USA > Georgia > Miscellanies of Georgia, historical, biographical, descriptive, etc > Part 8
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Such is the appalling problem now before the whole coun- try, 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
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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 negro'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 strik- ing betterment of his condition, physical, moral, religious, but for all of civilization and christianity he has ever at- tained. 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 in- human and unchristian wrongs towards him. Strange
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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 the miracle of miracles if it succeeds. If by the blessing of Heaven, overruling the crimes and folly of men, such miracle should happen, our dear Southern land may hope eventually to rise from her ruin, a new creation, a veritable reconstruction, a true re-growth 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, if it fails, the world will soon witness the beginning of a mighty 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 wilds of this continent, and to ponder the question how they may best be made available for the habitation and sustenance of their redun- dant millions. And then in case the grand trial now proceed- ing 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 invok- ed to solve the distressing problem of American and Europe-
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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 en- forced 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 characteristic of Governments when it conflicts with their policy, passions or ambition? Do they not at their pleasure tear their own men of youthful and middle age away from poor old parents, from dependant wives and children, and drive them at the point of the bay- onet, into a military slavery, compared with which, that of our by-gone cotton and tobacco fields and rice and sugar plantations might well be hailed as an Elysium ? 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 work otherwise, particularly in climes under whose fervid suns, he and he alone has been consti- tuted by the Almighty capable of the perennial labor
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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 sevitude 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 character 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 among us, as compared with former times, can be re- stored. His future, 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. The 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 sud- den 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 re- curring often, especially when in its mournful moods, to our never-to-be-repeated Past, a Past that was in its day griev- ously 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.
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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 causes 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, panoplied and almost perfect from their very birth. This interesting truth I had long and large opportunities of personally observing and knowing. From the time I was a small boy, I was much in Putnam county on visits to rela- tions, 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 man- hood, 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 clas- sical 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 re- nowned Seminary of that extraordinary man, the Elder Be- man-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-
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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 people as known to me from 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 Putnam was equally so of much the larger 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 be- tween 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 prac- tice 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 for the not less commodious log structures, which are necessari- ly the earliest style of building in all new countries. She had already a very dense population of the very best charac- ter, 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 county, and a stated ministry and regular services and a full attendance of worshipers in every church. Good schools, likewise, she had in every neighborhood, and he who attended the gath-
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MIDDLE 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 homes, could not help being impressed with their moral worth and tone, their manifest respectability and intelligence, as well as their ob- vious worldly thrift, industry and prosperity. What is thus said of Monroe was applicable 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 coun- ties and I can affirm from thorough personal observation that Troup, Meriwether, Coweta, Harris, Talbot and Musco- gee never knew a low, coarse, or rude state of society. They stood from the very outset fully abreast with the best por- tions 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 peo- ple 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 Purchases fur- ther 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 ad- vantages 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,
MIDDLE GEORGIA AND LAND LOTTERY. 23
their faithful, trained servants of the field and fireside, who quite unconscious themselves of the much exaggerated hard- ships and discomforts of a new country, were certainly a means of making them unfelt by their masters and mis- tresses and by those whom they were apt 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 approaching 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 subse- quent 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 be- came, 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 Head Right mode. All East of the Oconee is Head 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 cer- tainly an interesting question, and one the answer to which will, in all likelihood, be wholly lost in a few generations more. For contemporancons history has, I believe, over- looked 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-
..
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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 Land Lottery system 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 by- gone 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- plicants become the owners of those lands and entitled to have a grant issued by the State therefor, provided no body
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MIDDLE GEORGIA AND LAND LOTTERY.
else had already taken up and appropriated the same land. This mode, however, though so universal, was always liable to considerable objections. Under it land titles were much exposed to difficulties and litigation by reason of the same surface being often covered and 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 de- sirable and more sought after. Also the poorer and less at- tractive lands would be neglected and very slowly taken up, so that from both causes combined, the country was very apt to become in the richer localities, a hot bed of law suits and conflicting claims, and, in the poorer, a confused patchwork of appropriated and unappropriated or vacant lands, which would eventuate in making it difficult to know and pick out what was vacant from what was not vacant. Moreover, to the great majority of people, especially widows, orphans, unmarried women and to the very poor generally, it was not only onerous but next to impossible to make the person- al explorations, without which the right to take ont and locate Head Rights was almost worthless. To all which if we add the frequent errors, inaccuracies and abuses grow- ing out of an ill-contrived, incompetent and untrustworthy of- ficial machinery, we behold a formidable mass of evils the tendency of which 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 inten- sest odium; that the Land Lottery system first suggested itself in Georgia, and found universal favor, and was adopted, and permanently pursued by the State in prefer- ence to all other modes of disposing of her public lands. These two great villainies were the Pine Barren Specula-
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MIDDLE GEORGIA AND LAND LOTTERY.
tion of 1794-5, and the Yazoo Fraud of the same era. In- censed to the highest degree by these two monstrous in- iquities practised upon the honor and property of the State, whereby organized bands of corrupt and corrupting specu- lators were enabled to cheat, swindle and make profit to the tune of 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 paramount one of closing every door and providing every security against the future perpetration of such like, or any other land frauds or villainies. Out of this feeling so honorable and redeeming to the State, was born the Land Lottery System. Under it the public lands, as they were from time to time freed from Indian occupancy, were at public cost sur- veyed into small lots of uniform size, and marked, num 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 gifts 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 ren- dered utterly impossible by the very system adopted, for the corruptor to make or secure anything by means of the brib- ery? Who would ever think of bribing surveyors to meas- ure 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 pri- vate 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, to women as well as to men, and to widows and to orphans, an equal and fair
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THE PINE MOUNTAIN.
chance. It also gave instantly to every lot of land, an owner with an unquestionable title, and by this means, and by preventing the accumulation of large bodies of land in the hands of speculative individuals and companies, it promoted greatly the rapid settlement and improvement of the new re- gions, beyond any other system that could have been devised.
CHAPTER IV.
THE PINE MOUNTAIN.
Nature, when she 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 ? What impress set that shall never be- come commonplace? What proud, striking feature call forth on this Westernmost expanse that shall make it unique among the Midlands of the South, a charm and a glory to all beholders and through all time ?
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