Here©s Georgia! LIBRARIES - the Digital Library of Georgia

The expurgation of the
records in the Yazoo
fraud case, while the
atrical in its climax,
showed the true temper
of Georgians in their
devotion to honest prac
tices and principles
Relics of the Chero-
kee's occupation abound
in North Georgia. Flint
arrow heads are fre
quently found and
burial mounds give evi
dence of an advanced
civilisation long before
contact with the white
race.
Many fascinating le
gends are extant of the
coming of De 8ota and
his Spaniards, and their
life among the Indians
about Mt. Yonah, where
gold and- precious stones
were -plentiful and led
to bloody games of hide
and seek.
22
FACTS ABOUT GEORGIA
as "the Yazoo Fraud." Certain land speculators, for a small con
sideration, obtained a grant from the legislature in 1794, of the
entire country now embraced in the states of Alabama and Missis
sippi. James Jackson, a United States Senator from Georgia,
and a veritable fire eater in temper, spurred by righteous wrath,
resigned, returned home in post haste, and, backed by public sen
timent, succeeded in having the legislative act rescinded. The
public burning of the official records of this transaction, in the
grounds of the then Capitol, at Louisville, by fire from Heaven
sun-glass rays as a vindication of the honor of the State, was the
crowning thrill of the drama. But the curtain did not drop for
many years, and the bitter animosities engendered resulted in
many duels and much bloodshed.
In 1802, the territory in question was transferred to the
United States government, and the new states were carved from
it, but the contract was involved in many respects, among others
with the treaty rights of the Cherokee Indians to the lands where
they were being continually more circumscribed by the encroach
ment of white settlements. Numerous conflicts occurred be
tween the state and federal governments. The sad story of the
enforced removal of the enlightened and law-abiding Cherokees,
by United States troops, in 1838, to the lands that had been chosen
for them west of the Mississippi, was only equalled in the annals
of Anglo-Saxon brutality by the Acadian expulsion from Nova
Scotia nearly a century earlier. But the Cherokees were not the
only Indians in the country to suffer injustice at the hands of
the Great White Father.