  No thlought of rebellion,
no sentiment of disloyalty ever entered his breast.  Although
throwing himself decidedly, as he did, in collision at once
with the United States and Georgia, yet his eventual action
showed that his design was nothing more nor worse than to
exert a right undeniable to every citizen, whilst certainly it
is one only to be exercised upon great consideration and
with a deep conscientious sense of responsibility,-the right,
namely, of disregarding and taking issue upon and bringing to the test any unconstitutional law or treaty,-especially
when having a tendency so formidable as that of planting
permanently on the chartered soil of the State a powerful
savage nation under the pupilage and protection of the general Government. Such was the principle on which Gen.
Clark acted, fully acknowledging  at the same  time his
amenability to the tribunals of the land and to the inrterdiction of the public will. Hence, no sooner did Governor
Mathews issue his proclamation against him, than he reappeared in Wilkes county and surrendered himself to the
judicial authorities for trial upon the Governor's charges.*
Being pronounced guiltless of any offence, and no grounds being found for his further detention, hle recrossed the Oconee to
his posts and preparations. No other prosecution was ever
started, no other judicial action of any kind was ever taken
or attempted against him. He consequently felt warranted
by the people and State in what he was doing, and at liberty to proceed in it,-although condemned by the Governor
.dmerican State Papers, Indian.ffairs, Vol. 1, p. 495, 6, 7, 8, 9, 500.
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GEN. ELIJAH CLARK.
and Judge Walton.  When,  however, upon the militia
being called out, he was awakened, by their obedience and
alacrity, to a knowledge of his mistake and of the popular
aversion to his enterprise, he made upon the spot the best
amends in his power by bowing to the now unquestionable
public will and desisting from his ill starred work, ere it had
culminated in aught of calamity.
To a Georgian there are no sadder pages in those huge
folios, the American State Papers, than those containing the
imperfect, disjointed, scattered details, concerning General
Clark's conduct in the two matters we have now sofully sifted;
sad, less because they tell of what was wrong in his conduct,
than because they tell it (to borrow a phrase from the elder
law books) without more, without completeness, without connection, without all the facts that throw light upon it,without the explanations and mitigations that belong to
it, and which make in his favor, and which are now consequently become less obvious and known,  than the things
which miake against him. Few will ever be at the pains of
such investigation as justice to him requires. Already has
the professional historian failed in that duty and done  him
great wrong which there is danger will be copied and recopied without scrutiny, as is- too much the wont among,
book-makers, until at last the error will become ineradicable
in histury and go down to posterity as undoubted truth.   It
concerns the people of Georgia that such wrong to General
Clark should be rectified. His character and career, his
deeds and services, his fightings and sufferings, his wounds
and sacrifices, are part of the treasured pride and glory of
the State; of the divine pabulum derived to her from a suffering heroic past, whereon, to the end that her children
may never become recreant, they should feed now and through
all time, and grow strong in undeg(enerate patriotism and
manhood, and in all the sturdy virtues of their strongprincipled, strong-charactered ancestors,-like them ever
prompt at the call of duty and honor, to discard ease and
court danger and hardships. His character was a mixed
56 
GEN. ELIJAhI CLARK.
one, it is true, as strong, commanding characters often are.
But we cannot submit, because he had faults and fell into
errors, that his merits should be unduly shaded and almost
shut out from view, and his character transmitted to the
future aspersed with epithets of obloquy and disparagement.
He deserves better than that his name should suffer by care less or prejudiced historic handling.  He died ranking to
his last hours among Georgia's most cherished heroes and
benefactors, and Georgians cannot but recoil from whatever
has the look of lowering him from that proud pedestal on
which he had placed himself with hard, and hard-working
hands, and by life-long patriotic devotion and self-imperil ing. Our fathers, before we were born, had grown to him
in a close, living embrace of love, gratitude and honor. His
services to Georgia were such as it happens to but few men
ever to have the combined opportunity and ability of render ing to their country. He was emphatically the Ajax Talamon of the State in her days of greatest trial. The British,
the Indians and the Tories, were ever swarming around him
or fleeing from him, or plotting, working, fighting  against
him. F'or seven long years his warlike tramp was almost
everywhere heard, especially from Augusta to our Northern
and Western border, and frequently also across the Savannah; wherever, indeed, danger was the greatest or the enemy strongest. He was made acquainted, too, with agonies,
such as the body knows not. Whilst with that boy son, the
future Governor of Georgia, at his side, hle was in the field
fighting and often bleeding, his British and Tory foes fearing to meet him, yet seeking to paralize him there, plundered and burnat his house, drove away his wife and younger
children, and ordered them out of the State.  No wonder
that with such a man such treatment had the reverse of the
effect intended.  No  wonder  that  from  thenceforth  he
breathed and spread a more rapid falling vengeance than
ever, if that were possible. No wonder that he lost no
chance to strike a blow, and that in every blow, he made
good McDuff's terrible prayer:
57 
GEN. ELIJAHII CLARK.
"Gentle Heavens!
Cut short all intermission; front to front,
Bring thou these fiends of Georgia and mryself;
Withilni my sword's length set theim; if they'scape,
Heaven forgive them tool.
When weighing such a man, such a doer and sufferer for
his country as this, indictments that mi,h-t crush meaner
personages, are but as dust in the balance ag,,ainst the rich,
ponderous golden ore of his services and mierits, and we
hasten to shed a tear on whatever may tend to soil his meinory and to pronounce it washed out forever.
His active career closed with the termination of the two untoward passages in it, which I have narrated. nor did his life
last much longer. He died in 1799, at his home in Wilkes
county,where hehad settled in 1 774,and was with his laborious
hands among those, vwho struck the first blow in reclaiming
from the fi9rest that garden spot of the world, that earliest
installment of Middle Georgia, which stretched out in richness and beauty from the Savannah river to the Ogeechee.
He was the gift to Georgia of our good elder sister, Northi
Carolina.  Many, very many, have been her precious giftsto us
both of men and women from the colonial times down to the
present day. Many, very many priceless human gifts has
Georgia been likewise ever receiving from other older quarters of our own country and from the old world-gifts which
she has taken to her bosom and generously chierished along
with her dear, home born children.   But never has it fallen
to her to have a son, native or adopted, whom she could
more proudly boast and justly honor, or who  has more
deeply imprinted himself on her heart and memory than Elijah Clark.
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COL. HAWKINS.
CHIIAPTER V.
COLONEL HAWKINS.
One morning in the month of June, 1816, during the
summner vacation of Mt. Zion Academy, being on a visit to
my venerated grandfather, I was sitting listless and musing
alone with him in his front porch, gazing through the syca miores that surrounded the house across the broad, clean ly  cultivated  fields of  cotton  and  corn  that  sloped
away  to  the  south;  their  long, gentle  slant  terminatedl by the "verdrous wall" of towering primeval
trees that had  been  left to  stand, gorgeously  fringing all that side of the plantation for a mile or more up and
down Fort creelk. The sun was nearing the meridian. It
was the day, and a little after the hour, for the mail rider
to pass on his weekly trip from Milledgeville to Greensboro,
and my grandfather having already sent and gotten his
newspaper from the tree box on the roadside, was'engaged
in reading it,-the great old Georgia Journal, founded by
the Grantland brothers, which he enjoyed the more because
they were Virginians, from Richmond  to boot, editorial
eleves of the renowned Thos. Ritchie. He had not read long
before he suddenly stopped, and, letting down the paper
from his eyes said, "Col. Hawkins is dead."  The tone was
not as if the words were meant for me or for anybody.
They sounded rather like the unconscious, involuntary utterance of the soul to the conscious heavens and earth.  All
nature seelnmed to lend her voice to his words and to speak
out in unison: "Col. Hawkins is dead."  Letting his newspaper drop to his lap and resting his elbow on the arm of
his clair, he bowed his head upon his half open palm and
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COLONEL HAWKINS.
sat in silence, neither reading any more then nor speaking
another word. I had all my life been hearing of Col.
Hawkins, and had become familiar with his name as important in some way in connection with the Indians, but in what
way I had never well understood. But it was now evident to
me that he who was then resting in his fresh grave in the midst
of the Indian wilderness on. that little knoll by Flint river,
was a greater and more valuable man than I had dreamed;
that my grandfather certainly thought greatly and highly
of  him,-and  to  me  what  my  grandfather  thought
was a measure and standard both of men and things. So
God ordains to him who is early left to grow up an orphan
boy. fSeeing how much he was affected,-naturally a strong
impression was made on me. From that moment the germ
of a deep, undying interest in relation to Col. Hawkins was
implanted in my mind, an interest more than justified by
subsequent life long gleanings of information in regard to
him, and which is still strong enough to make it impossible
for me to pass finally away from the commingled affairs of
Georgia and the Creek nation without commemorating him
and doing him homage.
Large indeed were the claims of Col. Hawkins to be loved
and honored all over Georgia, and especially along the
Oconee river on both sides, and between the Oconee and the
Ocmulgee. His services to our people had run through a
long period and were of the most signal character. At the
time of his death, it was for some twenty years that he had
been occupying officially between Georgia and the Indians
what may almost be called a heavenly, mediatorial relation,
faithfully devoting himself as peace-maker, peace-preserver
and peace-restorer, all that time between the two mutually
distrustful and bitterly divided races. Of this most arduous, delicate and sometimes dangerous duty, he had acquitted himself with an assiduity and sagacity, with an integrity, ability and success that had obtained for him boundless
confidence and respect from both sides and rendered him
dear and illustrious alike to civilized men and savages from
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the Savannah river to the Ohio and the Mississippi. For
although he was the special resident Agent for the Creek
tribe only, yet such was Washington's estimate of him that
he made him General Superintendent also of all the tribes
south of the Ohio; hence he became a well known and exceedingly important man to them all.
It was a noble expansive humanity that- first planted him
among, the Indians and kept him there all his life. He
went and he remained among them an angel of kindness,-,
an apostle of conciliation, friendship and good will. Unlike
McGillivray, who belonged solely and intensely to the Indians in his feelings and actions, and with whom enmity to
Georgia was a capital  virtue,-unlike Elijah Clark, who
was wholly Georgian, and was to Georgia, against the Indians, very much what McGillivray was to the Indians against
Georg,ia,-their bitter, most dreaded, effective foe,-Benj.
Hawkins' career was on and along a middle line, as it were, his
part that of at once a parental guardian and protector of the
Indians and a common friend and conscientious arbiter between them and their civilized neighbors. It is a fact most
honorable to him, that in allowing himself to be appointed
to this rather unique and very trying and difficult station,
Col. Hawkins was actuated in no degree by the meaner motives by which men are too apt to be governed. Nothing of
a money-loving, mercernary sort entered into his reasons.
It was neither penury or embarrassmeat in his affairs, or
thirst for wealth, or a chain of fortuitous circumstances, or
the loss or want of prospects satisfactory to his ambition
elsewhere, that operated upon him. It was his own large,
man-embracing nature, and a generous passion to be useful,
aye, beneficient to his kind, that impelled him. And he
rises inestimably in our view, when we consider how much
lhe gave up, what sacrifices he made  to this feeling:-Sacrifices requisite in no branch of the public service so much
as in that of Indian Agency, and which in Col.  Hawkin's
p)articulalr case, imnpairted to his conduct not a little the character of a romantic, sublimated benevolence and martyr
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like self-devotion,-nothing short of which could have
moved him in his actual circumstances to quit civilized habitation and society, and to bury himself for life in remote
savage woods, and among still more savag,e people, from
whose midst he never again emerged.
For he was born to wealth and experienced from the beginning of his life all its advantages in one of the best sections of North Carolina, in what was then Bute, now Warren county, on the confines of the most enlightened and r-efined part of Virginia.  Throughout his youth his good opportunities were well improved. After propel' preparation
in schools near home, his father sent him,  along with his
younger brother Joseph, to Princeton College, for the completion of their education. The Revoluttionary war interrupted
the Intistitution and his studies, when he was in the Senior
Class and almost at the end of his course. So hle may be
pronounced to have entered on life a young man of accomplished education, in addition to all the otherfelicities of lhis
lot.  Among other things, it merits to be particularly mentioned, that he became an excellent master of the French
language.  This acquirement it was that led to Washin,gton's taking him into his military family to be his medilumof correspondence and conversation with the French officers
and others with whom he had to have intercourse in that
tongue. But his duties on the staff were not merely of this
light and literary kind. He braved the campaigns, encountering hardships and participating in battles, showing himself, though very young, on all occasions worthy of his
epaulets and of his honorable relation to his illustrious
commander-in-chief.
Judging from his career, he must have been precociously
distinguished for talenits, address and aptitude for affairs.
As early as 1780, when he was but twenty-six years old,
North Carolina made him her general agent for obtaining
both at home and abroad, all kinds of supplies for her troops.
In discharge of which office he made a voyage to St. Eustatia, in the West Indies, a small neutral Island, that seems
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to hle served the same ends for our ancestors during the
Revolutionary war as did Nassau for the Confederate States
(luring the late war of Secession.  lie was entirely successful
in his part of the business, but the merchant ship in which
he embarked his purchases, chiefly munitions of war,  was
captured by the enemny and the supplies lost to the State.
Returning,  home  we  see him  soon  representing  North
Carolina in the Continental Congress, his name first appearing on the Journal of that body the 4th of October, 1781.
fie was continued in this eminent position, by successive reelections, until the 20th of December, 1786.  On the  accession of North Carolina to the new Federal Constitution, he
was chosen one of her first Senators in the Congress of the
United States, where at full term of six years fell to him in
the allotment of seats*
It is proper to mention here, that before the new Government was organized, and whilst he was yet a member of the
old Continental C.ng,ress, he was detailed, without interference, however, with his Congressional duties, into another
publ)lic service of the highest irmportance, though of a very
different nature. It was this: On the close of the Revolutionary war, the foriling, of amicable relations with the various Indian tribes in every direction around the United
States, became a matter of the greatest and most  pressing
interest.  Congress, taking to itself a concurrent jurisdiction
with the states in all Indian matters, appointed Col. Hawkins as one of its Commissioners plenipotentiary, to be sent
{or the purpose of opening friendly negotiation with the four
great Southern tribes, the Creeks, the Cherokees, the Choctaws and the Chickasaws. With the three last named tribes
the commissioners succeeded in negotiating satisfactory treaties whereby they entered into peace and friendship with the
United States, and placedl themselves under their protection
to the exclusion of every other nation or sovereign, and gave
to Congress the sole power of regulating trade with them
*Spa)c's Life and Writings of  Washington, Vol. 12, p. 424, 431.
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and managing their affairs generally.*  The attempt t  negotiate a treaty with the Creeks proved abortive from many
causes, at the bottomn of which lay their entanglement
with Spain by the treaty of Pensacola, and their difficulties
with Georgia, which had the effect of keeping them aloof in
a hostile mood, until that master stroke of Washington  in
1790, which eventuated in the treaty of New York, by which
the Creeks placed themselves in like relations to us with the
other three tribes.
Col. Hawkins' senatorial ter-m ended on the 4th of March,
1795. Before its expiration Washington, who hlad witnessed
with regret, that the treaty of New York had only partially
produced the fruits of peace expected from it, but who now
saw his anxious policy of thorough Indian pacification verging towards full triumph, fixed his eyes on the loug known,
well tried North Carolina Senator, as the fittest man to take
charge of the well-advanced work of conciliation, and then,
also, after it should be wound up auspiciously, to crown atnd
secure it by becoming the permanent agent for Indian a'fairs among the Creeks.
Col. Hawkins' family, one of the most numerous, influicntial and ambitious in his State, was very averse to his Clelbracing such views. Wheeler, in his history of North Carolina, to whom I am indebted for many interesting things in
this sketch, is emphatic upon their opposition,t for which
several good reasons are given, such as his wealth, his high
education and culture, his great advantages of family and
social and political position, the strong hold he already possessed in North Carolina, his flattering future there, &c., &c.
The historian, however, does not even attempt any reasons
why all these considerations failed to prevent him from
yielding to Washington's wishes.  And yet, these reasons,
at even this distant day, may be easily divined. Col. Hawkins, as we have seen, had been much among the Indians
*See these Treaties in the Jppendix to Watkin's Digest and Marbury 4r Craw.
ford's Digest of the Laws of Georgia.
tSee Title" Warren County."
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COLONEL HAWKINS.
officially; he had penetrated the mighty forests which hid
them, and seen and observed them amid their vast unculti vated woods; he had been brought in close contact and con verse with them under circumstances which presented them
in their most impressive points of view. He had thus got ten to feel deeply interested in them and to be strongly af fected by that Indian fascination which thousands, both be fore and after him, have experienced, without being able to
understand and interpret it. VWhatever it may be, or how ever it may be explained, it is certainly something so pow erfill and touchling, as hardly ever to die away wholly from
minds upon which it has once laid its spell:-And particil larly in the case of such noble savage races as the Creeks
and Cherokees, it always generated a feeling of the most
lively sort in all who happened to become well acquainted
with them in a kindly way in their own beautiful country.
Behold here the true, though subtle cause of those feelings
and that bias of mind which mainly actuated Col. Hawkins
in accepting the Creek Agency, and not only in accepting it,
but in making its life-long duties a labor of love to him and
a source of high moral and intellectual occupation and enjoyment. It was this generous, intense fitness of the soul
to the task on which he entered -which, added to his other
happy qualifications, made him such a wonderful exemplar
of what an United States Agent and proconsul should be, for
the greatest, proudest, most warlike and jealous of all our
Indian tribes.
His coup de'essai in this new service was the treaty of Colraine, negotiated in 1796, and which, also, as we have seen,
was a coup de maitre. It was a much needed supplement to
the treaty of New York, curing entirely all the wounds
which, notwithstanding that treaty, had continued, more or
less, to bleed and fester. At this point then began, and
thus propitiously opened, Col. Hawkins' long, benign and
exceedingly responsible official career, in connection with
that formidable, but at length conciliated Indian people,
with whose history his name was about to become identified
in a manner so honorable to himself and to human nature.
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He had a jlurisdiction which, in the extent  of territory it
embraced, was scarcely less than imperial.  Starting  fromnt
i the St. Mary's, far down  towards the sea, the line ran di rectly across to the Altarnahla, dividing lthe Tallassee country from the seaboard counties of Georg,ia.  On striking the
Altamaha, it turned up and along the western 1)lankl of that
river and the Oconee, to the High Shoals of the Ap)allachy,
where it intersected the Cherokee line; then turning westwaridly, it followed that line thlrough Georigia and Alabalma
till the Choctaw line was reachedin Mississippi; then solutherly, down that line to the 31st parallel;  then along that
parallel to the Chattahoochee; thence to that rivei' s jutnction
with the Flint, thence to the head of the St. Marys,  and
thence along that stream to the point of beginning   An iim mense region than which, as a whole, there is none finer
under the sun, stretching more than four hundred miles
from East to West and two hundred from North to South.
This wide and greatly favored region became thence forward
the scene of his labors, and to it and nature's unsophisticated
children who roamed over it, and to all his duties to them
and to the neighboring civilized people, he at once applied
himself with that high moral sense and generous solicitude
which noble minds always feel for great interests committed
to their charge. From the outset he studied the people and
their country, and accomplished himself in all knowledge
appertaining to the one and the other. And here the ad vantages, growing out of his fine early education and out of
the intellectual tastes, quickness and inquisitivenesss which
were its fruits, stood out to view and served him in double
stead, prompting and enabling him to become at once more
thoroughly and variously qualified for the multiform duties
of his station, and availing him also as a source of private
enjoyment and mental support and comfort in his self decreed official exile.  Nor was it with  the mind only  that
he labored, but with tile pen also, and so perseveringly as to
leave behind him a great amount of manuscripts concerning
he Creeks and the Creek country. Of these manuscripts,
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to which the public of that day attached great  importance,
and not without cause, judging from such small p)ublished
parts as have fallen under my eye,-a large portion perished
in the burning of his house soon after his death.  Another
large portion escaped the flames and were afterwards confi ded to the Georgia Historical Society. But the great interest
they once excited has long since become extinct,  having
gradually sunk along with the melancholy fortunes of the
rude and remarkable people to whomni and to whllose coun try those writings relate.  Yet lmay it not be, that ran sacked and studied hereafter in distant future times, they
will furnish to some child of genius, yet to be born, much
of material and inspiration for an immortal In(ldiLn ep)ic of
which the world will  never tire.
Under the faithful proconsular sway of Col. Hawkins, the
Creek Indians enjoyed, for sixteen years, unbroken peace
among themselves and with their neighbors, and also what soever other blessings were possible to the savage state, which
it was his study gradually to ameliorate. To this end he
spared no pains. Much was done to initiate, instruct and
encourage them in the lower and most indispensable  parts
of civilization. Pasturage was brought into use, agriculture
also, to some extent, both together supplanting considerably
among them their previous entire reliance for food on hunting, fishing and wild fruits. To the better and more secure
modes of obtaining a livelihood which civilization offers, lhe
sought to win them by example as well as by precept. He
brought his slaves from North Carolina, and under the right
conceded to his office, he opened and cultivated a large plantation at the Agency on Flint river, making immense crops
of corn and other provisions. He also reared great herds of
cattle and swine, and having thus always abundance of meat
and bread, he was enabled to practice habitually towards
the Indians, a profuse, though coarse, hospitality and benevolence, which gained their hearts and bound them to him
by ties as loyal and touching as those of old feudal allegiance and devotion. There was something in the vast scale
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and simple, primitive management of these, his farming and
stock-raising interests, that carries the mind back to the
grand, princely, pastoral patriarchs of the Old Testamentto Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and Job.  For food his
herds roamed the boundless forests and grew fat upon the
caney bottoms and grass-bearing uplands, and the mast
that fell from the trees, costing him nothing, save their
marking, branding, salting and minding, services well performed by his faithful negroes and their Indian assistants.
The sanctity with which the Indians, throughout the nation,
regarded his cattle, was a beautiful trait in their relations
to him.  Whatever bore his mark or brand, was everywhere
absolutely safe. He often had as many as five hundred
calves at a time, to separate which from their dams, Flint
river was used as a dividing fence, across which, that it
might be used in this manner, he built a bridge, with a gate
at each end. There of evenings at that bridge's western end,
hundreds of lowing cows, returned from their day's wild
pasturing, moaned wistfully to as many answering calves
bleating from its eastern extremity.  For he repudiated the
lazy policy which to this day marks herdsmen as a class, who
with great droves of cattle and calves, are strangers to the
luxuries of butter and milk. His milk was measured by
barrels and churned by machinery, and great were the outcomes,-yet not more than enough for his vast hospitality to
the Indians and white folks, and his regal munificence to
his negroes. Had the great pastoral bards of antiquity not
sung and died before his day, elated, they would have seized
upon these scenes and celebrated them in their finest strains
as more wonderous, grandly rural and baronial, than aught
in all the charming bucolics they have left us.
But at length adverse circumstances and influences arose so
powerful that it was impossible for Col. Hawkins with all his
address and weight of authority among the Indians to maintain peace in the nation. The war of 1812, between this
country and England, had been portentously brewing for a
long time before it actually broke out. Seeing its approach,
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Great Britain, through her numerous agents and emissaries
among the Indians, by liberal largesses and supplies of arms
to them, and by whatever other means were at her command
in her neighboring Canadian provinces, had been for several
years tampering with the North Western tribes, and fomenting among them a hostile feeling towards the United States.
As soon as the requisite success had been attained on this
border, she directed her attention to the Southern and Western tribes, and began her rmacllinations aimong them also.
The great argument by which she sought to delude and incite them was, that by uniting their own arms with the
British, the tide of American aggression, which was rapidly
dispossessing them of their lands and driving them further
and further to the West, might be stayed and even made to
recoil on the aggressors.  Her real object, however, was to
get well within her grasp and to brandish over us the thunderbolts of a terrific Indian war, held in hand and ready to
be hurled upon our whole thousand miles of exposed frontier from the lakes to Florida, in the hope on her part that
we thereby might be deterred from declaring war against
her at a time when she was already so sorely pressed by
Bonaparte and the French. Such was the view with which
she conceived and prompted the famous incendiary mission
of the celebrated Shawnee Chief, Tecumseh, and his brother,
the Prophet, to the Southern tribes in 1811.* They had
little or no success, however, with the Cherokees, Choctaws
and Chickasaws. But better omens awaited them among
the Creeks,-a thing partly owing to the greater residuum
of suppressed enmity towards us that still rankled in that
tribe, as also to their naturally more warlike and ferocious
character; partly, likewise, because  Tecumseh  and the
Prophet were of Creek blood and extraction, their father
and mother having with their little children migrated in
1767 from the heart of the Creek countryt to the Northwest,
*.dmerican State Papers, Indian affairs, Vol. 1,p. 800;  Pickett's History of
Alabama, Vol. 2, p. 242.
tpickett's History, Vol. 2, p. 241.
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where Tecumseh himself was soon after born, who, however,
when he grew up made a visit of two years to his ancestral
land and people.  The consequence was that when be arrived among them on his mission of mischief in 1811, lihe
became quickly master of their sympathies as he already
was of their language.  He reached Tucklabatchlee, the Creek
capital and the seat of the Big Warrior, whilst Col. Hawkins
was there holding a grand council of the nation.  Keeping
dark as to the object of his coming until Col. HIawkins had
departed, he then disclosed his errand with that fierce Indian
eloquence for which he was famous, and with all the most
impressive collateral solemnities of savage superstition and
patriotism. By these means and the powerful aid of that
most  extraordinary  Indian  religionist  and fanatic, his
brother, the Prophet, who accompanied him with an imposing retinue, it is not wonderfuil that he succeeded in kindling,
a flame among the Creeks which was to be nursed and kept
smouldering until after the happening of war between the
United States and Great Britain, wlhen at some proper moment and given signal, that flame was to burst forth into
one vast conflagration along our whole frontier.
It is a proof both of the powerful ascendant Col. Hawkins
had acquired over the wild people among whom he dwelt,
and with whom he had to deal, and of his great ability and
fitness for the position he had so long filled among them,
that although the anticipated war between England and the
United States broke out and involved the Indians the very
next year; yet a large portion of the Creek territory, (all
that part bordering on Georgia and extending west from the
Ocminulgee to the Chattahoochee,) never became its actual
seat, and consequently that our long line of frontier settlements never suffered a whit more than the interior parts of
the State from the war's perils and alarms. This happy
exemption was due almost wholly to the fact that Col.
Hawkins' official seat and residence having been first on the
Ocmulgee at the beautiful site opposite to Macon which still
bears his name, and afterwards on the Flint river at the
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COLONEL HAWKINS.
place still called the Old Agency, his persolal influence,
intercourse and acquaintance with the Indians on the Georgia side of their country was much greater and impressed
its effects more strongly than farther to the West. Hence
the Indians on the eastern side remained pacific, and not
only so, but they became our actual friends and allies. For
the purpose of protecting and keeping them secure and
steady in this adherence, the friendly warriors were, on the
advice of Col. Hawkins, organized into a reg,iment of which
he became the titular Colonel, although he never took the
field, deeming it better to devolve the actual command upon
the noble and some years afterwards ill-fated Chief; William
McIntosh,* who, like the great McGillivray, was only of the
half blood in the civilization of lineage, but more than the
whole blood in the better and loftier traits that do honor to
man's nature.
The resu!t of all these things was that the few hostile Indians who were scattered through this friendly eastern section of their country, disappeared and merged themselves
with the more congenial belligerent elements in the middle
and western parts of the nation,-on the waters of tihe
Coosa, Tallapoosa and Alabama. There concentrated and
fierce they stood at bay and fought and fell in many a battle
under thle heavy, rapid blows of that predestined conqueror
of their race, Gen. Jackson, the second of that great heroic
name in Southern history, where he stands and will ever
stand towering and resplendent in the midst with him of
Georgia and him of Virginia close touching and illustrious
on either side.
Gen. Jackson having brought this great Southern Indian
war to a close early in 1814, was not allowed to pause in his
career. The Government wanted his genius, his energy
and his indomitable will on another and a much grander
and more important theatre near the mouth of the Mississippi.  He went, and in the short, glorious campaign of
New Orleans, gave the finishing stroke to the war with
* Wheeler's North Carolina, title, Tuarren Cotenty.
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Great Britain, as he had already just done to that with her
deluded savage allies. But before going to gather these
brighter laurels, he received at Fort Jackson, near the confluence of the Coosa and Tallapoosa, the absolute surrender
and submission of the crushed and starving Creek nation.
There with his victor's sword, and in conformity with commands from  Washington city, he dictated the terms of a
treaty of peace  and marked out narrower bounds  to the
vanquished and all their tribe. How much was taken from
them and how little was left to them constitutes one of the
most striking and consequential events in our Indian and
Anglo-American annals.   From that time the prowess, the
spirits and the prospects of the long redoubtable Creek
nation  were  broken  forever.   The  capitulation of Fort
Jackson was its death-knell  and tomb.   Even  the  three
great friendly Chiefs, the Big, Warrior, the Little Prince,
and McIntosh were cut to the heart by this deep incision of a
sword whose every gleam they had been wont to watch with
loyal gaze and honor with soldierly obedience, though marshalling them into the jaws of danger and death. Col.
Hawkins was profoundly saddened at the hard, wretched fate
of those whom he had long cherished as if they were his
children. A cruel dart too entered his bosom from the lips
of the Big Warrior,* whom the Colonel was well known to
have regarded as one of nature's great men and the ablest
of Indian statesmen. The stern, long confiding chief mournfully upbraided him  for having, persuaded himself and so
*The name of Big Warrior was given him on account of his great size. He
was the only corpulent full blooded Indian I ever saw, yet he was not so corpulent as to be either unweildly or ungainly. In fact his corpulency added to
the magnificence of his appearance. His person and looks were in a high degree grand and imposing. Tustenuggee Thlucco, was his Indian name. He
and Col. Hawkins first met at the treaty of Colraine in 1796, and were great
friends down to the time of the treaty of Fort Jackson. He was probably the
most enlightened and civilized man of the full Indian blood the Creek nation
ever produced.  He was wealthy and a lover of wealth.  He cultivated a fine
plantation with his seventy or eighty negroes, near Tuckabatchee, where he
lived in a good house, furnished in a plain, civilized style.
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many of his chiefs and people to stand neutral in the war
or take part in. it against their country. For years afterwards the story used to be told how the big tears stood in
the aged Agent's eyes as he listened in silence to a reproach
which he felt was at once undeserved and unanswerable.
Judging from Wheeler's history, it would seem that North
Carolina was disposed to claim Col. Hawkins as not only
peculiarly but exclusively her own. But his career, his labors and his merits are too broad, diverse and manifold and
illustrate too many scenes and subjects of national importance with which he was connected, to admit of such appropriation. His fame is as well the property of Georgia, of
the Creek nation and of the United States at large as of
North Carolina. They all rush to compete with his motherland and to insist on having along with her a share in such
a man, to whom they each owe so much of gratitude. In
fact the more he is contemplated, the larger and more catholic becomes his hold on the heart, and we end by feeling
that all mankind, civilized and savage, have a right to rise
up and exclaim -He is ours also.
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PART II.
I.-MIDDLE GEORGIA.
II.-MIDDLE GEORGIA (continued) AND
THE NEGRO.
II I.-MIDDLE GEORGIA (continued) AND
THE LAND LOTTERY SYSTEM.
IV.-THE PINE MOUNTAIN.
V.-KING'S GAP AND KING'S TRAILS.
VI.-THE PINE BARREN SPECULATION
CHAPTER
CHAPTER
CHAPTER
IN 1794, 1795.
VII.-THE YAZOO FRAUD.
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CHAPTER
CHAPTER
CHAPTER 
I 
CHAPTER I.
MIDDLE GEORGIA.
WVe have seen in treating of the Oconee war how the Indians gave the name of Viiginians to tlie hosts of unwelcome
strangers that began to pour into their immemorial hunting
grounds soon after the Revolutionary war, and continued to
come in unceasing swarms until at length t-hey filled up the
whole country to the east of the Oconee river.  Nor was the
appellation wrongly given. For it is a fact that this country was mainly settled up in the first instance by direct colonization from Virginia and, in some parts, from North
Carolina, and not by the old population of Georgia spreading
out over it. We find evidence in our statuite book of the
early attraction of the Virg,inians thither. As far back as
1783, a petition came from Virginria and was granted by our
Legislature, asking that two hundred thousand acres of
land might be reserved in this region of the State for suchl
emigrants from Virginia as should wish to settle down in
one solid, homogeneous neighborhood; which reservation is
noticed and ratified in the Act of ] 784, organizing the counties of Washington and Franklin.  This fact, though now
long buried, possesses some historical interest still, as bearing on the important point that the great mass of the first
settlers, who replaced the Indians in this part of Georgia,
came from Virginia, particularly those who established
themselves on the best lands. And they came not scatteringly and wide apart, but in quick succeeding throngs,
bringing along with them their wives, children and servants,
I
I 
MIDDLE GEORGIA.
and theirhousel old goods and gods,-allured by the cheapness
and fertility of the lands, the pleasantness and salubrity of
the climiate, the felicity of the seasois, the happy lying and
commodiousness of the country, well wooded, well watered,
with easy wagoning access to the flourishing commercial mart
of Augusta and with, firom thence, a fine navigation by the
Savannah river down to the excellent seaport of Savannah,
close upon the ocean; to all which was superaddled the
known aptitude of the country for the peculiar agriculture
to which the Virginians were accustomed.  For Whitney,
young, poor, but restless with irbl)orn-ingenuity, hospitably
domesticated in tle house of Gen. Gireene's widow, near Savannahli, had not yet invented that most wonderful and
beneficent machine(, the cotton gin, and the cultivation of
cotton as a commercial commodity was unknown among us,
and tobacco was still the master staple in upper Georgia as
well as in Virginia.  There are probably some very ancient
people yet living who remember those tobacco-growing times
and the queer custom of rolling tol)acco hogshlieads to Augusta and the great rigor of the tobacco inspection in that
market.
Of the immense preponderance of the immigration from
Virginia over that from all other quarters, some idea may be
formed from the fact that in my native section when I was a
boy, there were scarcely any but very young people who
could claim Georgia or any other part of the world than
Virginia as their birth place. Scattered here and there a
few only were to be found who were born elsewhere out of
Georgia than in Virg,iniaL. Washington county, howeve(r,
in the limits which it still possessed up to the time of the
present generation, must be set down as b)eing an exception
to this remrark.  For within those limits that fine old county
was mainly colonized from North Carolina as I have had the
best means of knowing, and my heart will forever attest
what an amiable and generous people they and their descendants were fifty years ago, for a little earlier than then I made
my debut in life among them and lived among them long
4 
MIDDLE GEORGIA.
enough. to know and love them well and to be loved by them
in return-so at least it has always been a satisfaction to me
to feel. Maryland, too, sent a little aid, just enough to
enable it to'be said that she bore a part in conquering these
distant wilds.  Within my puerile range of knowing, it was
but a single family she sent, poor when they came but des tined to great opulence drawn by toil from the liberal earth.
Otten were they called Chesapikers and often in boyish ignro rance, I wondered why. With such exceptions as these, all
the rest. the great mass of the people, the elderly, the mid dle aged, the ftlly grown and not a few of the very young,
wereVirginians born.
And not only had they come from Virginia themselves,
but as the Trojans carried Illium unto Italy, so did
they bring Virginia into Georgia with all her divinities
both of the field and fireside, and they filially preserved
and pI)erpetuated her here,-her ideas and opinions, her feelings and principles; her manners, her customs, her tone
and  character  as well as her agriculture  her system  of
lhbor and her whole rural economy.  Nor was it a small
district onzly or a few isolated spots that the Virginians thus
overspread and impressed with their own very superior type
of society and civilization, but nearly all the best of the
fair and extensive region lying between the Ogeechee and
the Oconiee, and that large part besides of the country betweeii the Savannah and the Cgeechee which was originally
coml)rised in the glorious old pre-revolutionary county of
Wilkes, which having been acquired from the Indians under
the Colontial regime only a very short time before the outbreak of the Revolutionary war, was still very thinly peopled at its close, and presented consequently very strong
attractions for the best class of emigrants, who came in
troops to those parts of the State where the lands, freed
fromi the Indian occupancy, were yet wild and unappropriated and, under the old lhead Right system, open to the first
c omers.
And now here and heretofore (in the course of my Writing
I
I
5 
MIDDLE GEORGIA.
about the Oconee war) I have developed the beginnings of
that famed part of the State, known as Middle Georgia, and
have found.and traced its germ, showing whence that germ
came and when, where and how it was first planted here,
and have also shown what hard and perilous fortunes it had
for a long time to encounter from Indian hostilities and incursions, whilst striving to maintain itself and get root and
thrive in its new soil. But triumphing by degrees over all
dangers and drawbacks, and blest at length with favorable
auspices and a long spell of prosperity, it struck wide and
deep into the generous laud into which it had been transplanted, and flourished apace not only within its early cisOconee limits, but rapidly spriead and propagated far beyond
those limits as new opening was from time to time made by
fiesh acquisitions of In(lian territory: First, from the Oconee to the Ocrnulgee in 1802 and 1805; then from the
Ocmulgee to Flint river in 1821; and finally firom Flint
river to the Chattahoochee and our present western boundary in 1825,-fiull forty-nine years ago, when at length the
celebrated Black Belt across the center of the State was com)lete and Middle Georgia finished.
Already, too, some eleven years earlier, the sword of Gen.
Jackson had achieved a great territorial enlargement  for
Georgia on her southern side. For, as we have already had
occasion to tell, by the capitulation at Fort Jackson in 1814,
the Indians were entirely swept off by the besomn of conquest from the whole Tallassee country, beginning far down
on the St. Mary's in the East and stretching all along the
line of the then Spanish province of East Florida clean to
the Chattahoochee in the West,-being that very Tallassee
country for the more easterly portion of which Gen. Clark
and Gen..Twigg,s, as we have heretofore seen, had at Galphinton in 1785, concluded a treaty with the Indians; a
treaty, however, which was not allowed to stand, having
been, as heretofore shown, overslaughed by the treaty of
New York inl 1790.
How important an extension of her jurisdictional limits
I
6 
MIDDLE GEORGIA.
the State was thus laid under obligations to Gen. Jackson
and his treaty of Fort Jackson for, those who are curious
to know may learn by consulting Early's map of Georgia
published in 1818, where the whole of this new extension
on our South is represented by one great blank space, not
having been at that date yet surveyed by the State and
laid off into counties or demarcations of any kind.
Georgia, by the ab:ve mentioned events, seeing herself
finally rid everywhere of the Creek Indians, began to turn
eager, impatient thoughts to her upper or Northern side
where the Cherokees inhabited, a people who had far outstripped all our other aboriginal tribes in the progress towards civilization, and whose extreme, immovable  attachment to their ancestral land seemed to place an insuperable
obstacle in the way of our ever acquiring it by peaceful or
humane means.  But here ag,ain the powerful aid of Gen.
Jackson was exerted in our favor, being rendered this time
in his character and functions as P1resident of the United
States.  Befire his iron will and inflexible policy, backed
by his despotic influence over Congress and the country, all
opposition ha(l to give way alike among the Indians and
that great mass of the Northern people by whom their cause
was espoused. It is now nearly forty years since, by the
consummation of his measures, the Cherokees were removed
to new homes beyond the Mississippi, and Georgia placed in
undisturbed possession of the fine country they left behind,
with all its mountains and vallies, its rich lands and mines,
its health-giving climate and waters, its charming diversified scenery and those great commanding advantages of geographical formation and position which make it the eternal
doorway and key between the Southern Atlantic and the
immense transmontane valley of the Mississippi.
SECTION II.
I have often thought, in these sad latter days, that it was
something to be thankful for to have lived in this period of
interesting progress and development of Georgia, and to
7 
have grown up witnessing, from childhood to manly age,
this inspiring expansion of my native land, of which one
effect surely was to impregn my  young  mind with a rich,
varied store of dearly cherished, ever-living memories concerning the State and what I have seen and known of her,
the value whereof, as a resource of mental comfort and luxury, I have begun to feel more sensibly as I grow older and
become more dependent for my enjoyments on the laid up
treasures and recollections of the past. The past is peculiarly the domain of old age, in which it loves to roamrn at
large, mustering up the dead whom it has known, reviving
bygone scenes and sights, thoughts and feelings, living over
again its departed manhood, youth and even childhood.
Alas!  to how few is such a second, retrospective life ever
accorded! And how obvious, too, that whether any and
what sort of enjoyment is to be derived therefrom, must depend, in the case of every individual, upon the nature and
character of that past through which he has traveled and by
which his mind has been, as it were, formed, peopled and
furnished. Happy is he who has a past on which he can
strongly draw and find amends for the sorrows and adversities of the present! To the young, ardent, hopeful; to the
active, sanguine seekers after pleasure, riches, honor; to the
favorites of fortune, who already rejoice in the possession or
assured attainment of their respective objects of desire, this
resource cannot be expected to appear in a very striking
light. But to the aged, whose active career is closed, whose
earthly hopes are ended, and who, moreover, lie prostrate
and helpless under the blows of fortune, it is a resource
second only to the consolations of religion and the conciousness of an upright life.
Among all the retrospects on which my mind has long
loved to dwell, retrospects, I mean, having relation to those
successive expansions and that progressive improvement of
my native State, which have, to a great extent, taken place
under my own eyes, as it were, there have been none so
dear and interesting as those which carry me back to the
8
MIDDLE GEORGIA. 
MIDDLE GEORGIA.
earlier and better days of Middle Georgia-that Middle
Georgia that was my birth place and has been my life-long
abode, and that, for long, long, years, was ever to me as a
large earthly paradise in which I always felt myself everywhere at home and in warm sympathy with every thing
aroundct me.  And it is still dear and precious to recall her
as she was in her primal period and high meridian, althotugh now her glory is gone and she scarce knows her
former self amidst the staring ruin and mournful depression
which have become her fate.
Striking, indeed was the spectacle as her fair, ample spaces
presented themselves to view in the several installments
of  their  acquisition  and  settlement:-At  the  first,
spreading out in all their unmarred primeval grandeur
and beauty, a vast and towering woodland scene, nature's
ancient, yet ever young, blooming work-then, passing in
turn one after another, from the deep night of barbarism in
which they had lain for unknown ages into the sudden light
and life of high civilization. Elating to witness at the time,
grateful to remember ever since, the successive expandings,
the triumphal unfoldings of Georgia in this, her rich middle
belt, her very zone of charms, as exulting she advanced
by bound after bound from East to West, high-strung, hardy,
laborious, "d(isdaining little delicacies," trampling down obstacles, disregarding hardships; subduing and transforming
rude nature, forests falling before her, the wilderness budding and blossoming as the rose at her touch, rich crops
springing up all around her, called forth by her industry
from the willing earth. It was the white man with the axe
and the plow, the hanmmer and the saw, and in all the array
and habiliments of civilization, superseding the Indian in
his hunting shirt and moccasins, with his tomahawk and
scalping knife and his bow and arrows. It was Ceres, with
her garland of golden sheaves, her basket and hoe and her
divine gait and air, putting an end to the reign of Pan and
the Satyrs. And no metamorphosis the world ever saw, or
fiction ever forged, was more beautiful, picturesque and lovely
9 
MIDDLE GEORGIA.
than the change that was wrought, and wrought, too, with
a magical ease and suddenness and on a largness of scale
that made the wonderful blend with the beautiful in the
successive panoramas that were presented.
It was a spectacle which will not occur again; it is one
of those things that has been seen for the last time; it will
never more be repeated. Nature exhausted and insolvent,
as it were, in this regard, has no more Middle Georgias, no
more beautiful, healthful, fertile, well wooded, well watered
Southern uplands to offer wild and inviolate as future cenquests to Southern industry and civilization; nor even if she
had, could the other requisite conditions ever be hoped for
again.  A  mighty, though unavowed revolution, settling
down firmly into permanent bad government, has rendered
them impossible. The maxims and polity of our fathers
have been discarded and in their stead a senseless, vindictive, prostitute Federal despotism now reigns.  Rioting and
rotting in low-minded splendor and profligacy, paralytic and
shrunken on its Southern side, plethoric and bloated on its
Northern, festering with corruption all over, it waves its
baleful sceptre over us inflicting on these "delightful pr( vinces of the Sun" a worse than Oriental fate. Already has
it succeeded in making us from the richest and most prosper ous people ill the world, the poorest and most helpless.
Already are its accursed effects widely seen and felt upon the
very soil and face of nature, which we behold rapidly relapsing
into uncultivated wastes and dwarf woods of second growth,
requiring a second clearing and reclamation from hard-work ing human hands. And how different a work it will be
whenever it shall come, from that which in bygone days an imated the hearts and hands of the sturdy pioneers of this
land in their original reclaiming of it from the wilderness.
How little hopeful, how little elevating and stimulating will
it be in comparison! Itow slow and thankless, how drag ging and unrewarding I And then besides, whence shall
come the bands to do it?  We have them not amongst us.
Our whole system of agricultural labor is disorganized and
10 
MIDDLE GEORGIA.
our laborers are not only demnoralized but they hug their demoralization to their bosoms as the cliefest boon of their
new found freed(lom. Nor is it strange to those who know
human nature, especially negro natuire, that it shlc)uld be so.
Is there, then, any relief which may be expected from abroad?
Is there any otter quarter to which we may reasonably look
for th( help and reinforcenment we need? None whatever.
And most especially never shall we again see such another
nmi,ration, such another transplanted civilization, as that
which of yore poured from the bosomrn of the mother of heroes
and statesmen at a most critical period into the lap of young
Georgia and grew with her growth and spread with her ex panding boundaries.
This train of thought brings the mind with force to what
is now and must long be to us the greatest and most momentous of questions.  Thie qties',ion, namely, of the renaissanceot Georgia. And first of all, is sheto have arenaissance?
Is the Phcenix ever to rise fromn its ashes?  Shall Georgia
ever emerge from her ruiniiiis? or is it to be her destiny and
that of her sisters of the South, to swell the long dismal catalogue of conquered States of ancient and modern times, that
have never risen fiom the blow that felled them, but continied to go down, down, till at length they reached a depth
where, hopeless of recovery, they have ever since lain and
seemingly will forever lie, wretched, submissive, debased,
under the horse's hloof, the despot's heel and the brigand's
knife?  If such shall not be our lot, it will not be because
fortune is our friend or all history is not against us, but it
will be because we shall work out our salvation from it by
mig,l-ty and persevering effort and self-denial. For it will
take both in full measure to rescue and save uis. Yes, if
such is not to be our and our children's lot, it will be because
deeply sensible ot the dreadfiil, impending future, we shall
gtl ourselves up like men to war argainstit at every point
and oy every means and witi al' tir strength of body, soul
and mind, resolve(l to know no rest, no ease, till fate shall be
11 
MIDDLE GEORGIA.
fairly conquered and chained to our car, and Georgia restored to honor, prosperity and greatness.
But let me not run before my work.  In due time, if
strength hold out equal to my task, this great question,
which constantly looms up to view, will be reached and here
and there handled as I may best be able. It is, indeed, a
question of al)palling magnitude and difficulty, but one,
nevertheless, from which we may not shrink, one towards
the auspl)icious solution of whicl, every son of Georgia, however humble, is bound to bring his mite of aid.
CIIAPTER II.
MIDDLE GEORGIA (continued) AND THE NEGRO.
Besides the very superior character of the country and the
first colonists and their descendants, there were other causes
that lent their aid to the rap)id p)eopling and improvement of
the several successive new Purchases, as they were called,
that from time to time accrued to Middle Georgia-from its
beginning at the acquisition of the original county of Wilkes,
down to its finishing enlargement by the second treaty of the
Indian Springs in 1825.  Noticeable among these causes was
the lucky length of the intervals of time that elapsed between the different Purchases, sufficient to enable each new
Purchase to become well peopled, prosperous and solidified
before it had to encounter competition for settlers with other
subsequently acquired Indian lands.  To which add the advantag,es each new Purchase enjoyed in its turn from its
immediate contiguity along its whole eastern side to older,
well advanced settlements; —also that each new acquisition
12 
MIDDLE GEORGIA.
as it came in its order, although not very small, was yet not
larger than was wanted for the fresh tide of immlig,ration that
was waiting, to flow into it, and did flow into it at once
and fill it up with an excellent population from the very
outset.
Furthermore, whilst adverting to these favoring causes,
let us not forget that capital ore-the humble, laborious,
unpaid hands by which most of the harsh, heavy work was
done, and without which such celerity of reclamation and
improvement would have been impossible. Let not the
poor negro and the important part performed by himh, be left
without special and in the phrase of the schools-honorable
mention.  Indeed not only in Middle Georgia in tile several
installments of its early settlement, but everywhere and at
all times in the S:)uth, he was most useful and assistant, and
justly acquired a hold more lasting than the relations out of
which it grew, on the kindly feelings of those whom  he
served so long, so loyally and so well.  How it is going to
be with Southern men and women a generation or two hence
and afterwards, cannot now be foreseen.   It may be that
they will get to be quite as dead and unsympathetic towards
the negro as the negroes themselves were wont of old to feel
that Northern men and womernei were in comparison with
those of the South. This undesirable result is certainly that
to which the new order of things seems to tend. But as for
us, who were born and bred in a better day and under more
propitious relations and influences than now prevail, such
deadness and want of sympathy may be pronounced irnpossible so long as the negro continues to deport himnself in his
new state of freedom no worse than he has thus far done, in
Georgia at least.  We would be narrow, nay! even little in
soul, if we did not look with large charity on the demoralization which the great shock and change through which he
has passed, have undoubtedly wrought in him. For alas!
are not the evidences thick around us of our having also undergone a demoralization not less great and signal, from the
mighty shock and change, to which we likewise, have been
I
I
i
13 
MIDDLE GEORGIA.
subjected.   Verily, kindness for the negro, a humane and
friendly feeling towards him, a true indescribable sympathy
with him, began with the lives, imbued the infancy and
childhood, ran on with the growing years of the present
generation of Southern men and women, and became so intimately entwined with their very natures as to be ineradicable except by his ownI egregious and incorrigible delinquency
and worthlessness. It is our true interest that he should do
well, and attain to a higher level in morals, merit and intelligence. Never shall we be disposed to underrate him, or to
withhold from him a generous credit for all that he shall
deserve in the future, any more than a just remembrance of
all he has done in the past.
He is emphatically the child of the Sun, born of his most
burning  rays, and  happily  framed to  live and  labor,
strengthen and exult under his fiercest glare, in the most
firery climes.   He is also eminently submissive, cheerfully
servile in his nature, and apt and docile in a high degree in
things that hold rather of the hand than of the mind. In
all respects he met our Southern agricultural and domestic
needs most admirably; and certainly among the great services he rendered us, that in which he was most important,
was the conquest of the forest and the subjugation of rude
nature to the axe, the plow or the hoe.   It is impossible to
look back on the immense amount of hard, heavy, valuable
work done by him in first opening the country for culture,
and afterwards as a life-long laborer in the very fields cleared by him, and then reverse the picture and gaze upon the
widespread ruin he was subsequently made the involuntary,
unwitting cause, (for he was the cause of the war and all its
consequences) of bringing upon the scenes of his previous
useful industry, without being painfully impressed in relation to him. How strikingly has it been his lot to be forced
to be in the beginning, a blessing, in the end a curse to us
and our land!   Yes! forced both in the one case and the
other. And now he has become a sore problem indeed; a
warring, unnatural, morbific element in society, incapable of
14 
MIDDLE GEORGIA.
assimilation with the body politic, upon which he has been
hitched, as it were, by sheer extraneous violence, and by
a tie quite as baleftil and criminal as that by which the fa  bled tyrant Mezentius, chained tLe bodies of the dead to
the living.   Can the living ever impart life and health to
the dead through a bond so revolting?   Will not the dead
rather impart their own death and  )utrifaction to the living?
And do they who, on the horrid maxim that there can be
nothing wrong towards the vanquished, have inflicted this
monstrous wrong on us and on human nature itself, and who
are still exulting over their helpless victims,-do they cheat
themselves with the idea that God is no longer julst, and that
the terrible curse of bad, wicked Government which they
have vindictively fastened on us'and our posterity, will not
react in some way on themselves and make them and theirs
writhe in long retributive agony under the eventual conse quences of their unprecedented crime?   For how can that
great mass of ignorance, depravity and shameless unfitness,
which they have clothed with the awful power of Government
throughout the South, be prevented from working its deadly
effects in National as well as in State affairs; from sending
corruption and ruin through the body politic of the Union, as
well as through those of its oppressed and outraged Southern
members?
Such is the appalling problem now before the whole couintry, and that must needs be worked out for everlasting weal
or woe in reference to the negro; whose mission upon earth,
whether viewed as he is and always has been in Africa, or as he
was and is in America, is truly one of the dreariest and most
impenetrable of the mysteries of God. Nor is it rendered the
less dreary and impenetrable by recent events in this great
nation. In no age of the world has he ever emerged from
barbarism and slavery on his own continent.   Hideous
land! where children are the slaves of their parents, and
daily sold by them into slavery to others, without a pang!
where every subject is the slave of his Prince or Chief,
legally saleable by him to any purchaser that comes or can
15 
MIDDLE GEORGIA.
be found, just like an ox or an elephant's tooth! Where
every man, woman and.child is liable at any moment to be
seized and sold into slavery, singly or in droves, by any horde
of robbers that can succeed in catching them by night or by
day, and where life is as little respected as liberty!
Such is the ne,gro's immemorial normal condition in
Africa.  And who shall say that Heaven in revealing the
American continent, did not design it as an asylum for him,
too, as well as for the European? But what sort of asylum,
and an asylum for him in what character? Not certainly
in that of a freeman, a citizen, a voter, an office-holder or
legislator, for all which he was wretchedly unfit, but as
an asylum for him in the character or status, which attached
to him in his own country, and in which alone he could be
anything but a nuisance in ours. And if he did not escape
entirely from the miseries and debasement of his African
condition by being brought to these Southern States and
planted here in his African status, he at least escaped from
them in large part and as far as he was worthy of escaping,
or as it was for his good to escape.  He exchanged a worse
and a barbarous for a better a civilized form of slavery, an
exchange which was at once a blessing to him, to us, and to
mankind, and to which he was not only indebted for a striking betterment of his condition, physical, moral, religious,
but for all of civilization and christianity he has ever attained. It is undeniable, that instead of being worsted and
debased by falling into our hands, his condition has been
ameliorated and his nature elevated. Under our beneficent
despotism, he was reclaimed from the grossest barbarism and
superstition and trained up to a degree of civilization and
religious culture from which it is yet uncertain whether the
gift offreedom will carry him up higher or drag him down lower.
Behold then what the Southern system of slavery has done
for the negro! And yet christendom has permitted itself to
be shocked and stultified in regard to it and to be kindled
into an insane rage against us because of our supposed inhuman and unchristian wrongs towards him. Strange
16 
MIDDLE GEORGIA.
inhumanity, which betters the condition of its victims!
Strange unchristianess which christianizes those on whom it
is practiced!
The South has a stake incomparably greater than all the
world besides in the tremendous experiment that has been,
by mere force of hostile arms, set on foot on her soil and
is now proceeding in her midst and at her sole cost, yet un  der a vindictive, unenlightened exterior guidance and direc tion.  It will be thie miracle of miracles if it succeeds.  If by
the blessing of Heaven, overruling the crilmes and folly of
men, such. miracle should happen, our dear Southern )and
mnay hope eventually to rise from her ruin, a new creation, a
veritable reconstruction, a true re-growthl of order, strength,
virtue and prosperity.  But should the experiment fail, St.
Domingo, Jamaica and sundry miserable, mestizo, anarchic
Republics of Spanish America have already supplied exam ples of what is to be our lasting doom.  Moreover, it' it fails,
the world will soon witness the beginning of a migni,hty reac tion on the whole subject of negro slavery.  The demonstra tion will then be deemed perfect of the negro's congenital
and hopeless unsuitableness for freedom, and men will re lapse everywhere into the old and for ages uncontroverted
opinion that slavery is the best and therefore a just condition
for him, and that is by far the most useful disposition that
can be made of him in reference to the general interests of
mankind. Again, over-crowded Europe and North America
will be compelled, a century or two hence, by that necessity
which is its own and only law, to turn wistful eyes towards
the vast tropical and semi-tropical wild(s of this continent,
and to ponder the question how they may  best be made
available for the habitation and sustenance of their redundant millions. And then in case the grand trial now proceeding here of the fitness of the negro for freedom, shall result
against him in the judgment of an enlightened, catholic
public opinion, negro slavery will rise up stronger than ever
in men's minds, and the negro aid will be once more invoked to solve the distressing problem of American and Europe
2
17 
MIDDLE GEORGIA.
an wants by a life of compulsory labor.   Compulsory, but
not incompensated or unregulated, it is to be hoped. For
there is no condition in society more admitting of regulation
and modification than slavery.   And  surely an intelligent
and healthy philanthrophy, aided by the growing wisdom
and experience of christendom, will be able to find means of
reconciling humanity and justice to the negro with his enforced civilization and usefulness in the world.
Why should nations have more bowels for the negro than
for their own people?  Is tenderness for their own citizens or
subjects a characteriistic of Governments when  it conflicts
with their policy, passions or ambition?   DL)o  they  not
at  their pleasure tear their own men  of youthiul and
middle ag,e away from poor old parents, from dependant
wives and children, and drive them at the point of the bayonet, into a military slavery, compared with which, that of
our by-gone cotton and tobacco fields and rice and sugar
plantations mnight well be hailed as an Ely.sium?   And do
they not pitilessly force them into the front ranks of battle
as "food for gun powder,"whilst the magnates and leaders for
whom they are mangled and butchered, and to whom all the
fruits of their immolation are to enure, skulk at home or far
in the rear, safe contemplators of the scene?   And if from
actual war and its perils they chance to come out with their
lives, what is then their fate?   They are either kept under
arms still as engines of tyranny over their own countrymen
in times of peace, or they are sent back to their homes and
beggared firesides to encounter squalid poverty and grinding
taxation. Such is the treatment by all nations of their own
people when they chose to call for their service as soldiers.
With this more than analogous case, so unanswerable and
so suggestive, constantly before our eyes, it is certainly
not very illogical to suppose that the time will return when
the negro will be forced to work as well as the soldier to
fight, if he will not.workl otherwise, particularly in climes
under whose fervid suns, he and he alone has been constituted by the  Almigihty capable of the perennial  labor
I
I
18 
MIDDLE GEORGIA.
which a state of civilization and civilized agriculture alike
require. How monstrous, that cultivated and christian
men throughout all christian nations should be continually
subjected, by millions on millions, to be sacrificed, brutalized
and demonized by a horrid sevitutide in the bloody trade of
war, and that at the same time and in the same nations, the
slaves and savages of Africa should be the pets of a fatuous
philanthrophy which cries out against their being made to
submit to a system of labor and discipline humane and be neficent, civilizing and christianizing in its chlaracter and
effects?
For the present, however, and for a long time to come, if
ever, it is quite impossible to hope that the negro's useful ness amongl us, as compared with former times, can be re stored. His fiuture, as well as our own, is involved in dark ness and anxiety. Fortunate will it be for his posterity
and ours, if any length of years shall ever bring about mu tual relations as favorable for both sides as those which war
has destroyed. Thie same state of relations can never,
should never be attempted to be established again. Their
attempted re-establishment would lead to a shock and ruin
even worse than that which has been the result of their sudden and forcible destruction. All we can do is to wait for
time and circumstances, to enable us from the present
ruin to work out the best possible reconstruction for the
remote future. In the meantime, the mind cannot help recurring often, especially when in its mournful moods, to our
never-to-be-repeated Past, a Past that was in its day grievously misunderstood  by  the  outside  world, and which
abounded in many things that will long be cherished as
pleasant remembrances, as well by the negro as by the white
man, among which there will be none more pleasant than
those connected with their commingled life and labors in the
several new settlements, by which from time to time Middle
Georgia was by successive leaps expanded and developed
into her full richness and beauty.
19 
MIDDLE GEORGIA AND LAND LOTTERY.
CHAPTER III.
MIDDLE GEORGIA (continued) AND THE LAND
LOTTERY SYSTEM.
But not only was it the negro and the other ca'uses I have
noticed that imparted extraordinary animation and impulse
to the new settlements in Middle Georgia in their infancy.
Nay, say not in their infancy, for infancy except in its better
and lovelier sense, they never had.  They burst forth full
grown, panoplie( and almost perfect from their very birth.
This interesting truth I had long and large opportunities of
personrally observing and knowing.  From the time I was
a small boy, I was much in Putnam county on visits to relations, who had moved thither from Hancock.  Putnam was
then but a few years old and I continued to be a frequent
visitor there throughout my boyhood, youth and early manhood, enjoying all the time the best means of seeing and
observing. Indeed, the last half of the year 1818, I lived
in Eatonton, then one of the most beautiful, flourishing and
refined up-country towns the State ever boasted, with a classical Academy of the highest order and an overwhelming
patronage, at the head of which was Dr. Alonzo Church,
subsequently for many years President of Franklin College.
At the same time there was a Young Ladies Academy of not
less repute and merit. As a seat of education Eatonton was
at that date second only to Mt. Zion in Hancock, the renowned Seminary of that extraordinary man, the Elder Beman-Franklin College, which had gone down during the
war of 1812, under the Presidency of Dr. Brown, being now
again in a state of utter collapse, which lasted some two
years, consequent upon the death, in 1817, of the new Pres
20 
~MIDDLE GkORGIA AND LAND LOTTERY.
MIDDLE GEORGIA AND LAND LOTTERY.
ident, the long and deeply lamented Dr. Finley. In my
after years I have often thoughtfully recalled all I ever saw
or knew of Putnam county, from my earliest to my latest
acquaintance and observation there, and compared the coun ty and p)eol)le as known to me fiom first to last with what I
have seen and known of the best agricultural districts and
populations in and out of Georgia, and I can aver that if in
all the characteristics of a sterling civilization, Putnam
county ever had a novitiate or minority, it had passed away
and all traces of it had vanished before my knowledge of her
commenced.  And what was true of l'utnam was equally so
of muchl the la,rger portions of Baldwin, Jones, Jasper and
Morgan, for they had like advantages of soil, climate, &c.,
with Putnam and a like superior population of first settlers.
Again, the settlement of Monroe county and the country between the Ocmulgee and Flint rivers, began in 1822, having
been acquired from the Indians the year before by the first
treaty at the Indian Springs.  In the beginning of 1827, I
transferred my residence to Monroe, as a centre for the practice of my ) profession, and soon became well acquainted with
the people, the county and all pertaining to them.  I was
greatly struck.  I had seen by this time a good deal of the
world, both in the North and the South, and was qualified
to make comparisons and I could not get over my admiration
of the growth and advancement of Monroe county. Such,
indeed, was already her advancment that there was no room
left for further progress except in clearing more land and
gradually substituting fine framed and painted houses fi)r
the not less commodious log- structures, which are necessarily the earliest style of building in all new countries. She
had already a very dense population of the very best character, with the smallest possible admixture of bad or inferior
elements. She had, too, plenty of well built churches of
ample size, at convenient points throughout the courfty, and
a stated ministry and retgular services and a full attendance
of worshipers in every church. Good schools, likewise, she
had in every neighborhood, and he who attended the gath
21 
NfMIDDLE GEORGIA AND LAND LOTTERY.
erings of her people at churches, military reviews, elections
and other public occasions, or saw them as a friend, visitor
or stranger, in the sacred precincts of their homnes, could not
help being impressed with their moral worth and tone, their
manifest respectability and intelligence, as well as their obvious worldly thrift, industry and prosperity. What is thus
said of Monroe was apl)icable also to the surrounding new
counties though not in altogether so strong a degree. For
Monroe was considered the crack county of that Purchase.
And now lastly, 1827 was the first year of the settlement of
the then new territory between the Flint and Chattahoochee,
and from that time I took my semi-annual rounds for several
years in the practice of law through a number of new counties and I can affirm from thorough personal observation
that Troup, Meriwether, Coweta, Harris, Talbot and Muscogee never knew a low, coarse, or rude state of society.  They
stood from the very outset fully abreast with the best portions of the State in all those things which constitute the
pride and glory, the lovliness and charm of virtuous and
flourishing agricultural communities.   How could it have
been otherwise? Their immigration was mainly from the
finest parts of the State, homogeneous, and composed of people equal in wealth, culture and all other advantages to the
best whom they left behind, just as had been the case with
the first settlers of the several preceding new Purchlases further East. Families of substance and even of affluence, of
the highest standing, accustomed to all that is desirable in
life, to all that wealth, education and their adjuncts could
bring, sold out and quit their old homes and hied to the
new virgin wilds with absolute alacrity and enjoyment.
And why? Because they knew beforehand amongst what
sort and how superior a sort of people they would at once
find themselves in their new locations, and that all the advantages and blessings of the older settlements they were
leaving would be without delay transplanted along with
them. Moreover, and it was an important item in the case,
they went attended( by their happy gangs of hardy negroes,
22 
MIDDLE GEORGIA AND LAND LOTTERY.
their faithful, trained servants of the field and fireside, who
quite unconscious themselves of the much exaggerated hard ships and discomiforts of a new country, were certainly a
means of n making them  unfelt by their masters and mis tresses and by those whom they were aplt to love still more,
their young masters and young mistresses.
But I must bid adieu to this seductive digression into
which I have rather abruptly fallen at the moment when  I
was al)pproaching another topic of a very different nature and
which I must not allow myself to neglect. I allude to the
Land Lottery System, a device for converting public lands
into private ownership, so novel, peculiar and curious and
so full, besides, of practical consequences, that it would be
a capital omission not to notice it treating of the original
peopling of the trans-Oconee country. For it was there the
system had its origin early in the present century, being
first applied by an Act of the Legislature in the year ]1803 to
the then new Purchase, being the first beyond the Oconee,
from whence it was afterwards extended to all our subseqilent territorial acquisitions wherever situated, as they from
time to time came to hand. And, as it so happened that
none of them were East of the Oconee, that river thus became, in addition to its other historical pretensions, the
dividing line forever along its whole length between the
portions of the State organized and settled under this new
system and those peopled under the old Itead Right mode.
All East of the Oconee is Hiead Right, all West Land Lottery.
Why the old mode so long in use in Georgia and everywhere
else in Anglo-America, was abandoned by our fathers and
the plan of the Land Lottery adopted in its stead, is certainly an interesting question, and one the answer to which
will, in all likelihood, be wholly lost in a few generations
more. F1or contemporaneous history has, I believe, overlookled the matter as beneath its dignity, nor do I know that
there is any account of the reasons to be found any where on
record or in print. Yet tradition has preserved them thus
far, and those who will search among the peculiar circum
I
211
0 
MIDDLE GEORGIA AND LAND LOTTERY.
stances which occurred in Georgia during the last years of
the last century, will find in them also a clear solution of the
novelty-for novelty our Lfan(d Lottery systemi undoubtedly
was.  None greater and more striking has ever occurred in
the polity of any country, in regard to its public lands.  It
was a thing wholly new under the sun.  No precedent for it
existed on all the files of the past. There was not any
where the shadow of a likeness to it, nothing analagous
even. Georgia originated and contrived it out of whole cloth,
and at once it acquired a strong popularity here which it
never lost. And yet no favor or following out of Georgia
did it ever find. It was never copied or imitated anywhere
else, consequently as soon as the.State's public domain was
exhausted and no more lands remained to be distributed, the
invention died out at once right here on the spot of its birth,
and is now laid away forever among the innumerable bygone things interesting and important in their day, but
which are never more to be repeated or seen.
In some respects the two systems of Head Rights and the
Land Lottery, were not unlike. In both the aim was not
the enrichment of the treasury so much as the rapid settling
and development of the country. Having this main object
in view, they both regarded the public domain in the light
of a great fund to be distributed in free gifts or allotments of
land among the people.  It was in the mode of effecting this
distribution that their difference consisted.   The manner
under the Head Right System was, to treat the whole country
as one great blank, open to free competition, under the rule
that the first comers should be first served and all served in
the order of their coming. The process accordingly was to
issue to individual applicants, upon their paying certain of fice fees and also sometimes an almost nominal price for
the lands, certain authentic documents variously entitled
Head Rights, Land Warrants or Warrants of Survey,  by
locating which on any particular lands, such individual ap )licants become the owners of those lands and entitled to
have a grant issued by the State therefor, provided no body
24 
MIDDLE GEORGIA AND LAND LOTTERY.
else had already taken up and appropriated the same land.
This mode, however, though so univers;al, was always liable
to considerable objections. UJnder it land titles were miuch
exposed to difficulties and litigation by reason of the same
surface being, often covered an(d always being more or less in
danger of being covered by conflicting Warrants or Head
Rights in favor of divers persons.  And this danger was
everywhere greater in proportion as the lands were more desirable and more sought after.  Also the poorer and less attractive lands would be neglected and very slowly taken utip,
so that from both causes coibined, the country was very apt
to become in the richer localities, a hot be(l of law suits and
conflicting claims, and, in the poorer,,i confused patchwork
of appropriated andi unappropl)riated or vacant lands, which
would eventuate in nmaking it difficult to know and pick out
what was vacant from what was not vacant.    1Moreover, to
the great manjority of people, especially widows, orphlans,
unmarriedt women and to the very poor generally, it was
not only onerous btut next to impossible to make the persornal explorattionsr,, without which the right to take out and
locate Head Rights  was almost worthless.  To all which
if we aild the frequent errors, inaccuracies and abuses growing out of an ill-contrived, incompetent and untrustworthy official machinery, we beholdl a formidable'mnass of evils the
tendency of whlich was to obstruct settlement and throw the
best lands into the hands of speculators and the rich and
crafty, to the exclusion of a class who were by far the most
proper objects of public bounty.
It was, however, much less as an escape from these long
familiar and therefore not much regarded evils, than as a
violent, virtuous, indignant reaction against two huge, new
fangled villainies, which were still recent and in their intensest odium, that the Land Lottery system first suggested
itself in Georgia, and found  universal favor,  and was
adopted, and p)(ermanently I)ursued by the State in prefer(rice to a,ll other modes of disposing of her public lands.
These two gireat villtirnies were the Pine Barren Specula
25 
26          MIDDLE GEORGIA AND LAND LOTTERY.
tioni of 1794-5, and thie Yazoo Fraudl of the same era.  Incensed to the higiest (,degree by these two monstrous  iniqliities practised it)o1I the lIor(iol and l)ro)crty of the State,
whereby or,ganized bands of corrupt anrd corrupting sleculators were enabled to cheat, swindle and nmake profit to the
tune ef' millions,-the honest, outraged people of Georgia
resolved that in all subsequent dispositions of their public
lands they would sacrifice all other objects to the paramnouint
one of closing every door and providing every security
against the fiuture perpetration of such like, or any other
land frauds or villainies.  Out of this eeliTng so honorable
and redeeming to the State, was born the Land LIottery
System.  Under it the public lands, as they were from time
to time freed from Indian occupaney, were at public cost surveyed into small lots of uniform size, and marked, nium
bered and mapped, and the whole returned to the Surveyor
General's Office, from whence by commissioners chosen by
the Legislature for the purpose, the State caused all the lots
to be thrown into the Lottery wheel, and to become fortune's
,-ifts as well as her own to her people.
By this course it is obvious, every temptation and means
for the practice of fraud and corruption was taken away.
For who was going to bribe-the members of the Legislature
or other public functionaries, high or low, when it was rendered utterly impossible by the very system adopted, for the
corruptor to make or secure anything by means of the bribery?  Who would ever think of bribing surveyors to measure or mark lots falsely or make forged or fictitious returns
of surveys, when nobody could possibly know or foresee to
whom any particular lots would be drawn, in the coming
lottery?   And how could speculators, single or combined,
practice frauds upon the State, in regard to the lands, where
every lot of land had already passed out of the State into private ownership, before it could become an object of speculation?
In addition to all which it was a high recommendation of
the system that it gave to all, the poor as well as the rich,
to the feeble as well as the strong,r, to women as well as to
men, and to widows and to orphans, an equal and fair 
THiE PINE MOUNTAIN.
chance.  It also gave instantly to every lot of land, an owner
with an unquestionabl)le title, and by this means, and by
preventing, tile a-cumnilation of large bodies of land in the
hands of speculative individuals and companies, it promoted
greatly the rapid settlement and impl)rovement of the new regions, beyond any othefr system that could lihave been devised.
CHAPTER IV.
THE PINE MOUNTAIN.
Nature, when shie drew near the completion of Middle
Georgia,  ere she put her finishing hand to the work, paused'
and said: What, shall be the last touch? What crowning
gift shall I bestow?  Whlat impress set that shall never become  coinmonplace?   What  proud, striking feature call
forth on this Westernmost expanse that shall make it unique
amonlg the Midlands of the South, a charm and a glo,ry to all
beholders and thlrough all time?
And she said I will give it a mountain, a mountain where
mountains are not wont to be; a mountain, too, rich in
precious inner treasures as well as in charms attractive to the
eye. And as she spake, Behold! Earth heaved and the Pine
Mountain uprose in modest grandeur and beauty, adorned
as to its umbrageous sides and fertile, close clinging valleys
and breezy cerulean sumnmits, not only with pines, but with
other trees also unnumerable.   Far down to the South, it
uprose in lonely loveliness and isolation, further down, and
nearer to the sea, by more than one hundred miles, than
any other mountain, or mountain knob, or outlier.   And
at its Eastern end, nature allowed a little river, the first
that turned away from the Atlantic slope and went to
woo the blue waters of the Gulf, to pierce its yet unlarden
i
27 
THE PINE MOUNTAIN.
ed mass, and to seek the sea in a straight, onward course
through its disruptedl sides.   Bilt a. the young miountainu
grew towards the WVest, it grew also compl)act and rockribbed.  It swelled out larger and towered lip higher, and
at length after stretching away for some fifty miles, became
too strong for even the mighty Chattahoochee, child of the
eternal Alleghanies, fo-rcin,, the irmipetuous river to bend
conquered around its Western base, anid to go fretting, foaming, writhing, tumbling over many a mile of rocky, unrelenting ral)ids down to where Columrnbus sits in long waiting
at the foot of those first falls and all their vast water power.
But mourn not, fatir Coweta,* d(au,ghter of the ever-roaring,
soul-attuning, waters! Nor let tlivh firm  heart fail thee niuder the trying fortunes that have been thy lot! How often
does time justify bright dreams whose fillfillment has been
long  deftyfrled!  And  mav it not  be  in  coming  years
when   haply  redundant  capital  flowing  thither  from
afar shall become  wedded by ties  tight and strong  to
hungry labor in our new-ordered South as already in other
lands, that those  who shall then roamn the green  earth
shall see thy long river staircase, from Columbus to
West Point, one climbing street of pallatian mills, from
whose lofty windows toward that street's utpper end, the
caged opeiatives will often look out and regale their eyes
and hearts with the ever fresh aerial beauty of the Pine
Mountain.   Most probably, however, ere that great spectacle shall present itself, it will have for its forerunner,
another hardly less inspiring, though of a very different
sort.  Around that Tnountain with its naturally fine circumjacent lands, its gushing wealth of pure healthfifl waters,
and its delicious, salubrious climate, it has occurred to me
that earlier perhaps than any where else in the old cotton
belt proper of the State, there will be more and more seen a
white pol)pulation in filll, manly, working harmony with the
new condition of things with  which  the Southern people
have to grapple; a white population that will know no
*]ndianl name of the site of ColutnbuLs and the iFalls of the Chatt;ahtioochee.
28 
THE PINE MOUNTAIN.
shrinking from rough, hard, rural toil, fromn daily labor in
the field throughout the day, throughout the year, under
summer and autumnal, as well as u(nder wintry and vernal
suns; a io)(-)pulation, consequently, which will be freed from
dependence on the negro; and under whose superior iindustry and nanagenment, that fair region will be ma(de to respond Jully to its great natural advantages and to become a
fit ornate setting to the central mountain,gem which it encircles.
Of the various routes, two on the Lastern side of Flint
river and five between the Flint and( Chattahooclhee, by
which I had occasion to cross the Pine Nfountain in old
times when it was yet an interesting novelty,  most of
themn being at points of great depression, such as the roads
usually seek, presented no very striking views or otheri interesting features of scenery; and indeed the very sight of
the  mountain itself was hidden  from  the  ap)proaching
traveler in'hose days, by the thick tall forests which everywhere environed it, so that the first notice of being near it
was the actual climbing, of its sides. I nmust, however, make
an exception, here, of the direct route between Hamilton
and LaGrange, which was first opened some forty-five or six
years ago, to supersede the old roundabout way by King's
Gap. This new road struck the mountain some few miles
north-west from Hamilton, and by a gentle sidling ascent,
rose gradually above the continually expanding campaign
below, of which the rider on horseback caughlt  glimpses
larger and larger through  the surrotunding trees, which
grew thinner and freer from undergrowth as hlie ascended.
Thus he was well prepared, by the time he reached the
crest of the mountain, lo turn his hoise's head to the South
and stand at gaze.  It was but for a few mom.ents, however,
that he would thus stand, for quickly he saw that he was at
the most depressed point of that narrow crest and that it
stretched away westwardly by a rapid, smooth ascent over
a bare, gravelly surface, with a thin growth of mountain
oaks inviting the horseman by its openness.  After follow
29 
THE PINE MOUNTAIN.
ing this ascent for a few hundred yards, again he stood at
gaze, and was satisfied not to stir another step   A fair,
vast, uniform scene, which the axe had not yet percep)tibly
mnarred, was embraced at once by the eye, above all blue,
below all green, the intermediate ether filled from  Heaven
to Earth with a profusion of intense summer sunlilght, one
single ray of which would suffice to illuminate the World.*
Away beyond Flint river on the East and beyond the Chattahoochee on the West, the hills rose to meet the kiss of the
bending skies. Not so toward the South, not so towards
the fierce clime beneath which the great American Mediterranean rolls. There the green earth declined lower and
lower in the distance and salnk away more and more in lovely maiden withdrawal from the stooping Heavens, which at
length when the strained eye could reach no fiurther, descended curtain-like to the low-lying emerald expanse, shutting out from view all beyond.
On turning to the North, the contrast was very striking.
Whereas to the South the country sloped away in a long,
interminable, inclined plain till it reached the sea, on the
Northern side it rose rapidly as it receded, the rivers and all
their tributary streams running downward toward the
mountain. Hence the prospect in that direction was soon
shut in and bore no comparison with the view on the Southern side.
* I should not have thought of using this very strong expression, but for my
vivid recollection of the total eclipse of the sun in November,  1834.  I stood
watching for the instant of entire obscuration.  It lasted but for a moment.
The very next moment a single ray shot from the sun to the earth through
the darkness, fine as the finest thread, intensely luminous and visible throughout
the whole ninety-five millions of miles of length. It literally illuminated the
world, for it fell on every eye and alighted on every object. The next instant
a pencil of rays shot out, but it only created a greater not a more positive or
striking illumination.   To not more than one in many millions of men, is it
given ever to see a total eclipse of the sun; partly because it is a thing that so
rarely occurs, partly because when it does occur, it is visible on so small a portion of the earth's surface.   Well is the Astronomical Author of the American
Almanac for the year 1834, justified in pronouncing it "the most magnificent
and sublime of the phenomena of nature, compared with which Niagara sinks
into mediocrity." 
THE PINE MOUNTAIN.
But what was done by niiature for the Pine Mountain was
not all external. Deep within its bowels she is and ever
has been busy in mysterious workings.  There she has
established her wonderful hidden laboratories:  At the chliefest of which no chymic hand save her own mixes and medicates the inimitable waters of the Nleriwether Warm Springs,
bursting in a lavish, chrystal sluice from  the Miountain's
Northern side.  No fires but of her kindling, have kept them
through ages at the same exact happy temperature, delicious
and healthful for batiintg, and it is said, too, medicinal for
drinking.  Had such waters been found in any of the mnountains around ancient Rome, marble acqueducts would bhaLve
conveyed them to imperial palaces, marble bathing apartments would have welcomed them as they came gushi,ng.
There is nothing elsewhere, I have often heard it said, coinparable to the delicate, exquisite luxury they afford.  Certainly my own experience tallies with this belief, nor can I
conceive of anything superior. But then they are the only
Warm Springs that I have ever visited. The climate is
worthy of the waters and the site and scenery worthy of
both.  In Ante Bellum times it was a place of great resort,
thronged by the best company, ard so it will be again if ever
there shall be again money  antd means at the South for
pleasuring, and if our people shall be wise and Southern
enough to spend their means within their own borders, and
thus help towards adding the adornments and attractions of
art to the beauties and blessings by which nature appeals to
us to stay at home and cherish our own household gods.
How much better would this be on the part of the fortunate,
prosperous few among us than gadding abroad to empty
their pockets and air themselves, their silks and felts at the
North to the annual contemptious admiration of our conquerors, robbers, oppressors there "that some of the rebels
should have some money left yet for summerflaunting and show
after all." To your tents, oh! Israel! To your own summer resorts if a summering you go, even though you should
have nothing there better than tents or log cabins to shelter
31 
THE PINE MOUNTAIN.
you! The matrons and maidens of the Souith whom the
war left poor but heroines and patriots forever, stand ready
to settle this point arighlt for you.  To their husbands
fathers, brothers they exclaim, if we have money to spend,
let it be spent here at home where it will help) to sustain and
cheer our own stricken Southern land.
But hereabouts and not far off are to be seen other kindred
displays of nature's liberality to the Pine Mountain.  Mindfiil of the Southern liver, often a prey to malaria, she has
considerately imbedded some where in the mountain somewhat or muchwhat of brimstone and taught her purest waters to percolate there and to tarry long enough to becotie
iinpregned with its virtues and then a little way off to the
North to bubb)le up in the VWhite Stl)phuLr Spring-a resort
dear in former times to the hepatic and to staid, quiet people.
Nor was she liuthoughtfitil of those who, victims of no
malady, might merely wish to spend a summer vacation in
relaxation and gaiety, and laying up a stock of fine health
fol the future.   Behold for these, in a sweet valley to the
South, the famed Chalybeate Spring renowned for its tonic
properties. Where lie the great subterranean iron ore beds
fromn which the generous fountain distills and draws its
strength, none can tell, save that they are deep hidden in
the mountain's hard bosom, safe there from the miner's pick
and the vagrant enterprise of searchers after "Mineral Riches." And none need fear as long as that mountain shall
stand, that these its happily ferruginated waters will ever
fail, or lose aught of their health giving efficacy.
Nature's rich dowry to the Pine Mountain is yet further
augmented by another mineral spring which it has never
been my fortune to visit, but which from all I have ever
heard, ought not to be forgotten in an inventory of its
wealth. It is the Oak Mountain Spring, so called from a
neighboring, spur or projection of that name from the main
mountain range.  Owing, it is said, to the neglect of the
owner of the land to make or promote the making of' provision for the entertainment and accomodation of visitors, this
32 
THE  INM33
spring has hitherto been little known, being frequented only
by those who are willing and able to erect accommodations
and provide in all respects lor themselves. And yet in spite
of this drawback, its waters have acquired a high reputation
with the few that know them, foreshadowing a wide celebrity and a thronged patronage whenever they shall fall
underI a propitious mnanagement.   They have never been analyzed, and consequently their qualities are vouched for by
no chemical tests, and the warm praises and satisfactory experieince of all who have ever given them a trial must be
accepted for the p)resentas the only ceirtificates of their merit.
Cross we now Flint river friolu the West, and two or
three miles from its Eastern bank, in what was forty years
ago a wild sequestered glen of the mountain, close by the
side of a little rivulet, we encounter the greatest natural curiosity of all, the greatest not only in this region, bu)t the
greatest and most interesting it has ever happened to mie to
see in Georgia or anywhere else.  It is the Thundering
Spring, a boiling, uprushling column, six feet in diameter
of purest water and finest sand intermixed.  The column on
reaching the top of its deep cylindrical well overflows in a
ceaseless flood on the side next to the rivulet and runs into
it. So forceful is its upward rush that no dead or living
thing, animal or vegetable, nothing lighter than stone or
metal, can conquer it and go down. It is a wondrous Nature's bath, the bather being doubly laved, water-washed
and sand-washed at the same time, treated over his whole
body to an exquisite, healthful cutaneous friction far surpassing all the appliances of hygene or "adulteries of art;"
-bobbing perpendicularly up and down in the water meanwhile, incapable and fearless of sinking.  Upon first leaping into it, a man goes strai,ght down under the water for
an instant, and then pops straight back up) to the surface
again, like a submerged cork, and there floats at ease breast
high out of the water, gamnboling mermaid-like  as long
as he pleases.  No bottom up to the time of mIy visit had
ever been found to this unparagoned well, nor had it ever
3
T]IIE PINE MOUNTAIN. 
THE PINE MOUNTAIN.
been at all ascertained that it had any other or more solid
bottom than the seemingly inexhaustible and conseqleuently
interminably deep, loose, quicksands which it was forever
bringing to the top and discharging  along with its waters
into the adjoining rivulet.
Of c(ourse, the hydrostatic principle which caused and
perpetuates this spring in all its up-shooting vehemence is
simple and obvious. But where shall we look for such another exemplification of that principle?   Not  certainly
on the Atlantic side of North America. Nor have I ever
heard of its match anywhere in the great  trans-montane
"unknown" of the Pacific slope.   I can recall nothing of
which I ever heard or read that is a match for it except the
Geysers of Iceland, and they are beyond doubt an over
match.
It is a thing that strikes the contemplative mind at once
curiously and pleasantly that Nature should have passed by
all the greater mountains and reserved thisi wonder of hers
for one so petty and unimportant in compeliison as the Pine
Mountain.   Some where in its upper strata she saw fit to
construct in preference to all other places, her mighty reservoirs and to keep them perpetually filled with that ponderous mass of waters whose downward pressure forcing them
along through some  narrow,  strong-walled subterranean
passage, they came at last against the quicksands of this
spot, where their further underground course being arrested
by unknown obstacles, they burst their way suddenly and
violently through the loose, overlying sands up to the
Earth's surface and to the light of the sun and the wondering eyes of men.
The name of Thundering Spring is supposed to have been
bestowed by the Indians whose exquisite sense of hearing
doubtless caught sometimes the sound of the surging waters as they raved and boiled in their sandy depths. But
its thunders have now long been silent or at least unheard,
unable to penetrate and awaken the dull ear of Civilization.
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34
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KING S GAP.   KING'S TRAILS.
CHAPTER V.
KING'S GAP —KING'S TRAII,S.
King's Gap in the Pine Mountain, a few miles above
Hamilton in Harris county, on the road to Greenville, is the
last memento now remaining of a set of Indian Trails of t]iat
name that in Indian times perforated in variolus directions
the upper part of the region between the Flint and Chattahoochee and, I feel certain, also of a much larger scope of
the Creek Territory to the East, South and West. I first
visited the country North of the Pine Mountain, in the
Spring of 1827, when the Indians had just left and civilized
settlement was just beginning. Carried by business, I crossed Flint river at Gray's ferry not much above the Mountain
and took what had been King's Trail, but which by that
time had been widened into a rude wagon road by the new
settlers having chopped away a few bushes along its sides
It conducted me to a place called Weavers, the temporary
seat of Justice for Troup county, which originally extended
from river to river. Having delivered to the newly elected
but yet uncommissioned Clerk of the Superior Court, my
client's Informations against sundry lots of land charged to
have been fraudulently drawn in the then recent Land Lottery, I enquired how I could get to Bullsb)oro, the just
chosen judicial site of Coweta county, where I had similar
business. Nobody could tell. Luckily the newly elected
sheriff arrived at this juncture to learn whether his commission had yet come from Milledgeville. He told me there
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36               KrNG'S GAP.  KING'S TRAILS.
was no road to Bullsboro and that my best way would be to
go home with him, on the Western side of the county, and to
take a trail the next morning that ran up the Chattahoochee.
Ithanked him and went with him, resuming the same King's
Trail fly which I had come from Flint river and which struck
the Chattahoochee at what is now West Point. Nor did it stop
there, for seven years afterwards, in 1834, when the Indians
were yet in the Alabl)ama part of their country, I traveled
along the continuation of this same trail, a lone horseman,
from West Point to Tallasee at thl)e foot of the first falls of
the Tallapossa river, from whence the trail still continued,
passing through Tuckabatchlee, the Creek Capital and famed
seat of' the Big Warrior, and extending from thence to the
old French Fort Toulouse, afterwards Fort Jackson, and also
to Little Talasee, the still more famous seat of the renowned
MIcGillivrav.
The next morning nay Sheriff-Host refusing everything but
my thanks for his hospitality, told me I had nothing to do
but to take another King's trail which he directed me how
to find at no great distance from his house, and to follow it
up the river some twenty or twenty-five miles, when I must
begin to look out for some route striking into the interior of
the county of Coweta. He knew there was such a route, but
not how far off it was.   I soon found myself in this second
King's Trail ascending the country, and as I jogged along in
the little, narrow, well defined path, just wide enough for a
single footman or horseman, and along which no bush had
ever been cut away, no wheel had ever rolled, King's Trail
began to be a study to me, and I began to wonder what
great Indian trader, of whom I had never heard, was great
enough to have given his name not to one Indian trail only,
but to two.
At first I could not help feeling some misgiving as to the
persistent continuity of my little path, and dreaded lest it
might give out or in the phrase of the new settlers "take a
sapling" and leave me alone in the trackless woods; and
once indeed, when the day was pretty far advanced, it seemed 
KING'S GAP.  KING'S TRAILS.
to divide, and both tracks were so dim that I was in
doubt which to take.  But clinging almost instinctively to
the Western or river side, I soon found myself riding along
the bank of a considerable water course which I felt no
pleasure at the prospect of having to ford. While this anxiety was yet strong upon me, suddenly the trail plunged
into a piece of rich bottom land, evidently an old( Indian
clearing, now, however, grown up into a very dense thicket
of yoing, trees and clustering vines which  overarched and
darkened the narrow way.   But still the little path continnied distinct and unobstructed, and when I was expecting
every moment to come where I should be obliged to risk
fording the stream, behold! I began to ascend a hill, and
it g(rew lighter and lighter and soon I was on a clear open
hill-top with the shining waters of the Chattahoochee, flashing in the sunlig,ht before me and a plain open road inviting me, leading eastwardly from the river. Few contrasts
have I ever encountered in my life more thrilling and joyous
than the almost instantaneous transition from that dark
thicket to this bright scene. It was Graysori's Landing, on
which I stood, as I not long afterwards learned-a place
much noted in old times as a crossing in the Indian trade.*
It took its name from Grayson, a Scotchman, who was a.
great Indian trader eighty or ninety years ago, and whose
name sometimes occurs in the American State papers on Indian Affairs.  He trafficked andtraveled and livedamong the
Indians until becoming rich and attached to them, he ended
by taking an Indian wife and settling down permanently in
the Indian country at the Hillabee towns, some distance to
the West or South-west from this point on the Chattahoochee. At these towns it was, if I remember aright, that
Col. Willet unexpectedly first met McGillivray in his great
Mission as Washington's confidential agent in 1790.   It
*Grayson's Landing is now, I have heard, not quite so noted a crossing as in
old Indian times, though it is still a crossing, under the name of Philpot's
Ferry,in Heard County, just below the mouth of New River, which is the
identical river, then certainly entirely new to me, that I so much dreaded to
ford in the spring of 18S27,
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KING'S GAP.  KING'S TRAILS.
was also through these same towns and along the trading
route that led from them to the river at Grayson's Landing,
and from thence onward by the way of the Stone Mountain
to the Savannah river, keeping all the while within the Indian Territory, (for Georgia and the Creeks were then  at
war) that Col. Willet soon after escorted the great ambassadoiial cavalcade of Creek Chiefs to New York, headed by
McGillivray himself, the Sovereign Chief.
As I paused for a while on the beautiful overlooking hill
that sloped down to the river bank, gazing around and
breathing freer, I little thought on what historic ground I was
standing, or that the Eastwardly road, the sight of which
was still making my heart leap, was only a very modern
widening of still another King's Trail-a fact I learned subsequently. It had been wrought into a wagon road during
the previous winter by the hauling of corn and provisions
from the not very remote old settlements to be floated down
the Chattahoochee from this point for the supply of the new
settlers on both sides of the river.
My faithful steed felt not less. than myself the inspiring
change from the petty trail he had been threading all the
day through the woods to the bright open track that now
solicited him, and he sp)rang forward with rapid, elastic
steps that brought me a little after nightfall to my destination, rude but hospitable Bullboro, some two or three miles
North of the beaten road along which I had been pushing
hard during the afternoon.  My business was quickly despatched the next morning, and again in the saddle, two more
days of lonely, meditative travel found me at my new home
at Forsyth and at the end of my tour, but not at the end of
its fascinating effect. My mind still remained under a
charm, as it were, and most especially did that ubiquitous
King's Trail pursue and haunt me, demanding solution of
the name it bore, demanding to whom, great among the
Indians in trade or in any other way, that name had ever
belonged that it should have become the favorite designation
of so many of their important trails.  But nobody did I ever
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KING'S GAP.  TKING'S TRAILS.
encounter who was able to enlighten my ignorance or aid
my enquiries or in the slightest degree appease my curiosity
To all which add, that soon afterwards I had occasion to
make atnother trip to the new country, which revealed to me
still another, a fourth King's Trail, the one deflecting from
the Gray's ferry route, through the Pine Mountain at King's
Gap, and passing from thence down to where Columbus now
stands.   And  thus the interest of the curious  question
which had beset me was intensated and increased.   It perslle( mne more and more and wrought itself finally into my
sleeping as well as my waking hoiirs.
I dreamed that I was in the saddle again, and that I had
alread(ly been there a long time, wending along yet another
King's Trail, one tending downward in its course towards
the Atlantic wave and Orient Sun.   Already I was far gone
on my journey, far down on the ridge which divides the
waters which prefer the Gulf from those which go into the
Ocean. The pine forests were already thickening with their
gloom the dim dubious twilight that enveloped me, sacred
ever to dreams. Metbought I was drawing near the land of
Tallassee so dear of old to the Indian heart, and remember
ed not that neither there, nor where I actually was, nor
along the Atlantic Coast nor in the high uplands through
which imyv long darksome ride had stretched, were the Inditans any longer to be found.  It was not night, it was not
day.   No stars were out, there was no sun, no moon,  and
yet the sky looked blue through the sombre air. The greater beasts were all in their lairs and no large living thing
was astir save me and my horse.   But the owl's hootings
and the whippoorwill's night-long, monotonous lament serenaded me on my way, and ever and anon the leather-winged
bat flitted before me, saluting, whilst the tall, heavy topt
trees glowred solemnly over the sleeping, semi-nocturnal
scene.   The further I went the more I fell in love with my
dear, unfailing little path, it was so single, so unerringly
trite and right and safe. Calmn was my faith that it would
not desert me nor lead me into evil or peril, though I was
a
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KING'S GAP.  KING'S TRAILS.
without any distinct thought whither it was carrying me
save only that it was tending seaward.  And  to the sea at
length it came, and with lovely, modest assuredness anid di rectness, crossed the shelving,, sandy beach and kissed the
vast Ocean's briny lip.  My hiorse p)anted his fore-feet fet lock deep in the edge of the sea in sig,n of ready obedience
and stood awaiting my intimations.  Ite gazed with me on
that great convex liquid w(rld, and with me vainly strainied
his vision to d(scry its iniivisible bounds. But this unavailing
strain of the eye continllued not long.   Old Nepttine, proud
of his Trid(ent and wantoning, in his sea-controlling power,
kind also to the uneasy, p)erllexed surveyor of his tossing
domain, struck a divine I-)low on the topmost billow of the
remote outline, and quickly the ever-bending, never-ending
convexity of the dread waste of waters subsided and became
a vast, level, aqueous plain, on which a slight mnist rested
low, and I beheld the Halcyon brooding and hatching her
young on the still wave.  No upswelling watry sphere intercepted now my,vision which lengthened imneasurably, adequate to the broad, flat, ocean floor that spread out before
me, beyond which I caught a view of the old World and of
Georgia's parent land, and saw, too, wonderful to tell, my
tiny little King's Trail reconimencing plain on the British
shore at the very water's edge and inviting me over.  The
dim trans-Atlantic East was beginning by this time, however, to redden under the rays of the yet unseen Sun,
when Lo! on a sudden, all my dream vanished, for dreams
cannot stand the sun, and left me and my true steed standing where we were statue-like and aghast forever.
And now for days and weeks this dream haunted and harrassed me more than King's Trails had ever done-so importunate was it to be interpreted. How stolid I was! How
slowly penetrable my mind to the light!  But the dream
pursued me none the less for my dullness, and I had no option but to work and worry, as best I could, at its solution.
At last in a happy moment, light began to break in by piecemeal upon mne; and first, it occured to me how devotedly
f
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KING'S GAP.  KING'S TRAILS.
loyal to the British Crown, all the Indian Traders, great and
small, of the Colonial Era were-the McGillivrays, the McIntoshes, the McQueens, the Barnards, the Galphins, the
Graysons, the Paltons and others.  Then it slowly came up
to my mind what mighty influence these shrewd, enterprising traders acquired among, the simple savag,es, and how
they employed that influence and their utmtost art besides in
lmaking them, too, loyal and devoted to the mighty TransAtlantic King, whom they were taught not only to reverence as their Great Father, but almost to worship as their
mTore than human Earthly Sovereign.  And then next, who
does not know  that all over Great Britain,  the Public
Roads are and ever have been called the King's Highways
as well in common as in legal parlance?  And now putting
all these thiings together, I knew (for indeed it was  very
plain) whlence King's Trails came and how they got their
name; for that the Indian traders who had been accustomed
across the ocean in their old country to hear the broad pul)blic roads there called by the King's Title, had naturally as
well as interestedly bestowed the same title on the narrower
trading and traveling routes through the Indian country
here, practicable only for pedestrians and ponies and packhorses. The Indians themselves easily accepted the designation, partly through mere indifference, partly from real
homage for the great King and their estimation of his trading and official subjects who came among, them, as they were
taught to believe, not to make war upon them, or to wrongo
them out of their lands, but for better and more agreeable
objects.  Thus King's Trails in Georgia were legitimately
descended and named from the King's highways in Great
Britain. Behold! then here, how clear the evidence and
argument (though suggested by a dream) that these King's
Trails nriot only had their derivation from England, but were
of no mean lineage there, but of undoubted right royal genealog,y.
Nor  is this althlough a curious, by any means a sin,gular case of hi,gh loyalty in colonial times delighting to
41 
KING'S GAP.  KING'S TRAILS.
express itself by the bestowment of the regal name.   The
State of New York has to this day, a King's county and a
Queen's. Others of the Old Thirteen the same or similar.
Maryland, for instance, has her Queen Ann and Prince
George, Virginia her King and( Queen, a King William, a
King George, to say nothing of her Princes and Princesses
of counties. South Carolina cherishes her King's Mountain,
glorious by Revolutionary battle  and blood and victory.
And her Charleston, Queen City once, sitting lowly and
beautiful, Venice-like, in the lap of the sea, radiant with
p)earls, yet richer far in wealth ot' the soul than of the mines!
She, although stricken and in sackcloth now, cannot but take
pride still in that King Street of hers, Royalty's namesake and
remembrancer, felicitous beyond compare in its supl)erb sweep
of slowbending, graceful curvature and in the stirring scene
of cultured life and animated traffic that used to pervade
its farstretching, crescent-like length; narrow, but the more
beautiful because narrow, darkened and adorned at once by
its tall rows of imposing houses on either side, softly illumed at the same time by Heaven's overarching aziure as its
mild-beaming, eternal sky-light.  In like manner, as long
as King's Gap shall remain or as the tradition of King's
Trails shall last, Georgia may lay a true, an ancient, and
though a modest, yet not an unromatic claim to somewhat of
her own, reminding of Kingly State and times, and of the
sceptered hand and gemmed brow our Ancestors loved and
honored once, but which, in their greater love for freedom,
they hastened to renounce and abjure for a Republic under
which the hapless people of the South now lie prostrate,
victims of a system of mis-government, oppression, wrong
and corruption hideous to contemplate, diabolical to inflict,
terrible and debasing to endure, and which is assuredly destined in its miserable effects, to be not tiuch worse felt in
the long run by its victims than by its perpetrators, who in
their insane, vindictive blundering to enslave and ruin us,
are forging chains for themselves likewise, and are even
now blindly pulling down the temple of American liberty in
ruins on their ownI heads.
42 
THE PINE BARREN SPECULATION.
CHAPTIR VI.
THE PINE BARREN SPECULATION OF 1794-5.
Having been led in speaking of the causes of the Land
Lottery System, a couple of chapters back, to mention the
infamous Pine Barren Speculation of now some eighty years
ago, it is not inopportune to pause here for the purpose of
branding a little more memorably that very extraordinary
and nefarious piece of money seeking greed and criminality.
Indeed, the fact that its revolting effect on the popular mind,
combined with the still greater shock of the Yazoo Fraud,
conduced  largely to the subsequent abandonment by the
State of the old Head Right mode of disposing of the public Territory and the adoption of the Land Lottery System
in its stead, imparts to it no small historic interest and
gives it a valid claim to be noticed and rescued from oblivion. To this end we now shift the scene, and quitting the
rich, variagated, oak and hickory lands of the Upcountry,
changeful with the seasons fi'om grave to gay, from green
to sere, content ourselves a while with gazing on the dreary
platitude an(. unchangingness of regions nearer the sea, sad
with perpetual verdure, with streaming, ever-gray long
moss and the aerial moaning of the lordly pines over those
vast and lonely wilds. Here the sandy barrens salute usthe land of the gopher and salamander, of fish and game, of
wiregrass and wild cattle and of herdsmen and hunters
almost as wild, who love their rough lives of desultory labor
and leisure, never fearfuil of want, however scanty their
store in hand, for the woods and streams hold always stores
for them, which their pleasure in capturing is scarcely less
than their zest in enjoying. How beneficent is God! Who
conciliates to the denizens of every land the homes he has
43 
THE PINE BARREN SPEUCLATION.
given them, and has rendered even these uninviting and
never to be cultivated realms of nature dear to the hearts
and sufficient for the wants of the unsophisticated dwellers
there.  Nor dear to their h-earts only, but to those likewise
of all the truly filial children of Georgia wherever they inhabit, from the mountains to the sea. To all these her broad
maternal bosom has everywhere a touching fascination and
charm. They love every inch of her soil, broken or level,
sterile or lertile, all her upcountry arnd lowcounrtry, her oaky
woods and piny woods, her hills and dales, lher mountains
and valleys, her forests and fields, her rivers and streams,
her towns, her cities and her rural scenes. For all, all is
Georgia!
Montgomery county, created in 1793, by cutting off the
lower end of Washington, originally comprised all the country, now embraced in several counties, beginning from the
upper line of Emanuel  as first formed, and extending from
the Ogechee on one side and the Oconee and Altamaha on
the other as far down as the upper edge of Liberty county.
The whole was one immense, sterile pine forest, the same
that so much impressed the celebrated  English traveler,
Captain Basil Hall, forty-six years ago, whose interesting
and graphic account of it* is now and will for centuries to
come still be as true and applicable as it was when written.
Here flow the Ohoopies the Canoochies, the Yam-Grandy
and other streams notorious for barren lands, the haunt of'
deer, and for limped waters rich with fish. Here nature
reigns and will continue to reign supreme as she has done
for ages past, secure in vast barrens not less mighty than
mountains and marshes and deadly climes under equatorial
suns, in giving perpetuity to her throne against man's invasions.   Here; too, as in other similar pine regions of the
South, even war and a dire peace prolific of curses everywhere else, have alike swept over innocuous, inflicting no
change.  It is grateful- to feel that there are some things of
earth, not amenable to change at man's hands; some things
*See his Travels in North Amrerica in 1827-1582S. Vol. 2. Chapters 19-20.
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THE PINE BARREN SPECULATION.
sacred, stable, ineffaceable in this fickle, fleeting, everperishing world, the prey of crime, revolution, ruin and decay.  How this feeling deepens by time and thought and
renders the eternal monuments of nature of whatever sort
dearer and dearer to the soul of him who has always loved
her in all her diversities and who has grown old and sad,
contemplating the frailty of men and the vanity and trarnsientuess as well of their proudest as of their poorest works.
It was in this wide extended, sterile solitude that the
scene of the Pine Barren Speculation was laid by its authors
and projectors.  Here they found fitting soil for sowing their
crop of villainy, fitting gr und whereon to plant the lever
of their scheme of fraud. Here they beheld outspread and
neg,lected millions of barren acres-so barren as not only to
have attracted no immigration but no attention. No settlers
were drawn thither even by the gratuitous terms of the
Head Rig,ht system of that period, requiring the payment of
nothing but office fees.  Whilst the counties of Green and
Hancock, which had been carved out of the upper end of
Washington, had already become populous and flourishing
communities, the huge lower section now converted into
Montgomerney county, remained a desolate waste. But these
lands, though they had no attractions for honest, industrious settlers, presented a temptation at once, novel and powerful to unprincipled speculators, who did not suffer them to
remain long unnoticed after they were set off into a separate
county.     Lynx-eyed  fraud  quickly saw  its opportunity in the very neglect to which they were abandoned, and
pounced upon them for its own vile enrichment soon after
the new county was formed. It conceived the bold, cunning
idea of coining their very barrenness into an infamous value
never before imagined, and to this end it devised and worked out that monstrous scheme of villainy which was still the
subject of loathing rememberance and mention in my early
boyhood. Its originators and managers had made up their
minds from the outset to shrink from no exorbitance of iniquity that might be deemed conducive to their ends; and
45 
THE PINE BARREN SPECULATION.
they played accordingly an intrepid and magnificent game
of felonious  knavery.-Fraud, forgery, bribery, perjury such were the crimes that stood-in their way, but at which
they balked not. The incorrupt nmind recoils from the horrid catalogue and would fain regard the story of so much
diabolism as a distempered fable.  But, alas! the daily experience  which surrounds and  shocks us, or rather has
ceased to shock us in these our own times, forbids such a
solace.  In the presence of the stupendous pecuniary atrocities which arp now of familiar occurrence, practiced alike
by men in private and public life, the grossest villainies of
the past are dwarfed and vindicate themselves as at once entitled to a stronger belief and a mitigated infamy.
The plans of the miscreants were well laid and unflinching,ly followed out. In the vast uninhabited woods they
planted or found at wide distances the necessary accomplices
and tools: First, men who were to act as magistrates and
form one of those peculiar legal devices of that day called
Land Courts; of which the function was to issue or rather to
profess to issue the land warrants which were the initial
step under the Head Right system.   Next, other men were
planted or found, who as county surveyors, were to make or
rather to profess to make and return the locations and surveys
contemplated by these Warrants. And the pains were also
taken to have all these official accomplices regularly elected
and commissioned to the offices they were intended to abuse;
their election to which was a thing not difficult to effect
among the.ignorant, unsuspecting settlers scattered thinly
over the immense wilderness. And it was this obvious facility of electing men that could be used as tools, that undoubtedly stimulated and encouraged, if it did not originally
suggest, the idea of the great Pine Barren Speculation, the
whole machinery of which stood on these basely designed
elections.   Here, too, moreover, we see the reason why this
fraud followed so quickly after the formation of Montgomery
county and had not been attempted or ever conceived sooner.
For as long as the Territory remained a part of Washington
county, the voters entitled to a voice in these elections were
46 
THIE PINE BARRIEN SPECULATION.
altogether too numerous, intellig,ent and vigilant to have permitted any hope of success in such a conspiracy.
Organized now and ready to enter on their flagitious
work, tl-hese vile persons had every thing entirely to them
selves and in their own hands.   There were none to interfere with them, or embarrass, or deter, and they carried out
their projects without fear and with gratuitous boldness
and extravagance.  Not satisfied with seizing on the two or
three millions of acres that really existed in the new county
and casting them into their mint of fraud, they trebled the
number and went to the length of issuing, and returning
into the Surveyor Geneial's office, Land Forgeries  to the
amount of six or seven millions of' acres.  This fact appears
by two printed Reports, now before me, made by the Surveyor General in 1839 to a special Finance Commission, composed of J udge Berrien, Judge Wm. W. Holt and myself.  One
of these Reports presents the actual number of acres in each
county of the State; the other, the number in each county
as shown by the maps and Recordts of the Surveyor General's
aqce.*  Upon coml)aring the two, it will be seen that the
number appearing by the official maps and records as lying
in the original county of Montgomery, exceeds the true
number, by several millions. How did such a monstrous
excess get into the Surveyor General's office and upon the
maps and records there?
There never has been, there never can be but one answer
to this question. Fraud and forgery aided by official connivance and corruption, afford the only solutioni. There is
no other possible way of accounting for the phenomenon.
Had the lands been but moderately fertile or had they possessed any other qualities or accidents of a nature to confer
value and make them the object of desire and competition, it
would not have been strange for the same thing to have
happened to them from these causes as from like reasons
has often happened elsewhere in rich new countries under
the Head Right system: namely, that after all the veritable
land should have been actually and in good faith first
*See copies of these statements at the end of this chapter.
I
i
I
47
41 
TIHE PINE BARREN SPECULATION.
taken lup and covered once with warrants and surveys, the
avidity of acquisition might have been so great as to lead to
the same identical lands being afterwards again and again
taken up by other persons, thus covering or, in the expressive phrase coined specially for the case, shingling the country with layer after layer of successive competing Head
Right warrants and claims, all which being returned to the
Surveyor General's office, necessarily occasioned a great excess of land on the maps and records there beyond what existed in nature.   But it would  be glaringly absurd  to
account in this way for the redundant millions in the Surveyor General's' office of the utterly worthless  lands of
which we are now speaking; lands, which nobody wanted
or would have even as a gift, and for which there never has
been the least competition. Why, as late as 1839, not more
than half the land in that region was (judging by the
Comptroller General's report, made to the above mentioned
Finance Commission*) deemed worth owning and paying
taxes for; although the lumber trade had by that time
given some value to portions of it lying near tlhe rivers, that
had previously been valueless.
Thus the spuriousness of an immense proportion of the
surveys and returns in question is manifest.   But though
the most of them were undoubtedly the progeny of fraud
and forgery, yet not all were so.   A good many  genuine
ones were with covinous shrewdness and design intermixed,
and this intermixture of' somewhat that was genuine was an
important, well considered point in the scheme of fraud, in
as much as it tended to give color and unsuspecteduess to
the muchwhat that was false, fraudulent and fictitious.
But not only was it a part of the scheme that genuine
surveys should be thus intermingled with the spurious in
the returns made to the Surveyor General's office, but it was
also requisite that good lands should be lyingly intermingled with the barren on the maps and records there. For
all the vast quantity of land real and fictitious that was
*See Comptroller General's report at the end.
48
I 
PINE BARREN SPECUTLATION.
retllrne(l into the Surveyor Gener:tl's office as having been
duly surveyed antI tiaken up, could have been tiirne(l to no
profit by the conspirators but ior another adroit stroke eof
villainy to which tlhey hlt(l recouise auld without which their
whole plan would have broken down.  I allude to the f~alge
land-marks put  on  the maps aJ(l plats of the surveys.
Something base atnd firaudulent in this way had to be done
to enable them to )plm off any large amount of these pine
barrens as rich ]aiids.  This wals, in(deed, tle vital point in
their nefarious strategy, and ill or(ler to rentke sure of it,
they caused thie different kinds of trees ind(lictive of a rich
soil, such as the oak, the hickory, the walnut, dogwood,
buckeye, etc., to be entered as corner ani station trees on the
maps of the surveys:-Not however on the maps of all the
imm-nense niumber of surveys which they had caused to be
fabricated and returned, but on enough of tihem to answer
their lI)iUrposes, a jl(licious, (lecepitive intersp)ersing of la-ids
marked as rich among the barrens which notoriously formed
most of the county.  Suspicion was thus kept down and an
imposing verisimilitude attained, and along with it as much
land feigned to be rich as they could expect to be able to
work off on ignorant second purchasers or as they would be
willing to pay Grant Fees tbr.
For there was no evading the payment of the Grant Fees,
which, though little in each case, would in the aggregate
have amounted to a great sumn.  Up to this point, fraud and
forgery had cut off costs and labor making both very light,
but for which, the outlay in office fees requisite for their
vast operations would alone have been an insuperable inmpediment in their way. But now fi'aud and forgery could no
longer be made to serve any purpose.  Their turn was at an
end as soon as the forged documents of survey were accepted
and registered in the Surveyor Genreral's office'.  Thenceforward what had to be done was si-mply to get from that
office certified copies of these map)s and surveys, upon
which being presented and passed at the rest of the State
House offices; (among othlers, at the Treasury, where the
Grant Fees were paid and a receipt countersigned therefor,)
4
49 
genuine Grants under the Great Seal and the Governor's
signature were issued(l as a matter of course, except in cases
where a caveat had been interposed, a thing which never
happened in relation to these lands, there being no competition for them.
The actors in this huge, concatenated fraud had now accomplished so much of their programme as was to be carried
out ill Georgia.   They had sowed the seed here, but they
had to go elsewhere to reap their villainous harvest.   Had
they dared to offer their fraudu(lllent and fictitious lands for
sale here whiere their worthlessness and nothingness were so
well known, it would have led to the public explosion of their whole plot and to their own no small
endang,erment  besides,  for those  were  times  in which
such caitiffs felt all the while in Georgia no little dread of
a certain Judge Lynch who not unfrequently, dis,gusted with
the too slow footsteps, or too d(lim vision, or too feeble or too
uncertain  arm  oft' the morle rlegillarly constituted powers,
camne  to  their  re(lief  by   a  pronpt   assllnl)tion  of
their  difficult  duties.   Tlhese  sl)ecuilators  therefore  in
barren lands, at once daring and cautious, betook themselves (as was indeed their plan from the outset) to other
localities, to the distant places where their unavowed and
unsuspected copartners and confederates lived and whence
they themselves had come with evil, vile intent among us.
And there they and their coad(jutors failed not to find those
who fell victims to their swind(ling, arts.   To what extent
they succeeded in effecting sales, in turning the barrens of
Montgomery into gold in their own pockets and involving
innocent, deceived people in loss for their own base emolument, is of course unascertainable now, and has long since
ceased to be a matter of interest or curiosity.   That their
success was not small, however, is probable from all the circumstances of the case and from the general rumor andl
belief which descended from those times down to a later period,
For to those remote parts whither they hied to enact the
crowning scene of their villainy, to find the bag of gold at
the end of their tortuous drama of iniquity, fame had carried
50
PINE BARREN SPECULATION. 
PINE BARREN SPECULATION.
exciting accounts of the fertility and adclvantages of the Oconee
country.  Nor was she carefull il! her loud(l, itn-liscriminating
praises, to mnake due distinction between the richness of the
upper portion and the sterility of tle lower.  People afar off
werethus greatly misled and prepared to be easily practised up on and cheated, and were, moreover, carriel away by the cheap
rates at which these supposed fertile lands were offered for
sattle by men whom they cost very little more than the
crimes thley had comlmitte(l in cornnection with them.   And
when in addition, the solemn grants of the State of Georgia
were paraded under the autograpl]ic signatures of her Gov ernor  andl  great  State  House  oticetrs, with  her huge,
dangling, waxen Great Seal app)ended( an(l with also certified
plats of' surivey attached to each grant und(ler her Surveyor
General's official hand, ricly nmarlke(I besitles withl natural
growth indicative of a fertile soil, it is by no means surpris ing, that thousands should have been befooled( ar(nd swindled.
And that such was the case contemnporaneous story indi,gnantly told and was  not unsupported by after-occurring
facts.  For many a bootless pilgrimage from distant States
and sections was made years afterwards by the sufferers and
their agents in search of those fabled lands. In vain, however, did they thread the woods and interrogate the trees.
No land marks, no corners or stations could they ever find
re.qponsive to the well drawn, false speaking charts  they
brought along with them.  No oaks, and hickories, no wal
nut, dogwood or buckeye, nor anykindly soil did they ever
encounter to cheer their wearisome explorings or raise their
sunken spirits.  But barren wastes spread out sad and interminable before their eyes, andI the tall sighing pines
sounded a lugubrious sympathy in their ears. The golden
dreams they had been made to cherish were dispelled for
ever. Reluctantly they awoke to the hitter reality of being
the victims of a great concocted turpitude, and with heavy
hearts wended their way back to their far off homes, full
of indignation, and cursing and  hlating, more than ever
before the villains and villairies of the world.
51 
52               PINE BARREN SPECULATION.
The  following statement was furnished from  the Su')-veyor
General's offlce, June 17lh, 1839, to the Finance Conmnis   sion, showing the ACTUAL nu))lber of acres  in each county.
Appling............................. (;6,q0,426(, Laurens............................ 4r0.560
Baker.................      89......'3.99,2)7 Lee............................ 34(),2()3
Baldwin..................5,(............1(,(   Liberty..............................393,6())
Bibb..................................152,5(;3  Lowndes..................1, 238,2()3
Bryan................................27(;,480  Lincoln.............................12(;,720
Bulloch........................(05,44() Lnmnpkin...........................396,()25
Burke.....................;;......,;(),))  Macon...............................240,:08
Butts..................................113,()30  Madison............................124,800
Caiden..............................720,()00()()() Marion....................,..........3),562
Campbell............................147,9 9(; 3 Mc Intosh...........................422.2('0
Carroll.................... 482.18() Meriwetlher..................... 335,885
Cass.................4:....'....),.1,:() Monroe..................... 3()2,(;23
C(hathamn.............................2)8,8)()Montgoery............... 4()7,(;80)
Chattooga.................223,(; Morgan............................. 228,480
Cherokee............................4;7,78() Mray......................... 41)7,740
Clark..................................179,2()) Muscogee...........................2,l)(3
Cob)..4...............................4();,-)i;l Newton..............................256,29'.)
Colulif)i'............................'20.()()0  Oglethote........................286, 720
C(oweta...............................282,881  Pallding...........................423,(;17
C(rawford............................2)),319) Pike.................................24;(;,');2
I)ecatur                 7..........................,.....r,ls15,'5
I)eKalb...............................'5,)3  Putnam.............................2;80()
Dad(le............................ Ibn...'................24)1..
Dooly.................................;. [Lidolp)................'.......),9);8
Early.................................;   Riminiond................).........201,();)0
Efiiughantri.......................... )10,40    1...34, ()0
Elbert.................................327,60  Stewart................... 482,170
Emanuel............................ 73,920  Supter............................369,857
Fayette...............................'18,801   all)ot............................... 331,468
Floyd.................................. 17,343  Taliaferro........................... 86.400
Forsyth...........................183,515' atinall..............................761,6(.0
Franklin.............................. 499, 2()0o  Telfair..................2............(64,)60
GilLuer.....................53'0, 572  Thomas............................900,720
Glynn.................................253,440  Troup...............................28()0,100
Greene...............................268,800  Twiggs..............................231,6i80
Gwinnett............................347,083  Union...............................419,168
Habersham.........................403,47); Upson...............................184,580
Hall............................ 258,277  Walker...................... 3!.)9, 663
Hancock......................288,640  Walton.............................. l164,0(15
Harri.........................297,680  Ware.................................879,360
Heard.........................165,763  Warren............................ 274,560
Henry................................3....416,720
Houston..............................392,884  Wayne..............................380,160
Irwin........................1,269,426  Wilkes..............................323,840
Jackson.......................337,(20 Wilkinson........................288,000
J asper...'.............................245,760
J e-fferson............................376, 320    Total........................35, 515, 526
Jones.................................241,920 
PINE BARREN SPECULATION.
Statement futrni.shed Jutne  17th, 1839, to the I'inance Com   mrission by the S-~rveyor General of the numnber of acres of
land in each co?6nty of the State agreeably to the MAPS and
RECORDIS of his office.
Appling..................84,426............684,426
Baker.....................297.............89.297
]Baldwin..................,,............',, 97 82
Bibb.....................1,       i.............152,563
Bryan....................111,1............. 111,091
Bulloch...................38,217............358,217
Butrke....................1,.............;19, i06
Butts.....................113,30.............113,030
Camiiden.......... 1, 92..................  1,928,688
Cainipl)ell.................147.   I...........147,63
Carroll............................... 482,180
Cass.....................491............. 439,130
(Chatham..................519.............55,19
Chatt. oga.................23 86...........223,86
Cherokep...........................467,780
Clark................................... 22,136
Cobi.....................40.............406,961
Colurl i)ia............................145,055
Co nU eta...................      a............ 282,881
Crawford.................)319...........25,319
Decatur...................    09............707,609
DeKalb...................281 53............281,253
Dade.....................   9............. 12,23
Dooly....................   ()...........50, (93
Ea? ly............................... 6()2,549 
Effingham...................1,149), 7)1c
Elber!....................121,870
Emanuel..................    89..........356,89
Fayette...................18)4............218,04
Flby d..................................17, 34.3
Fos-vth...................   15............183,515
Franklin.................................. 5,126,,48
Gilmer................................530,,,572
Glyin....................    75...........1785,3752
Greene...................24,27...........324,278
Guinnett..........................347,083
Habersham................48,4......... 408,  47(
Hall.....................258,277
Hancock...................56 727............56,727
Harris............................. 297, 680
Hleard....................1,  3............15,763
Henry....................3340.............333,540
Hoist,on...................................392,884
Irwin.............................1269,426
Jackson.............          10..............175.120
Jasper..............................245, 7(60
Jefferson............................ 71, 593
Jones............................. 241,920
53
Laurens........................... 41-)O,560
Lee.................................. 340,203
Liberty........................... 870,680
L'neoln
Lowndes......................... 1.238,203
Lun-)pkin. 396,025
Macon. 2-,10,308
'Aiadi,,;on............................... 3.),518
lvlarioia............................. 3.,-)O,562
McInto.,-h........................... 667,251Meriwether........................ 335,885
Moni,op............................. 302,623
Montgomery................... 7,436,995
Morgai-i.............................. 228,480
Murray.............................. 407,740
Muscogee........................... 2.1)1,903
Newton............................ 256,299
Oglethorpe.......................... r,5,018
Paulding........................... 428,617
Pike................................. 266,962
Pulaski.............................. 515,3.55
Putnam............................. 236,800
:Px,abiin.............................. 248,,515
R-I,n(lolpli........................... 5- 9,968
l,',ictin,iond......................... 443,457
Scriver.............................. 242,656
.....482,170
S-Ltmpter.............................. 36),857
Ta.lbot............................... 331,468
Taliaferro................................ 564
Tittna'll.............................. 395,840
Telfa,ir.............................. 364,960
Tbom-,is........................... 900,720
Troiip............................... 280,100
Twiqgs.............................. 231,680
Union............................... 419,168
Upson............................... 184,580
Walker........................... 399,663
Walton............................. 164,015
Ware................................ 879,360
Warren................................ 95,239
Washington..................... 5,018,048
Wayne............................... 380,360
Wilkes.......................... 2,224,920
Wilkinson......................... 288,000
Total....................... 54,816,782
I 
A  TABLE-Exhibitinlg  the qu(antity  of acres  of   1st, 2d anid 3d quealities and
PineLand-TlThe  itumitber of Slaves —.tlount of Stock  in  Trtide, and valae of
Totorn, Propetty-T'he o,ggr,egate nuiebher of  a(res of Land -The  Tax  on each
qltality, and  the   aggregl te tailont of  Tax paid on the  whole, int the Stlate of
Geotgia, agreettbly lo the Tt.c letunrits of the several Couaties,  i'ed it the  Contp.
troller Geiter)al's  Ofi(e fo.br the yc/er 1818.
Countties.   qualsity         2d.          3d.        Pine.      l, ikl    Towt           Slaves
q ity Trade,.   Pt,erry.
Applliig....         393  8,33(6             5,)4        81,000(        3,70(0                   205
Blia-ker........... 3,1)77      3'- 71tl    13,117        72,143      74,7,,5))      8,900       7)08
B, ldlwin,.....  5,25            2 82,74t 57,871        129,2i)4    1,2.90))       25.075    4,125
Bibb.........   11,9t6         86,52.i   78,113        159,423    732,417   1,341;,105    4,4)'8
Bryan,.........    3,1 23      16,7611  10,i)3 1        30,556 1, 800              3,6    1,47
liilloch...... 1,810            11,2'29     12,08))    416,725                       7 9t)))   8 47
Burke........ 1,935 47,7.4   2881,413 352,8241    18,;02 27.)                        7 lO)   6,417
Butts,.. 2,253                  54,3961   19 9,41        28,921       19,450        3),37    1,19
Canden...... 12,5l              39,9)02     2;,'50     304 (;43   * 9(,,4C)    117,592    3,256
Camnpbell,...   4,33')         43,222    81,5 83        27,333       17,i)8!        S,(1)31     875
Carroll,....... 90'l            43,121    6),019)         24,i12      10,I(t)        8,75)       280
Css,.......       1S,220)       76,1,14     64,645       10,279       41,2550,      35,218    1,137
Cliathamn...' 67,5,')j  2,64!),792  11.136
Cherokee,... 4,276              38,897    4'2,70(;         9,676      20,1911       12,290       321
Cliattooga,.   0,0000           00)0,I))       0,00())       00o)          000      0O0O
Clark,........ 5,0:,3           96,532    250),792      102,59!2    10, 1l2        300,995    4,8195
Cobb,....... 2,425 55,93 2 52,313                          5,152      19,50)        3t;,425      381
Columibia,           1,779      87,87.,   145,0(75       1,%4,681      19,)076       16,582    6,832
Coweta...        3,47       12),412    124,476        1()2,134      52,305        3'),135    2,683
Crawford,...        2,1i6       69,791)     50,);,9     525,150)    65,521.         15,385    2,462
Dade........       580)        5,315       5,24(              2        882  00                   36
Decatur,....          4,9O      50,75(; 2   )2,,48 120,100            53,224        13,113    1,750
DeKalb,.....    4,734          83,72-   216,871          31,784      90,))165      6t;,625    1,622
Dooly,...... 3,208              26,20)7      5,157      13t;,0)94     30,84))       14,708        781
Early........ 4,5Q0             45,953      14,61,7       96,632      40,550        64,225    1,580
Elbert........ 4,0)56           52,191   222.3(;3                     80,4t;5       4'3,970    3,166
E'ffiilgham,.. 957               2,417      13,857       222,398        3,371                   1,211
Emanuel,..            453 12,7)00  1,524                389,916         4,133          800       568
'Fayette,.... 1,278 80),207   107,201                     2)3,419      27,181       22,70)7    1,1''4
Floyd........   14,404         73,929     6)5, 14      27,637       51,320        22,0)10   1,342
Franklin,.....     3,554        55,04) 357,270            56,062       18,5(;62 17,3(9))    2,159
Forsyth,...... 4,348            43,1i'3 5),897            11,840)     20,320        28,24')      447
(ilmer,......      2,211         7,34'3    26,9'24           571       2,838         2,401        35
Glyin........ 2,090()           21,95()      9,721       121,804       14,350       2q,456    2,666
(leene,    5.   5,4)08           76,746   17'),327         53,750)    11S,4'7        37,837    5,595
(Gwinnett,..            2,981    61,463    24i,139        47,817       45,052        31 46(i    1,914
Habersham,.. 7,074               31,9q7'5,))93         213,688       3).713        2),718 843
Hall,......l.. 4,708 4),268                232,7)38       17,882      30,665 14,29()              957
Hancock,.... 2,4:3,              54,09(0   152,5)06       173,431      83,900        69,887    5,424
Harris,........      7 061      183,002-  110,129 27 325               60),452      104,331    4,311
Heard........ 5,911 56,275 61,737                         32 482      27,720        12,035    1,367
Henry........ 1,790            119,231    220,33          42,204      59,83 35,)023    2,925
Houston,......   6,055           88,8:,'0    32,;67      226,296      59,213        35,736    4,199
Irwin........ 5,39i                           3,00))      84,755 2,t00               1,114        204
Jackson,.......    2,345         66,3616   244,60(6        51,389      23,4;81       12,50)0    2,356
Jasper....... 2,270            113,9)    161),661         4)0,349    101,441        7s,125 5.244
Jeflirson,     1....)     45,932     91)161       2785)
Jeff1erson,..         36. l0   145            0          2 278 584    46,600 21,096    4,327
Jones........  2,363  139,636   12),455     262,5211    53,760,         41,459    5,65)
Laurens,...... 5,918 156,7531 54,666                      16,3229    13,350          21,319 2,1(6,
Lee,.........1  9,124           38,668      23,271        95 282      15,000        1 5,)00    1,263
Liberty......  4,104           43,754      23 696      193626j         8,)"50      22,248'  5,326
Lincoln..         4,526        50,939'   135,708        62,'286      24,603        10,340    3,253
Lowndes.. |  1,330              79,0941    12,301       265, 33      4 3534          3,443       678
Lurnpkin....       3,658      21,9184    21,0)57        13,816      58,66 5  58,920            354
Macon........    1,856         26,015      16,631       141,773       2,350                    1,159
Madison,.'..          526       12,0701)  11)1,517        26,670        8,950        5,929    1,336
Monroe...... 4,777             180,742 231,70           105,1.92    106,826       106,590    9,3;61
MAclntosh,.... 3,700           It)),8()    31,871       188,015      87.4(;6      111,932    3,798
MAIeriwether,...5,255        158 70;)5   12,41' 2       60(,1,q5    77,850        37,7!-3    4,31184
Marioi....,          132        41,0(19)    14,/)57       93,418 11,);))             8,.551       734
Montgom ery, I  1,660            1;3,16) lO,387       74,40)4      2,2001          255        367 
UInion....................... 1,9318 1,,2)3                                                    1,1i0   62
ipson,............................ 3,I4,7
Ups,,n                3,008  84,722 100,457              61,01)38    47,736       35,52t)   3,437
Walker,.................. 7,93, 65,463              61.5(9                                   10,3:68  30,()1 34,4013    708
Warren,...............          882.3,756i 17,'2            64,406      6i,310       35,771   4,155
Wl),....................... 3,09 11),;7:                             t!,3 330 33,7t)      12,9.3   2,943
Washilngton,................. 4,(1)4 51,610    1113,1,8         377,312 3,350 4,875    3,444
Wayne,.................. 440               1,843      2,3            r8 67,710  6,300)                466
Ware,........................... 1,01)2 1 0,293.5,48      41,271                        1,300 200  81
Wilkes....................... 2,889      7          2,98 1 24.',4.97 79),-,)I  73,4(()    117,688    6,681
Wilkinson.................... 1,472 36,833  5,8()9 259,830 26,509 9,772    1,695
_,410,415 16,6(,4,3:31  8,-05,7,29):3  101,49.1,297  7,24i4,914 11,059,1441 242,923
AMIOUNT OF TAX PAID  ON EACH.
AVERAGE TAX.
9 5-8 imiills per acre............................. 3,94 74
5 6-,3  "............................. 8,571 73
2 1-2 " "............................. 1,712 17
1 6-8 " "............................. 1,259 35
1st quality........................410,415..............                       410,415
2d   "........................16,(4,...............16,604,
3rd  ".......................    7,93................ 8,17,3
Pine Land...................................... 10,79.1,'97
Total number of acres.................5,366,:;36
Stock in Trade................................. 7,244,94 At 15 5-8 cts. per $100.......................11,320 30
Town Property.....................11,(9,154     58......................... 17,279 92
Slaves.............................................242,923  " 15 5-8 per Slave...........................37,956 71
Total Tax.................................$82,052 92
The whole amount of taxes paid, agreeably to the returns made, is..........................$111,338  44
CHATHAM COUNTY.-The quantity and quality of Land returned in this county cannot be ascertained from the Tax Book returned, and not included in the foregoing additions.
CHATTOOGA COUNTY.-NO returns have been received from this county.
COMPTROLLER GENERAL'S  OFFICE, MIilledgeville, 21st June, 1839.
GENTLEMEN:-In compliance with your letter of the 2d April last, the foregoing Tabular
Statement is furnished, as containing the information requested.  The statement required would
have been prepared at an earlier period, but for the great labor necessary in obtaining from the
books in this Department, correct infornmation as to the several classifications of Land,  &c.i
desired, and the difficulty of procuring competent assistance to perforilm  the work.
I am, very respectfully your obedient servant,
JOIHN G. PAIK, CoTtmptroller Genernl, Gieorgia.
To Messrs. A. H. Chappell, J. M1. B(rricn, and W. W. Holt, Comnuiissioners, &c.
LAND. 
THE YAZOO FRAUD.
CItLAPTER VII.
THF YAZOO FRAUD-SECTION I.
The great Yazoo Fraud was conceived earlier than the
Pine Barren Speculation, but as it had a much longer gestation, it turned out that the two reache(t their birth about
the sanie time, and were consequently contemlporaneous
though not twin villainies; for there never was any actual
connection between themn either as to facts or )ersonIs.  It
would be iml)ossible for peol)le nowadays to form an adequate idea of the immense and almost wild stir and excitenient caused by the Yazoo Fraud in its day; and it was by
no means a short any more tian a c)minonplaee (lay that it
had.  Not only was it radicated far back in the then Past,
but curious expliorers will detect its roots antd rainiLic;tious
interwoven with national matters of that period important
eniough to claim a l)lace in history.   And when we come
down later and take a view of the great cancerous abominriation in its several vicissitudes and more advanced stag,es, how
complicated it is seen to becomne alike in its facts and in the
questions and l)rinciples it involves! How thie hutfe villainy
stands out and strikes us, (listenit with odious interest and
energy at every turn, imakiling its way over all obstacles,
discouragements and delays, first through the State Legislatture, next thriou,gh the Cabinet, Courts and (Congress of the
United States, and in the end, after near twenty years of
unholy striving and perseverance, triunmphing at last and
plunging its felonious hands deep into the National Treasury.
That memorable crime which was consummated in the
Legislature of Geoirg,ia on the 7th of Januiary, 1795, is the
Ii
I
56 
THE YAZOO FRAUD.
one to which I am now referring.  The intelligence of it no
sooner reached Wa,shington than it caused himi gieat concern, foi lie instantly saw its enormity and dangerousness,
having already a few years previously had to deal (and stern
and decisive was thatdealiing) with its conm )paratively innocent
andl less f)rmidable and now  almost forgotten  )redecessor,
.the much smaller Yazoo Stle of 1789.    Uponrl  obtainiing
friom Algnsta, then tlhe seat of Governlient of- Geo,rgia, the
authentic (ilocuments on the  s}iject, he hastened on the 19th
uf Febriiairy, 1 796i, to lay th4(m before Congress witll a messa,le in whiich hle charactei-ised the matter as one "of''exc(eeding magnitu(le, tlat might in its consequences affect the
p)eace and welfare of the Ujnite(l Sta-tes."   But G-(orgia on
this occasioii s(tved trouble to the Natioinal Authlorities, or
rather shie staved it off to a remnoter day.  For, as if seekingto make ani-ends for her apathy in reg,ard to the Yazo-)o Sale
of 1789,  sile was now fierce arnd ral)id in her action, and
stel-)ing 1)i,waid at once she of her own mere mo)tion and
with her sale arm sttruck down this new and nmore imonstrous
Yazoo crineic to wliich corrillttion hadtl just givein birth i n h(er
soil, lcaviig to the Federal A(dministration at that  timile no
other taslk to l)erftril in relation to it tihan  mnere ariraignnimecnt (rL(d some steps of [)rec.intion and  ini(lilry.   It was
only  a temporary  respite,  (-however, thlat  resiulted to  the
United States from  thie indir-gnant, patriotic promrl)titi(lude of
the State.  For  it turned out  thiat tie  Itlydra was  only
'sc(,tcihed, not  killed('' by  Georgia.   In a few  years  it
caiue to lite again, developing   a new heal riot vlineriable to
the lblows (-of the State and only amenable  to the Nttional
arm, and(l from  thenceforward it unceasingly harassed  the
United States and exhibited such p)ernicious and  deathless
atciilties fur mischief' and  annoyance that, finally in 1814,
(Conlgress was gla(l to give up  the warfare and  coinmpromnise
with- thile gieat iniqitity by )(passing a Blill a)propriatiing five
millio(-s ot' dollairs to the al)peasing of its claims.
Into the 1)olitics:)t' Georgia it continued to be ever and
anon draogged for years afterwards laden  withi  unforg,iven
I
57 
58
guilt and intense public odium.  At length in the year 1825,
in the first polpular election for Governor we ever had, and
by far the hottest and fiercest known to our annals, a fiery
farewell eruption of this old political Vesuvius of the State
was provoked by sonice slight tinfav(,rable reminiscences that
were stirtred up) connected with the natne of one the candidates for the office.  For our peol)le had  not learned even
down to that period to pardon to any man the smallest participationI in that great parricidal crienc.  And if their vengeance has not been since inflnmed in regar(l to it, it is
only because timre has both extitngu,ished( the causes and
dimmed the recollections by vlwhich it c(uldl be kindletl anew.
The wonderment, perplexity and curiosity wlhich the-very
word Yazoo used to excite in juvenile minds in Georgia fifty
and sixty years ago I have never been able to forget.  Its
strange exotic sound to the ear and look in print was the
first and not a very small thing. Then, besides, it was a
word  which  had  evidently  long been,  as it still was,
perfectly familiar in the mouthls of all elderly and full grown
people, so niuch so, that taking it to be universally understood they never bethought them that it needed explanation
to anybl)ody, no, not even to thle listening boy whom they saw
sitting silent and attentive.  Most frequently it was of the
Yazoo  Fresh they spoke, yet often of the Yazoo Fraud.
Sometinmes it was the Yazoo Sale and the Yazoo Lanrds, and
then again the Yazoo Script and Yazoo Shares. The Yazoo
Legislature, the Yazoo Speculators and Yazoo Companies
were likewise frequent topics, nor was the story of the buirning of the Yazoo Act with fire drawn from heaven by Gen.
Jackson with a sun-glass left untold. Thus numerous, various and unlike were the things called by name of Yazoo;
and all of them too so much the theme of talk! And yet
where was Yazoo, and what was it? It seemed to be
all over Georgia and yet no mention was ever made of any
place in or out of Georgia where it was to be found or seen.
Was thlerei, indeed, any such place, awd if lthere was, why
should it cause so much talk and give its name to so maLny
THE YAZOO FRAUD. 
TI1E YAZOO FRAUD.
and such different things?  Or, perhaps it was not a place,
but only a tling'  and if'so, why was it sulch a noted thlin,
and wvhy were so niany othler things baiptized with its name?
And (lid it pertain to land or water, or was it ainllibiotls
and akin to bothl?  All was va,tgie, miisty, mysterious, perplexed(, yet )erIva(led nrot doubtfuilly witli thle general idea of
s)mewhbt tlhat was sinister, al)bhlorIent aii(l (ldamnable.
This uncertainty, however, which tormiented young imiaginations was more and more disp)elle(ld, so far at least as the
question between land atnd water was concerned, by every
s)ell of heavy, unrelernting rains, by every extraordinary and
destructive inundation of the creeks and rivers.  These  occurrences never failed to reitew and strengthen.the associatioi iii youthful minds between Yazoo and water.  For then
the Y.Lzoo Fresh was sure to be in the ascendant in l)eople's
moutljs and thot,ughts.  Ano)ther Yazoo Fresh was feared or
threatened, or such another fall of rain and rise of the waters
had(l never been seen since the great Yazoo  Fresh when all
the streams and rivers rose high  above -ill former watermarks and the molluntain torrents and windows of heaven
were open(.d to swell the proud( Savannah, and the glorious
river virndlicating tl-he hlonor of its banks, swep)t in angered
niajesty over the scene so lately desecrated by a monstrous
and unprecedented public villainy, and for the first tirne and
the last too for more thmn forty years, ma(le betuteous
Au,,gusta, Georgia's capital, a subaqueous and  navig,able
city.
Terruit Urbem;
Terruit cives, grave ne rediret
Saeculum Pyrrhae nova monstra quests,
Omne cum Proteus pecus egit altos
Visere montes; 
Piscium et summa genus hasesit uilmo
Nola qut  sedes fuerat columbis,
Et sui;,rjecto pavidat niatarunt
Aequore datmw.
41
59 
TIIE YAZOO FRAUD.
Vidimus flavtim Tiberim retortis
Littore Etrusco violenter tlodis
— Ire dejectum momementa Regis
Templaque Vestse. 
But tlhe watery visitation lasted not lon,. The whelming
flood( rushed quickly awvay, as if hastening  in sorrow frotn
the havo,c it hlad done and left thle broad ripar-ian plain which
Augriusta adornrs, bare to the genial  sun once  nmore arid to
the wofil gaze of men.  And also in vears ens5 in,, w'hrn more
t'ime arid knowletig, had  accrued to the younger  folks, the
idea of water associated with Yazook gradually siltsiiled firom
their minds and in its stead, land and fratid an(l mniny cognate abornillationris cae ul) to view  and  grew  to  the name
and  asserted tliemselves the  originals to  which the  alien
word was first al)[)lied( in (e orgia.   For it was a wordl not
native here.   It was outnlatidish  in its origin, born in a di,stant savage nook arid imported frort thence across hutiidreds
of  miiles  of  Indian  wilderness  and  odiously   d(lenizened
amongst 11.   ifs birth place and  long its only  anrd sinless
hbomne, where  its utterance calle(d not up  remembrances of
tilrl)itnde, was far away on  the confinies of the Mississippi,
*As it m.ay be interesting to the non-latinist to see in an English poetic dress
these file stanzas from ltorace d(scrit)ing an irlon(lation of the Tiber at Rome,
I subjoin a translation by Covington, which may perhaps also have some interest for the classical scholar both on account of its own mnerits and as showing
the uniapproachableness of the original:
Appalled the city,
Appalled the cit'zens, lest Pyrrah's time
R-,turn with all its monstrous sights,
When Proteus led his flocks to climb
The mountain heights;
When fish were in the elm tops caught
Where once the stock dove wonit to bid(le,
And deer were floating, all distraught,
Adown the tidle.
01(1 Tiber, hurled( in tumult back
F'rom min,,-liig with the Etirusca0 mrain,
IHas threatened NLtna's Court with wreck
And Vesta's fane.
I11
60
I 
THE YAZOO FRAUD.
in the land of the Chloctaws, a region as wild to the eye as
its own sound to the ear.  There it had been for unknorwn
ages articulated  b)y  barhaian tong,ues  as the  nalme oi a
petty stream rmean(lerinr  sll,,o-islily from the North to lose
itself in the )osom of the Father of iFloods. But what made
that petty streamn so important an(l how came it to su)plant
not only the Alabama, the Tuscaloosa, a(nd the Tombigbee,
but the great Tennessee  and even the mighty  MAlississippi
itself', and to impose its own  ign(ble name in preference to
all theiFs on  the immense  Territory watered by them all,
and also on the stupendous  feat oft' villainy of which that
territory was the sit)ject nmatter and prize?  These are points
which nse(l of yore to bother nrot a little the  he.-ls of both
old au(l yo(ung in (eorg,ia and which, I durst op)ine, may be
still obscure to many at the present daty.  But even if it be
so, there is little reason why I should hang back longer
from  my destined task iii order now to lift the veil and clear
ul,) the nmystery.   For it is one of tliho,se curiosities of Amnerican territorial history and controversy  the explicattioii of
which %%ill assnredly come out in the course of that hlian(l ling
ot'the Yazoo Frau(d upon which it is high  time  I should
enter, if'indeed I would redeem the promllise held out in the
heading, of this chapter.
SECTION II.
Beyond doubt no greater or more consequential event of a
mere worldly character has ever happened in the world than
the discovery and settlement of America.   What an infinite
variety and multitude of things new and momentous under
the sun have been owing directly and indirectly to that vast
andl pregnant occurrence! How it has teellmedl with results of
all sorts and sizes, creating new, mnodifying or annihilating
old interests, reaching all over the globe, and sure of pervadcling all futurity!  Among the earliest and most striking
of the novelties to which it gave birth, was the practice
originated by Spain on this continent of what may be called
conquest by contract; by the associated enterprise, capital,
I
61 
THIE YAZOO FRAUD.
cupidity and ambition of bodies of private adventurers, act ing at their own pecuniary cost, though, under regal sanc —
tion and protection, and enjoying, a meretricio.us partne.ship
with royalty in the honor of ruling and the lucre of p)un dering the conquered countries.  War and the acquirement
by force of new dolininio:)ns was by this cruel means rendered
easy and unexpensive to a government sitting enthroned
and unend(angered across the Atlantic, ignorant or unthinking of the diabolical lawlessness and inhumanity which
sprang from its policy and sullied its arms, and which have
indelibly tarnished the Spanish name.   It was thus that
Mexico was subdued for Spain by Cortes, Peru by Pizzaro.
Such too was the origin of the atrocious, warlike wanderings
of' Fernando deSoto* and his martial companions, over the
immense re,gions stretching Northwardly from the (lGulf of
Mexico, which at that day and for a long while afterwards
were mnassed by the Spaniards under the then comprehensive
name of Floridat and which now form in addition to the
present Florida, the great States of Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas and Louisiana. If what was
first seen and known of the New World warranted its discoverers in calling its inhabitants barbarians, assuredly
cause enough was soon given to those barbarians for regarding the civilized new-comers as demons, who had on a sudden preternaturally appeared among them to be the curse of
their land and the destroyers of their race.
The course of Great Britain, however, towards the natives
in those parts of America colonized or acquired by her was
nobler and more humane.   She sought not to enslave or
oppress or plunder them, or to extort tribute from them like
the Spaniards, nor did she imitate the bad Spanish example
of sentencing them to be brought under her yoke by the
agency of armed bodies of irresponsible free booters wearing
their Monarch's livery and flaunting his licenrse, and only
*Bancroft's History of the United States.  Chapter  2d. Vol. 1.  Pickett's
History of Alabama. Chapter 1. Vol. 1.
tBaneroft's History of the United States. Vol. 1. Page 60.
62 
TIIE YAZOO FRAUD.
the more licentious because so licensed, and who emulated the worst piratical hordes in their infamous disregard
of the laws of nature and of nations. It was on the contrary
the pervading principle of the policy of Great Britain, that
war and peace, negotiations and treaties with the Indians
and all territorial acquisitions from themn, whetfher by conquest, purchase, or in any other way, should be strictly
affairs of Government to be transacted only by and through
its recognized officers and agents, civil or military, and
never to be given up to private hands, or subordinated to
private interests of any kind, or under any circumstances.
Equally  contrary  was  it to the British system  for  the
Government to sell or convey to private persons or comp)anies the righlt of soil in any lands before the aboiig,inal title
therein had been first regularly extinguis-hed( by the Government itself, nor would the Government  in any manner,
direct or indirect, warrant or tolerate private individuals
or companies in bllyiIJtg or conquering lands friom the
Indians.  Such rights  and  all others affecting  the control over  Indian  relations, it always retained  to itself
and vigilantly guarded as a high and incommunicable prerogative.
This bare statement of what the two systems were shows
the ineffal)le superiority of the British over the Spanish in
point of justice, good morals, wisdom, and humanity. And
to the latest times, upright and enlightened natures among
us will continue, when recalling the harrowing scenes
through which even Anglo-America had to pass in her long,
process of colonization and settlement, to find an exalted
satisfaction in remembering the correct and humane maxims
towards the Indians practised by our great ancestral nation,
and handed down by her to us as a part of that blessed
national itnheritance which war, revolution and the rending
of all the ties of national unity were not able to cause us to
surrender or lose. Nor let it be forgotten that the advantage of observing these maxims was always mutual and
eminently reciprocal between us and the Indians. Whilst
i
63 
TIIE YAZO0 FRAUD.
they were rendered tlhereby mnore secure a,gainst the int. rusions and oiitrag,es of ba(i and lawless white people, our frontiers were at the same time more exemlt homtn Indian incursions andl dep)re(dations, and our whole country fromi the hl,rrors and calamnities of Ind(lian wars.
Ri,ght here then at tl-his )point the first g,reat (damning feature of the Yazoo crime presents itself to view in its violations of these benign, long, consecrated princip)les of our
Incldian policy-prineil)les so (dear to peace, rilghteousness and
humanity in our relations with the Ind(ians, of such perva(lding,     gnd( perpetual importance, and so niuch (ldema,t(lding Iliform dtn( universal enforcement, tlhat the inakers of our new
Federal  Constitution d(eem-ed it their dulty to incorp)orate
theml in tl])t great instrlument among the trusts excllusively
assignted to the General Government.   An(l thlere thley have
ever since been preserved, wral)ped upl in the great powers
of war and peace, the treaty making )ower and the power to
lregil~tte commerce with the Indian tribes.  Nor (lid the new
Government after getting into operation lon,g d(lefer the necessary legislation for giving, full effect to these inherent
principles of the Constitution.  And moreover such was the
estimation in whicl-h Georgia herself soon came to hold these
principles, that when Gen. Jackson  and his compatriots in
1798 undertook the work of' framing, a new Constitution for
the State, warned by the then recent Yazoo enormity and
determined to take away  the possibility of its repetition,
they took care to insert in that Constitution a prohibition
against the sale of any of the State's Indian territory to
individuals or comrpanies, unless after the Indian right thereto should have been extinguished and the territory formed
into counties.
Grossly disreg,ardffil, however, of these great and sacred
principles  the Legislature of' Georg,ia unhappily showed
itself to be on two occasions during the period of the early
immaturity of tle State.  Men not of us, men from abroad,
many of tlhem of fair, some of themtl of high name, had long
had their avaricious gaze fixed on G-eorgia's vast and fertile
I
I
I
I 
65
Indian domain (great speculations in wild lands were a fash ion and a rage in those days) and they had conspired with
self-seeking, influential persons among our own people to en rich themselves by despoiling the State of it on a huge scale.
For years they had stood on the watch for a favorable mo ment for taking hold.  The main cause which  had kept
them back was the unsettled state of the title, which was in
strong dispute between South Carolina and Georgia, and
they cared not to have to treat with two contending States, or
to buy friom either what was contested and claimed by the
other. At length by the convention of Beaufort, in April,
1787, this dispute was settled in favor of Georgia, and its
settlement would have been the signal for an open, energetic
movement of the land-seekers ont our very next Legislature
but for the fa,ct that an exceedingly formidable competitor
appeared on the carpet, whom it was deemed best first to
dispose of and get out of the way. This competitor was
none other than the Continental Congress itself, which some
years before had made earnest appeals to the States owning
Indian lands to cede them to the United States as a fund
for paying the Revolutionary debt. Georgia not having
made any response to these appeals, Congress, in October,
1787, at its first session after the Beaufort Convention, urgently called updn her again to follow the magnanimous
example of Virginia and other States and make the much
desired cession. The Legislature in February ensuing, responded to the call, but how? Why, by offering to make a
cession confined to the territory south of the Yazoo line, the
part most compromised by the litigous pretentions of Spain,
as we shall hereafter see, and that offer, too, clogged with
conditions impossible to be accepted by Congress. Whereupon the offer being rejected and certain modifications proposed by that Body which would make it acceptable, those
modifications were transmitted to the next Legislature, that
of 1789, for its consideration and action. But no action
whatever did it take in regard to them. There can be no
doubt that the unworthy course pursued by the Legislature
5
I
THE YAZOO FRAUD, 
THE YAZO0 FRAUD.
of 1788 in making an offer that was obliged to be rejected,
and the equally unworthy conduct of the Legislature of
1789, in not considering and acceding to the modifications
proposed by Congress, were the result of the bad inspiration
and influence of the Yazoo speculators who, as yet, stood
cloaked and in the dark as a secret organization. One thing
is certain, that by some untold means, both the competition
of Congress and its proposals were smothered and thrust out
of the way, and the speculators succeeded in getting the
field clear and wholly to themselves, free from all competition.
Of the advantages they thus had they made very successful use in dealing with the petty diminutive Legislature of
that era, numbering only eleven Senators and thirty-four
Representatives.   History records not, that they had any
difficulty in outdoing Congress in its suit for the lands, and
in getting for themselves the first Yazoo sale, that of 1789,
although their success being at the cost of gross incivism and
supplanting of their country;,ebrought them no small store
of dishonor, and added  new  ingredients  to  the other
elements of guilt to which we have adverted in their conduct.
By that piece of Legislation the State sold by metes and
bounds and on a credit of two years, to the South Carolina
Yazoo Company lands estimated at five millions of acres, for
$66,964; to the Virginia Yazoo Company, lands estimated
at seven millions of acres, for $93,741; to the Tennessee
Company, lands estimated at three and a half millions of
acres, for $46,785; amounting in all to fifteen and a half
millions, though as now well known exceeding that quantity
by many millions of acres.   All these lands, (among  the
best and most desirable on the Continent) lay far to the
West, on the waters of the Mississippi, the Great Tennessee,
the Tombigby, and their tributaries, and had always been
and were still Indian Territory in the undisputed possession
of several powerful and by no means very friendly Indian
tribes, to whom different portions of it belonged, the Creeks,
Cherokees,  Choctaws  and  Chickasaws.   In addition  to
66 
THE YAZOO FRAUD.                  6/
which Indian occupancy, Spain was disputing with the
United States the title to the whole of these lands, and
vastly more, and an intense territorial quarrel was  then
pending between the two countries as to the ownership and
sovereignty of the same.
No sooner, nevertheless, had the bargain been made with
the Legislature than the three Companies determined to proceed at once to selling and settling the lands they had
respectively bought, regardless of Indian rights and of the
effect on our relations and negotiations with Spain. To this
course of conduct they were influenced as well by necessity
as by choice. For except by immediate sales, they had no
means of raising money wherewith to pay Georgia for the
lands; which, if they failed to do, within the prescribed
time of two years, the lands were to revert at once to the
State, and their whole speculation would come to nothing.
It is remarkable that Georgia took no notice at all of these
mischievous possessory movements of the Yazoo Companies.
The sale to them had by some means, long sunk into oblivion, glided through the Legislature in silence, at least
without making any noise or meeting with any opposition
that has come down to us either by history or tradition.
And now the seizure and disposal of the lands by the purchasing companies under that sale, was on the point of
taking place just as silently and with quite as little opposition, so far at least as the State was concerned.
Washington, however, was on the alert and fully awake to
the case and to the lawless, unconstitutional and dangerous
character of all these doings: Lawless, because in violation of the aforementioned well settled maxims in our Indlian policy: Unconstitutional, because at war with those
wise provisions of the Federal compact, which confided the
whole subject to Federal management:  Dangerous also in
a high degree, because big with four great Indian wars, or
rather with one Indian war with four formidable tribes at one
time, backed by Spain to boot:  I)aingerous again, because
seriously embarrassing and imperiling our aforesaid already
67 
THE YAZOO FRAUD.
critical negotiations with Spain. Against the whole thing
therefore Washington took a most decided stand. He issued
his proclamation strongly denouncing and forbidding all
intrusion on the Indian lands under any pretenses or claims
whatever by the Yazoo purchasers, or any other persons.
He brought the military as well as the civil arm to bear to
defeat the contemplated settlements, and happily succeeded
in breaking up and dissipating the whole project without
tinging the drawn sword with a drop of blood. The result
was that both our Indian and Spanish relations were kept in
their same state and suffered no d(letrimnent.
The Companies, thus thwarted in seizing, selling and settliug the Indian lands they had bought for less than a cent
an acre, were at their wit's end. Their' two years credit
was rapidly expiring, and they knew not how or where to
get the money to pay the State.   Two  hundred and odd
thousand dollars was a large sumn to raise in those days in
coin or in any good money. They could not raise it. They
were consequently driven to the shift of gathering up and
tendering as payment the nearly worthless paper currency
of the times, which being rejected and the issuance of titles
refused, they sued the State in the Federal Court-which
suits were soon brought to an abrupt close by an Amendment of the Federal Constitution, declaring that the
Federal Judiciary had no jurisdiction to entertain suits
against a State.
Thus ended the first Yazoo Sale, a glaring attempt on a
large scale to introduce here by the action of Georgia and
under her patronage, the vicious Spanish-American mnode of
private seizure and conquest of Indian countries.  For the
Legislative act of sale, when probed to the bottom and scanned through its thin translucent pretenses, amounted to
nothing short of an intentional license granted for a price to
the Companies to go and take at their own cost and charges,
the lands they had bought. It even affects a dishonorable
uncertainty of their being any Indians "on or near" those
lands, and takes the hypocritical precaution of providing
68 
THE YAZOO FRAUD.
that if there should be any, the grantees should "forbear all
hostile attacks on them" (not, be it noted, all intrusion on
their territory) which the grantees would be very apt to interpret in their own favor as not depriving them of the right
of repelling Indian attacks on their peaceably disposed new
settlements. A war of defense against the Indians, being
thus initiated, might of course be kept up and prosecuted,
the grantees would argue, uitil peace and security were perfectly achieved, that is to say, until the Indians were well
subdued and their lands vested in the conquerors.
Such was too much the logic and ethics toward the
Indians of that period of mingled dread and exasperation in
Georgia. But even if it had been otherwise, and the prohibitory words in the Leg,islative Act had been meant by the
State in the largest imaginable good faith and kind sense
towards the Indians and their rights, still they were unavoidal)ly mere empty, ineffective words. For what chance
was there for Georgia to make good her prohibition in those
remote savage wilds over which she had never extended her
Government, where she had not a man at her command, and
where besides she could not go herself in any garb, civil or
military, without instantly getting an Indian war upon her
hands?   For hard would it have been to make the Indians
believe that a people who had sold their country to bands of
speculators, had come thither as their friends to protect them
against those speculators, and not as their enemies and the
accomplices of their robbers. Thus there was no possibility
whatever of the State enforcing her prohibition, even if she
had meant it in ever so good faith. And as a right without
a remedy is worthless, so this prohibition being without
means or ability on the part of the State to enforce it, was a
mere mockery, especially when, as here, an open door and
strong temptation was offered for its violation.   That the
Companies regarded the matter in this light is clear enough
from the fact already stated, that they began immediately
taking steps for seizing, selling and settling the lands. Indeed the measures of two of them for this purpose, the Ten
69 
THE YAZOO FRAUD.
nessee and South Carolina Yazoo, enlisting the hardy
pioneers of Kentucky, Tennessee and the lower Mississippi
in their enterprise, were openly military and warlike. And
the fact that the Government of Georgia never in any way
forbade, discountenanced or frowned upon their proceedings,
is unanswerable proof that those proceedings were in unison
with the secret spirit and intent of the Yazoo Sale, though
feebly and insincerely disowned by its letter. The State
being thus worse than delinquenrt, her own people and the
whole country were left, as we have seen, to be indebted to
the Federal Executive alone for the thwartirg of the first
Yazoo iniquity and the prevention of the chaos of crime,
mischief and misery it carried in its bosonm.
SECTION III.
All the iml)puLtations that have thus been seen to lie at the
door of the Yazoo affair of 1789, apply more strongly aLid
with a great addition of guilt to the much worse case of
January, 1795, infamously distinguished as the Yazoo
Fraud proper, and to which we are now coming-a case
rendered worse not only by the crime being or more collossal proportions and accomplished by fouler means, but also
by its having been perpetrated in the face of a solemn warning against it furnished by the history and fate of its less
monstrous predecessor-perpetrated, moreover, in defiance
of the august quarter from whence that warning had proceeded. But notwithstanding the intenser criminality with
which this later Yazoo affair was thus chargeable, it had a
bright side in one respect for the honor of Georgia. It
brought out the strongest possible proof that her people
would not endure turpitude in their public affairs.  No
sooner was the deed of shame consummated in their Legislature, than they rose up in their vengeance against both the
deed and its doers, nor stayed their hand till the wicked
work was undone and the character of the State vindicated.
Assuredly, in the annals of no community, can be found a
more striking and redeeming resentment and uprising of
70
iI 
the people against a great political wickedness than our ancestors exhibited in this instance. And let it be borne in
mind that it was an uprising not less against the iniquity of
the thing itself, than against the bad means by which it was
accomplished, which were unknown at first and only
brought to light after the storm began to rage. Should it
be asked what caused the conduct of Georgia on this occasion to be so different from what it had been in the similar
case of 1789,-the clear answer is, that the difference was
owing to the effect which Washington's stern course and
true teaching in 1789 had produced on the minds of our
people. That effect had been to correct whatever was wrong
in their earlier ideas on the subject, and to awaken and educate them to right views and ajust sense of their duty touching it,-thereby making it quite impossible that any such
like villainy should again ever prosper in their midst for
want of opposition, or find at any stage the slightest toleration at their hands.
The consequence was, that when the new cohorts of speculation rallied and took the field in 1793, full of confidence
and sanguine of being able to seize and carry off the prize
that had by that time fully dropped from the hands of the
preceding band of land-jobbers, they were destined to a signal repulse. The Legislature of that year proved itself
staunch and altogether impregnable to their designs.*
Of course, they fretted sorely under the unexpected disappointment, and it was whilst thus fretting and occupied
in laying their plans for securing a better result whenever
they should enter upon another attempt, that they were
suddenly bestirred and hurried in the matter by certain very
important confidential intimations from the National Capi.
tal. These came from General James Gunn, who was not
only one of the chiefs of their enterprise, but was also their
especial watchman and spy in the United States Senate of
which he was an unworthy member from Georgia, and were
to the effect that, through his opportunities as a Senator, he
.dmerican State Papers, Public Lands, Vol. 1, 147.-Flournoy's  dffidavit.
I
71
THE YAZOO FRAUD. 
THE YAZO0 FRAUD.
knew beyond doubt that our territorial negotiations with
Spain were drawing to a close, and would soon end by her
fully surrendering to us her claims to all the so-called Yazoo
country,-indeed, to all she had ever claimed against us
East of the Mississippi: That therefore there was no time
to be lost by the associated speculators, and that it was indispensable that their scheme of purchase should be pushed
at all hazards, and by all expedients, fair or foul, through
the next Legislature:-For that after this Spanish cloud,
that had for more than a dozen years overhung and darkened
the title of Georgia and given a handle for calumniating and
cheapening her immense landed wealth, should be dissipated,
as it now soon would be, all prospect would be gone of their
ever being able to buy these immense regions from her for
the trifling price on which they had fixed their expectations,-if, indeed, the purchase could be made on any terms,
-a thing exceedingly doubtful, considering the great reaction of opinion as to the value of the lands that was sure
to result firom the Spanish riddance that was now imminent, combined with the permanent and general Indian
pacification which would be its certain speedy consequence.
These revelations had a strong effect on the Yazooists, not
unlike in one respect that produced on the Rothschilds by
their twenty-four hours' soonest intelligence from the fatal
field of Waterloo, in June, 1815. Activity was marvelously quickened in both cases. The great money-lenders and
money-controllers of the world, the pecuniary patrons of
kings and governments and ever vigilant speculators on the
vastest scale in their debts and securities, astounded the
London Exchange for one whole day by the magnitude and
multiplicity of their operations, to which none could find
the clue till the next morning. So not until the treaty of
San Lorenzo was concluded in October, 1795, and made
known to the country, was it fully understood what had impelled the Yazoo companies to press their nefarious project
on the preceding Legislature with such desperate energy,
and such costly, unstinted corruption.   Then, indeed, the
72 
THE YAZO0 FRAUD.
cause stood out in clear light and became obvious to every
body-it being plainly seen what great and just reason they
had for feaiing that the last chance was in hand they were
likely ever to have for cheaply getting hold of the priceless
landed empire on which they were villainously intent, and
which, whilst they saw the General Government on the
point of freeing from its Spanish entanglement, they also
saw it, at the same time, still suing for to Georgia on behalf
of that noble national object,-the payment of the Revolutionary Debt.
Of the pestilent territorial claims of Spain that gave rise
to this entanglement and which have so often started up in
our path, complicated, first, with our Indian Affairs and
the Oconee war, as we have heretofore shown at length, and
then, also, with that monstrous Yazoo iniquity which we are
now handling, furnishing to the banded speculators a reason
of their own for being ill such eager hurry to buy up the
State's Western lands, and givitng them at the same time a
cherished pretext for  decrying their title and value, it
will be well here to take a rapid, comprehensive review,
althHugh at the cost of being carried far back into Revolutionary and pre-Revolutionary times.   For such a review
ain)le apology, it strikes me, will be found in its general
affinity to the early history of Georgia as well as in the
light it is calculated to shed on the Yazoo Fraud.
RETROSPECT OF THE SPANISH TITLE.
North America was long an arena of strife for dominion
between France, Spain and England. France having at an
early day seized upon the shores of the St. Lawrence, based
thereupon a claim not only to the frozen realms adjacent
and the immense icy regions further North, but also to those
more genial climes spreading out behind the mountains from
the margins of the Great Lakles to the heads of the tributaries of thie Mississippi; along which great river she planted
also that grandest of her colonies, Louisiana, under whose
shadow she asserted herself sole sovereign of the mighty
73 
THE YAZOO FRAUD.
stream and all its sequacious waters and almost boundless
dependant lands from its mouth to its source on both sides.
Spain had posted herself along the Gulf of Mexico from the
waters of the Mobile to the Southern Atlantic, and from
thence shot up her claims perpendicularly and indefinitely
to the North, interpenetrating those of France and England. The latter power stood thrust as it were between the
two others, occupying the entire Ocean front from the
Canadas to Florida. But westwardly she paid no respect at
all to the exorbitant claims of her neighbors, coolly ignoring
and overriding them with still more exorbitant claims of
her own. Quite regardless of their airy conflicting pretensions, she boldly projected the long lines of colony after
colony, among the rest of South Carolina and Georgia,
across the Continent from the Atlantic to the South Sea, as
the Pacific was then called.
This state of things was almost obliged to result sooner or
later in war. For how else could these omniverous competitors for the mastery of the new world be quieted among
themselves and  have their litigious limits adjusted?   It
came at length, a tripartite struggle between the three Powers, memorable for its great territorial consequences, for the
mournful defeat and fall of the proud Braddock in the
depths of an Indian wilderness, and for its sadly glorious
crowning scene-Wolfe's heroic death clasped in the arms
of victory on the heights of Abraham. It was a great seven
years war and gradually, after our own more famed war of
the Revolution, came to be called by our ancestors the ol1d
French war. It lasted till 1763, when it was brought to a
close by the treaty of Paris, concluded in February of that
year.   That treaty was France's death blow  in North
America.  By it she lost to England the Canadas and the
whole North, and ilso all of Lousiana on the eastern side of
the Mississippi down  to the 31st iarallel of latitude.  To
Spain she lost all the rest of Louisiana onr both sides of the
Mississippi, and wts thus literally expelled from the  Continent.   Then England yielded up in favor of Spain all her
74 
THE YAZOO -FRAUD.
Trans-Mississippi pretensions and accepted that river as her
western boundary; and Spain on her part transferred to
England, Florida, embracing under that name all that she
had previously to the war claimed East of the Mississippi.
And now we come to divers facts important in the territorial controversy that subsequently arose between the
United States and Spain and having, through that controversy a bearing on the Yazoo Fraud. Among which facts it
is first to be noted that under the Spanish rule, all Florida
had been but one Province with large limits stretching up
towards the North indefinitely, as has just been observed,
and adverse both to England and France. Great Britain,
upon Florida becoming hers, changed this thing. She divided the one province into two, East and West Florida, and
fixed their northern boundary. That of East Florida she
made to begin at the junction of the Flint and Chattahoochee, r1nrning from thence to the head of the St. Mary's, and
f,)llowint' thie course of that river to the sea.  That of West
Fl.c, rida, with Awhich alone we are now concerned, she made
to )begin on the Chlttahoochee river where the 31st parallel of
latittude strikes it, andl to f'ollow that parallel to the Mississippi.
Had Great Britain allowed this line to remain unaltered,
had she th(ong'ht proper, during, her brief domination, to let
atlone this, her first fixation of the Northern  bounnlary of
\West Florid(la, very different from what actually took place
would'have beenl many subsequent circumstances and events
in relation to a vast an(l interesting re(,ion. In the first
lplace, had this line of tlhe thirty-first parallel remnaine(l undlistutrbed, that Sp)anish claim of title afterwards so earnestly urged agaiinst the United States for all the country between the ClIattahoochee and the Mississippi lying above
that parallel, would have lacked its only plausible foundation, and in all liklelihood would never have been brought
'orward.  Consequently, that Spanish Protectorate of the Indians and interference with them against us, which originated wholly out of this claim of title, would never have
I
75 
THE YAZOO FRAUD.
occurred. It is altogether probable likewise that the Yazoo
Fraud itself might never have been hatched, and in case it
had been, it is almost certain it would have failed of successful accomplishment.  For the litigious state of the title
between our country and Splain was the main root from
which it sprang, inspiring, as we have seen, a hope of
achieving the vast purchase, or champerty rather, at very
little cost.  How adroitly the Yazooists intermingledl insinuations against the title of Georgia with the arts of bribery,
corruption and influence with which they prosecuted their
purchase before the Legislature, needs not to be told in detail here. Verily, it required the combined force of these
and all other base means they could commanld, to effect the
passage of their monstrous  scheme.-And then, furthermore, had Great Britain never clanged this linle, the very
word Yazoo would have remained in its original obsc(urity,
nor would ever have been raised into notoriety, nor fastened
as a name oni a large and interesting portion of thie earth's
surface.
But Great Britain, in the course of a few years was led,
by reasons not now worth enmunerating, to make a great
change of the line as at first established by her,-a change
destirned to be prolific of no little strife between her two
conquering successors, Spain and the United States.  Carrying the Northern boundary of West Florida much further
up, she made it to start firom the MAississippi at the mouth
of the Yazoo and to run from thence due East to the Chattahoochee, striking the latter river not far from what is now
West Point. Naturally, this line soon became famous as
the new upper boundary of British West Florida, and it got
to be familiarly known as the Yazoo line, and the country
above and below it to an indefinite extent came to be called
the Yazoo country.  Wherefore, upo,n the subsequent reconquest of British West Florida by Spain, which took place in
May, 1781, it is not strange that Spain should have claimed,
as she did, to have become the owner, by virtue of that conquest, of all the country bearing the name of British West
76 
THE YAZOO FRAUD.
Florida, that is, of all South of the Yazoo line. But not
content with this, she went much further, and without either
logic or justice on her side, extended her pretensions to all
the territory on the North of the line to which the vague
name of Florida had of old been applied by her, asserting
that she was remitted to her ancient claims there also by
her reconquest of West Florida, although British West
Florida did not reach so fair up. From the foregoing it is
seen how it happened that the vast region of which we are
discoursing acquired the name of Yazoo, and why in the
first legislative sale, that of 1789, the two main purchasing
companies took Yazoo (the word not }having yet become obnoxious) as part of thleir name and were called the Virginia
Yazoo and the South Carolina Yazoo Companies. Hence,
also, in the act of 1795, although all four of its companies
eschewed the now tainted name and it was not allowed to
occur in the law from the beginning to the end, yet it continnued to stick like the shirt of Nessus, and neither the lands,
the law, the companies, the enacting Legislature; nor anything else connected with the transaction have ever been
able to this day to get rid of the abhorred designation.
It was more than a dozen years after the establishment of
this Yazoo line by Great Britain that the important event
occurred to which we have just above adverted, namely,
the Sp)anish reconquest of West Florida from that power in
May, 1781, a date at which our Revolutionary war was yet
in " mid vollcy,"-eighteen months before the provisional,
and more than two years befbre the definitive treaty of
Peace, Limits and Independence between the mother country and the United States. This reconquest was a long
premeditated thing with Spain. All the while after the
treaty of Paris, she had been ill at ease under the loss of
Florida, for which she had never felt that Great Britain's
relinquishment of her shadowy claims West of the Mississippi deserved to be called an indemnity, or was anything
more than a mere empty salvo to Spanish pride. She had
been constantly on the watch, therefore, for an opportunity
71 
THE YAZOO FRAUD.
of revenge and reseizure, and found it at last, so far as West
Florida was concerned, by leaping on Great Britain while
she was oppressed by a tripple war with her rebellious colonies, and their French allies and the unallied Dutch. Never
was conquest more complete and unequivocal, the British
Governor, Chester, making an absolute surrender of the
province and retiring with the British Forces and functionaries, and leaving everything in the hands of the victorious
Spaniards. Nor was there ever any attempt at recapture.
The effect was that, as between Great Britain and Spain,
all British West Florida from the Gulf up to the Yazoo line
became undoubtedly Spanish, nor was there aught left to
England within that space capable of being conveyed by her
in any way to the United States or any other power.
And yet what in fact did England do? Here is what she
did: By both the aforementioned treaties, provisional and
definitive, she ceded the whole country, as well below as
above the Yazoo line, to the United States down to the 31st
parallel, wholly disregarding the aforesaid Spanish reconquest. And what is stranger still, she did on the very day
she made this definitive cession to the United States, to-wit,
on the 3d day of September, 1783, enter into a conflicting
treaty with Spain conveying in full right to her East
and West Florida, without saying one word about their
boundaries, leaving Spain consequently at liberty and in a
position to contend for whatever boundaries she pleased
against us.
Behold here what a wanton bequest of territorial dispute
and quarrel our chagrined and vanquished Mother country
threw at parting into the laps of the United States and
Spain.:-A bequest, too, which, so far as related to the region South of the Yazoo line, seemed at first glance decidedly to throw the advantage on the side of Spain and against
this country. But it was only at the first glance that it had
that seeming. For upon close scrutiny it became clear that
the United States were entitled to go behind these conflicting treaties into which Britian had entered with Spain
78 
THE YAZOO FRAUD.
and ourselves, and to treat the one made with us as being
not so much a cession or the source of our title as an acknowledgement by the mother country of our pre-existing rights
and boundaries acquired, sword in hand, by successful war
and our Declaration of Independence.   By this mode of
viewing the subject (and it is certainly the true one), our
territorial rights and limits recognized by the treaty of 1783
are made to relate back and take effect from a date anterior
to the Spanish conquest of 1781, and to be superior consequently to the Spanish claim founded on that conquest, just
as our Independence itself is to be regarded not as a grant or
concession from Great Britain, but as a right acknowledged by
her to be already ours, conquered by war and dating back
to the 4th of July 1776. We see thus that revolution and
the sword are the true fountain head from which we trace in
this case our territorial title and boundaries as well as our
blood-purchased right of self-government:-Of both which
the above mentioned British treaties with us are to be considered but as a recognition and settlement.
Such is the principle, not the less sound because a little
subtle, which comes to our rescue, supplanting in our favor
the Spanish claim of title to all that part of the contested
territory lying South of the Yazoo line. It is not surprising,
however, that Spain should have been exceedingly averse to
yielding up so fine and large a region on so fine a point as
this.  But when she went further, and upon the ground of
having conquered British West Florida, overstepped the
Yazoo line and advanced pretensions to an immense country
which had never been embraced in that province, no wonder
the American Continent grew impatient and almost lost
respect for a power that juggled in this manner for more
than it could with decency claim.
Thus, upon comparison of the two titles, Spanish and
Georgian, as they stood previously to the treaty of San
Lorenzo, that of Georgia on which alone the United States
relied and triumphed in their negotiations with Spain, is
found to be prior in time and consequently stronger in point
79 
THE YAZOO FRAUD.
of right (prior tempore, ergo portior jure,) than the Spanish
title; both being founded on conquest from Great Britain
and our conquest being the oldest of the two by nearly five
years.  But even supposing the title of Spain, though vanquished in her diplomatic strife with our country, to have
been in reality better than that of Georgia by means of
which the United States vanquished it, yet the United States
would be precluded after the victory from assumning an altered
language and denying the superiority and validity of the title
of Georgia under which that victory had been won.   For
Governments no more than individuals, after conquering
under a flag, whether of war or of words, have a right to
turn upon it and rend it.  The wise and beneficent principle of estoppel so well known in law and so sacred to peace,
honor and the repose of rights and property, here comes into
play, and not only forbade the United States  from setting
up the vanquished Spanish title in opposition to that of
Georgia, but furthermore required that this vanquished
title should not be allowed in the hands of the United States
to have the effect of vesting any right whatever, against
Georgia, but should be made to enure, for whatever it
might be worth, to her benefit alone, and to the perfect clearing and firm establishment of her right and title.
SECTION IV.
Such is a condensed account of the Spanish title and of its
eventual surrender to the United States who were contestants against it under the elder and better title of Georgia.
The leagued speculators forewarned by Gen-. Gunn, knew,
as we have seen, as early as 1794, how certain and near at
hand this surrender was, and by the many able and distinguished men whom they counted in their ranks, (among
whom were prominent politicians, eminent jurists and learned judges;) they were all the while kept well enlightened
as to the manner in which this surrender whenever it should
happen, would work; that it would enure, as we have above
stated, to the benefit of Georgia and to the disembarrass
I
I
I
80 
THiE YAZOO FRAUD.
ment of her right in and to the immense territory they were
seeking to purchase from her. But whilst their confidence
in the clear title of what they were aiming to buy from
Georgia was thus perfect and free from doubt, they dread ed not a little the enhanced estimation of the lands and
other difficulties which they foresaw rising up in their path
in case they should fail to consummate their purchase in
advance of the coming Spanish cession. Among those other
difficulties was the ever haunting danger from the patriotic
competition of the United States government. For though
they had succeeded in triumphing over it in ] 789, they saw it
again starting up and all the while threatening them. To
which when we add the vast unprincipled cupidity by which
they were devoured and the mania then widely prevalent
for speculating in wild lands, we behold the reasons which
stimulated the Yazooists to the hurried and profligate efforts
of which they were now guilty in order to grasp, while they
might, an enormous prize which they apprehended would
not remain long within their reach.
These efforts they consequently commenced making very
soon, not waiting even for the meeting of the Legislature.
For months beforehand, the ringleaders and their most
wily, trusted accomplices were hard at work to secure success from that body when it should assemble.   They kept,
however, a thick veil over their machinations.  It was quite
unknown to the public how they were busied.  Little was
it supposed that they were industriously occupied in perfecting their schemes, in tampering with the elections to the
Legislature, in enlisting men of influence far and wide, and
in getting up funds for the purpose of corruption and paying
for the lands. Even upon the assembling of the Legislature
in November, no siege was at first laid; no lobby showed
itself; no demonstration of any sort was for sometime made.
Every thing was kept still, quiet, unsuspected, awaiting a
very significant, pre-arranged, auxiliary event, namely, the
re-election of Gen. Gunn for another six years to the United
States Senate, which was no sooner accomplished than it
6
, I
81 
THE YAZOO FRAUD.
was hailed everywhere by his associates as a great pre]iminary triumph, and an auspicious prelude to the grand Yazoo
campaign, which was now at once boldly opened at Augusta
under the leadership of Gunn himself, robed in all the
bravery of his renewed Senatorial dignity-A dignity basely
sought by him on this occasion with the direct intention of
prostituting its great influence to the shame and betrayal of
the people who honored him, and to the vile enrichment of
himself and his confederates, who had not over estimated
the importance of his election to their cause, rightly ju(lging that a Legislature which should re-elect such a man to
so noble a station would not be found proof against the augmented bad influence with which  they had thereby armed
him, nor be beyond the reach of those arts of corruption that
were pre-determined to be excited by himself and his coworkers, who took it for granted from their failure at the
preceding session that such arts would have to be employed
in order to success now.*
Quickly then ul)on Gunn's re-election the veil was entirely thrown off by the Yazooists and four great land companies developed themselves that had evidently been already
organized and in waiting for that signal. These companies
soon perceived that in  playing  the part of competitors
against one another they would be greatly in each other's
*Extract from Mr. Randolph's speech on the Yazoo claims in the House of
Representatives of the United States, January 31st, 1805: "There is another
fact, too little known, but unquestionably true, in relation to this business
The scheme of buying up the Western territory of Georgia did not originate
there. It was hatched in Philadelphia and New York (and I believe in Boston,
of this, however, I am not certain), and the funds by which it was effected were
principally furnished by monied capitalists in those towns. The direction of
these resources devolved chiefly on the Senator (Gunn), who has been mentioned. Too wary to commit himself to writing, he and his associates agreed upon
a countersign. His re-election was to be considered as evidence that the temper of the Legislature of Georgia was suited to their purpose and his Northern
confederates were to take their measures accordingly. In proof of this fact,
no sooner was the news of his re-appointment announced in New York than it
was publicly said in a coffee house there, "Thenr the Western territory of
Georgia is sold."-Benton db. of Congressional Debates, Vol. III, p. 331.
82 
THE YAZOO FRAUD.
way and that by combining their resources and influence thev
would almost certainly be able to control the Legislature to
their purposes. They hastened accordingly to enter into a
coalition, the parties to which, more grasping than their
predecessors of 1789, resolved on seizing and partitioning
among themselves all the immense country from the Alaabama and Coosa in the East and the Mississippi in the
West, and from the Northern boundary of Georgia along
the 35th parallel down nearly to her Southern limit on the
31st degree of latitude-a region of surpassing natural advantages and comprising some forty orfifty millions of acres
of what was mostly very fertile land in a very fine climate,
every where well watered and abounding in good navigable
rivers.
Over the proposals and efforts of the combined speculators
to buy this almost imperial expanse the State's unworthy
representatives higgled and hesitated for some time, not, as
the upshot showed, in order to obtain a better price for the
State, but with a view only to bigger bribes for themselves.
At length, paid to their own full satisfaction for their votes,
they sold the whole coveted region at one "fell swoop" of
legislation for the sum of $500,000 to the four leagued companies, the purchase money being apportioned among them
as also were the lands, according to their own wishes and
dictation; the State getting one-fifth of the money in hand
and receiving mortgages on the lands themselves for the
remainder, which was fully paid before the expiration of a
stipulated credit of ten months. The Georgia Company was
the leviathan of the coalition, paying just one-half of the
gross amount of the purchase money, $250,000, the GeorgiaMississippi Company paying $155,000, the Upper Mississippi Company, $35,000, and the Tennessee Company, $60,000,
each getting by metes and bounds lands proportioned to
their respective payments.
In this gigantic transaction we behold shamelessness and
audacity, falsity and artifice vying with the pecuniary corruption by which it was disgraced. For instance, the Leg
83 
THE YAZ00 FRAUD.
islature had the hardihood, as we are informed in the preamble to the Rescinding Act, to accept this price of $500,000
in the face of a proposition by other parties equally reliable
to pay $800,000, which was refused for no better reason than
the smaller bribes, or perhaps thezno bribes, by which it was
backed. How grateful the bare idea that the failure of these
higher bidders was owing to their virtue! Moreover, also,
during the time the measuire was onhand the speculators grossly misrepresented tile amount of the lands they were seeking
to buy, pretending that they amounted to not more than
21,000,000 or 22,000,000 of acres.* After the bargain was
clinched they quickly made the discovery that they had gotten at least 40,000,000 acres.  And then the pretense set up
in the Act of a necessity to sell these lands in order to raise
funds to pay the State troops and to extinguish the Indian
title to lands lying elsewhere, is transparently false and hypocritical on the very face of the law.  Further still, among,
the numerous badges of fraud and villainy by which the case
is deformed, not the least remarkable is that these great territories were clandestinely sold, as it were, by the Legislature without any notice whatever having been given to the
public that they were for sale.
'In the debate on the Yazoo Claims in January, 1805, in the House of Representatives, Mr. Lucas, of Virginia, said:
"It ought to be observed that the four land companies, who are original
purchasers under the Act of the Legislature of Georgia, passed on the 7th of
January, 1795, stated in their petition containing their proposal to the Legislature to purchase certain lands belonging to the State of Georgia, that the lands
contained within the bounds which were described in their petition amounted
to 21,750,000 acres It was evidently upon the faith of this statement that the
Legislature consented to sell that land for $500,000. However, it is now ascertained that the quantity of land thus described amounts to 35,000,000 acres
and the companies themselves compute it to be near 40,000,000. From this
it appears evidently that the companies have deceived the Legislature by stating
what was not true.    *    *       * 
"The Legislature have consequently sold twice as much land as th.ey intended
to sell, or which is the same thing, they have sold it one-half cheaper than it
was their intention, and all this loss is the result of the false statement given
by the land companies."- Benton's db. of Congressional Debates, Vol. III,
p. 3'3.
84 
THE YAZ00 FRAUD.
But in order to see this Yazoo affair in its full turpitude,
it is necessary to advert to another law enacted at the same
session.  I mean the Act passed for the purpose of making
provision for paying with Indian lands the State Troops for
their services in defending the State in the Indian war
which had been so long pending and which, indeed, was not
yet perfectly terminated.   This law authorizes Surveys and
Head Rights in favor of the citizen soldiers to be located on
lands yet I'n the occupancy of Indians lying in the Tallassee
country and to.the South of the Oconee.   Such and so
thorough, however, was the change of ideas that had been
wrought among the people of Georgia by the policy and
principles of Washington as displayed and enforced in his
warfare against the Yazoo sale of 1789, that whatever they
may have previously thought on the subject, they now certainly disclaimed all right of entering themselves or of
authorizing by their laws and grants, others to enter on the
Indian lands within the limits of the State until the Indian
title should be first extinguished and the consent of the
general Government given. Accordlingly in this State Troops
Act, care was taken to insert a clause declaring thatihe Act
was not to go into operation until after the extinction of the
Indian title, and in reg,ard to the Tallassee country, not
until after obtaining the consent of the General Government.
Such were the restrictions the Legislature felt bound to put
into a Law appropriating Indian lands for so favorite an
object as that of compensating our citizen soldiers.
But when it came to thie Yazoo Law and the selling of a
realm of Indian territory to gangs of profligate speculators for almost nothing in comparison with its value, a
mighty change comes over the Legislature.   It now no
longer gave heed to the principles and policy of Washington. There is now no waiting for the extinguishment of
the Indian title, or the consent of the General Government;
no postponement of the operation of the Law for these or
any other events. On the contrary the sale is absolute, immediate, unconditional, trammeled with no delays, contin
85 
THE YAZOO FRAUD.
gencies or restrictions. In a word the restrictions studiously inserted in the State Troops law are as studiously left
out here, and the door is intentionally left open for the
State's bribing grantees and whoever might become their subpurchasers to possess themselves, so far as the terms of the
Law are concerned, of the Indian lands at their own pleasure and by their own arts and means. And in order to add
strength to such their claim under the law and place it beyond cavil, recourse is had to an extraordinary and most
discreditable Legislature trick-A- lying Title is prefxed to
the Law. It is falsely christened an "Act supplementary"
to the State Troops Act.   Thus, by forging the relation of
principal and supplement between the two laws and thereby
making them for all purposes of judicial interpretation one
and the same law,. the construction was the more strongly
necessitated that the insertion of the restrictions in the State
Troops Law and their omission in the Yazoo Law was tantamount to their express exclusion from the latter, according to the universally recognized  legal maxim,  Incu-io
unius e8t exclusio elterius.  Behold here by what unworthy pacliamehtitary legerdemain the Yazooists contrived to
strengthen the argument of their exemption from restrictions
demanded at once by righteousnesss and good policy and by
the laws and constitution and treaties of the Union; restrictions also to which our meritorious citizen soldiers were
subjected by the very same Legislature that in the very
same breath exempted the Yazooists therefrom.   Certainly
we see here a device altogether worthy of the law-learning
and technical artifice and skill which abounded in the
Yazoo ranks; a device moreover, which nothing but Yazoo
corruption could have carried in triumph through the two
Houses of the General Assembly and then through the Executive Branch of the Government also. For corruption must
have found its way there too, if not directly to the very
breast and pocket of the Governor, which we would fain
hope was not the case, yet undoubtedly to those by whom
he was advised and influenced.
I
86 
TIIE YAZO0 FRAUD.
It was the ill fate of Col. George Matthews to fill the Executive Chair at this date and to affix the signature that at once
made the monstrous iniquity a law and fastened forever upon
himself the character of a great public criminal.  Vain
would be any attempt to palliate his conduct, although there
have been writers who ventured upon such attempt. The
best that can be said in mitigation for him is that his entire
action in the matter seemed to be the result as much of weakness as of wickedness, and excites our sorrow along with our
anger whilst we are sternly consigning his name to dishonor.
The heart cannot but feel some generous relenting towards
this heroic, hard-fighting and thorough-going, though uncouth and unscholarly Revolutionary patriot and warrior,
when we behold him elevated, after the close of the war, to
a great political post for which he was who}ly unfit and
where he was destined almost certainly to fall a victim to
his own utter incompetency and the misleading arts and influence of those around him on whom he was obliged helplessly to lean.  The wounds received and the laurels won
by such a man in the terrible days of his country's dangers
and trials, "plead like angels, trumpet-tongued," in his
favor ever afterwards, and cause us to look uplon his worst
political misdeeds with a gentleness of reprobation which
we extend not to mere civilians and mien who can show no
blood-earned title to the public gratitude. But, nevertheless, Governor Matthews, in spite of this kindly popular feeling towards him and although no direct charge of being
personally bribed and corrupted, so far as I ever heard, was
at any time alleged against him, was politically ruined in
Ge.)rgia by the odium of his official complicity with the
Yazoo Fraud. It was enough for the people that by his single
dissent he might have defeated that stupendous villainy and
that he did not do it, but on the contrary gave it his assent
and vitalized it with his signing hand.  And besides there
were other strongly exasperating circumstances against him.
The two bills, the State Troops Act and that for the Yazoo
Sale, were both before him for his signature at the same
87 
THE YAZOO FRAUD.
time. The former he signed and returned on the 28th of
December. The latter he refused to sign and sent back with
his objections on the same day. How it happened that so
soon afterwards as the 7th of January he was gotten to forego all his objections and to sign another bill substantially
the same, only enough altered to give him a pretext for
saying that it was not the same but another bill, was never
explained and naturally gave rise to deeply damaging surmises against him. And assuredly, moreover, his case was
not bettered by the unhappy fact of his total neglect in his
list of objections of the 28th of December, to take any notice
of a matter so capital and striking as the omission in the
Yazoo Bill of the above mentioned restrictions contained in
the State Troops Act, which he had just examined and signed.
His failure to notice and brand this omission cannot be
viewed otherwise than as a mark of his sanction given to it
at that time by implication, as afterwards it was expressly
given when on the 7th of January, he finally signed the bill
and made it a law.
The clue to the excessive anxiety we have noticed on the
part of the Yazooists to have on the very face of their
Legislation clear, merchantable titles, free from all restrictions or contingencies, is to be found in the fact that their
scheme was designed from the beginning to be one of rapid
sales and conversion into money, not of protracted ownership
awaiting. the extinction of the Indian title by government
and the subsequent gradual increase of the value of the
lands. It was in order that they might successfully carry
out this scheme that they wanted a law which they could
parade and bepraise in the markets of the world as giving a
present absolute estate, not merely future contingent rights
and expectations. With such a law and titles under it
good and specious on the surface though well known to
themselves to be in reality unsound and vulnerable to attack
by both the United States and Georgia, they hoped to be
rapidly able to succeed in alluring into large purchasing
88 
strangers and uninformed, distant people, that class who are
always lredestined as their victims by wicked, shrewd-contriving speculators.
But not only did these shrew(l, enterprising speculators
want and resolve to get per fas ant per nefas, titles that
should be in all resplects current and alluring in the land
market, but they wanted all the world as a market for their
imnuiense and unrighteous landed wares. To this end, however, it was necessary to contrive some way of evading the
law of Georgia disabling aliens to hold land in this State.
And here agian it was deemed expedient not to drive at
their object openly but to seek it by legis]ative indirection and
tricklery. Their cunning plan was to have a clause inserted
in the very Act of Sale affecting a patriotic hostility to
foreigners becoming owners of real estate in Georgia.  By
this clause the Yazoo purchasers and their associates are
prohibite(l firom disposing of the lands in part or in the
whole, in any way or manner, "to any foreign king, prince, potentate or power whatever."  The palpable, precogitated object of inserting this clause was that the Yazoo companies
should by clear implication be entitled to sell and convey to
all other foreigners than the very few who fall under the
dclescrip)tion of "kings, princes, potentates and powers."
And not only is this almost boundless license of selling to
foreigners thus surreptitiously incorporated in the law, but
it is also required to be set forth in the very face of the
grants that were to be issued under the law to the companies,
in order that fbreigners might thereby be the more strongly
tempted to become buyers, seeing that their right to buy was
doubly secured both by the law itself and then by the State's
grants and conveyances founded upon it.  Fit companionp)iece this to the villainous "supplementary" device to which
it is applended and which we have but a moment ago had
occasion to reprobate and brand!
89
THE YAZOO FRAUD.
0 
THE YAZ00 FRAUD.
SECTION V.
Not for more than three score years and ten, not indeed until
a inew and monstrous race of l)olitical caitiffs, foul harpies
of the North, the vile brood of a peace worse than war, of a
reconstruction worse than ruin, swarmed down upon our fair
and hapless South and made it one vast sickening scene of
official atrocity and villainy, securely practised under a reinorseless Federal patronage, had the people of Georgia ever
gotton over their vivid, loathing remuembrance of this old
Yazoo crime. Now, however, that renowned turpitude of
the last century has been unseated from its preemninence.  Far
outstripped by the teeming infamies, political and pecuniary, of these latter times, it is no longer capable of exciting
amazement in the recollecting mind. Little wonder is now
felt that in young, immature Georgia, some  eig,hty years
ago, a gigantic, corrupt speculation, as remarkable for the
ability and standing of the men concerned in it as for the
abundance and baseness of the means they employed, should
have succeeded in debauching and triumphing over a poorly
enlightened and very dilminutive legislative body of those
early times.
Yes! very diminutive that body still was.  For, although,
by the formation of new counties the Senate had grown
laiger, still it consisted of only twenty members, every man
of whom, save one, was in his seat on the final passage of
the bill, and all voted except the President, Benjamin Taliaferro, ten for the law, eight against it. Had it been necessary fo)r the President to vote, it is well known that he
would have cast his vote in the negative, so that the measure really had a majority of but one in the Senate.  In the
lower House the number of' members still remained at
thirty-four, there being a peculiar provision in the new constitution against the number being increased by the creation
of new counties. There were but twenty-nine members
present, including the Speaker, Thomas Napier, who did
not vote.   Nineteen votes were given in the. affirmative
90
16 
THE YAZOO FRAUD.
and only nine in the negative. It effected this, its second
passage, thlrough this body on  the second of January,
thlroug,h the Senate on the third, and on the seventh Governor Matthews affixed his hesitating signature, and the atrocious deed was complete that has ever since resounded as a
great shame in our history, blurring its virgin page, blighltitig every name implicated in it, and leaving more or less of
blemish wherever a shadow of imputation connected with it
has ever fallen.  It required a milghty and multifarious effort to accomplish it. Many men and every sort of men and
means were subsidized and yet the change of a single vote in
the Sena. te would have defeated it as we have just seen and
s,ai(l
I will not undertake to reproduce in detail here the revolting scenes of which Augusta was the theatre during that
infamous session, when everything was venal, when the
Legislative Halls were converted into shambles, and the
honor of the State and the grandest public interests were
shamTnelessly put up to open sale for the vile lucre-sake of
traitorous Representatives  and their  corruptors.  Reason
abundant is there forsooth to deter from  attempting such
)()rtrayal.  For I hold no graphic pen, and then what pen
could impart to those scenes aught of horrific effect or pungent interest nowadays, when men's minds have become
seared by spectacles of the grossest depravity in the high as
well as low places of the government passing continually
befbre their eyes and passing not only without punishment
but without shame or rebuke? Suffice it to say that every
vote given for the law save one, that of Robert Watkins,
was undeniably a corrupt vote purchased either with money
or the gift of subshares in the speculation, or both.  In aid
moreover, of the measure, the active exertions and influence
of men of weight and character out of the Legislature was
in very many instances secured by similar means, or by prevailing on them to become interested on like terms with the
original members of the companies. It is due, however, to
the memory of numerous persons who became connected in
I — 
91
I
. i
I 
THE YAZOO FRAUD.
this latter way with the speculation, seduced by the great and
distinguished names of some leading men in it, to say that
they were alike iiriknowing and incapable of the turpitude
involved in tile project, and that not a few, on their eyes
being opened, instead of making haste after the example of
their chiefs, to sell out and pocket their gains, repudiated
the whole thing, receiving back subsequently  under  the
provisions of the Rescindiing Act of (Georgia, the portions of
the purchase  money  they had respectively  contributed,
whilst there were others wl-ho simply abandoned the pittance
of onie-fifth of the purchase money which it had devolved on
thiem to pay.  The report made on the 16th day of February, 180()3, by Messrs. Mladison, Gallatin and Lincoln, commissioners* under an Act of Congr,ess for investigating the
Yazoo claims, is accompl,anied with a long catalogue of the
names of persons, Georgians and others, secondary as well
as original purchasers, who had thus withdrawn their payments fromn the State Treasury, amounting in the aggregate
to $310,695 15.  Thus it appears that in this as in most
cases where a great multitude of people are implicated, not
only were there mrany different degrees of guilt, but those
also were to be found who by their c()n(luct eventually saved
themselves friom tlre reproach of knowingly persevering in
crime.
In this connection, the honored name of Patrick Henryt
comes strikingly up and claims some mention. Yielding to
that rather too great greed for money which is said to have
characterized him and not duly reflecting., it may be hoped,
on the objections to the speculationt, he bectamne  a leading
member of the Virginia Yazoo Complany of 178S9. When,
however, the heavy frowns and antagonism of Washington aroused his attention to the demerits and criminality
of the project, he seems to have stopped short; at all events
he allowed not himself to be connected with the subsequent
Yazoo scheme, and is no more to be seen taking any part or
-American State Papers, Public Lands.  Vol. 1, p. 200.
tAmerican State Papers, Public Lands. Vol. 1, p. 132, 150.
92 
THE YAZOO FRAUD.
interest in the thing, sought for althlough his great name
was to give it sanction and enhance its chances of success.
Happy for his imperishable fame, this rather narrow escape,*
and that in him a strong sense of character and an almost
exorbitant love of shiningo repute amoing men were sufficient
checks against that mean passion for riches which was  tlhe
bane of not a few public and oflicial men in that day as
well as in our own more impure times.
In painful contrast with this conduct of the illustrious
patriot orator stands that of a number of conspicuous, contemporary characters whom, although clothed with public
honors, neither that or any other consideration availed to
restrain or reclaim from a career of turpitude and incivism
into which they were drawn by the accursed thirst of gold.
Their names, consequently, have found an unenviable berth
in history, forever associated with the stench and stigma of
the Yazoo Fraud.  Nor do they deserve a better fate than
that the more important among thlem at least should be recalled and gibbeted in these evil days of expiring public
virtue and growing national vice and degeneracy. So may
bad men, filling and betraying high public trusts, be taught
what awaits them at the bar of posterity, however much
they may flourish and prosper during their own base lives.
Behold, then, occupying a place among the most exalted
national dignitaries of his day, and at the same time figuring
in the van of this corrupt and corrupting speculation, James
Wilson, of Pensylvania, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, a member for years of the old Continental Congress, a member also of the Convention that framed the
Constitution of the United States and at this very time one
of the Judges of the Supreme Court of the United States,
appointed at the first organization of that great tribunal,
the very tribunal before which he well knew might come,
and before which eventually did come, though after his
*Narrow, ind(leed, for some detriment he actually sustained in public estimatioii in Virginia from his connection with the Yazoo business, notwithstanding
his early disappearance from it. Wirt's Life of Patrick Henry; near the end.
93 
THE YAZOO FRAUD.
death, the question of the validity of the title acquired by
himself and his companions in this vast and profligate transaction. Behold this man stooping from his proud official
elevation, bringing disrepute on the sublimest judicial
Bench in the world, and becoming an active, leading partner
interested to the extent of three quarters of a million of
acres* in a foul, lawless, unpatriotic speculation of gigantic
magnitude and wickedness. Behold him there not only
mightily interested, but by that interest so demoralized as
to become an industrious, bare-faced worker in the vile
cause;t behold him and from him learn how little assuranrce of purity the highest public station gives, and how
little any official atmosphere is worth either as a safeguard
or antidote against that moral poison for which poor human
nature has such a lamentable affinity.   Judge Wilson, unhappily, had run a long debasing career as a speculator,
especially in Indian lands, dating back before the Pevolutionary War, the proofs of which are to be found in the
American State Papers by the petitions and memorials with
which he, although a Judge of the Supreme Court, was not
ashamed to importune Congress in behalf of Companies of
speculators to which he belonged and of which he was the
organS:-speculators, too, whose claims had a worse than
Spanish character and stood upon a worse than the Spanish
principle, because wholly unsupported by that precedent,
governmental warrant and authority, which even the Spanish
system imperatively required. These circumstances in regard to the Judge were doubtless well known to persons connected with the speculation residing in Philadelphia, the
Judge's home, and became well known to Gen. Gunn also,
whilst serving in Congress there.  Hence the early and too
well received overtures that were made to him.   It was a
great point to the Yazooists to have gained such a man as
Judge Wilson to their ranks, though for his own fame and
*American State Papers, Public Lands. Vol. 1, p 141.
twhite's Statistics. p 50.
t:American State Papers, Public Larilds, Vol. 1. p, 27, 72, 73. Sanderson's
Lives of the Signers; Title, James Wilson.
94 
THE YAZOO FRAUD.
the honor of the great tribunal in which he sat, it is to be
lamented that instead of listening to the overtures that were
made to him, he did not like our more than Roman Senator, Gen. James  Jackson, firmly and indignantly repel
them.
Side by side, fit yoke fellow with this Judge of the highest
Federal Court, stands Nathaniel Pendleton, District Judge
of the United States for the District of Georgia, who to his
services as a lobbyist for the concern added those of chairman of the meetings of the coalitionists, signing and issuing
as such the certificates for shares donated to the bribed menmbers of the Legislature and the hirelings employed to buy
and influence their votes. Of the nature and amount of his
reward no trace is to be found, but that it was great in proportion to the dignity and sanctity of the ermine he soiled
and to the baseness and importance of the services he refidered there can be no doubt.t 
See, also, in the train of these two Federal Judges, their
bold Aid-de-Camp, Mathew McAlister,  District Attorney
of the United States for Georgia, a leading member of the
Georgia Company, one of the original grantees, who unlike
the culprit Judges and some others, shrank not from having
his name emblazoned on the face of the Act, where it stands
opprobriously eternized, little advantaged by Gen. Jackson's
consuming fire. See, also, William Stith, Judge of the
Superior Courts of Georgia, and at that time there were but
two such Judges and but two Circuits, the Eastern and the
Western, to which the two Judges were equally elected and
in which they had to preside by turns, thus bringing each
Judge into every county of the State once a year in his judicial ridings. Judge Stith sold his great influence growing
out of his office and these, his annual visitations all over the
State, for $13,000 in money and some delusive hopes of the
Governorship that were held out to him. The money he
actually pocketed and found himself reproached afterwards
tAmerican State Papers, Public Lands, Vol. I, p. 145, 147. White's Statistics, p. 50.
95 
THE YAZO0 FRAUD.
for not being generous with it to his poor relations.* His
colleague in the Judgeship, the pure and upright George
Walton, one of Georgia's immortal Sinners, was incorruptible, and his name is a pride to the State forever, free from
spot or blemish.
Stepping across the Savannah river, Colonel, afterwards
General, Wade Hampton claims our attention as one of the
imposing figures in the Yazoo group. He was a member
elect to Congress from South Caorlina, a man,  moreover,
of high prestige from having been a gallant officer of the
Revolution, distinguished now for his great wealth, his commanding position in society, his extraordinary energy, enterprise and capacity in affairs, all which necessarily made
him a power wherever hle put his hands or set his head.
Behold this man, destined in after years to immense riches
and to become widely famous as the most princely planter of
all the South, and whom in his vigorous old age Mr. Madison
honored by reproducing him on the field, first as a Brigadier
General, in anticipation of a war with England, and then
upon the breaking out of the war, as a Major General. But
he was not more successful in adorning his gray hairs with
new laurels than were the other Revolutionary veterans
whom the President unluckily called from retirement and
clothed with high command. The only distinction he won of
which I am aware was that of being the ill-starred Gen. Wilkinson's evil genius, superseding him by Presidential order
at New Orleans, in 1810; quarreling instead of co-operating
with him on the Canada line in 1813; and yet never called
to any account or subjected to any Presidential censure
therefor. But behold him now in his proud meridian of
manhood, embarking in this vast speculation with his great
means and influence, and a much more colossal interest than
any other man. And further, behold him losing no time
after the buying from the State, but with characteristic sagacity and celerity hastening to become a mighty seller of
what he had bought, and in less than a year safely shifting
*American State Papers, Public Lands, Vol. I, p. 148.
96 
THE YAZOO FRAUD.
off his enormous portion of the prey into other hands at a
huge profit and putting the money in his pocklet, eln(lin g thus
the annulling vengeance of Georgia, which he well-knew
would soon start up in pursuit, but whiclh he also knew
could not overtake and rend the great villainy until another
Legislature should meet and have a chance to act upon it.*
Along with Col. Hampton, South Carolina sent to Augusta
on the great felonious occasion another man of hardly less
note and force, though noted in a different way, namely,
Robert Goodloe Harper, also a member of Congress, destined
to become distinguished on that theatre, g,reat both as a
lawyer and statesman, whose speeches, long ago collected
and published in two goodly octavos, I read and even studied
in my young days and thought they ranked him among the
giants of those old times.  What drove him or drew him from
the political field and from  South Carolina afterwards, and
sent him to Baltimore to ibury himself there for the remainder of his life in the practice of law, I have never known. It
may have been a combination of causes.  For in alddition to
his large interest of 131,000 acres, and consequent great activity in the Yazoo matter, he was one of those who persevered in 1801, through all the thirty-six ballotings, in casting the vote of South Carolina for Aaron Burr against Mr. Jefferson in that fearful conflict for the Presidency; and so persevered in the face of the unquestioned'act that Mr. Jefferson
*American State Papers, Public Lands, Vol. 1, 197, and elsewhere under the
Yazoo head.  Military Affairs, Vol. 1, page 462, 479.
Extract from White's Statistics, page 50:
"In the lobbies of the Senate and House alternately, were to be seen a Judge
of the Supreme Court of the United States, from Pennsylvania, with $'25,000 in
his hands, it was said, for a cash payment; a Judge of the District Court of
the United States, from Georgia, passing off shares of land to the members for
their votes; and a Senator from Georgia, who had perfidiously neglected to
proceed to Philadelphia to take his seat in Congress, and who was absent from
his post until the three last days of the session, bullying with a loaded whip and
by turns cajoling the numerous understrappers in speculation. There were to
be seen also a Judge of our Superior Courts and other eminent Georgians, &c.
"Our sister State of South Carolina was also represented by one who was
regarded as a prince of speculators, &c."
97
7 
THE YAZOO FRAUD.
was alike the electoral and popular choice of the State.   The
odor of both which passag(es in his life became afterwards
so intensely bad in South Carolina as to have probably rendered the atmosphere there decidedly unsuited to him, politically, professionally and socially.
Coming back to Georgia, we behold on the speculators'
dark roll not a few names of that day highly respectable in
all the walks of private life, from the shades of which, as they
never emerged while living, it would be wrong to drag them
from the repose of the grave now that they are dead.
Among them there were not wanting gifted minds and aspiring spirits who yearned for a high and bright career, but
their political star, quenched beneath the horizon by their
Yazoo complicity, was never allowed to ascend and shine in
our firmament.  Such seems to have been generally the fate
of those who had come within blighting contact of the great
villainy. To the sons of ambition it was the deadly political sin of that era, and for it no length of time or depth of
penitence or merit of subsequent demeanor could ever
bring amnesty or oblivion.
The names we have recited and others of less celebrity, but
of no mean pretensions in their time, show what an imposing
array of talent, character and influence, and especially what
a strong Law Staff the Yazooists boasted in their ranks, and
account abundantly for the legal skill and subtlety and the
remarkable technical artifice and ability apparent in the
contriving and framing of the legislation procured from the
State. And it is by no means surprising that by the combined
efforts of so many such men, with abundant pecuniary means
at their command and no scruples or restraints of principle in
their way, surrounded and reinforced, as they were besides,
by a numerous phalanx of active subalterns and colaborers,
our raw, petty, unschooled Legislature should have been
jostled from its propriety, started, as it were, from its per[iendicularity, and made the more easy to give way before
the grosser engines of bribery and corruption that were held
in reserve and at length brought powerfully into play.
98 
THE YAZOO FRAUD.
SECTION V (Continued.)
To quit the Yazoo Legislature with only the little notice
that has yet been taken of
JAMES GUNN
would be unjust as well to him as to our theme, and would
be pretty much such a slighting of him as it would be to
snub Satan in giving an account of Pandemonium and its
population, which, by the way, Dante came very nigh doing,
for in all his long, downward journey under the escort of
Virgil through the nine circles of his ever-narrowing, everintensating Hell, he fails to encounter or mention his Diabolic Majesty until having reached the nethermost depth
where the reign of frost begins and never ends, he comes
upon him at last writhing in lone, unsociable misery,
wedged in eternal ice, with a hard, merciless chill upon him
in the very neck of that inverted, infernal hollow cone.*
What made this very undeserving or rather ill-deserving
man, Gunn, so unduly prominent and distinguished in
Georgia for a number of years is a puzzling question, one
which finds no sufficient solution in anyfacts of his history
which have come down to us. He belonged not to Georgia
but to Virginia during the Revolutionary war, and came to
the South in the army of General Greene, when that illustrious commander was sent hither by Washington towards
the close of the great struggle to retrieve the Carolinas and
Georgia after that tremendous blow, the loss of the battle
of Camden. The first trace of him I have succeeded in discovering presents him as a Captain of Dragoons in the Virginia line, above which rank he never rose, nor is there any
evidence of his ever having won distinction in it. Indeed,
nothing is particularly known of his military career except
*"Lo'mperador del doloroso regno
Da mezzo'I petto uscia fuor della ghiaccia."
Dell' Inferno, Canto 34.
"The emperor of the dolorous realm from mid breast stood forth out of the
ice."
99
::.-,  -        I.-.1.
.:.: 1.':
: 1.,. 
THE YAZOO FRAUD.
his wanton and even wicked impressment and bringing to
Georgia for his own use of the celebrated stallion Romulus,
about which the indefatigable widow, Amy Darden, never
ceased to beset Congress, until finally she got her pay after
nearly forty years of importunity; and then, secondly, he was
afterwards guilty of another disreputable and improper piece
of conduct about horses which brought upon him formal
censure and reprimand from Gen. Greene; and lastly, it is
recorded of him that he failed to arrive in time with his
dragoons to take part in a difficult and hazardous affair
near Savannah as late as 1782, in which Gen. Wayne had
ordered him to co-operate.   The success of that attempt
was complete, however, without his presence or aid, and as
it was the last blow of the war (for in a very short time Savannah was surrendered to Gen. Wayne by the British and
the war ended in Georgia as it had already done substantially, at least, everywhere else,) no inquiry was ever instituted
whether his non-arrival in time was his misfortune or his
fault. Such, neither more or less, is the whole story of
Gunn's Revolutionary servi(es so far as it is known at this
day.
Upon the close of the war, he took up his residence in
Georgia, and seems to have thriven rapidly under the sunshine of peace.  For soon we read of him under the title of
Colonel heading a posse of m.ilitia and breaking up a gang
of runaway negroes who, having become demoralized during
the war, had quitted the plantations, some for the British
camps, some for the swamps, in one of which on Bear Creek
they, after the peace, fortified themselves in their rude way
both for greater safety and with a view of living permanently by plunder, fish and game.  This dispersing of the runaways was undoubtedly a very good thing done by Col.
Giiunn, but it was also the easiest and least perilous thing in
the world, and any other Colonel or other commander of
the posse could have done it as well, and the solemn
pains with which it is circumstantially narrated in a
stately history of the State savors a little of the ludicrous,
...',,. 
100 
THE YAZOO FRAUD.
and fails to help us to any solution of Gunn's subsequent
rapid rise and distinction.
For even if this feat could be supposed (as it cannot be) of
any worth towards such a solution, it was more than counterbalanced by the ruffianly, disgracetful conduct of which
he was guilty towards Gen. Greene.* That pure and noble
man, second only to Washington in Revolutionary merit and
glory, and to whom Georgia and the Carolinas owed such an
incalculable debt of gratitude for their final deliverance from
the clutches of the enemy, a debt which Georgia rejoiced to
acknowledge by bestowing upon him a fine estate and a beautiful homestead near Savannah, this man who had so well
earned and was so worthily enjoying honor and homage from
the whole country, had hardly set his foot on the soil of
Georgia as a resident, invited citizen, when he was met by
Gunn with what sort of welcome and hospitality? With
pistol in hand, with challenge to mortal combat for alleged
wrong done him by Gen. Greene as his commanding officer
in the aforementioned matter about horses. Not the least
strange thing in the case was that such a man as Colonel,
afterwards General, James Jackson, should be Gunn's second
and the bearer of his challenge.  In apology for him, however, let it be remembered that he was then a very young man,
not more than 27 or 28 years old, and that he was by
temperament not only pugnacious and intrepid in the high
est degree, but also impetuous and somewhat hasty. Moreover he was a strong believer in the Code to which all gentlemen bowed in those days, and which holds every one
answerable by duel for whatever wrong he inflicts on another's honor; a code which allows not a man to decline serving
his friend or even a stranger as a second in a proper case.
To all which it must be added that he was fresh from association with Gunn as a brother officer in the field, and that he
looked upon him as a gentleman and as his own peer; an opinion which must have subsequently undergone no small modification. Now all these things made it obligatory on Jack *Simms' Life of Gen. Greene, chapter 35.
101. 
THE YAZ00 FRAUD.
son, according to his views, not to refuse to be Gunn's second
in any proper case, and the only error committed by him
was in too hastily consenting to be his second before looking
well into the case, and being sure it was a proper one. I say
this was his only error, because his subsequent conduct made
it so and made abundant amends for it besides. For upon
his calling upon Gen. Greene with the challenge, and the
General's declining to accept it and stating to him at the
same time the circumstances which had prompted it, and his
reasons for not accepting it, Jackson saw at once that Gen.
Greene was right and that a challenge was not proper in the
case; and so seeing, he determined on the spot to withdraw
from the matter and did withdraw, communicating to his
principal this determination and his reasons. But these reasons, which were as imperative as honor itself with the noble
Jackson, who ever felt bound to recede from what was
wrong as well as to insist upon what was right, were thrown
away upon Gunn's base, diabolic nature, and he renewed the
challenge by another hand, which, upon Gen. Greene's
again declining, the brute who sent it threatened to assault
him on sight in the streets,-a threat, indeed, which he
never attempted to execute, though from his character no
man could have felt sure of his abstaining from this outrage.
So much was Gen. Greene wounded by this treatment on his
first reaching his new home in a land of strangers, that he
laid the whole matter before Washington by letter and asked
his opinion and advice.   Washington's reply fully sustained and commended the course he had pursued. Indeed,
what can be more preposterous or pernicious than that superior officers, even up to the very highest, should be held
answerable to their subalterns by duel for their acts towards
such subalterns in the administration of their commands?
It only remains to be remarked about this behavior of
Gunn's, that if any thing could add to its enormity, it is the
fact that he had pocketed the alleged wrong for so long a
space, and reserved his call in regard to it for a time and circumstances which made that call an outrage, not only on
102 
Gen. Greene, but one also on the pride, honor and hospitality of Georgia; a call, moreover, from which he refused to
desist even after his second, and that second such a man as
James  Jackson, had so strongly advised against it and
stamped it with his disapproval and withdrawal from it as
a second.
Yet in spite of all his unworthiness and demerits, Gunn
continued to mount up. He next became a Brigadier General of militia, an office bestowed then, and for half a century afterwards, by the direct votes of the Legislature. Nor
did he stop there.  When  Georgia acceded to the new Fe(deral Constitution, and the new Federal Government under it
was about to go into operation in 1789, he was chosen along
with William Few, as one of our first Senators in the National Congress, where his good fortune still pursued him,
and, in the allotment of periods of service among the Senators, gave him a full term of six years, while only four years
fell to his colleague, Few.
No particular causes have reached us for this, his great
and undeserved political advancement. He had no popular hold, such as grows out of long residence among a
people, and strong and widely ramified sympathies and attachinenrts with them. Nor, as we have seen, was his brow
wreathed with laurels, gathered on the battle fields of the
Revolution, far and near, like those of Gen. Anthony Wayne
and Col. George Matthews, our unhappy Yazoo-ruined Governor, causing our people to take them, new comers as they
were, at once to their bosoms and to clothe them with their
highest honors, and as they would still more have
rejoiced to have done by Gen. Greene, had it pleased the
Almighty to spare him to us. And, then, after Georgia,
upon the close of the war, became Gunn's home, he did
nothing of which we know to commend him to his new fellow citizens,-much certainly to discommend. There is but
one way, and that not a very flattering one to him, of accounting for his extraordinary rise. It is simply that he
was well gifted as a demagogue, as a shrewd, supple courtier
I
I
103
THE YAZOO FRAUD.' 
THIE YAZOO FRAUD.
of the people and their officials and representatives; altogether unscriipulous,  now bold,  bullying,  overbearing,
now cringing, caressing, insinuating, accor(lding as circuimstances demailde(l; master alike of' the arts of intimidation
and cajolery; in fine, poss;essed of the talents and qualities
by which in fiee elective countries bad and worthless men so
often attainii to influence and i)ower; dexterous, unprincipled,
invincible in seeking, incompetent and base in filling office.
It is not hard to understand how such a man should have
won the Senatorslli) the first time.  The  second time his
success was undoubtedly in no smIall degree the work of his
potent Yazoo frieinds and partners, and whom lie rtepaid in
the manner he had stipulated and to which we have adverted,
namely, by the prostitution of his Senatorial influence and
opportunities to their service.  His energy, activity and con-,
spicuousness in the scenes of the Yazoo  Fraud stand in
strong contrast to his insignii cance, bordering on nothingness, in his Senatorial sphere, in which he was mainly distinguished for his tardiness of attendance and general indifference to duty. Some natures there are, which are aroused
and find a congenial element only in plotting and doing
things ignoble and bad, sinking into torpor and inanity in
all the upper and purer atmospheres of life and action. Such
a nature undoubtedly })elonged to Gunn, who, with all his
fair opportunities, both military and political, is destined,
should he unhappily live in history, to be known there only
as the chieftain of a great land robbing villainy and as the
precursor and type in this country of a class of public men,
now become shameless and common, pecuniary profligates
and felons, disgracing the Congress of the United States and
all the important places in the Government.
His life and his long and inglorious Senatorship ended
very nearly together. The precise time of his death I do not
know, though it must have been not long before the meeting
of the Legislature in 1802, for we find that Body indulging
in a singular eccentricity of legislation in regard to him,
exempting his estate from escheat and vesting it in a nephew,
i
I ('1 4 
a Virginian, bearing his name.  His last term in the Senate
exp)ired on the 3d of March, 1801, and that striking contrast
to him and proud exemplar of all patriotism and of all public and private honor alid elevation of character, Gen. James
Jackson, had already been chosen to replace him now, as
some years previously, on the expiration of Mr. Few's time,
he had been chosen to serve with him as a colleague.
SECTION VI.
The banded speculators had now gotten all they wanted
fromt  the Legislature:  A  law of sale making  them  unshackled owners of vast and invaluable tracts of Indian territory, free from any dependence on the extinction of the
Indian title or the consent of the General Government;conditions designedly left out in their case and for their behoof,
whilst they were rigorously required, as we have seen, as
against our citizen soldiers.  In all other respects, likewise,
this Yazoo Law was moulded by the speculators to suit their
own views and interests, and in so moulding it, they made
it a Law, which even more strongly than the Yazoo Act of
1789, was calculated to interfere with Indian rights and
Spanish pretensions, and with our Spanish negotiations, and
to put the peace of the country with the Indians and with
Spain at hazard and at the mercy of the Yazoo purchasers,
and of whomsoever might become their sub-claimants.
buch being the manifest political tendency and danger of
this second Yazoo sale in its aspect on national affairs, it
could not but attract the attention of Washington, who,
faithful to his policy of 1789, at once took his stand against
this huge aggravation of the crime then so well thwarted
by him. Accordingly, the first alarm on this new occasion
was sounded by him; the first movement in opposition
came from him.  Upon receiving from Augusta a transcript
of the nefarious Legislation, he lost no time in laying it
before Congress, with the following Message:
105
THE YAZOO FRAITD. 
106
"February 17th, 1795.
"Gentlemrnen of the Senate and  louse of Representatives:
"I have received copies of two Acts of the Legislature
of Georgia, one passed on the 28th of December, the other
on the 7th of January last, bfor the purpose of appropriating
and selling the Indian lands within the territorial limits
claimed by that State. These copies, although, not officially
certified, have been transmitted to me in such a manner as
to leave no doubt of their authenticity. These Acts embrace
an object of such magnitude, and in their consequences may
so deeply effect the peace and welfare of the United States,
that I have thought it necessary to lay them before Congress.       *    *      *     *     *      *     *     *
(signed) GEO. WASHINGTON.
It would be quite superfluous to enter upon any inquiry
as to the grounds Washington had for the importance he
attached to this subject, and for the great solicitude it occasioned himrn. Enough certainly is to be found in the foregoing pages to render that matter plain.   As little difficult
is it to see why in his message he coupled the State Troops
Act of the 28th of December, with the Yazoo Act, of the 7th
of January, and communicated them together to Congress;
although the former viewed merely by itself was an innocent thing, containing nothing that was wrong or alarming;
a result that was prevented by the clause in it prohibiting
any steps being taken under it until two months after the
Indian title should be extinguished, and in regard to the
Tallassee country, not until the consent of the General
Government should be given.  But although thus innocent
in itself, it was perverted to iniquity by being tied to the
Yazoo Act, the sinister aims of which it was made at once
maliguly to aid and elucidate.
It is note worthy that Washington,  after simply submitting the matter and the two obnoxious Legislative acts of
Georgia to Congress, stopped short with a very brief expression of his opinion about them.   He recommends  no
Legislation nor suggests any measures whatever to the two
THE YAZOO FRAUD. 
THE YAZOO FRAUD.
Houses. The reasons for this reticence in his message are
obvious.  No new Legi8lation was wanted.  A law had been
passed in 1793  regulating Indian affairs and intercourse,
which was ample in its provisions for all emergencies that
could arise. So Washington thought, and so the Committee to whom the subject was referred, and Congress itself
thought; therefo)re no further Legislation was proposed
from any quarter.   The Committee contented themselves
with a Report and Resolutions presented on the 23rd of February, in which they emphatically denounced tire Yazoo
sale as an absolute conveyance to the Companies of Indian
territories amounting, say the Committee, to three-fourtlhs
of all the lands held by the Indians under the sanction of
National treaties within the limits claimed by Georgia, of
which treaties the sale was of course a direct and gross infringement, which the Government of the United States
would be bound to resist whenever attempted to be practically carried out. The Committee further declare that the
prerogatives over Indian affairs involved such wide, various
and serious consequences, and so deeply affected the general
good, that they c(,uld properly belong only where the Constitution had vested them-in the National Authorities,
whose duty they pronounced it to be, to secure the Indians
in their ri,,hts under the National Treaties; and they call
upon the President not to permit infractions of these Treaties by our own citizens or others, and assure him of the full
support and co-operation of Congress in all these matters.
Still further, they call upon him not to permit treaties for
the extinguishment of Indian titles to be held at the instance of individuals or States, even where the property in
the lands would, upon such extinguishment, belong to such
individuals and States, &c. And they wind up by recommending that all persons who shall be assembled or embodied in arms on lands belonging to the Indians, for the
purpose of warring against them, or committing depredations upon them, shall thereby become liable to the rules and
articles of war established for the government of the Troops of
the United States.
101 
THE YAZOO FRAUD.
This Report and Resolutions met the full sanction of Congress and the country, which thus stood( shoulder to shoulder
with Washington in his well known Indian and anti-Yazoo
policy.  Even before the above mentioned Act of 1793 was
passed, and when consequently he had nothing to guide him
and point out his duty on this subject, but the broad generalities of the Constitution, he had not hesitated to take on
himself the responsibility of effectually oppiugning and nulllifying the first Yazoo sale by forbidding and arresting all attempts of the beneficiaries under it to occupy the Indian
lands. Now, that his sense of duty in the matter and his
Executive ability were both abundantly reinforced by appropriate legislation from Congress and by such expressions
and resolves as had promptly emanated from that Body in
response to his mnessage, nothing could be more certain than
the overwhelming discomfiture which awaited the Yazooists
at his hands, should they dare to provoke a conflict with
him by attemnpting to wrest their ill-gotten lands from the
Indians, either by outright force or by any treaties or arrangements of their own with them, whether open or
covert
The dangers thus impending over the Yazoo purchasers
from the national arm, though in the distance and contin
gent on piior aggressive movements by those purchasers
themselves, had been fully foreseen by them all the while,
and they saw, too, that they were dangers from which their
only mode of escape (to which they were prompt to resort)
was to hasten, after their purchase from the State, to sell off
their lands and to leave to those, who should purchase
of them, to succeed also to all the threatened difficulties and perils of the case, whether coming from the
General  Government or from Georgia.   In  the  actual
event of things, however, it befell not either the original
grantees or their sub-purchasers to have this apprehended
collision with the General  Government.   For Georgia,
quickly intervening with her rapid, unsparing vengeance,
as we shall soon see, crushed the villainy ere it reached
108 
THE YAZOO FRAUD.
the stage at which to incur blows from the Federal arm.
And this speedy, clearly foreseen vengeance of Georgia it
was, far more than what was remotely feared from the Federal arm, that caused the Companies to be in such a culprit
hurry to trade off their wicked landed plunder before another Legislature should meet and have a chance of dealing
with their crime. To this end their agents and emissaries
were dispersed promptly and widely over the country. They
were successful in finding for some two or three millions
of acres, an early market in the South at an immense percentage of profit. But it was the North, then as now the
home of monied capital and of an intense adventurous love
of gain, that was chiefly the buyer and the victim.  The
Georgia Company dispatched thither, (luring the summer, a
shrewd, plausible, persuasive salesman, who acquitted himself alike to the satisfaction of his employers and to the captivation of quite a number of the solid men of Boston, selling
them eleven millions of acres at eleven cents per acre, thereby
making a profit of nearly a million of dollars to his Company. These Bostonians subsequently organized under the
name of the New England Mississippi Land Company, and
proceeded to scatter their lands at greatly increased prices
among thousands of beguiled Northern people upon whom
soon fell that Tower of Siloam, the Rescinding Act of Georgia, and held them crushed, though not killed, for almost a
score of years, until at length the Supreme Court and Congress came to their rescue. They were, or rather were asserted years afterwards by their Congressmen to be, innocent
buyers without notice, second purchasers, ignorant and unsuspecting of the fraud that vitiated their title from its very
birth. A story not very likely, when we recall how the fraud
glared out on the face and in all the facts of the Yazoo legislation, how it resounded through the newspapers all over the
United States, how it stuck out obvious in the very deeds (all
without any general warranty of title) which were made by
the Companies to their under-purchasers, and by these latter
to their successors. And then as to the unlawfulness and
109 
THE YAZOO FRAUD.
criminality of the sale by the State in a national point of view,
who can with decency pretend that Washington's abovenoticed message and the action of Congress thereon was  not
warning enough to put the whole world on notice and on its
guard.*
Sales of large amount were also made with the least possible loss of time by the several companies in various other
*Mr. Lucas, of Virginia, in his speech on the Yazoo Claims, in the House of
Representatives, January, ] 805, adverting to the pretence of the want of notice
on the part of the New England purchasers, says: "That they should not have
heard of the notorious fraud that had taken place at the passing of the Act of
1795 is a great astonishment to me; that they should have made a purchase of
eleven millions of acres without making inquiries sufficient to discover what
almost everybody knew throughout the United States, if possible, increases my
astonishment. For my part, having never thought of purchasing any land from
the Georgia land companies, I made no inquiry about the Acts of the Legislature of Georgia; yet the corruption was so flagrant, the fraud so notorious
that it reached my ears soon after it was passed." Mr Lucas then proceeds to
allude to President Washington's message, above quoted, as a proclamation to
the whole country against the Yazoo Sale. which must be presumed to have come
to everybody's knowledge, and was quite enough to put everybody on notice,
He then proceeds to say: "I should rather think that the speculators of New
England, sober and discreet, as they style themselves to be, found the bargain
so good and tempting, the means of pleading ignorance of fraud committed in
the original purchase so easy, the means on the part of the State of Georgia or its
vendees to prove the notice so difficult, that the sober and discreet speculators of
New England thought it advisable to make a gambling bargain, expecting
that the two extremities of the United States being engaged in the same speculation, would combine their influence to press hard upon the centre and save
through the conflict their speculation in whole or in part. Other strong circumstances lead still more to the beliel that the New England Company were
well aware of the danger which did exist in making a purchase from the Georgia Land Companies and that they were taking unusual risks on themselves.
This appears clearly from the face of their deeds; not only the covenant of
warranty is special instead of being general, but another extraordinary covenant is entered into by which the Georgia Company'is not liable to the refunding
of any money in consequence of any defect in their title from the State of Georgia, if any such there should appear hereafter to be!' Was not such covenant
smelling strongly of the fraud which the Georgia Grant was impregnated with?
Could the New England Company take more clearly every risk on themselves?
Could they more expressly preclude themselves from every remedy in law or
equity in case of eviction?"-Benton's db. of Congressional  Debates,  Vol. III
p. 323, 324.
See also the speech of Mr. Clark and others in the same debate.
I
110 
THE YAZOO FRAUD.
parts of the Union, chiefly in the great cities of the North,
and to some extent also to foreigners, at prices ranging from
eight and ten to twenty cents per acre, resulting in immense
aggreg,ate gain. Thus didthe original grantees (except the few
who took back their money and gave up their interest in the
land under the Rescinding Act,) achieve a complete triumplh,
carrying out successfully their programme, which was neither
more nor less than by fraud and corruption to purchase
these lands from the State for a mere trifle, and then quickly to shift them off at a huge profit upon others, whom it
was their plan to leave to their fate, whatever it might be,
of danger, loss or ruin. The Yazoo speculation is seen consequently standing before us bristling with successful fraud,
at both ends:  Fraud, first, in the purchase from the State,
and then fraud again in the sales by the original purchasers
to the various secondary buyers.
But it was not merely the above mentioned Report and
Resolutions in Congress which Washington's message called
forth. The two Houses, incensed at what Georgia had done,
felt at the first moment a strong impulse to question her
title, and that of the speculating Companies derived from
her, and anticipating that the adverse Spanish title would
now soon devolve on the United States by treaty for whatever it might be worth, determined to probe to the bottom
the right of the State to the territory she had so unpatriotically alienated to a knot of speculators in preference to the
United States. To this end, at the very close of the session
a joint resolution was adopted directing the Attorney General, Charles Lee, to prepare and present to the next Congress a report on the title of Georgia. That eminent law
officer took abundant time and was at the utmost pains,
and at length, on the 29th of April, 1796, after more than
a year had elapsed from the date of the call upon him, and
six months after the Spanish cession to the United States
by the treaty of San Lorenzo, he presented his report, which
is now to be found in the American State Papers, filling
more than thirty great folio pages-forming a fine specimen
ill
- I
:.. 1.'..':.. 
THE YAZOO FRAUD.
of the thorough and faithful mannel in which the public
men of that day performed their duty.* Georgia, in particular, is under obligations to Mr. Attorney General Lee for
his laborious research and for the great mass of interesting
documentary materials relating to her infantine period,
which, by ransacking both sides of the Atlantic, he was
enabled to bring together. These materials, upon being
studied, demonstrated  instead of damaging the title of
Georgia from Great Britain, and placed it indubitably above
that which the United States got from Spain by the treaty
of San Lorenzo.
There cannot be a doubt that the call on the Attorney
General on this occasion was caused by an opinion prevalent
to some extent in Congress that the title of Georgia, derived
from Great Britain, and-now nefariously conveyed to the
Yazooists, would, upon investigation, have to give way before what they supposed would be the better title the United States were expecting soon to acquire from Spain, and
that thus the title of the Yazooists, acquired from Georgia,
would be superseded. This opinion was not unfrequently
expressed in debate and in the reports of committees. Nor
was it an opinion merely: With many there was a strong
wish to the same effect,-so intense was the resentment
against the Yazoo sale, and so powerful the desire to defeat
it.  But both the opinion and the wish were soon seen by
everybody to be utterly inadmissible in the presence of the
great diplomatic fact that the title of Georgia constituted
the only ground of claim and right advanced by our country
in its great territorial strife with Spain, and being thus the
banner under which that strife was waged and won on our
side, could not now by any possibility be hauled down and
set at naught by the United States in the very face of the
great territorial victory they had just achieved under it.
*O.merican State Papers, Public Lands, Vol. 1, Pages 34, 69.
I
112
.'. I.;b   4
.,...::.i., 
THE YAZOO FRAUD.
SECTION VII.
We have now reached a point in this long and intricate
drama, at which the curtain drops for several years on the
General Government and Georgia re-enters on the scene, to
become this time the fierce assailant and undoer of the monstrous villainy that had been so recently enacted in her Legislature and under her name.  Though the hue and cry
against the enormity was first raised, as we have seen, at
the Federal Capital and by the Federal Executive and Congress, yet here at home, the shock was far the deepest and
most violent. It was here the crime struck with its most
heinous, deadly effect, despoiling the State at once of a vast
public property afid her precious public honor,-not only
robbing her of invaluable territories, but doing it under circumstances that brought imputation on her national patriotism and mag,nanimity,-doing it, moreover, by debauching
her trusted public servants, whom she had chosen to be the
guardians, not betrayers of her high interests and her fair
fame. Thus had that crime wounded her in a point dearer
than landed or monied wealth, tarnished her reputation, defiled at its young fountain head the eternal stream of her
history and polluted the waters mingled with which her
name was to go down to future times, and especially to her
own children forever.
I design not recounting minutely the oft told, familiar
story of the State's strong sovereign action in resentment and
redress of this celebrated wrong. That story, at once simple
and striking, has ever been so much an attractive theme to
writers and talkers as to have become thread bare and to recoil from any thing like a labored handling now.  Preliminarily, however, it should be told that the first effect of the
sale on the mass of the people was stunning stupefaction and
amazement. They found difficulty in believing that the
deed had been done. The entire failure of the measure before the preceding Legislature and the entire quietude and
silence in regard to it that had ensued, had rendered them
8
113 
THE YAZOO FRAUD.
unsuspecting and secure, and they had let the subject pass
off from their minds and it occurred not to them that it had
not been equally dropt by the speculating Companies.
They were unaware that these latter had been during
the whole interim stealthily, yet industriously, at work every
where, both in and out of Georgia, and had really gotten into
their hands the complete mastery of the game before they
again came out to liglht and began to take open steps towards their object. It is wonderful what a profound privacy
they had succeeded in maintaining in their widely ramified
operations, a privacy kept up to the last possible mnloment.
Even after their bill was introduced, there was no notoriety
beyond Augusta and its neighborhood that such a measure
was on hand. No publicity had been given to it, no announcement mnade of it by any name or title pointing to
its character or contents. A lying title concealed its true
nature which consequently was not indicated by anything on
the journal of either House or in the newspapers, which
were wont to give only lists of the titles of the bills introduced.
The consequence of all which was that the people awoke
to find themselves outraged and robbed without having had
any notice of the design or  warning of their danger or the
least chance of outcry and resistance. At first they were
likewise ignorant of the turpitude of the means by which
the wrong had been effected, or what strangers, or who
among, themselves except the guilty members of the Legislature and the few grantees named in the act, were concerned in its perpetration. They soon, however, became better
and bitterly enlightened.  The astounding discovery broke
upon them that the cancerous fibres of the monstrous transaction pervaded not only the State but the United States, and
embraced they knew not how many powerful and influential
names and shrewd, unscrupulous characters.   They were
especially struck with tile successful pains that had been
taken to enlist in its interest all the men in Georgia who
were prominent enough to attract the base courtship of the
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Yazooists and pliant enongh to become their tools and accomplices. Most of those to whom the people would naturally have looked to become their leaders and to champion
their cause in this great eniergency, were either bought up
and subsidized on the side of the enemy by their own interests or paralyzed by their relations to interested parties.
Besides, not many men were there, indeed, who were at all
competent to such leadership and championship as was
wanted.   Nothing short of the highest courage and the
greatest energy, reputation, talents and self devotion could
constitute the necessary qualifications. He who should give
himself to the people's service on this occasion had need of
a charmed life and an invincible soul, as well as of a concentrated and commanding mind:  For assuredly it was a
lion's den he would have to enter, a fiery furnance through
which he would have to pass.  And by universal concession
there was but one man in the State, in all respects equal
and fitted to the exigency, and who at the same time had
kept himself pure and intact, and but for the extraordinary
self-abnegation and lofty, patriotic intrepidity and devotion
of that one man, the people would have been without a
leader and champion, such as the case imperatively required.
That man was General James Jackson, the noblest and
most admirable name in the history of Georgia, then a
member of the United States Senate as Mr. Few's successor and General Gunn's colleague.
I do not know that I can open the part acted by this extraordinary man against the Yazoo Fraud better than by
recalling a personal reminiscence of my own full half a century old and more. It was at Hancock Superior Court, at
April term, 1823,-a date at which the Governor was still
chosen by the Legislature, and as the name of one of those
understood to be aspiring to the office was to be found in the
old public documents as the owner of a few Yazoo subshares,
conversation began to be somewhat turned to the subject of
the Yazoo Fraud and young men, especially, were keen inquirers. It was under these circumstances that a number
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of the junior members of the bar were sitting one night
after supper in the large, pleasant room, up stairs, which
our good host, William G. Springer, whose soul contended
with his body, which should be biggest, had assigned to us
across the street,-when we were agreeably startled by
Judg,e Dooly* entering to pay us a visit,-a courtesy on the
part of the Judges not uncommon in those days. The
Judge, whose mind was a rich treasury of the miscellanies
of Georgia, past and present, and whose manner of saying
everything was singularly plain, condensed and incisive,
was soon drawn out on the Yazoo Fraud. My recollection
has ever since been perfectly distinct of the following remark
made by him in the course of his conversing:  "The  people," hlie said, " were generally against the Yazoo sale, but
the rich and leading men were mostly for it, because, in
most instances, they or some of their friends or relations
were interested in it. The people wanted to get rid of it,
but did not know how to do it. They had nobody to lead
and contrive for th-em, and Gen. Jackson resigned his seat
in the United States Senate and came home and ran for the
Legislature in Chatham county, and was elected to lead and
contrive for the people."
Such were the very words of Judge Dooley to us young
men about Gen. Jackson-words which struck me greatly
and imprinted themselves  indelibly, enkindling my mind
with a most vivid and exalted conception of the illustrious
character, t.) whom they related and making him from that
moment a study and almost an idolatry to me.  The annals
of mankind teem with the names of heroes, martyrs, selfsacrificers, martial, moral, religious-men who have held
their lives and their ease as nothing in the scale against
glory, duty, honor; and yet among them all I am unable
*Whoever may feel curious as to what sort of physiognomy belonged to that
very striking man, John M. Dooly, long the Jud(ge of the Northern Circuit
the greatest wit as all agreed, and generally conceded to have been also the
greatest judicial intellect of his day, may see a wonderfully true likeness of
him (Adonised, however,) in the portrait of the celebrated painter, Gilbert
Stuart, in the 1st Volume of the American Portrait Gallery.
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THE'YAZOO FRAUD.
to recollect any instance parallel and fully up to this con.
duct of Gen. Jackson so pointedly stated by Judge Dooly,
so barely and sleepily mentioned by history. Certainly our
own country, vast and diversified as it is, has hitherto furnished( nothing equal to it or like it, nor does it promise according to present symptoms ever to do so. Does any man
believe that there is now to be found in all the low minded
ranks of power and of the public service a single bosom in
which even a dormant possibility dwells of such sublime,
self-denying, unselfish patriotism?   What United States
Senator would now resign his seat with yet four years to run
and come home and seek the humblest Representative post
known to our system of Government,-and all for the sakeof
the people and their rights and vindication?
Gen. Jackson, however, had given some evidence on a
previous occasion in his life of his capability of this neplus
ultra of public virtue. In 1788, when but thirty years old,
he had been elected to the office of Governor of the State, and
declined accepting it upon the ground of lacking age and experience.  It was in full keeping with this act of noble, patriotic modesty and humility that he should afterwards in
1795, have so subjugated an ambition of the most ardent
and lofty type as to give up the highest and become a candidate for the lowest place in political service, because he beheld his beloved Georgia in a mighty trouble in which she
needed the sacrifice from him, and in which by making it he
could do so much more and better for her, although at the
cost of doing so much less and worse for himself.
For well he knew not only what he was surrendering, but
also to what he was exposing himself when he magnanimously resolved to des.end from the high round of the political ladder to which he had climbed down to the very bottom, there to scuffle and fight, "lead and contrive f6r the
people," both against all the bad men who had combined,
and all the good men who had been misled, to become the
State's betrayers and robbers, or the supporters of its betrayers and robbers. He knew what enemies he was necessitat
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TIHE YAZO0 FRAIUD.
ing himself to make and how deeply they would be envenomed against him, and that their thirst for his blood would
be only less keen than their greed for the prey he was bent
on snatching from their grasp. He knew, in fine, that from
the first moment to the last of the work on which he was
entering, he would have to carry his life in his hand, although
the ultimate fate that awaited him lay concealed from human view, and none could foresee that a life so dear and iiivaluable was destined to pass away, alas! so prematurelya slow-wasting sacrifice, long offered up on the altar of Georgia's interest and honor.*
From the first Gen. Jackson had been outspoken and vehement in his denunciations of the sale, and had contributed
greatly to rousing the popular rage against it. This,-even
before he had doffed his Senatorial robes for a candidacy for
the State Legislature, and thereby formally entered the lists
as the people's leader and champion against a host of powerful
and unscrupulous men whose mortal fear and hatred he
thenceforward incurred. The people at once hailed him and
rallied to him, and it was not long before under his brave
*Col. Benton, in his Abridgement of the Congressional Debates, Vol. III1
twice comments upon Gen. Jackson and the cause of his death.   At p. 338 is
the following note at the close of the debate on the Yazoo Claims:
"Mr. Randolph was the great opposer of these claims in Congress and Gen eral Jackson their great opposer in Georgia.  It was  he, who aroused  the
feeling that overthrew the General Assembly who made the grant, and elected
the Legislature which annulled the Act, and burned the record of it. He was
in the Senate of the United States with James Gunn, the Senator alluded to in
the debate as being engaged in the Fraud, and lost his life in the last of the
many duels which his opposition to that measure brought upon him."'
And again at page 465, in a note to the proceedings in Congress on the occa.
sion of Gen. Jackson's death, March 19th, 1806, Col. Benton says among other
things:'He was a man of marked character, h;gh principle and strong temper ament-honest, patriotic, brave, hating tyranny, oppression'and meanness in
in every form; the bold denouncer of crime in high as well as in low places;
a ready speaker, and as ready with his pistol as his tongue, and involved
in many duels on account of his hot opposition to criminal measures. The de feat of the Yazoo Fraud was the most signal act of his Legislative life, for
which he paid the penalty of his life, dying of wounds received in the last of
the many duels, which his undaunted attacks upon that measure brought upon
him."
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auspices and their fierce enthusiasm the battle into which
they had plunged was substantially won. For the storm
quickly overspread the State with a violence that appalled the
Yazooists and their myrmydons, and they everywhere slunk
and cowered before it long, before the election day came.
But still Jackson's hot and heavy blows were not mitigated,
nor did the people's vengeful energy slacken. It was more
than even the bravo, Gunn, could brave or bear. He became
utterly paralyzed and annihilate(l, as it were, by the intense,
crushing detestation of which he was sensible of having become the object, and we hear no more of him whatever except that he continued to occupy to the last day of his new,
basely gotten term, the seat in the National Senate, which
he at once obscurely filled and flagrantly dishonored. The
bribed Senators and Representatives in the Legislature met
from their constituents a fate similar to that of their bribing, bullying chief.  The tempest of public indignation
against them was such as made not a few of them tremble
for their personal safety on their return home.  But their
fears were groundless. Such was the orderly, law-abiding
character of our ancestors, except in cases where society is
obliged to resort to the "hither law" for its purgation and
protection, that, content with the sort of penalty which
God inflicted on Cain, they simply branded their culprit
legislators..and consigned them to political death and social
ostracism and infamy.
In making this statement I am not unaware that a surmise older than my  earliest recollection, indeed, older than
myself, longD existed in some minds, making the case of
Roberts Thomas, the recreant Senator from Hancock, whose
high-priced vote turned the scale in favor of the Yazoo sale,
an exception to this eulogium on the people's moderation.
But even on the worst supposition anybody ever entertained
(which was that Jonathan Adams, or some other person,
whose dark secret was never suspected, followed himnl from
Hancock in his flight and overtook and assassinated him in
South Carolina) it was but the crime of an individual to
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which the public was in no way party or privy. An unconcealed, formal flogging, "hugging a sapling,"* meanwhile,
or some other still lighter corporal punishment and disgrace
was all he ever had to fear (and it was this fear that made
him flee) from his incensed constituents who never dreamed
of anything harsher against him than his ignominous expulsion from their midst. Not a man in Hancock ever harbored such a thought as that of pursuing and assassinating
him after his flight.t  The most probable theory of his
murder is that it was procured by some arch fiend among
the Yazooists.  Thomas' vacilation, timidity and extortion
had already excited their displeasure and uneasiness before
he gave that vote for them, which they were obliged to have
at any price, because if given the other way it would be fatal to them. His vote obtained and the law passed, their
uneasiness about him was still kept alive by his indiscretions before he left Augusta and by his coward weakness
after he got home. And when soon afterwards he took to
flight, thereby proclaiming not only his fears, but, as it was
-Sallard's.ffidavit, Aamerican State Papers, Public Lands, Vol. 1, p. 149.
tBoth White in his Statistics of Georgia, page 50, and Gov. Gilmer in his
book, entitled "Georgians," take it for granted that Thomas met his fate from
the hands of some of his constituents. Gov. Gilmer, though not naming Jonathan Adams, indicates him clearly to every Hancock man as the assassin.
The logic wh,ich inculpated Adams, ran in this wise: "The Adamses were a
strong charactered and very leading, patriotic family in the county and were
particularly indignant at Thomas' Yazoo vote and against Thomas himself for it.
Thomas fled and was assassinated. After which Jona. Adams fell into bad health
and became a great hypochondriac for a number of years. Therefore, some
people wondered whether he had not something dreadful on his conscience and
whether that something was not the killing of Thomas." Such was the syllogism that I heard occasionally whispered in Hancock in my boyhood,-of
which it will be seen that the premises being weak, the conclusion is a mere
doubt or wonder. By the time it reached Oglethorpe county it must have become a positive belief or Gov  Gilmer would not have put it in his book as a
fact. This sort of reasoning was liable, however, to refutation and was actually refuted by Adams' eventual recovery of his health, mental and physical.
Gov. Troup was in Congress during the Yazoo discussions, and in a speech
quoted by Gen. Harden in his Life of him, allndes to the suspicion that Thomas'
assassination was contrived by the Yazooists. Such is my recollection, but Iv
have not the book at hand.
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argued, his'and their guilt also, which they were solicitous
should not be noised abroad, at least until they should have
time to sell off their ill-acquired lands, —under the impulse of malignant fear, fury and precaution, they contrived
his death by the hand of some hired assassin who dogged
him from Augusta beyond doubt. For it was the very night
after passing through that city that he was kille(d.  And
thus was stilled forever that tongue from which alone they
had fears of the early betrayal of the yet secret crime of the
corruption they had used, and the continued secrecy of which
long enough for their purposes they madly hoped might be
secured by the prompt taking off of one whom they regarded with suspicion and fear as having it in his power and as
being weakly liable to make damaging disclosures against
them. So does crime breed ciime, the progeny often more
hideous than the parent, as all prose and verse, all history
and observation have always proclaimed.
But although there was so much popular excitement which
found expression through public meetings, the presentments
of Grand Juries,.the voice of the Press, and by petitions and
memorials from every quarter which, numerously signed,
were sent up to a Constitutional Convention about to be held
at Louisville in the ensuing month of May,* yet the people
never fully understood how bad and desperate the state of
things was, till after that Body had met and proved itself
false to all their expectations. Then it was that the
veil was entirely lifted, disclosing a spectacle for which they
were unprepared, the spectacle of the Convention itself acting as an accessory to the Yazoo Fraud and playing strongly into its hands.  This great and new fangled treachery,
more infamous than that of the Yazoo Legislature in proportion as a Constitutional Convention is a Body more exalted
and more highly trusted than an ordinary Legislative Assembly, has long since died out of the minds of men. But
it becomes necessary even at this late date to disinter it from
*Bentoz's.bridg. Debates, Vol. III, p. 325.   White's Statistics, p. 51.
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THE YAZOO FRAUD.
its long oblivion as forming a part not less material than repulsive of the odious history through which we are wading.
The Convention, then, of May, 179., was the child of the
Constitution of 1789, a Constitution rather hurriedly gotten
up by our forefathers to meet the advent of the newly launched
Federal system of the United States which Georgia was among
the first to greet and accept. Care, however, was wisely
taken by the State's Constitution makers of'89 to insert in
their hasty framework of government a provision for its own
early revision and emendation.  That provision  required
that at the election of members of the Legislature in 1794,
delegates should also be chosen, three from each county, to
meet at such time and place as the Legislature should appoint to deliberate and determite what alterations and amrnendments should be made in the Constitution. It thus happened that this election of members of the Convention took l)lace
at the same time and by the same constituencies and under
all the same circumstances and influences with the election
of' the members of the Yazoo Legislature, and the speculators were altogether too shrewd a set of men not to see that
it was best to have the Convention as well as the Legislature
on  their  side.  They  took  their measures accordingly.
Great thou,lgh quiet and secret pains were used to pack the
Convention with their friends and with persons thought to
be accessible to the influences they could bring to. bear.
They wanted, too, at least one master mind and commanding
character there to watch over their interests, to lead and
manage for them and to keep things in such a channel as
would be for their advantage. They found and returned
such a person in George Walker, of Richmond county.
This gentleman ranked among the first men in the State for
talents, address, popularity and high future promise, and
was, by all odds, the very foremost of the Georgians, whom
the Yazooists had succeeded in enlisting in their scheme.
He was one of their leading partners and his name stands
out with those of James Gunn and Matthew McAllister,
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THE YAZOO FRAUD.
printed ill the Act as one of the original Grantees of the
Georgia Company.
Having such advantages as these on their side in the composition of the Conventionr and perfect concert and understanding among themselves besides, the Yaz)oists found it
not difficult to carry things their own way in that body over
the not very smnall sprinkling of good and true, but not
particularly effective men, who were their fellow members.
And their wvay and wish was to favor and protect the Yazoo
speculation and save itfrom harm.  Ignoring, almost entirely
the high duty of amending the Constitution for which they
had been called together, they devoted themselves to aiding
and screening the great Fraud. Their whole doings are distent with internal evidence of this aim. It is apparent in
what they did and in what they did not do. There is notlhing which the speculators could have asked or wanted which
either through the action or non-action of the Convention
they did not get; whilst of all that the people asked for
and expected, not a whit was granted or done. What was
most desirable for the Yazooists was plenty of undisturbed
time for their vast and scattered operations of resale of their
lands, and this the Convention secured to them as lar as
possible by changing the meeting of the Legislature from
the old time, the first Monday in November, to the second
Tuesday in January, for which change no reason can be imagined except to give the Yazooists more than two full additional months to work off their lands befo()re they could be
overtaken and cut down by the dreaded rescinding vengeance
of another and purer Legislature. Thus much as to what
the Convention did. Still more strikingly sinister was the
character of what it refused to do. To it as the most competent and all-potent Body known to our political system as
well as the earliest in point of time to which an appeal
could be made, the people had made their loud appeals.
Thither they had sent up their complaints and petitions,
their protests and fiulminations against the sale, accompanied
by abundant proofs of the now discovered corrupt means by
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which it was procured, justly regarding the Convention as
clothed with transcendent powers which it was bound to
exercise on such-an occasion. But these supreme servants
of the people literally snubbed their masters, taking no firther notice of their views, wishes and demands than to bundle
them up and devolve them in a mass on the ensuing Legislature* which they immediately procee(led, as we have just
seen, to put off two months longer with no other object than
to put this stupendous villainy as much as possible beyond
the reach of its arm.  But not only (lid the Convention thus
refused to act against the Yazoo crime,-it refused even to
speak against it.  Not the slightest whisper of denunciation
or disapproval came from its lips; not the slightest opinion
was breathed against it or the manner of its procurement.
So the Yazooists were more than satisfied, having gotten the
utmost they wanted,-a friendly inactivity and silence,-a
kind refusal to do or say aught against them, and also a
lengthened period of time for working out their programme
of disposing of their lands at enriching prices.
Having thus extended to the Yazooists all the aid it'could
give, indeed, all they needed, and refused to say or do aught
to their prejudice, the measure of the Convention's shame
was full enough, even though it had not been guilty of the
further shameless misdoing, of leaving almost untouched the
real business for which it had been created, and coolly devolving the same on another Convention, which, for that
purpose it ordered to be elected in 1797. But perhaps we
ought to be rather thankful for this delinquency of the Convention and the mode it adopted of making amends therefor: Since to this cause we owe a better work than could
have been gotten at its hands, namely, the glorious old Constitution of 1798, the time-honored mental product of the
illustrious Jackson and his anti-Yazoo compatriots, under
which Georgia long grew and prospered, still clinging to it
with increasing reverence for nearly seventy years until
finally in these evil latter days it was, to her eternal sorrow,
0 Benton's.b., Vol. 3, p. 325.
THE YAZOO FRAUD. 
THE YAZO0 FRAUD.
overthrown and thrust aside by a conquering despotism and
unreasoning bayonets.
When the great disappointment occasioned by the above
told gross infidelity of the Convention came upon the people,
when they saw what a scurvy, pernicious trick had been
played off on them from that high quarter and perceived
themselves cheated, wronged, betrayed at every turn, first
by their Legislature and then by their Convention, then it
was that their fierce indignation rose to its acme. Then it
was that enraged and bewildered, they felt intensely the
need of somebody on whom they could repose a true and
boundless trust, on whom they could fully rely to lead and
contrive for them, to conquer and crush in their behalf in
this matter. Then it was that they called upon their most
idolized man, Gen. James Jackson, to leave his proud seat
among the Conscript Fathers of the Union, the constitutional counsellors of Washington, and to come at once to their
help and headship. Then it was that with a sublime alacrity
and devotion, hle instantly responded to a call which his own
fiery sentiments and denunciations had largely inspired.
Without a moment's hesitation he resigned his Senatorship
and dismounting, as it were, from the equestrian rank, trode
the ground once more, a private soldier, merging himself
with the people as one of themselves and literally fighting
on foot in their midst from May to November, to which time
the election had been changed by the recent Convention.
Behold him there covered with dust, assailed by hatred, the
target of the enemy's deadliest aimnis throughout the long
canvass. Behold him, "leading, contriving for the people,"
toiling with tongue and pen, with mind and body, facing
and defying every danger, devoting himself in every way,
sparing himself in none:  A- spectacle, how replete with all
that can be conceived of the sublime and beautiful in political conduct! His work was done fearlessly and thoroughly.
His spirit pervaded all Georgia and entered like a higher
life the souls of her people. The enemy strived at first to
make some show of a stand against him and his brave yeo
..   1... I III I,            -....   -.   I  I - I I
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manry, but in vain.  In all parts of the State the victory
was complete and resulted in returning him and his
friends and supporters to the Legislature by an overwhelming majority in both branches.
Of course, in that Legislature he was the master spiritthe dictator and controller.  But not much of study or effort
was needed from him there. Execution alone was the watchword and work. WVhat had to be done was already prefixed
and pronounced by the people at the polls, rendering the
duty and action of their Representatives as plain, simple
and unobstructed as it was grand, imposing and important.
That duty was to repeal the Yazoo Act, to annul and rescind
the Yazoo Sale as unconstitutional, fraudulent and void, a
huge treachery, a heinous conspiracy of the buyers and sellers
against the people, the offsprin(g of bribery and corruption.
This duty upon full and convincing proofs laid before them,
they unflinchingly performed. Whilst the State was thus asasserting, and enforcing her unaltered ownership of the vast
territories of which it had been sought to despoil her, she by
the same Actdisavowed all claim to the vile purchase money
that had been thrust into her Treasury and directed it to be
restored to those from whom it came or to whom it might
belong. Moreover, to give -the greater emphasis to her
sovreign fiat of condemnation and annulment, she ordered
every vestige of the accursed transaction to be obliterated
from her records and the huge, pretentious enrollment of the
Act itself to be given to the flames, consecrated although it
was by accumulated high and solemn signatures and by the
great Seal of Georgia pendant in massive wax. The high,
unexampled, damnatory sentence was duly carried into execution under the broad, bright sky, on the beautiful State
House square, at Louisville, the new seat of Government, in
the presence of the Governor and Legislature and a mighty
assemblage of the people. And according to a tradition,
which cannot de doubted; for it has descended to us uncontradicted in a continuous current from that period to the
present day, a holy, religious eclat, significant of the Divine
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THE YAZOO FRAUD.
displeasure on the great iniquity, was shed over the scene by
drawing down the consuming fire from heaven with a sunglass before that immense an(l imposing multitude of witnessing eyes.
SECTION VIII.
It was on the 13th of February, 1796, that this crushing
blow was struck.   After it a long pause ensued, during
which the new Yazooists stood still grasping their scrip,
awaiting an event which they soon began to foresee,-and
which, upon its happening, would at once put a more hopeful face on their now ruined affairs.  This event, alike foreseen and wished for by them, was the same that the original  speculators  had  so  long deprecated and thwarted,
namely, the cession by Georgia to the United States, of all
her Western territory, including these very Yazoo lands,:
A  cession which the present claimants very well knew
would, whilst carrying the land(s over to the Federal Governmenrit, carry them at the sauie time cum onere, loaded
with any and all claims to which they had previously become subject,-their own, the Yazoo claims, among the rest.
An inmmnediate result consequently of the cession would be
the thronging of the Yazoo claimants to the Federal capital,
and their becoming siitors to the Federal Government for
the settlement of their claims.
But although such future cession to the United States undoubtedly became a foregone conclusion in all minds quickly
after Georgia's annulment of the Yazoo sale, yet more than
two years elapsed before the first step towards it was taken,
before any proposal or overture was made from either side.
This delay arose from the fact that our Legislature in 1796,
among other denunciations of the Yazoo sale, had pronounced it unconstitutional, wholly denying the competency
of the Legislature under the then existing Constitution of
the State to alienate her Indian domains. It was a clear
corrollary from this Legislative pronouncement that no au
thority existed anywhere among us either to offer or enter
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tain a proposition for such alienation. And not only was
there no competent authority for the purpose then existing
in the State, but none could be called into existence earlier
than the year 1798-at which timne the new  Constitutional
Convention ordered by that faithless one of May, 1795, was
to be held: Until the holding of which, therefore, the
State had no alternative but to remain silent and inactive on
the whole subject of a cession. And Congress also, in deference to the aforesaid disclaimer of power by our Legislature, observed a like silence and inaction, and refrained from
any suggestion of a cession until after the Convention had
been chosen and was within less than a month of the time
of its assemblage. Then it was that Congress spoke, and
on the 7th of April, 1798, passed an Act empowering the
President of the United' States to appoint three Commissioners, whose duty, among other things, it should be to receive
from such commissioners as should be appointed on the part
of Georgia any proposals for the relinquishment or cession
of the whole or any part of the territory claimed by the
State lying out of its ordinary jurisdiction.
This act was undoubtedly passed in anticipation of the
Convention's soon meeting, and in the confidence that that
Body would receive it as an overture for a cession and honor
it as such with a suitable response. Nor was this confidence
disappointed. How was it possible it should have been?
For of that Convention the noble Jackson, although Governor of the State at the time, was a member, master spirit
there too as in the anti-Yazoo Legislature of 1796,-surrounded now as he was then, by his most choice, enlightened and pure-minded compatriots. From such men no
botched work could come when a great public duty was to be
performed. And certainly nothing could be more thorough
and perfect than what actually came from their hands in regard both to the Yazoo subject and the State's Western territory. What they did was to erect an express constitutional
barrier against the sale of the territory of the State or any part
of it to individuals or private companies unless a county or
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cpunties should have first been laid off including such terri tory, and the Indian rights thereto should have been first
extinguished also.  Anybody canl see at a glance how com pletely this prohibition goes to the bottom of things, exter minating the very roots and all possibility in the future of
such crimes and misdoings as the two Yazoo sales had been.
It is not in this provision, however, although it was wise
and statesman-like in the highest degree, that we find the
response that was wanted to the above mentioned Congres sicnal overture.   That presents itself in another  clause
which enables the Legislature to sell or contract to the
United States all or any part of the State's Western do main lying beyond the Chattahoochee, andl then again still
further in that third clause which authorizes the Legisla ture to give its consent to the establishment by the United
States of one or more governments westward of that river.
Behold here implanted in our long honored Constitution of
1798, by the magnanimous men who then held sway in Georgia, the germ of the memorable cession of April, 1802, and
of the two great States of Alabama and Mississippi.
These provisions show that the sense of the Convention
was in favor of a cession to the United States. The first
Legislature under the new Constitution, being of like opinion, proceeded at once to take measures for carrying out the
object. On the 6th of December, 1799, it passed an Act
appointing Commissioners to settle with those of the United
States the terms of the cession; to which Act the ensuing
Legislature of 1800, made an amendment, adding to the list
of Commissioners on the part of the State the name of Gen.
Jackson, who was now filling a second gubernatorial term,
but had just been chosen by the Legislature to the United
States Senate as successor to Gen. Gunn, whose time was
to expire on the 3d of March ensuing.
The great business now proceeded at a quickened pace.
Assuming it as certain that the ultimate and early event
would be a vast territorial cession, embracing the Yazoo
lands, Congress had already in May, 1800, amended the
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THE YAZOO FRAUD. 
THE YAZ00 FRAUD.
aforementioned Act of April, 1798, by imposing on the National Commissioners therein created, a heavy and tedious
additional duty which would and could only arise after the
cession had been made,-the duty, namely, of investigating
all claims against the lands ceded, of receiving from the
claimants propositions for the compromise and settlement of
their claims, and of laying a full statement of the whole, together with their opinion thereon, before Congress for its
decision thereon.  Mr. Jefferson upon entering on the Presidency fo)und the appointing of these Commissioners one of
the first matters demanding hiis attention.  His sense of the
exceeding ma,gnitude and importance of the duties to be devolved on them is strongly attested by the men he selected,
They were none other than three of the members of his Cabinet-Mr. Madisoni, his Secretary of State, Mr. Gallatin, his
Secretary of the Treasury, and Mr. Lincoln, his Attorney
General.  A grander and more imposing set of Commissioners for any object or purpose whatever was never anywhere
constituted, whether we regard the illustrious character and
ability of the men or their ripe, thorough statesmanship
and public expeiience, or the splendor and importance of
the offices they were then actually holding near the President. Their very appointment shows that Mr. Jefferson
contemplated that in periforming their trust as Commissioners they were to be all the while acting under the responsibility that attached to them as components of his Administration.
Fully worthy of association and conference with such men
were the Commnissioners on the part of Georgia,-Jackson,
Baldwiti, and Milledge,-whose functions, however, were
to be more simple and Of shorter continuance, confined to
the single business of negotiating and signing the cession
expected to be made by the State-a work which was completed on the 24th day of April, 1802, whereby Georgia conveyed to'the United States all the territory stretching from
her present Western boundary to the Mississippi river, and
lying between the 31st and the 35th parallels of Latitude.
130 
In consideration of which the United States agreed to pay
Georg,ia a million and a quarter of dollars, and to be at the
expense of extinguishing for her the Indian occupancy on
all the territory still retained by the -State.
Long before the great bargain was brought to a close, the
Yazoo claimants were astir wherever any of them were to )be
found in America or Europe. Either in person or by their
agents or proxies, they were soon seen swarming around the
United States Commissioners and overwhelming them with
formal notices of their claims, warning them that if the National G(overtiment bouglit these lands  from Georgia,  it
would have to buy thein at its peril, subject to be supplanted
and ousted by the older and better title which they asserted
they already held from Georgia, the deeds and evidences of
which they pI)araded before and d,,I)osited with the Commissioners, into the details of whose labors, at once immense
and minute, there is no call upon us to enter in this tract.
All that we need here is the general result at which they arrived and which, along with their opinion, they reported to
Congress on the 16th of Febl)ruary, 1803, with full statements and accompanyi,ng  documents, all which may  be
found spreading over many pages of the State Plapers.* In
their report the Commissioners mention the notorious fact,
confirmed by the title papers the claimants had lodged with
them, that the lands had all passed out of the original
grantees and were now vested in second holders. These
secondary holders said that they had bought them without
knowledge or notice of the fraud, bribery and corruption
that had contaminated the original purchase and, therefore,
they claimed immunity for their title from these grounds of
attack. The Commissioners, nevertheless, set forth fully
all the criminating evidence which had come to their hands,
being the same that was before the Rescinding Legislature,
and in the body of their report is stated the very significant
face, "that all the deeds given by the Companies, which had
been exhibited tothe Commissioners, as well as all the sub
.dnerica,, Stale Papers, Public Lands, T-ol. I, pages i32, 159.
131
Tllg YAZ')O FRAI'D. 
I
THE YAZO0 FRAUD.
sequent deeds, with only two or three exceptions, not only
give a special instead of a general warranty, but have also a
special covenant in the following words:'And lastly, it is
covenanted and expressly agreed and understood by and
between the parties to these presents, that neither the grantors aforesaid, nor their heirs, executors or administrators,
shall be held to any further or other warranty than is herein before expressed, nor liable to the refunding any money
in consequence of any defect in their title from the State of
Georgia, if any such there should hereafter appear to be.'"
Such a phenomenon as this on the very face of their deeds
would have been enough in law to charge the claimants
with the damning notice they denied, even in the absence of
all the other convincing proofs against them that existed.
Upon this fact, then, and all the other facts and circumstances which came to their knowledge, the Commissioners
were forced to the conclusion that the title of the claimants
could not be supported.
But they proceeded, nevertheless, to express their belief
that "the interest of the United States, the tranquility of
those who may hereafter inhabit that territory, and various
equitable considerations which may be urged in favor of
most of the present claimants, render it expedient to enter
into a compromise on reasonable terms;" and they thereupon
proceed to submit to the consideration of Congress two
plans of compromise, one proposing compensation to the
claimants in land, the other in money-and in case the
moneyed plan should be adopted, then that the claimants
should be paid $2,500,000 in certificates of the Government,
drawing interest,.or $5,000,000 in non-interest bearing cerr
tificates, payable out of the proceeds of the sale of the
lands.
There is a very deep significance in this recommendation
of a compromise by the commissioners. It amounts to their
saying that, "although the claimants have no title and the
Gcvernment is under no obligaticn, legal or equitable, to
pay them a cent, yet as they will have a vast and intermi
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THE YAZOO FRAUD.
nable right and faculty of litigation, annoyance and vexation against the future settlers on these lands under titles
to be derived from the Government, which, among other
huge evils, will have the effect of greatly retarding the sale,
settlement and improvement of the lands,-that, therefore,
it would be both for the interest of the Government and the
interest and tranquility of the future settlers,-to extinguish
these claims now even at the cost of five millions of dollars,
rather than leave all these innumerable acres thus liable to
permanent controversy and litigation, and every settler on
them thus exposed to law suits, against which the Government would be bound to be at all the trouble and expense of
defending him and of making him in the end a full remuneration and imdemnity, in case he should chance unexpectedly
lose the land he had bought from the Government.
Such was the view the Commissioners took of this matter,
now can the practical sense and wisdom of it be gainsaid.
Yet it prevailed not with Congress.  For seven long years
from 1803 to 1810, the claimants persisted to little purpose
in beseiging and battering that body, which seemed, indeed,
rather to harden than to give way under their ceaseless importunity. The terrible Napoleatiic wars were all this while
raging, over Europe, thretLtening,, striving, as it were, to
draw our country, too, within their fearful vortex, out of
which to keep her was Mr. Jefferson's great study, using to
that end all upright and honorable means, even to such
harsh and exhausting measures as the Embargo, the Restriction and the!,on-Intercourse; in spite of all of which
the dreaded engulfment came at last, under Mr. Madison's
administration. Yet little recking of the country's troubles or of the mighty and distressful turmoil of the times,
the Yazooists haunted Congress every session with their illodored, unrelenting clahns, backed by the ablest and most
influential lobby that had up to that time ever invested
ConIgress; sustained at the same titre by a powerful Norther., advocacy on the floor. But all would not do. The period had not yet come when the people's Representatives
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134                  THE YAZOO FRAUD.
could be gotten to throw a propitiating sop) of millions
drawn from the sweat of their brow, in order to buy off a
vile claim pronounced to be at once the offspring of crime,
fraud and co4ruption, and to be devoid also of all legal
quality and character, by which it could demand and coerce
support.
If at this remote day any wonder should be felt that
the  recommendation  of a compromise by a Comnmission
composed of such great men and high functionaries as 5Iadison, Gallatin, and Lincoln, should have been so unavailing
with the House, where the Bill for the proposed approplriationl had to originate, —let it be recalled how loftiy and unbending the temper of that Ilouse was in +hose days in
maintaining its independence of thlought and action, especially on questions of taking money out of the Treasury, that is
to say, out of the people's pockets; secondly, how fiercely
public and Congressional rage then burned against the monstrous Yazoo crime; and lasily, that that prodigy of parliamentary oratory and debating talent, John Randolph, was
there  from the outset- to the end-in  all the pride of
young manhood,  yet  ril.e genius  and stored, cultivated
mind, lashing the House ul) all the while to its indignant
duty with his versatile, unsparing, exhaustless powers of
eloquence and argument, persuasion and invective.
Weary of long waiting and continued disappointment, to
which they saw no end on their present tack, the Yazooists
determined at last on a new departure-on demonstrating to
Congress in a manner, at once practical and astounding, that
their title was one capable of being supported in law, the
opinion of the, three Cabinet Commissioners and of the majority of the House to the contrary notwithstanding and
that their claims, in the event of being thrust out of the
National Legislature, were sure of finding a favorable reception in the sanctuary of the National Courts.  The  proceedure instituted and prosecuted to a close with a view to
this demonstration long stood out to view as the most erratic
acd lavless judicial p?enomnenon ever known in our history. 
THE YAZOO FRAUD.
It was eminently an unprincipled and audacious thing, and
nothing but that sort of triumphal palliation which success
too often imparts to crime in this world could ever have
prevented it from being regarded by everybody as also a
mad and disgraceful thing.
The plan was to get up and carry through all the windings and forms of high litigation a feigned case, so contrived
as to draw out ftiom the Supreme Court of the United States,
if entertained there, a solemn, though volunteer, gratuitous
pronouncement ex cathedra in favor of the claimants on all
the points they deemed necessary or advantageous to their
title.  It was the celebrated case of Fletcher against Peck,
reported at great length in the 6th volume of Crancli.  No
professional man acquainted with the story of the Yazoo
Fraud can possibly read that case without seeing in it the
unmistakable brands and  marks  of a feigned case, even
thoug,h one of the Judges, Johnson, had not weakly called
attention to the flagrant fact*-I say weakly, because he
nevertheless, was not prevented by the fact, from entertaining, the case and pronouncing an opinion thereon in favor of
the Yazooists. To lawyers it would be neither necessary nor
complimentary to eniter here into the long and intricate details of the case with its artistically concocted pleadings and
laboriously constructed special verdict; for they are to be
*Mr. Justice Johnson, in delivering his opinion, made the following remarks
at the close: "I have been very unwilling to proceed to the decision of this
ease at all. It appears to bear strong evidence upon the face of it of being a
mere feigned case. It is our duty to decide on the rights but not on the speculaticn of parties. My confidence, however, in the respectable gentlemen,t
who have been engaged for the parties, have induced me to abandon my
scruples, in the belief that they would never consent to impose a mere feigned
case upon this Court.-Crai,ch's Rep., 6th Iol., p. 147-8.
tAnd yet Robert Goodloe Harper was one of those gentlemen, whose name, as
one of the large, original Yuzoo partners, was in thousands of Congressional
documents with which the couintry was then flooded.'I'hirty years ago, in a
book store in Washington, I picked up a bound second hand copy of one of
them, which I now have, printed by order of Congress in 1809.
135 
THE YAZOO FRAUD.
supposed acquainted with them already. To the laity such
a recital would certainly be alike irksome and unprofitable.
Suffice it, then, to say that the Circuit Court of Massachusetts in which the feigned suit was started, gratified ful!y the
wishes of the claimants, deciding every point as they desired,
and perfectly validating their title from beginning to end.
Nevertheless, they carried the case up to the Supreme Court
at Washington, in order that it might be there affirmed
and clinched forever. And it was securely clinched by that
tribunal. With the exception of poor Johnson, all the
Court, from a regard to decency and appearances, made
itself voluntarily blind to the staring fact that it was a
feignedi case, and consequently one which it was highly discreditable and criminal for the Court to entertain and
decide at all.  Moreover, the whole Court persistently shut
its eyes to the grand, vital principles on which Washington
had so decidedly combated and nullified the first Yazoo
Sale, that of 1789, and on which he had equally come forth
denouncing and ready, if need there should be, to combat
and nullify likewise this second Yazoo Sale of 1795, whenever it should put forth its head so as to be within reach of
the National arm. Overlooking all these vast and weighty
considerations, so important with the Father of his Country,
the Court studiously narrowed its view to the points to
which the Yazooists for their own purposes chose to solicit
its attention. The result was a judgment delivered at the
February term, 1810, going the full length for the title of
the Yazoo claimants, pronouncing it just as good as if the
Rescinding Act of Georgia had never been passed, invulnerable, indeed, by any act of the State either singly or in
combination with the United States, and consequently better
than the younger title the State had conveyed to the
United States by the cession of April, 1802. In fine, it
was a judgment which fully verified  and reduced to an
absolute certainty all the little credited vaticinations, the
possibility of which turning out true had led the Commissioners to recommend the five million compromise as a
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THE YAZOO FRAUD.
thing for the interest of the United States and the interest
and tranquility of the future settlers on the contested territory.
And now Congress, seeing itself in vinculis, and very
much at the mercy of the claimants in regard to
all the Yazoo lands, upon well revolving the matter thought
it best to come to terms with them, and finally, after a moody
interval of some four years, passed the Act of 31st of March,
1814, appropriating the sum of five million of dollars to be
raised by sales of the lands, to the perpetual quieting and
extilnguishmnent all the Yazoo Claims, which being agreed
at once to be accepted by the claimants, there was an end at
last of a matter which I have essayed to trace from its origin
and through all its vicissitudes, and which with a better
handling than I have been capable of giving it;, would be
found forming a chapter in the history of Georgia and of the
United States interesting and important, as well as multifarious, complicated and long.
FINIS.
ERRATA IN PART I.
On page 34, 16 line from top, read post instead of past.
On page 36, 5th line from bottom, read fury instead of fray
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PART lI.
GENERAL JAMES JACKSON.
GENERAL ANTHONY WAYNE. 
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CEIAPTER 1.
GEN. JAMES JACKSON-GEN. ANTHONY WAYNE.
As when the laborious husbandman whose daily bread is
sweetened by the sweat of his brow and by the holy sense
of providing by his toil for his wife and children, has been all
the week long,with measured stride and stalwart arms, swing ing the scythed cradle here and there over his field wherever
the nodding harvest looked ripest and most tempting; wearied
atlength he pauses from his task at the near approach of the
sacred day of rest, surveys his work, eyes gratefully his
thick-standing sheaves, and taking note of what there still is
for his industrious hands to do, beholds, well pleased, the
rich, retiring nooks and deep, fertile hollows that yet await
his blade:-so do I, having in an irregular, desultory manner, treated of the development, fortunes and affairs of Georgia during a considerable lapse of time next after the Revolutionary war, now looking back perceive in the period I have
thus traversed not a few things which although interesting
and well worthy of notice, have as yet remained untouched
by my roving pen.
And first-of Gen. Jackson himself it is meet and would
be both grateful and rewarding that something further
should be said and told, even though it carry us back beyond the Revolutionary era. For it is attended alike with
pleasure and profit to follow and observe such a man
from his early beginnings and through all his vicissitudes.
What we have already had occasion to see and know about
him naturally excites curiosity to know more, and we would
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GENERALS JACKSON AND WAYNE.
fain get a full view of one so marked and superior, so much
above the world's ordinary standard and requirements, so
much a pride and honor to'our common nature;-one whom
such a judgeas Thos. Spalding, himself assuredly a most noble
man and who enjoyed the amplest opportunities, in his long
and honorable life, of knowing men of distinction in Eu rope and America, advisedly pronounced, forty odd years
after his death, "the noblest man with whom it had been
his lot to be acquainted."*
He landed on our shores from his native England in 1772:
a lone lad of fifteen years.  Of virtuous and respectable pa rentage, breeding and connexions, we cannot but suppose
that he had at that immature age already strongly evinced
safe and superior qualities of mind and character and given
evidences of high future promise;-otherwise his father
would hardly have consented, nor would such a man as Mr.
I Wereat, a name of great note and respect in our Colonial
I and Revolutionary annals atid at one time Acting Governor
of the State, have advised him to consent to his son's coming to America under his Mr. Wereat's, auspices, to make
his own way and build up his fortunes in this remote and
then wild part of the earth. We are told that his father
Bench and Bar of Georgia-vol 2, page 102.  TitLeIC, JChn Houston.  See
there a letter from Mr. Spalding to Maj. Miller, of  the 1'.:ch  October, 1850,
from which the following is an extract:
"It gives me pleasure to state that Gen. James Jackson, the noblest man
with whom it has been my lot to be acquainted, when I called upon  him  as
Governor to give me a letter to Mr. King, our the n Minister in London, kept
me to dine with him; and asked me what were Mr. Gibbo,ns' receipts from his
profession."  I replied, "Three thousand pounds per annu ii.'  "My own were
about that amount when I unwisely left my profession foi politics. Mr. Gibbons, as a whole, was the greatest lawyer in Georgia." Let me say to you that
Gen. Jackson and Mr. Gibbons had exchanged three shots at -at'h otheri. They
wereconsidered the bitterest enemies by the  public.  A  high-minded  man
knows no enmity."
I had intended to add here a few words of my own about Mr. Spalding,whom
I knew, revered and held in the highest honor. But on turning to the notice
of him in White's Hirtorical Sketches of Georgia, I prefer it to any thing I
can write. It will be found in full as a note at the end of this chapter.
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GENERALS JACKSON AND WAYNE.
was a strenous lover of freedom and free Government and
of the rights of the people as against arbitrary power,-and
particularly that he was a warm sympathiser with the Colo nies in their as yet bloodless quarrel with the mother coun try for their rights and liberties. These principles and sen timents young Jackson had deeply imbibed before quitting
the paternal roof and indeed they largely influenced his em igration and casting his lot here. Accordingly, it was not
long after reaching his new home in Georgia, before they
shone out in his warm participation in the feelings and proceedings which were even then beginning to herald the approaching Revolution.
The very pursuit to which his father and Mr. Wereat had
destined him in Georgia is proof of their high opinion of
his capacity and endowments. For although so young, he
was, upon his arrival in Savannah, at once put to the study
of law in the office of Samuel Farley, Esq., applying himself at the same time to such other studies as were necessary
to the completion of his general education. With what enthusiasm, industry and success he applied himself, some
idea may be formed from the fact handed down from his
own lips by Mr. Spalding, that after the Revolutionary
war and before embarking in politics, he practiced law so
prosperously that his professional earnings at their acme
reached to the sum of ~3,000 per annum-a prodigious
amount when we consider the small population and the still
smaller wealth, commerce and resources of Georgia in those
times.
Before, however, finishing his studies and coming to the
Bar, and whilst yet a mere stripling, he, like that other
glorious young genius of the day-spring of the Revolution,
Alexander Hamilton, betwixt whom and himself there are
not wanting strong points of resemblance, obeyed the impulse of courage, ambition, patriotism and a passionate love
of liberty and hastened to exchange his books and seclusion
for arms and the din of war.
It comports not with my plan to enter into the minute
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GENERALS JACKSON AND WAYNE.
details of the young soldier's Revolutionary career, and
indeed nothing could be more unnecessary. For are they
not to be found written in every book of the chronicles of
Georgia?-where, among the many things in relation  to
him, it is recorded that his first feat of arnms (a very daring
and purely volunteer affair of himself and a little band of
other patriots,resulting in their burning several of the enemy's
armed vessels which had grounded in proceeding up the river
against the city) won for him much applause and a lieutenancy.. Soon a captaincy rewarded his rapidly developing
martial merits   And so he continued to rise, never failing
to justify his promotions by his performances-until at
length we see him before the end of the war by  Gen.
Green's appointment and the confirmation of Congress, the
commander, in his 24th year, of a mixed Legion of cavalry
and infantry. On every occasion and in every position
throughout the long, harsh struggle, he added to his steadily
growing reputation.  Victory brought him laurels which, so
fine was ever his conduct, no adversities or reverses that
befel him could take away or dim.  For alike in distress and
in good fortune he exhibited fertile and brilliant capacity,
an unflinching devotion to duty, indefatigable activity and
a heroism not to be cowed by wounds, perils, fatigues; nor
by hunger, thirst and nakedness, nor all the other nameless
discouragements and sufferings of ill-provided war and campaigning in the woods and swamps of lower Georgia and
Carolina against an enemy entrenched and under cover in
Augusta, Savannah and Charleston, and continually sallying out from these strongholds as assailants, pursuers, marauders, devastators-and then rushing back again to their
shelter when routed or endangered or wearied out or sated
with spoliation. Such an impression did his extraordinary
merits and services in the closing scenes of the war in Georgia make on his General, that renowned soldier and commander, Anthony Wayne, that on the occasion of the final
surrender of Savannah by the British to our arms in July,
1782, he honored him by ordering that the formal surrender
6 
GENERALS JACKSON AND WAYNE.
should be made into his hands. And accordingly it was so
done by the keys of the city being delivered up to him by
the evacuating British commander in presence of both armies.
One of those remarkable incidents which, by reason of befalling men of celebrity, often become canonized in history,
is related to have occurred during the gloomiest period of
the Revolution to him and his young friend, John Milledge,
the same who afterwards became a Representative and then
a Senator in Congress, and Governor also of the State-in
honor of whom likewise Milledgeville was named, destined
as the permanent capital of the State-a destiny, however,
not permitted to stand, but to the mortal shame of Georgia
set aside now by her submission thus far to an ephemeral
satrap's wanton, dishonoring edict. During the utter prostration of our cause in lower Georgia, consequent on the fall
of Savannah, in 1778, these undaunted youthful patriots
repaired together to South Carolina to seek service. Whilst
on their way to join Gen. Moultrie's standard "barefoot and
in rags, these sons of liberty," we are told, "were apprehended as spies by some American soldiers and condemned
to be hung. The gallows was actually prepared, and but
for the timely arrival of Maj. Devaulx, who accidentally
heard of the transaction, the two young patriots would have
been executed."*    Behold here in our own annals an
authentic fact which taken in connection with the subsequent
eminence and illustriousness of both the men, surpasses any
thing in history, nay, even excels that famous antique fiction
of Belisarius, old and blind, begging a penny,t victim
of Justinian's imperial ingratitude and cruelty after a lifetime of the hardships and dangers of war in his service, and
an hundred victories won for him and declining Rome.
The long revolutionary struggle being at last ended and
the occupation of arms at an end with it,-peace found Col.
Jackson standing amidst the ruins of the recent war like
White's Statistics of Georgia, page 337. National Portrait Gallery. Title
James Jackson.
t',Da Belisario obolum."
7 
GENERALS JACLSON AND WAYNE.
thousands of his brother officers and soldiers in utter poverty-houseless, penniless, without means or employmentwith no resources but such as existed in his own mind  and
character, and in the boundless love and( admiration of his
fellow-citizens, a love and admiration heightened by a sense
of gratitude for his services-all which was well attested
by legislative resolutions of thanks and honor, and the gift
to him by the State of a house and home in the city of
Savannah.
But by nothing could he be paralysed or rendered a
cypher. It was a necessity of his nature and character that
hlie should cherish and pursue high aims under all circumstances, adverse or prosperous, of peace or of war. lie
went instantly to work in the arduous, aspiring profession
to which he had been early dedicated. As we have already
seen, he had stored and trained his mind by juridical and
miscellaneous studies before the Revolution, and during
it not in arms alone was he developed and exercised. Led by duty and martial ardor t:) harrangue his commands on miany a trying occasion, he found out and cultivated that rarle talent of ready, effective, stirring eloquence
with which nature, study, self-discipline and practice combined gradually to endow him in a distinguished manner.
This bright, crowning talent coming in aid of his general
mass of ability and knowledge, and of his great energy,
uprightness, industry and enthusiasm, he rose rapidly at
the Bar and won the triumphant success there to which
allusion has been made. So striking was his success and
such the impression he made of possessing qualifications
equal to any, the highest, spheres of public service, that his
fellow-citizens soon looked forward with pride to his future
career and foresaw the honors of the patriot statesmaun clustering on his brow along with those, already won, of the
forum and the field.  It was at this stage, in 1788, that the
office of Governor was tendered him, but which his modesty
declined, on the ground of the want of age and political experience. For though his ambition was high and mettlesome,
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GENERALS JACKSON AND WAYNE.
yet it was far from being prurient and self-blinding, and
did not lead him to think that what service he had seen in
our Legislature, and which was all the political apprentice ship he had then had, was sufficient to fit one so young for
the chief magistracy of the State.
There was, however, another great and interesting politi cal theatre just opening at that time, better suited  to his
years, his genius, and his training and for which he felt a
predilection that may have had some subtle influence, for
aught we know, in disinclining him  to the Governorship.
For the new Federal Constitution had been now adopted, and
in apportioning the representation of the States in Congress,
there had been given to Georgia three members in the Lower
HIouse, and the Legislature at its first meeting afterwards
had divided the State into three Congressional Districts for
the election of those members. Gen. Jackson became a can didate and a guccessful one in the First or Eastern District,
composed of the counties of Chatham, Liberty, Effingham,
Glynn and Camden. In the Second or Middle District,
Abraham Baldwin was chosen, and in the Third or Western,
George Mathews. All over the United States, likewise, the
people rallied in their respective States to make choice of
their Representatives in this their First Congress under the
new Federal system, and the Legislatures of the several
States proceeded also to elect their first National Senators.
Slowly and not without a seeming of backwardness and diffidence did the great historic body get together and go about
its mighty task of building up fromn the very bottom,on a plan
prefixed and wholly novel, a vast and complex Republican
Empire.  On  the appointed day of meeting, the  4th of
March, 1789, only eight Senators and thirteen Representatives were in attendance. Gradually other members came,
but so scatteringly that it was as late as the first of April
before a quorum appeared in the Lower House, and five days
later still before there was one in the Senate, nor was it
until the 30th of the month that Washington was installed
and the new Government ready to go to work.
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In the illustrious assemblage of tried, picked men with
whom Gen. Jackson now saw himself associated in the
National service, there was not a younger politician to be
found than himself. So he himself tells us in one of his
speeches. *  And yet those who will follow him, as I have
done, through the volumes containing  the debates of that
memorable, three-sessioned Congress, will perceive that he
carried with him into that body not only the exalted manly
fervor and public-spirit appropriate to his age, temperament
and patriotic character, but also such thorough and vari(,us
preparation of mind and knowledge, siuch accurate acquaintance with the subjects that had to I)e discussed, and such
sense, talent and readiness in discussing them, in fine, such
a judicious activity and such sound, enlightened views, as
would have done honor to gray hairs and veteran state smnanship and soon secured to him rank and consideration
among his fellow members. Keeping attention closely upon
him throughout this, his two-years' Congressional novitiate,
we at times cannot help feeling wonder, as in the very
parallel case of Alexander Hamilton, that under all the
actual circumstances of his whole preceding life he should
have been able to make  himself what he was ill mental
culture and discipline, and to have aniassed such intellectual
stores, especially of the political kind, as he showed himself
to possess.  Nothing but a very superior constitution of mird
and nature combined with high ambition and indefatigable
energy, industry and application can explain the rare and
interesting phenomenon.
But whilst he was thus devoting himself to his country's
service and acquiring a proud name in Congress, intelligence reached him there towards the end of his term, of an
event at home for which he was unprepared and which was
well calculated to sting him to the quick and rouse all the
lionin his nature. The 3d of January, 1791, was the time of
the election for the next Representative term.  Though
* GaJes' Debates of the First Congress, vol. 1, page 1,266.
Benton's Abr. Debates, vol. 1, page 216.
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GENERALS JACKSON AND WAYNE.
standing again as a candidate, yet with a noble conscientiousness and full of trust in his strength with  the people,
he stirred not from his distant post of duty, but faithfully
remained there-leaving his election to the care of his constituents. That care happened not to be adequate to the
needs of the case. It did not prevent frauds and lawless
irregularities, the result of which was that he was superseded,
and Gen. Anthony Wayne, now become a citizen of Georgia,
the famed hero of Stony Point, the recoverer of Savannah
and Lower Georgia from  the  British, the winner also of
countless laurels at Brandywine, Germantown,  Monmouth,
and on other hard fought fields of the Revolution, was returned in his stead.
Perfectly characteristic was Gen. Jackson's dealing with
the criminalities of this election, and particularly with the
two  most conspicuous.-criminals.  His  investigations, his
denunciations and his vengeance were prompt and severe.
The most outrageous villainy was that enacted in Camden
county by Osborne, Judge of the Superior Court, who, after
the close of the regular election in the day-time, not satisfied with the result, got possession of the legal returns and
substituted therefor during the night the forged returns of
a sham election.  Short breathiingtime had he to exult over
the success of this foul perpetration. The very next Legislature saw him arraigned for the crime, impeached by the
House of Representatives, dragged before the Senate, tried,
convicted and expelled from office,-the only precedent of
the kind in any case higher than that of a Land Lottery
Commissioner that has ever occurred in the State.  The
other worst iniquity was practiced in Effingham county. It
consisted of illegal management of the election and some
illegal voting besides, under the inimical counsel and influence of Thomas Gibbons, a man of very strong, determined
character and great courage  and ability, and much noted
throughout a long and prosperous after-life, though never
engaged in any but private and professional pursuits.  He
quitted Savannah, where he lived, and repaired to Effing
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ham for the purpose of working there in the election against
Gen. Jackson. It was the terrible denunciations which the
part he thus acted brought down upon him from Gen. Jackson in his speech before the House of Representatives contesting the election, that, doubtless, led to the duel and'the three
shots' between them of which Mr. Spalding makes mention.*
* For a report of all the facts touching this election and of Gen. Jackson's
speech, see Clarke's Book of Congressional Contested elections-p. p. 47-68.
Among the curious things contained in this report is the number of voters
in each county. According to the statement furnished to the Committee on Elections by Gen Jackson, the poll,'if all the returns had been received and had been
proper',would have been just 551 votes in the whole district: Chatham county259
Liberty 69, Effingham 107, Glynn 27, Camden 89.  At that time there were in
the whole State but eleven counties, and according to the census of 1790, the
population was as follows:
Freee Whites.            Slaves            Total.
Camden.......... 234                      70                 304
Glynn.............. 193                  21l5                 408
Liberty............. 1,303             4.025                5,328
Chatham......... 2,456                 8,201               10,657
Efflngham....... 1,674                   750                2,424
Richmond........ 7,162                 4,116               11,278
Burke............ 7,()64               2 392                9,456
Washington.... 3,856                     694                4,550
Wilkes.......... 24,052                7,268               31,320
Franklin.......... 885                   156                1,041
Greene.......... 4,020                 ].377               5,397
53,797              29.164               82,163
Columbia county was created out of Richmond by an Act of 10th of December, 1790, but was not organized when the census was taken.  Wilkes had then
undergone no subdivision, but still retained all her vast pre-revolutionary territory-which accounts for the numerousness of her population.
Mr. Gibbons, in his advanced years, following a fashion formerly not uncommon among Savannah families rich enough to afford it, had a Northern
summer residence which was at Elizabethtown, in New Jersey. This circumstance led to a very noted. if not the most noted, thing in his life-a thing
which caused his name to become notorious and familiar all over the United
States both in conversation and in print. Disbelieving in the constitutionality
of the law of New York conferring on a chartered company and its assignees
the exclusive right of navigating the waters of that State by steam vessels,-he
commenced running in 1818 a line of steamboats of his own between Elizabethtown Point and New York City in violation of the exclusive chartered
right. As was foreseen, Ogden, the company's assignee for that route, resorted
at once to law to stop Gibbons' boats. He filed a bill before Chancellor Kent
for a present and perpetual injunction against Gibbons, which the Chancellor
granted, holding the New York law constitutional. Gibbons carried the case
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GENERALS JACKSON AND WAYNE.
The  Congress  to which  Gen.  Wayne  was returned  as  sembled on  the  24th  of October,  1791.   At the  end  of a
week from that date we find him in his seat as a member,
where lie had been but a fortnight when he was disturbed by
Gen.  Jackson  appearing  and  contesting his right to that
seat. The contest lasted several months, Geu. Wayne re maining in his seat and exercising full Representative func tions all the while. The investigations were thorough and
brought out abundant proof that the General's election was
illegal but none whatever implicating the General himself
in any of the illegal means by which it had been effected.
Nor was there ever any imputation against him personally
in connection with the election.   It was the  not uncommon
case of a candidate's partizans without his participation or
up to the highest tribunal in New York, the Court of Errors, where the deci sion rendered against him in the Court of Chancery was sustained and affirmed.
Whereupon an appeal was taken by him to the Supreme Court of the United States
which upon full argument and consideration reversed the New York decision
and pronounced the New York law unconstitutional, thereby throwing open all
the waters of the United States to free navigation by steam. The case through out its long pendency was regarded as one of immense public, political and
commercial importance, and excited, consequently, a strong and unusual in terest, and Mr. Gibbons himself, came to be everywhere viewed as the cham pion of free trade between the States, and indeed somewhat in the light of a
great public benefactor by having taken upon himself the burden of this magnificent, costly and finally victorious litigation.  In 1824, not long after Mr.
Gibbons' triumph in the Supreme Court of the United States, I heard Judge
Berrien say in conversing with some gentlemen about it, that Mr. Gibbons,
whilst the case was yet pending, made his will and appropriated $40,000 to
carrying on the suit in case it should not be ended before kis death. Upon
some one present expressing surprise, Judge Berrien remarked that Mr. Gibbons
was a very able lawyer and felt great pride in having his opinion on the constitutional question sustained. Mr. Spalding, in his letter from which I have
already quoted, mentions that he was a law student of Mr. Gibbons, and speaks
of him as a great lawyer and a man of most determined character. Cornelius
Vanderbilt, more familiarly known as Commodore Vanderbilt, now renowned
among the men of New York, great by being rich, was one of Mr. Gibbons'
steamboat captains, and was in the course of the litigation actually brought
before Chancellor Kent once, charged with a contempt in disobeying the injunction against Gibbons' boats.
In the matter of Vanderbilt, 4 Johnson's Chan. R. 57. Ogden vs Gibbons,
Ib. 150. Gibbons vs. Ogden, 17 Johnson's R. 488. Gibbons vs. Ogden, 9.
Wheaton's R. 1.
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GENERALS JACKSON AND WAYNE.
privity doing wrong things and going criminal lengths for
him from which he himself would have revolted. No final
action was reached by the House till late in March when
a decision was pronounced setting aside both the contestants,
declaring a vacancy and calling for a new election, at whichMr. Milledge was chosen, neither Gen. Wayne or Gen.
Jackson entering the lists as a candidate, and so both
these very eminent and meritorious men were sent into retirement.
But their exile was short and more than compensated by
their being each soon called to a more exalted and important sphere of public employment. Gen. Wayne, than
whom no truer son of Mars ever intensified the splendor of the
American arms, being solicited by Washington, almost im
mediately resumed the sword and went at once to that
inveterate theatre of Indian hostilities and British tamperings on the Lake frontier where our armies had for years been
so unlucky, and there in August, 1794, at the great battle
of the Miami of the Lakes, the greatest and most memorable in all our annals of Indian warfare, repaired the disasters of Harmar and St. Clair and by a bloody arbitrament opened the way to that permanent Indian peace in
the North-West which Washington was, as we have seen heretofore,* successful, by peaceful, diplomatic means in bringing
about in the South and South-West. This signal and priceless triumph of Wayne's generalship shone the more
brilliantly under the dark contrast of the defeat of his predecessors and it may be regarded, too, som0ewhat as a deathhalo settling on his brow, as it was the last fighting exploit
of a life that was not to last much longer. For he survived
but two years more, dying in the service and at his post on
the Indian frontier, Commander-in-Chief of the Army of
the United States. So it is inscribed on the monument
erected to him at his birthplace in Chester, Pennsylvania,
by his brethren of the Society of the Cincinnati.
And he died also still a citizen and a cherished adopted
* In the article on the Oconee War, Part I.
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GENERALS JACKSON AND WAYNE.
son of Georgia. For in passing from her service into that of
the United States, he passed not from her embrace nor lost his
domicil, at once tribute of gratitude and memorial of honor,
on her soil. He thoroughly won her devotion when as
second in command to Gen. Greene* in the South, he had
wrought out the full deliverance of the State from the
enemy towards the close of the Revolution. And in fact the
successes of Greene and Wayne in the extreme South had
nearly as much to do in bringing the war to a close as the
more impressive and celebrated triumph of Washington over
Cornwallis in Virginia. As a consequence of these great
Southern services, Wayne as well as Greene was remembered by Georgia when peace came, and she acknowledged
her heavy debt to him by bestowing on him a fine estate
near Savannah on the soil he had rescued. And hence like
Gen. Greene he was led to make Georgia his home. The
precise time of his coming I have no means of fixing, but
it was certainly later than the year 1787, for we find him
in the last months of that year still a citizen of Pennsylvania, and serving as a delegate in her Convention called to
ratify the new Federal Constitution.  That he should have
become Gen.  Jackson's opponent for Congress was undoubtedly a circumstance of a nature to inspire regret at the
time of its occurrence, and for a long while afterwards. For
it was just one of those contests in which our grief over the
party that should be defeated was incapable of compensation by any joy that we could feel at the success of his rival.
That grief too was in this case not a little exasperated and
tinctured with resentment on account of the reprehensible
means by which success had been achieved. But here again
we take comfort, for that General Wayne was personally
untouched by the foul arts employed in his behalf and stands
clear of reproach alike from the public and his own conscience and his wronged and irritated competitor. And now
at this remote day looking back on the whole affair and seeing how it proved eventually harmless alike to the two
*See his speech on Mrs. Greene's Claims, I. Vol. Benton's Abr. 335-6.
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GENERALS JACKSON AND WAYNE.
Generals and the country, it cannot be otherwise than that
the present generation of the people of Georgia, filially av aricious of every ray of honor that can be counted to her
brow, must feel pride at such a spectacle in her history as
Anthony Wayne attracted by her generous love and grati tude to become one of her citizens, and as such suing for her
suffrages as a candidate for Congress and actually serving
her for nearly five months as a Representative in Congress,
blameless himself in being there, however great the blame
of others for the means used to put him there.
He was born early in the year 1745, which made him older than Gen. Jackson by more than a dozen years. Like
Jackson he was of good ancestry, of superior sol(ierly stock
particularly, his grandfather having fought with reputation
as the commander of a squadron under King William III
at the Battle of the Boyne, in 1690, and his father having
been distinguished as well in expeditions against the Indians as in civil affairs in Pennsylvania in the Colonial
times.  And  that he inherited the  martial temper  and
bravery and the strong military bent of his race was manifest not only by all his actions and career, but is strikingly visible in his very looks and lineaments, heroic and
spirited in the highest degree, as they have come down to
us on canvass. His early advantages were of a high order
and were so well improved that we may set him down as
having had an education ample for the purposes of a life of
activity and distinction either in peace or war. It is not
surprising that these advantages aided by family and connexion, by superior endowments of mind and person, by
the winning power of a promising, aspiring young manhood
and by his noble ardor and forwardness from the very first
in the cause of the uprising colonies, should have obtained
for him at the beginning of the war a position which the
youthful and orphan Jackson with all his merits did not
succeed in reaching till near its end,-that of a Colonelcy.
In this grade, however, though so honorable to a man of
only thirty-one years, Wayne did not linger long. Febru
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GENERALS JACKSON AND WAYNE.
ary, 1777, saw him a Brigadier-General, in which rank it
was that he made his name resplendent and immortal, cover ing it with a Revolutionary glory second only to what was
earned by Washington himself and by Gen. Greene.  He
became a Major-General not until 1792, when  Washington
sent him, as we have just seen, at the head of the army to
conquer a peace and which, in the very teeth of British intrusion and instigation, hie did most triumphantly succeed in
conquering not from one, two or three Indiat  N.ations only,
but trom all the North-Western tribes c,)mbined.
Whilst Gen. Wayne was thus reaping for himself and
his country an overflowing recompense for the loss of his
seat in the House of Representatives, Gen. Jackson also soon
saw himself made more than whole by a proud amends. The
very next Legislature after his exclusion from the Lower
House conferred upon him a seat in the Senate of the United States for a full term commencing on the 4thl of March,
1793. When lie had been in that elevation but two years,
he heeded the cry of the people calling upon him to disrobe
himself and come down at once to their hell) against the Yazoo Fraud. His rea(ly obedience gave the country example
of a resignation the noblest on record, and inculcated a lesson which noble natures only will be ever quick to feel and
imbibe, that there are some occasions discernible by such
natures which render humility a sublime practical virtue,
and make it more glorious to descend with a magnanimous
alacrity to the lowlier posts of public service than to cling
with tenacious pride and self-love to the higher and more
shining ones. What he had to do in the matter for
which he resigned and how he acquitted himself therein, we have already sufficiently seen, and seen also how after
finishing that task, he otherwise faithfully and ably served
Georgia at home until the time came when she sent him once
more to represent her in the National Senate contemporaneously with Mr. Jefferson's accession to the Presidency. Death
found him in that position and at his post on the 19th of
March, 1806.  All that was mortal of him is still inhumed
2
-....                                          --             -       — "           —., "I-.".. -l-                  ----                                               "    " I 11-1
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at the Federal capital, and the citizen of Georgia who would
look upon his grave and the simple stone that marks it can
to this day only do so by a pilgrimage to the Congressional
burying ground at Washington City. By no monument,
statue or even portrait has Georgia ever done homage to the
man who from his dawn of youth to his death served her
with so much devotion and brought her so much honor and
benefit, and whose name on the whole sheds more lustre on
her history than any other on its page-a lustre which is
destined to brighten under the testoftimeandcontemplationa man, too, who loved her so intensely as to cause him
to exclaim that if, when he died, his heart should be opened  and examined, her name woul(d  be  found imprinted
there.* Yet happily his likeness remains to tis and those
who yearn to know what mannier of man he was to the eye,
need but to turn to the American Portrait Gallery in order
to gaze upon the nob[e, intellectual, spirituelle countenance
nd the thinking, high-!)red, cultured looks and expression
that belonged to him.
In estimating Gen. J,n and awarding him the preeminence among the  )t'(t(id names which are the especial
growth of Georgia, reg,ard should be had to him as a whole.
We must study him in all his elements, qualities and relations, in all his actions and situations. In some particulars
there may be named those whom he cqu;~o't be said to surpass or even equal. But then there is to be seen belonging
o him a signal felicity in which he- stands alone,-a felicity
onsisting in his tout ensemble of virtue.s. talents and merits,
moral and intellectual, martial and political, heroic,-civic,
chivalrous,-conferring on him a glory composite alike of
peace and war, and which rises to the beautiful and sublime
n both, though in what it derives from peace it is more fortunate even than in what it owes to war, in that its peaceul part furnishes an impressive, ever-speaking example and
esson to his countrymen, exhorting to purity, rectitude and
rue wisdom in public affairs, and urging relentlessly to the
* White's Statistics. Title-Jackson County.
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undoing, crushing and preventing of all public turpitude
and profligacy. Even now in Georgia that example and
lesson start up to view and challenge a thoughtful remembrance, warning our people that if they would protect the
coffers of the State from legalized robbery, their Legislators
from the contaminating approaches of a bribery and corruption outstripping the Yazoo infamy and themselves and
their posterity from an iniquitous taxation at once disgraceful, oppressive and blighting,-a taxation to carry out, sanction and reward the villanies of Bullock and his crew, they
must pursue the course and act on the principles of Gen.
Jackson and his compatriots, and erect an insurmountable
constitutional barrier against the payment of Bullock's
fraudulent bonds, just as Jackson and his co-workers in the
convention of 1798, not leaving such a matter as another
possible Yazoo enormity within the Legislative competency,
erected an insuperable constitutional barrier against any
more sales whatever of Indian lands by the Legislature except to the Government of the United States, and thereby
made forever impossible any more Yazoo frauds in Georgia.
Gen. Jackson was not the only one of his blood and namethat crossed the ocean to cast his lot in Georgia. Long after him and when lie had attained to great eminence, subsequently to the Revoliitionary war, a gifted younger brother
came, still in his boyhood, who under his fraternal care and
guidance grew up to be an admirable, meritorious, accomplished man, useful and honored in his day, though moving
in a more confined and unambitous sphere than that illustrated  by the  General  himself.  All who are familiar
with the history of Franklin College during its slow renai8sance and hard struggle for a new life after the war of
1812, will know at once that Dr. Henry Jackson, Professor
of Natural Philosophy in that Institution fifty-odd years
ago, is the person to whom I am now alluding. Among
the felicities incidental to -ny Law studentship in Athens,
under Judge Clayton, in 1821, I have always felt it a
chief one that by means of it I came to see and know Dr.
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Jackson and Dr. Waddell, the then President of the College,-Dr. Jackson having, however, at that time resigned
his professorship and gone into retirement, though still continuing to reside in Athens. But quite a number of the
brilliant and nobl)le-minded young men who had sat under
his instructions were still in the college or otherwise resident in Athens, and 1 became socially almost  as one of
themselves.  I was struck by the manner in which they invariably spoke of Dr. Jackson. Their conversation about
him literally glowed with admiration. They exulted at
his talents, character and acquirements and his faculty of
winning the interested attention of the young and inspiring
t'Leir minds.  More fortunate than most of the learned men
whose destiny it is to fill the cliairs of colleges, he was more
than a mere man of books and of the closet. He had also seen
theworld and been a man of the world in the highest, best and
most enlarging sense, and the advantages he had enjoyed as
such had been to him as seed sown on good ground.  It was,
according to tile published records of the College, as far back
as 181 1, that he was first called to the Professorship. But lhe
had hardly filled it a twelvemonth when the collapse of the
college caused by the war, opened his way, without a resignation, to another and to him a most attractive career. In
1813 he was invited by that great iman, WVilliam IlH. Crawfoid, then just appointed Minister to France, to accompany
him in the capacity of Secretary of Legation. He remained
in Europe several years, continuing there for some time after Mr. Crawford's return, a studious, enlightened observer
of the mighty and tangled mass of events that had in that
quarter of the globe been for many years drifting fearfully
through seas of hlood to a conclusion now in full view-the
universal calm of a despotism joyful after the long, convulsive storms through which it had passed. All the while
too he was profiting diligently by the splendid opportunities
that lay around him  for enlarged  scientific acquisitions
and varied mental culture and enrichment. The result was
that he returned home a man of rare and manifold accom
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plishments and was justly entitled to the extraordinary estimation in which he was immediately held.
But though anxiously expected, as I remember to have
read in a Life of President Finley published many years
ago and not now within my reach, he did not get back to
his Professorial post in time to co-operate, in setting the
College anew on its feet, with that greatly-beloved and
deeply-lamented gentleman;-who coming from New Jersey a stranger among us, but bringing with him to the
headship of the College great advantages of character and
prestige, was received with general delight and was successful by his opening labors and exertions in making  a most
happy impression throughout the State.   Public  expectation in regard to him rose to a very high pitch, soon to be
dashed however, by his premature death in the fall of 1817,
filling all Georgia with grief ere the first year of his Presidency had expired.  His successor was Dr. Moses Waddell,
the father of classical education in our up-country, the schoolmasterof Crawford,Calhoun,McDuffie,Pettigrew,Longstreet,
and many others whose after lives and distinction reflected
honor oil his name. Dr. Jackson returned soon enough to
give his valuable aid to this grand, solid, beneficent veteran
in finally rehabilitating the college and launching it upon
that long career of prosperity which it maintains to this day.
Why, when he saw the college once more securely under
way and free from danger of relapse and himself, too, at
once an idol and an ornament there, he so soon withdrew
from his connection with it and went into absolute retirement, I have never known or heard. I have not, however,
been able to help divining somewhat of the cause:For that conversant during his years of absence with the
most distinguished social, scientific and political circles of
the world and accustomed, consequently, to high and stimulating intellectual hal)its, he found himself averse probably
after his return,.to drudging in a perpetual round of things in
science and philosophy familiar and rudimental to him, although ever so new, fresh and interesting to his successive
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new classes of pupils. His retirement bordered on that
of a recluse. Rarely seen abroad, a glimpse of him was
sometimes to be had in the cool of a summer evening promenading meditatively the grounds within his own curtilige,
conscious of the pure clime that environed him,-the soft,
aerial summit of the far off Curribhee just not sunklen from
his view and the fair earth and fairer Heavens serene and
sympathetic above and around him.
Note to page 4, from WHITE'S HISTOICAL SFETCFIi:S OF GEORGIA, page 634.
Hon. Thomas  Spalding was born at Fredei-is(ii, oil the Island of St. Simon's
Glynn county, on tile 26th March, 17 -4, and was ot Scoltish descent.  He was
the son of James Spalding, Esq, who married the eldest daughter of Colonel
William Mcintosh, the latter being the same pers.on who, when a lad, with his
younger brother, l.achlan, (afterwards General Mcineltosh, of the Revolutionary
War,) bfollow.ved their father, John More Mcintosh a Highland chieftain, when,
with a band of intrepid Highlilanders, he accompilanied General Oglethorpe  to
the wilds of Georgia, in 1736, and from whom sprang many of that name, who
periled their all for the independence of their country during our Revolutionary contest.
Mr. Spaldling's father was a gentleman of fine abilities, and a great reader
of men and of books, the advantages of which he seemed to have early and
indelibly impressed upon the mind of his son, who read everything, and whose
surprisingly tenacious memory, retaining all that he read, made him as a living
book and depositary of literary treasures, especially those of historic interest.
Forthose gentle and benevolent traits which he so liberally practiced in
mature manhood, he was indebted to the'influence and example of his excellent
and venerated mother, of whom he ever spoke with the most filial tenderness.
He was their o'nly child. At the time of his father's decease he was a student
of law, in the office of Thomas Gibbons, Esq., of Savannah, whose practice
was extensive and profitable; and had circumstances at this period permitted
Mr. Spalding to pursue the profession of his choice. he doubtless would have
been eminent in it; but his fortune being ample, and requiring his personal
attention, he declined to proceed in tile practice.   He married the daughter and
only child of Richard Leake, Esq., which  unison anded much to his already
comfortable estate.
About this time, though very young, he was elected to the Legislature. and
shortly after, with his fatnily, visited Europe, and  t(;ok up  his residence in
London,where he remained two years a regular attenidaniit on, and observer of, the
proceedings of Parliament, and in the enjoymetit of thait society to which his
pecuniary means and position among his countrymr)eni abroad entitled him in
the British metropolis.
The lady whom he married was of rare accomplishments, good sense, and of
singular beauty; yet she alone seemed unconscious of those irresistible fascinations which secured her the respect, admiration and love of all. They had
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born to them many children, five only of whom survived their parents and are
still living.  Mr. Spalding had the misfortune  to lose his oldest son, James,
while a member of the Legislature from  McIntosh  county. during its session
in 1820-an amiable young man, of superior talent, and of great promise.
TI'he Legislature erected a monument to his memory in the capital of the State.
On  his return from England. Mr. Spalding was elected to Congress, and
served two sessions, and was for many years afterwards a prominent and lead.
ing memrber of the Senate of his native State, and until he retired irom public
life, to superintend his extensive private affairs, and to enjoy the repose and
comforts of his attractive home, surrounded by his books, and friends, and
strangers visiting our country. to whom he was ever attentive.
For the various imeasures which he advocated during a long political career,.
through anxious and perplexing periods of our history, he acted always from a
conscientious conviction of being right, and tor the interest of his country.
There never was a more ardent or a purer patriot. At the ciose of the war of
1812, in compliance with a commission from the General Government, he pro ceeded to Bermuda, and negotiated relative to the slaves and other property
taken from the South by the British forces.
In 1826, he was appointed Commissioner on the part of the State to meet the
Commissioner of the United States, Governor Randolph, of Virginia, to deter mine on the boundary between Georgia and the Territory of Florida, but which
was not conclusively settled, the Commissioners disagreeing as to what should
be considered the true source of the St. Marys-the Georgia Commissioner
insisting on the Southern and most distant of the two lakes from the m.iouth of
the river discharging its waters into the Atlantic, which lake has since been
called after him.
The limit assigned for biographical sketches in this work admits of nothing
more than a mere outline of the liie of Mr. Spalding. He was a fluent, ener getic speaker, and a fine writer. Ease of style and originality characterize the
productions of his pen. He was the author of the Life of Oglethorpe, and of
many other sketches; and furnished much useful matter for various agricultural
journals of the country, was among the earliest cotton planters of the State
and introduced the cane, its successful culture, and the manufacture of sugar
into Georgia. He was the last surviving member of the Convention that
revised the Constitution of the State in 1798.
In personal appearance he was agreeable, of middling stature, of easy, unassuming manners, courteous and affable. His hospitality was boundless, and
accessible to all; and it may be truly and emphatically said of him, that he
was the friend of the distressed. Kind in all the relations of life, his slaves., of
whom hehad a large number, felt neither irksome toil or disquiet under his
mild and indulgent government.
He felt intensely interested in the Compromise measures of Congress, and,
though in delicate health, declared his wish to go as a delegate to the Convention in Milledgeville, even if he should die in the effort. He reached that city
in a very feeble state, was elected President of the Convention, and commenced
his duties by a neat and appropriate address, remarking in the conclusion, that
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'as it would be the last, so it would also be a graceful termination of his public,
labors,'  After the adjournment, he passed on homeward  through Savannah,
greatly debilitated, and reached his son's residence, near Darien, where he expired in the midst of his children, calmly relying on his God for a happy futurity, January 4th  18.5. in the 77th year of his age, and in sight of that island
home in which it is hoped no spoiler will ever be suffered to trespass, but long
to remain a sacred memorial of his taste for the sublime beautiesof nature
His residence was a massive mansion, of rather unique style. in the midst of a
primeval forest of lofty, out-branching oaks, of many centuries, arrayed in the
soft and gracefully-flowing drapery of the Southerni moss, waving in noiseless
unison with the ceaseless surges of the ocean, which break upon the strand of
this beautiful and enchanting spot.
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