Question

Land Policies in Georgia
When the Revolutionary War ended, Georgia gained control of large
amounts of land. Georgia covered a huge area in the southeastern United
States. The land stretched from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi River.
The leaders of Georgia believed that people should have easy access to
own the land. The veterans of the war especially believed this. Dividing up
the land was a big debate. The three mainland policies were the headright
system, lotteries, and Yazoo Land Fraud.
The first attempt to divide the land was known as the headright system.
It started in 1783. This system was created to give land to as many people
as possible. Veterans were able to claim the most amount of new land.
They claimed thousands of acres. White men that were over 21 years old
could claim up to 200 acres. Men with enslaved people or families could
claim some land. The headright system ended up not working very well. So
many people claimed the land that there was not enough land for all of
them.
The second idea to spread land was the Yazoo Land Act of 1795. The
Yazoo was a river in Mississippi. Under this land act, Mississippi and
Alabama were sold to large land companies. This act was infested with
fraud and bad deals. Men who represented the land companies bribed
politicians to sell them the land. Citizens and some other politicians were
outraged. The Yazoo Land Act was canceled. The land was then sold to the
U.S. government. In exchange for selling the land to the federal
government, the U.S. was responsible for removing Creek Indians from
Georgia. The Creek Indians were an American Indian tribe that lived in the
land that Georgia controlled. This act is referred to as the Yazoo Land
Fraud due to the fuss surrounding it. James Jackson was a senator from
Georgia who was firmly against the Yazoo Land Act and its corruption.
Jackson even set a copy of the document on fire to show his opposition and
the opposition of many others.
The last idea to distribute the rest of the land was a land lottery system.
Between 1805 and 1833, Georgia would offer eight land lotteries. These
lotteries would be nearly free. For the cost of a ticket, many average white
people were able to enter the lottery for a chance to claim the land. Some
people were able to enter more than once depending on their life situation.
War service, age, and marital status increased your number of entries in the
lottery. The land lotteries proved to be the fairest and best of the three
methods of distributing Georgia’s land. The land lotteries allowed over
100,000 people to settle on the land.
Impact Land Policies on Georgia Land
1700 1730 1760 1790 1820 1850 1880
1783 - 1833
Vocabulary
Georgia
History
Creek Indians
Headright System
Yazoo Land Act
Yazoo Land Fraud
Land Lottery System
Reading Skills
Text Structure
Circle the text’s
heading.
Draw a box around
the text’s
subheading.
Main Idea
Underline the MAIN
IDEA of each
paragraph.
Key Details
What?
Where?
When?

Answer 1

Here are answers you can use for the reading-skills tasks.

Text structure
- Heading (circle): Land Policies in Georgia
- Subheading (box): The three mainland policies were the headright system, lotteries, and Yazoo Land Fraud.

Main idea — underline the MAIN IDEA of each paragraph (one-sentence summaries)
1. Paragraph 1: After the Revolutionary War Georgia controlled vast land from the Atlantic to the Mississippi, and leaders debated how best to distribute it (veterans especially wanted land).
2. Paragraph 2: The headright system (started in 1783) tried to give land to many people (veterans received the most), but it failed because too many people claimed land.
3. Paragraph 3: The Yazoo Land Act of 1795 sold lands in present-day Mississippi and Alabama to companies through bribery and fraud; the act was canceled and the land later sold to the U.S. government (this controversy is called the Yazoo Land Fraud).
4. Paragraph 4: From 1805 to 1833 Georgia used land lotteries (eight lotteries) that allowed many white citizens to fairly claim land and resulted in over 100,000 new settlers.

Key details
- What? Three methods to distribute Georgia’s land: the headright system, the Yazoo Land Act (fraudulent sale), and the land lottery system. Also: sale of Yazoo lands to U.S. government and the agreement for removal of the Creek Indians.
- Where? Georgia’s territory from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi River; Yazoo refers to a river/region in Mississippi (the act involved lands that are now in Mississippi and Alabama). The Creek Indians lived on the land Georgia controlled.
- When? Headright system began in 1783. Yazoo Land Act was 1795. Land lotteries ran between 1805 and 1833 (eight lotteries). Overall period covered: about 1783–1833.

Vocabulary (brief definitions)
- Creek Indians: a Native American tribe living in the region Georgia claimed.
- Headright system: an 18th-century policy giving land claims (often large tracts) to settlers and veterans.
- Yazoo Land Act / Yazoo Land Fraud: the 1795 sale of western lands to companies by a bribed legislature; later canceled because of corruption.
- Land lottery system: a series of low-cost lotteries (1805–1833) that gave people chances to win and claim land.

If you want, I can mark the actual sentences in the passage to show which lines to underline/box.