USA > Georgia > Miscellanies of Georgia, historical, biographical, descriptive, etc > Part 12
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This bare statement of what the two systems were shows the ineffable 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 inheritance 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 advan- tage of observing these maxims was always mutual and eminently reciprocal between us and the Indians. Whilst
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they were rendered thereby more secure against the intru- sions and outrages of bad and lawless white people, our fron- tiers were at the same time more exempt from Indian incur- sions and depredations, and our whole country from the hor- rors and calamities of Indian wars.
Right here then at this point the first great daruning fea- ture of the Yazoo crime presents itself to view in its viola- tions of these benign, long consecrated principles of our Indian policy-principles so dear to peace, righteousness and humanity in our relations with the Indians, of such pervad- ing and perpetual importance, and so much demanding uni- form and universal enforcement, that the makers of our new Federal Constitution deemed it their duty to incorporate them in that great instrument among the trusts exclusively assigned to the General Government. And there they have ever since been preserved, wrapped up in the great powers of war and peace, the treaty making power and the power to regulate commerce with the Indian tribes. Nor did the new Government after getting into operation long defer the ne- cessary legislation for giving full effect to these inherent principles of the Constitution. And moreover such was the estimation in which 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 companies, unless after the Indian right there- to should have been extinguished and the territory formed into counties.
Grossly disregardful, however, of these great and sacred principles the Legislature of Georgia unhappily showed itself to be on two occasions during the period of the early immaturity of the State. Men not of us, men from abroad, many of them of fair, some of them of high name, had long had their avaricious gaze fixed on Georgia's vast and fertile
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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 from 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 on our very next Legislature but for the fact 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, ur- gently called upon her again to follow the magnanimous example of Virginia and other States and make the much desired cession. The Legislature in February ensuing, re- sponded 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. Where- upon the offer being rejected and certain modifications pro- posed by that Body which would make it acceptable, those modifications were transmitted to the next Legislature, that of 1780, 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
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of 1783 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 success- ful 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 ontdoing 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, brought them no small store of dishonor, and added new ingredients to the other elements of guilt to which we have adverted in their con- duct.
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
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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 pro- ceed 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 obli- vion, 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 pur- chasing companies under that sale, was on the point of taking place just as silently and with quite as little opposi- tion, 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 viola- tion of the aforementioned well settled maxims in our Indi- an 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 : Dangerous again, because seriously embarrassing and imperiling our aforesaid already
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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 detriment.
The Companies, thus thwarted in seizing, selling and set- tling 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 sum 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 Amend- ment 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 mode of private seizure and conquest of Indian countries. For the Legislative act of sale, when probed to the bottom and scan- ned 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
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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 in- terpret 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, until peace and security were per- fectly 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 prohib- itory words in the Legislative Act had been meant by the State in the largest imaginable good faith and kind sensc towards the Indians and their rights, still they were una- voidably 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. In- deed the measures of two of them for this purpose, the Ten-
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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 delinquent, her own people and the whole country were left, as we have seen, to be indebted to the Federal Executive alone for the thwarting of the first Yazoo iniquity and the prevention of the chaos of crime, mischief and misery it carried in its bosom.
SECTION III.
All the imputations that have thus been seen to lie at the door of the Yazoo affair of 1789, apply more strongly and 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 of more collos- sal proportions and accomplished by fouler means, but also by its having been perpetrated in the face of a solemn warn- ing 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 proceed- ed. 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 Legis- lature, 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
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the people against a great political wickedness than our an- cestors 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 occa- sion 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 edu- cate them to right views and a just sense of their duty touch- ing 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 toler- ation at their hands.
The consequence was, that when the new cohorts of spec- ulation 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 sig- nal repulse. The Legislature of that year proved itself staunch and altogether impregnable to their designs .*
Of course, they fretted sorely under the unexpected dis- appointment, 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
American State Papers, Public Lands, Vol. 1, 147 .- Flournoy's Affidavit.
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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 in- dispensable 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 expecta- tions,-if, indeed, the purchase could be made on any terms, -a thing exceedingly doubtful, considering the great re- action of opinion as to the value of the lands that was sure to result from the Spanish riddance that was now immi- nent, 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 marvelous- ly 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 Fastest 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 im- pelled the Yazoo companies to press their nefarious project on the preceding Legislature with such desperate energy, and such costly, unstinted corruption. Then, indeed, the
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cause stood out in clear light and became obvious to every body-it being plainly seen what great and just reason they , had for fearing 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 Revolu- tionary 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 in such eager hurry to buy up the State's Western lands, and giving 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, although at the cost of being carried far back into Revolu- tionary and pre-Revolutionary times. For such a review ample 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 carly 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 Lakes to the heads of the tributa- ries of the 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
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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 Eng- land. 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 preten- sions, 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 compe- titors 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 Pow- ers, 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 old 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 also all of Lousiana on the eastern side of the Mississippi down to the 31st parallel of latitude. To Spain she lost all the rest of Louisiana on both sides of the Mississippi, and was thus literally expelled from the Conti- nent. Then England yielded up in favor of Spain all her
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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 terri- torial controversy that subsequently arose between the United States and Spain and having, through that contro- versy 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 divid- ed 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 Chattahoo- chee, running from thence to the head of the St. Mary's, and following the course of that river to the sea. That of West Florida, with which alone we are now concerned, she made to begin on the Chattahoochee river where the 31st parallel of latitude strikes it, and to follow that parallel to the Missis- sippi.
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