CHAD J. DEWOLF
719-266-2837
MADISON COUNTY MIDDLE SCHOOL, GA
24 | 7 | 365
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GSESS8H4 | Westward Expansion
Explain significant factors that affected westward expansion in Georgia between 1789 and 1840.
a. Explain reasons for the establishment of the University of Georgia, and for the westward movement of Georgia’s capitals.
b. Evaluate the impact of land policies pursued by Georgia; include the headright system, land lotteries, and the Yazoo Land Fraud.
c. Explain how technological developments, including the cotton gin and railroads, had an impact on Georgia’s growth.
d. Describe the role of William McIntosh in the removal of the Creek from Georgia.
e. Analyze how key people (John Ross, John Marshall, and Andrew Jackson) and events (Dahlonega Gold Rush and Worcester v. Georgia) led to the removal of the Cherokees from Georgia known as the Trail of Tears.
b. Evaluate the impact of land policies pursued by Georgia; include the headright system, land lotteries, and the Yazoo Land Fraud.
c. Explain how technological developments, including the cotton gin and railroads, had an impact on Georgia’s growth.
d. Describe the role of William McIntosh in the removal of the Creek from Georgia.
e. Analyze how key people (John Ross, John Marshall, and Andrew Jackson) and events (Dahlonega Gold Rush and Worcester v. Georgia) led to the removal of the Cherokees from Georgia known as the Trail of Tears.
- Why was UGA established?
- Why did the capitol of GA keep moving westward?
- How did the land policies (Headright, Land Lottery, and Yazoo) impact GA?
- What were the technological developments in GA and how did they impact GA's growth?
- Who was William McIntosh and what was his role in the removal of the Creeks?
- How are John Ross, John Marshall, and Andrew Jackson connected?
- How were the Dahlonega Gold Rush and the case of Worcester v. Georgia connected?
- Explain how questions 6 & 7 let to the removal of the Cherokee Indians.
- Describe the positive & negative results of the Trail of Tears, for the people of GA.
The Lessons
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STANDARD & ELEMENTS VERSION
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STORY BOOK FORM VERSION
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Vocabulary & Content Review
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VIDEOS IN THE LESSON
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H4.a - UGA and the Westward Movement of GA Capitols
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H4.b - Headright System, Land Lotteries, and Yazoo Land Fraud
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H4.c - Technological Developments | Cotton Gin & Railroads
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H4.d - William McIntosh & Removal of Creek from GA
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H4.e - Dahlonega Gold Rush & Worcester v. GA | Cherokees | Trail of Tears
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The Story | GeorgiaStandards.org
GSESS8H4.a
Georgia’s General Assembly approved the charter for the University of Georgia in January 1785, making it the first state created school of higher education in the United States. Abraham Baldwin (one of Georgia’s signers of the US Constitution) was appointed by Governor Lyman Hall (a signer of the Declaration of Independence) to pen the charter documents for the University. In the charter, he contended that an educated populace was necessary for a free government and that the government should make education available to all, not just the wealthy. He served as president of UGA from 1785 until 1801. The University, however, remained an institution on paper only for the next sixteen years as the state’s government was challenged by creating a functioning state. In 1801, the doors to the University finally welcomed students, and, in 1806, the first permanent building, known as Franklin College, held classes. As the school grew, the name changed from Franklin College to the University of Georgia. For many years, the only college in the University to operate was the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. Though the University struggled with financial difficulties in its early years, this did not prevent many important Georgia political and business leaders from receiving their higher education. The University’s School of Law was started in 1859. The Civil War saw the University close for two years, and, after the war, the University was saved from potential bankruptcy when it was declared a “land grant institution” by the Morrill Act of 1872. This Act made agriculture and mechanical arts classes available at the University. The early twentieth century brought new schools of learning to the University. Pharmacy, education, business, journalism, and graduate schools, among others, broadened opportunities for Georgia students. In 1918, women attended UGA as regular students. In 1961, UGA was integrated when Hamilton Holmes and Charlayne Hunter were the first Black students to enroll. Since that time, UGA has continued to expand learning opportunities and its public service programs.
Though the University of Georgia was the first public university to be chartered, the University of North Carolina actually held classes first. Today there is a spirited debate between the two institutions about which one is actually the United States’ first state sponsored University.
The focus of this standard should be the westward movement of the state capitals as American Indian territory was ceded to the state of Georgia. The information provided goes beyond the time period of 1790-1840. It is included to ensure that students recognize the continued westward movement of the state capital as the state’s population moves west.
There have been five cities that have served as the state capital of Georgia.
Savannah served as the colonial “capital” of Georgia. Official power, however, was maintained by the Trustees who remained in England. When the Trustee period ended, Savannah was deemed the “seat of government” and the royal governor, legislative assembly and courts were headquartered there. Georgia’s first state constitution (1777) directed the legislature to meet there but gave the government some latitude in determining the assembly’s meeting places.
The advancement of the British military encouraged the Patriots to move the state capital upriver to Augusta. This was the beginning of the rotating capitals; war activities would cause the seat of government to move back and forth between Savannah and Augusta. Ultimately, many believed that Augusta was located too far east as the population of the new state was rapidly moving west into American Indian territory. The desire was to locate the capital in a central, accessible location.
Louisville, named after French King Louis XVI for his assistance during the American Revolution, was Georgia’s third state capital from 1796-1807. Located in Jefferson County, Louisville was selected as the capital because its location was the center of Georgia’s population. The state’s legislators hoped that the town would also serve as a trading center due to its location on the Ogeechee River. Once it was established, Louisville developed both socially and financially. However, Louisville’s time as capital ended in 1807 due several factors including the malaria outbreaks that occurred in the city every year, the difficulty of using the Ogeechee River as a trade route, and most importantly, the continual northwestern movement of Georgia’s population. One of the most famous events in Louisville was when the state legislators publically set fire to the Yazoo Land Act with a magnifying glass.
Creek lands west of Louisville were ceded to the state in 1802, and, without delay, the push to move the state capital westward was underway. Milledgeville, named after the current governor John Milledge, served as the state capital for sixty years. The capital remained in Milledgeville during the Civil War, but it was abandoned as General Sherman made his way toward the city. Government documents were loaded onto trains to be evacuated to safety. After the war, the Union troops denied the meeting of the legislature, and took charge of Georgia’s government. A new constitution was adopted and elections were held and the legislature reconvened in Milledgeville.
The final state capital was eventually located in Atlanta. The removal of the Cherokees in 1838 led state lawmakers to anticipate another westward move for the state capital. The chartering of the Western and Atlantic Railroad led to the development of the town of Terminus. Renamed Marthasville, after former Governor Wilson Lumpkin’s daughter Martha, residents soon protested that the name was too feminine for the frontier. In 1847, the General Assembly renamed the town Atlanta, in deference to the Western and Atlanta Railroad. It wasn’t until after the Civil War that the state capital was officially moved to Atlanta. In 1868, a new constitutional convention was ordered to meet in Atlanta by General Pope. Better rail accessibility and a growing population were touted as reasons for moving the state capital to Atlanta. The move was ratified in 1868 and Atlanta became the final state capital.
It is interesting to note that, in 1919, a suggestion was floated to move the state capital to Macon, a more centrally-located city. While some state offices have since moved to the Macon and Tifton areas, the state capitol complex remains in Atlanta.
An easy way for students to remember the name of all of Georgia’s capital cities is to teach them the acronym S.A.L.M.A. which stands for Savannah, Augusta, Louisville, Milledgeville, and Atlanta.
GSESS8H4.b
After the American Revolution, Georgia gained access to a large amount of land from the American Indians who sided with the British. The land Georgia claimed stretched all the way to the Mississippi River. Revolutionary War veterans, among others, believed that all citizens had the right to land ownership in these newly claimed lands. Georgia’s political leadership believed that the ideas espoused by the Declaration of Independence supported these land ownership considerations. Though the people and their leaders were in agreement about the people’s need for land to support a healthy democracy, however, the allocation of the land to the people became a debatable issue. These land policies were known as the headright system, land lotteries and the Yazoo Land Act.
The first approach employed was called the headright system. By 1783, under this system, Georgia gave thousands of acres of land to soldiers who had fought during the Revolution. Under this system, men who did not fight in the Revolution could also receive free land. Heads of households (white men over the age of 21) could receive up 200 acres of land. Men who had families or slaves received even more. This system ended when there were too many claimants and not enough land to offer.
The second approach was called the Yazoo Act (1795) which was named after a river in the present state of Mississippi. This act sold much of the land that would become Alabama and Mississippi to four land companies for $500,000. Soon after Georgia governor, George Mathews, signed the Yazoo Act into law, it was discovered that the land companies bribed members of the Georgia General Assembly to sell the land. Almost immediately, Georgians protested the sale.
Nevertheless, the legislators chose to continue with the arrangement. Upon hearing about this, one of Georgia’s U.S. senators, James Jackson, was so outraged he resigned from his seat and returned to the state. Once back, he and his political allies took control of the Georgia General Assembly and nullified the Yazoo Act. In 1802, Georgia ceded the land to the U.S. government for $1.25 million dollars and the promise that the U.S. would relinquish Indian land claims in the state and remove the Creek Indians from Georgia. The controversy surrounding the Yazoo Act is known as the Yazoo Land Fraud. The “Burning of the Yazoo Act” at Louisville shows James Jackson and others standing around the Yazoo document set ablaze. It is said that they used a magnifying glass to bring “fire from heaven” to destroy the act.
The final approach Georgia used to allocate land was the land lottery system. From 1805-1833, Georgia had eight land lotteries. These lotteries gave the average Georgian the opportunity to gain a large amount of land for pennies on the dollar. To take part in a land lottery, a person would simply have to submit their names to the state and pay for a ticket. On the day of the lottery, the participants’ names were placed in one drum while the land lots bearing a number would be placed in a second drum. Participants could have their name placed in the drum more than once based on characteristics such as their age, marital status, and war service. The land lotteries gave three quarters of Georgia’s land to 100,000 families.
GSESS8H4.c
Of the hundreds of technological developments in the early nineteenth century, there were two that profoundly changed the way of life for Georgians. The development of the cotton gin transformed the production of cotton into an economic windfall for the state, however, at an immense human cost in the form of slavery. Aiding in the transport of raw cotton to the ports on the coast were the railroads that crisscrossed the state. These two developments would change Georgia forever.
The cotton gin’s impact on Georgia’s economic and population growth came with a terrible cost, the expansion of slavery. According to historical tradition, the idea for the cotton gin was conceived by Eli Whitney, a northerner who had moved to Georgia in 1793. During this time period, tobacco, which at the time was one of Georgia’s most important crops, was destroying the soil. As an alternative to tobacco, the state was looking for ways to make growing cotton a more profitable crop.
Until the development of the cotton gin (short for engine), seeds in the cotton lint had to be removed by hand. This tedious process was time consuming, and most farmers could not “clean” more than one pound of cotton a day. Eli Whitney “developed” a machine that was capable of removing the seeds from up to 50 pounds of cotton a day. (Be sure to explain to students that the machine did not pick the cotton; it was used to separate the seed from the lint. Showing a photograph of a cotton gin would help in their understanding.) Due to the machine’s efficiency, the growth of cotton became profitable in Georgia and in the rest of the South. This led to westward expansion as farmers sought land capable of producing the crop. With the focus on growing cotton due to its profitability, the South became a dominant force in producing much of the world’s cotton by the end of the nineteenth century.
Nevertheless, there were two negative effects concerning the invention of the cotton gin. First, it led to the South becoming overly dependent on one crop. This dependence on cotton was true of the South before and after the Civil War. In fact, it took the devastating effects of the boll weevil in the early 1900s to encourage diversification of southern agricultural production. Second, and more importantly, due to the cotton gin’s effectiveness, slavery increased in Georgia and throughout the South. Due to cotton’s profitably, more slaves were needed in its production. This led to the South’s support and defense of the institution of slavery.
The controversy of Whitney’s involvement in the development of the cotton gin offers teachers an opportunity to engage students in a historical inquiry lesson. The teacher should locate primary and secondary sources that both support and refute the claim that Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin and let students examine each source. Students could be allowed to debate if they think Whitney was the inventor of the cotton gin and use the evidence they found in their sources to defend their conclusions.
Another important technological development that had a major impact on the state of Georgia was the invention of the railroad. Many of Georgia’s cities and towns were created due to the railroad, including the city of Atlanta. The first Georgia railroad was chartered in 1832. It was created in part by businessmen in Athens, who needed a better way to transport cotton to Augusta due to poor road conditions. In the 1840s and 1850s, railroads had spread across so much of the state that Georgia ranked in the top ten for railroad track millage. Georgia had the more miles of track than any other of the southern states.
As mentioned earlier in this standard, Atlanta was first known as Terminus, the “end of the line”. As a railroad town from its beginning, Atlanta became the first major American city to be built on a location without a navigable river.
GSESS8H4.d
A confederation of several southeastern tribes, the Creek Nation was the most populous tribe in the state and held the largest amount of land. In the colonial period of Georgia, the Creek Nation became a major trading partner with the colony. Many white Georgians intermarried with the Creek and became members of the tribe. Due to these economic and social ties, Georgians initially hoped that the Creek would become members of the plantation economy. While some did, many chose to continue their traditional life style. Their interactions with runaway slaves also led many Creek to oppose the institution of slavery.
Earlier in Georgia’s history, the Creek chose to side with the English during the Revolution; thus, causing an antagonistic relationship with many Georgians. Once the deer trade ended, due to a decrease in animal’s population, many White Georgians coveted Creek land and pushed state and federal leaders for their removal. Due to this pressure, there were several major Creek land cessions after the Revolution including the Treaty of New York in 1790, which stipulated that the Creeks cede most of land east of the Ocmulgee River to the United States.
In 1813, a civil war broke out between the Creek Indians. This war, called the Red Stick War, was named after the faction of Creeks who wanted to fight the White settlers who were encroaching on their land (those that did not want to fight were called White Sticks). The war resulted in a Creek defeat by future President Andrew Jackson at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, in present day Alabama. Following this war, the Creek lost 22 million acres of land. In 1825, under the Treaty of Indian Springs, a Creek Chief named William McIntosh signed away the remainder of Creek land in Georgia after taking a bribe from an Indian agent.
William McIntosh (1778-1825) was a Creek chief with a Scottish father and Creek mother. McIntosh was also first cousins with Georgia’s governor George Troup and was related by blood or marriage to several prominent Georgia families. This helped solidify his political connections and loyalty to the United States. McIntosh infuriated his Creek tribesmen by consistently siding with the United States on several occasions, even during the Red Stick War. After the war, the Creek Nation suffered through a terrible famine and McIntosh used this opportunity to regain his status in Creek society by befriending an U.S. Indian agent. Due to this alliance, McIntosh gained the influential position of allocating food and supplies to those Creeks in need.
McIntosh was in favor of changing the traditional Creek lifestyle by encouraging the move to agricultural production and slaveholding. McIntosh led this lifestyle himself, being the owner of two plantations. Most Creeks did not support his abandonment of their traditional ways.
The final conflict between McIntosh and the Creek was his decision to sign the Second Treaty of Indian Springs (1825). McIntosh, along with six other Creek chiefs, agreed to sell the remainder of Creek land in Georgia for $200,000, without the tribe’s consent. McIntosh received extra cash for his personal lands in the treaty. Upon hearing about what they considered to be a bribe, the Creek Nation ruled to execute McIntosh for his actions. On April 30, 1825, 200 Creek warriors carried out McIntosh’s execution at his home by shooting and stabbing him repeatedly. Nevertheless, the Second Treaty of Indian Springs officially removed the Creek from Georgia’s borders.
GSESS8H4.e
The Cherokee lived in the mountains of North Georgia long before Spanish exploration. After the English settled South Carolina and Georgia, they became an important trading partner with England. While the Creek traded with both the French and the English, the Cherokee were exclusively loyal to the English; this loyalty caused much conflict between themselves and the Creek. During the Revolution, the Cherokee continued to support the British and fought the Americans even after the war officially ended. The hostilities continued until 1793.
Once peace was established, the Cherokee made several treaties with the United States government, including one that led to the Federal Road being built through their land. During this time period, the Cherokee began to believe that their best hope for maintaining their land would be to transform their society to resemble that of the United States. In the 1820s, the Cherokee developed a written language, a written constitution, and a newspaper. They invited Moravian missionaries to set up schools and adopted an agricultural system that included the use of slavery. However, none of these changes stopped the White settlers in Georgia from demanding their removal. Once gold was discovered in 1828, the push for Cherokee removal to west of the Mississippi River became greater.
In 1832, the Cherokee won the Supreme Court case Worcester v. Georgia. This decision should have protected the tribe from removal as it maintained that the Cherokee were an independent nation and were not subject to Georgia law. However, in 1835, a small group of Cherokees signed the Treaty of New Echota without permission from the Cherokee government. Upon receiving it, Andrew Jackson signed the treaty and Congress approved it. In 1838, most of the Cherokee were forcefully removed from the state and suffered on the Trail of Tears to Oklahoma.
John Ross (1790-1866) was the principal chief of the Cherokee Nation. He was born in present day Alabama, and his family later moved to Georgia. Ross, similar to McIntosh, was also of mixed heritage. Like many of the Creek chiefs, Ross spoke English and practiced many European customs. Ross became a successful business man when he began selling goods to the U.S. government in what became Chattanooga, Tennessee. He used the profits he earned to buy a plantation and create a ferry business.
Ross used his wealth and connections to win several governmental positions in the Cherokee Nation, eventually becoming principal chief in 1827. During the same time, White Georgians were lobbying to remove the Cherokee from the state. When gold was discovered in Dahlonega in 1828, it all but assured that the Cherokee would eventually be displaced.
However, Ross had faith in the U.S. Government, primarily the U.S. Supreme Court, and believed that the government would protect the most “civilized” tribe in the Southeast. Even after Congress passed the Indian Removal Act (1830) it still appeared that the Cherokee would be able to stay in Georgia when the Supreme Court ruled in their favor in Worcester v. Georgia. This ruling declared that the Cherokee were a sovereign nation and were not under the jurisdiction of the United States or the state of Georgia. Nonetheless, this ruling did not protect the Cherokee from removal as President Andrew Jackson refused to enforce it.
Ross continued to fight removal until 1838, when he negotiated a deal with the U.S. government to pay for his moving expenses. However, this still did not completely protect Ross from tragedy on the Trail of Tears. Ross’ wife died of exposure on the long journey to Oklahoma. After arriving in Oklahoma, Ross continued to serve as principal chief of the Cherokee. During the Civil War, Ross initially sided with the Confederacy, but soon supported the Union. This caused a split between the Cherokee in Oklahoma with Ross remaining chief of those Cherokee who supported the United States. After the war, Ross became chief of the reunited tribe and remained in this position until his death in 1866.
The Dahlonega Gold Rush sped the removal of the Cherokee from north Georgia. Legend has it that in 1828, a young man named Benjamin Parks kicked an unusual stone while deer hunting in North Georgia. This stone was actually a gold nugget, and Park’s find led to America’s first gold rush in Dahlonega. No matter if this story is true or not, (there are many others describing how gold was discovered) someone discovered gold around 1828, and soon almost everyone knew about it. This discovery did not bode well for the Cherokee.
Soon after the discovery, thousands of White gold miners began clamoring for Cherokee land and began to settle there without permission. So many Whites wanted to claim land in the area that Georgia held a land lottery in the region in 1832. It did not matter that the Cherokee still lived on the land that was being allocated through the lottery. Hungry for land and gold, Whites began to demand the removal of the Cherokee. In 1838, the Cherokee were removed from the region by the U.S. Army. This began the Trail of Tears.
For two decades, gold was plentiful in and around Dahlonega. So much gold was found that in 1838, the U.S. government set up a mint. This mint produced almost 1.5 million gold coins. Nevertheless, as the years passed, gold became much more difficult to mine in the area. In 1849, California’s more famous gold rush began and brought thousands of Americans out west to find their fortunes. Even though there was still gold in north Georgia, Georgia’s gold rush ended as soon as the first nugget was found in California.
Worcester v. Georgia (1832) was a landmark court case that should have protected the Cherokee from removal. The Supreme Court’s decision declared that the Cherokee Nation was sovereign and was subject to their own laws. As a sovereign nation, the state of Georgia could not interfere in their affairs. However, Andrew Jackson’s decision to not enforce the court’s ruling lead to the Cherokee’s removal.
As with many other Supreme Court decisions, this overarching recognition of the Cherokee’s rights as a sovereign nation started with the actions of a few people. In this case, several missionaries, including Samuel Worcester, who were living among and supporting the Cherokee were arrested (several times) for living amongst the tribe without Georgia’s permission. The state finally prosecuted the missionaries and sentenced them to four years of hard labor in a Milledgeville prison.
The Cherokee Nation hired lawyers to represent the missionaries to appeal their sentencing. The Supreme Court ruled in their favor and Chief Justice John Marshall condemned legislators of Georgia for their actions. However, due to President Jackson’s unwillingness to enforce the court’s decision, Georgia kept the missionaries in prison and continued to push the federal government for removal. In the end, after a small faction of Cherokee signed a treaty accepting removal in 1835, the entire tribe was eventually removed from the state.
Due to local and national criticism of the state for keeping the missionaries in prison, Governor Wilson Lumpkin pardoned the missionaries in 1833. Worcester continued his missionary work with the Cherokee and moved to Oklahoma with them. He died there in 1859.
Though the Supreme Court’s ruling was unsuccessful in protecting the Cherokee from removal, the decision is still a precedent today in court decision concerning Native American tribal rights.
Andrew Jackson and John Marshall played significant roles during the Indian Removal on opposite ends of the spectrum. As discussed previously, Marshall ruled in favor of the missionaries and the Cherokee in general, in the Worcester v. Georgia decision. In his ruling, he condemned Georgia for its actions against the missionaries and wrote that Indian nations were “distinct, independent political communities retaining their original natural rights.”
On the other hand, Andrew Jackson, who had fought with and against American Indians, believed that they should be moved to Indian Territory. One Cherokee, who had fought with Jackson against the Creeks, is said to have stated that if he knew how Jackson would have treated American Indians when he became president, he would have killed him when he had the chance. Some researchers have claimed that the primary reason that Jackson wanted to remove the American Indian tribes out of the southeast was due to their past history of siding with the British and other European powers during wars against the United States. Others have said it was Jackson’s way of pacifying the Southern states after his threat to invade South Carolina during the Nullification Crisis. Still others have argued that it was Jackson’s intense racial prejudice of American Indians that led to his actions. No matter the reason, or combination of reasons behind Jackson’s decision, by not enforcing the ruling of the Supreme Court, he did not meet his Constitutional requirements as president. When asked about his choice, Jackson is often quoted as saying “John Marshall has made the decision, now let him enforce it.” The New Georgia Encyclopedia claims that Jackson did not utter the famous quote about John Marshall, instead he said “The decision of the Supreme Court has fell stillborn, and they find that it cannot coerce Georgia to yield to its mandate.” Andrew Jackson was actually out of office during the Trail of Tears in 1838. His former vice president Martin Van Buren had been elected president in 1833.
The Trail of Tears is the end result of many years of litigation between the state of Georgia and the United States government. In 1838, after a series of court cases, petitions, and treaties, President Martin Van Buren ordered the U.S. Army to forcefully remove the Cherokee from Georgia. Cherokee who lived on private land, not tribal land, were not forcefully removed. Led by General Winfield Scott, the army rounded up as many Cherokee as they could locate and housed them in temporary stockades. Once they were satisfied that they found as many Cherokee as they could, the Army began the forced march to Oklahoma. This march was called the “Trail of Tears” due to the fact that the under-supplied Cherokee lost over 4,000 people to disease and exposure. In North Carolina, 400 Cherokee were able to escape removal. This group became known as the Eastern Band of the Cherokee. The Cherokee in Oklahoma are called the Western Band. The Cherokee Nation is now the largest tribe in the United States.
Georgia’s General Assembly approved the charter for the University of Georgia in January 1785, making it the first state created school of higher education in the United States. Abraham Baldwin (one of Georgia’s signers of the US Constitution) was appointed by Governor Lyman Hall (a signer of the Declaration of Independence) to pen the charter documents for the University. In the charter, he contended that an educated populace was necessary for a free government and that the government should make education available to all, not just the wealthy. He served as president of UGA from 1785 until 1801. The University, however, remained an institution on paper only for the next sixteen years as the state’s government was challenged by creating a functioning state. In 1801, the doors to the University finally welcomed students, and, in 1806, the first permanent building, known as Franklin College, held classes. As the school grew, the name changed from Franklin College to the University of Georgia. For many years, the only college in the University to operate was the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. Though the University struggled with financial difficulties in its early years, this did not prevent many important Georgia political and business leaders from receiving their higher education. The University’s School of Law was started in 1859. The Civil War saw the University close for two years, and, after the war, the University was saved from potential bankruptcy when it was declared a “land grant institution” by the Morrill Act of 1872. This Act made agriculture and mechanical arts classes available at the University. The early twentieth century brought new schools of learning to the University. Pharmacy, education, business, journalism, and graduate schools, among others, broadened opportunities for Georgia students. In 1918, women attended UGA as regular students. In 1961, UGA was integrated when Hamilton Holmes and Charlayne Hunter were the first Black students to enroll. Since that time, UGA has continued to expand learning opportunities and its public service programs.
Though the University of Georgia was the first public university to be chartered, the University of North Carolina actually held classes first. Today there is a spirited debate between the two institutions about which one is actually the United States’ first state sponsored University.
The focus of this standard should be the westward movement of the state capitals as American Indian territory was ceded to the state of Georgia. The information provided goes beyond the time period of 1790-1840. It is included to ensure that students recognize the continued westward movement of the state capital as the state’s population moves west.
There have been five cities that have served as the state capital of Georgia.
Savannah served as the colonial “capital” of Georgia. Official power, however, was maintained by the Trustees who remained in England. When the Trustee period ended, Savannah was deemed the “seat of government” and the royal governor, legislative assembly and courts were headquartered there. Georgia’s first state constitution (1777) directed the legislature to meet there but gave the government some latitude in determining the assembly’s meeting places.
The advancement of the British military encouraged the Patriots to move the state capital upriver to Augusta. This was the beginning of the rotating capitals; war activities would cause the seat of government to move back and forth between Savannah and Augusta. Ultimately, many believed that Augusta was located too far east as the population of the new state was rapidly moving west into American Indian territory. The desire was to locate the capital in a central, accessible location.
Louisville, named after French King Louis XVI for his assistance during the American Revolution, was Georgia’s third state capital from 1796-1807. Located in Jefferson County, Louisville was selected as the capital because its location was the center of Georgia’s population. The state’s legislators hoped that the town would also serve as a trading center due to its location on the Ogeechee River. Once it was established, Louisville developed both socially and financially. However, Louisville’s time as capital ended in 1807 due several factors including the malaria outbreaks that occurred in the city every year, the difficulty of using the Ogeechee River as a trade route, and most importantly, the continual northwestern movement of Georgia’s population. One of the most famous events in Louisville was when the state legislators publically set fire to the Yazoo Land Act with a magnifying glass.
Creek lands west of Louisville were ceded to the state in 1802, and, without delay, the push to move the state capital westward was underway. Milledgeville, named after the current governor John Milledge, served as the state capital for sixty years. The capital remained in Milledgeville during the Civil War, but it was abandoned as General Sherman made his way toward the city. Government documents were loaded onto trains to be evacuated to safety. After the war, the Union troops denied the meeting of the legislature, and took charge of Georgia’s government. A new constitution was adopted and elections were held and the legislature reconvened in Milledgeville.
The final state capital was eventually located in Atlanta. The removal of the Cherokees in 1838 led state lawmakers to anticipate another westward move for the state capital. The chartering of the Western and Atlantic Railroad led to the development of the town of Terminus. Renamed Marthasville, after former Governor Wilson Lumpkin’s daughter Martha, residents soon protested that the name was too feminine for the frontier. In 1847, the General Assembly renamed the town Atlanta, in deference to the Western and Atlanta Railroad. It wasn’t until after the Civil War that the state capital was officially moved to Atlanta. In 1868, a new constitutional convention was ordered to meet in Atlanta by General Pope. Better rail accessibility and a growing population were touted as reasons for moving the state capital to Atlanta. The move was ratified in 1868 and Atlanta became the final state capital.
It is interesting to note that, in 1919, a suggestion was floated to move the state capital to Macon, a more centrally-located city. While some state offices have since moved to the Macon and Tifton areas, the state capitol complex remains in Atlanta.
An easy way for students to remember the name of all of Georgia’s capital cities is to teach them the acronym S.A.L.M.A. which stands for Savannah, Augusta, Louisville, Milledgeville, and Atlanta.
GSESS8H4.b
After the American Revolution, Georgia gained access to a large amount of land from the American Indians who sided with the British. The land Georgia claimed stretched all the way to the Mississippi River. Revolutionary War veterans, among others, believed that all citizens had the right to land ownership in these newly claimed lands. Georgia’s political leadership believed that the ideas espoused by the Declaration of Independence supported these land ownership considerations. Though the people and their leaders were in agreement about the people’s need for land to support a healthy democracy, however, the allocation of the land to the people became a debatable issue. These land policies were known as the headright system, land lotteries and the Yazoo Land Act.
The first approach employed was called the headright system. By 1783, under this system, Georgia gave thousands of acres of land to soldiers who had fought during the Revolution. Under this system, men who did not fight in the Revolution could also receive free land. Heads of households (white men over the age of 21) could receive up 200 acres of land. Men who had families or slaves received even more. This system ended when there were too many claimants and not enough land to offer.
The second approach was called the Yazoo Act (1795) which was named after a river in the present state of Mississippi. This act sold much of the land that would become Alabama and Mississippi to four land companies for $500,000. Soon after Georgia governor, George Mathews, signed the Yazoo Act into law, it was discovered that the land companies bribed members of the Georgia General Assembly to sell the land. Almost immediately, Georgians protested the sale.
Nevertheless, the legislators chose to continue with the arrangement. Upon hearing about this, one of Georgia’s U.S. senators, James Jackson, was so outraged he resigned from his seat and returned to the state. Once back, he and his political allies took control of the Georgia General Assembly and nullified the Yazoo Act. In 1802, Georgia ceded the land to the U.S. government for $1.25 million dollars and the promise that the U.S. would relinquish Indian land claims in the state and remove the Creek Indians from Georgia. The controversy surrounding the Yazoo Act is known as the Yazoo Land Fraud. The “Burning of the Yazoo Act” at Louisville shows James Jackson and others standing around the Yazoo document set ablaze. It is said that they used a magnifying glass to bring “fire from heaven” to destroy the act.
The final approach Georgia used to allocate land was the land lottery system. From 1805-1833, Georgia had eight land lotteries. These lotteries gave the average Georgian the opportunity to gain a large amount of land for pennies on the dollar. To take part in a land lottery, a person would simply have to submit their names to the state and pay for a ticket. On the day of the lottery, the participants’ names were placed in one drum while the land lots bearing a number would be placed in a second drum. Participants could have their name placed in the drum more than once based on characteristics such as their age, marital status, and war service. The land lotteries gave three quarters of Georgia’s land to 100,000 families.
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Of the hundreds of technological developments in the early nineteenth century, there were two that profoundly changed the way of life for Georgians. The development of the cotton gin transformed the production of cotton into an economic windfall for the state, however, at an immense human cost in the form of slavery. Aiding in the transport of raw cotton to the ports on the coast were the railroads that crisscrossed the state. These two developments would change Georgia forever.
The cotton gin’s impact on Georgia’s economic and population growth came with a terrible cost, the expansion of slavery. According to historical tradition, the idea for the cotton gin was conceived by Eli Whitney, a northerner who had moved to Georgia in 1793. During this time period, tobacco, which at the time was one of Georgia’s most important crops, was destroying the soil. As an alternative to tobacco, the state was looking for ways to make growing cotton a more profitable crop.
Until the development of the cotton gin (short for engine), seeds in the cotton lint had to be removed by hand. This tedious process was time consuming, and most farmers could not “clean” more than one pound of cotton a day. Eli Whitney “developed” a machine that was capable of removing the seeds from up to 50 pounds of cotton a day. (Be sure to explain to students that the machine did not pick the cotton; it was used to separate the seed from the lint. Showing a photograph of a cotton gin would help in their understanding.) Due to the machine’s efficiency, the growth of cotton became profitable in Georgia and in the rest of the South. This led to westward expansion as farmers sought land capable of producing the crop. With the focus on growing cotton due to its profitability, the South became a dominant force in producing much of the world’s cotton by the end of the nineteenth century.
Nevertheless, there were two negative effects concerning the invention of the cotton gin. First, it led to the South becoming overly dependent on one crop. This dependence on cotton was true of the South before and after the Civil War. In fact, it took the devastating effects of the boll weevil in the early 1900s to encourage diversification of southern agricultural production. Second, and more importantly, due to the cotton gin’s effectiveness, slavery increased in Georgia and throughout the South. Due to cotton’s profitably, more slaves were needed in its production. This led to the South’s support and defense of the institution of slavery.
The controversy of Whitney’s involvement in the development of the cotton gin offers teachers an opportunity to engage students in a historical inquiry lesson. The teacher should locate primary and secondary sources that both support and refute the claim that Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin and let students examine each source. Students could be allowed to debate if they think Whitney was the inventor of the cotton gin and use the evidence they found in their sources to defend their conclusions.
Another important technological development that had a major impact on the state of Georgia was the invention of the railroad. Many of Georgia’s cities and towns were created due to the railroad, including the city of Atlanta. The first Georgia railroad was chartered in 1832. It was created in part by businessmen in Athens, who needed a better way to transport cotton to Augusta due to poor road conditions. In the 1840s and 1850s, railroads had spread across so much of the state that Georgia ranked in the top ten for railroad track millage. Georgia had the more miles of track than any other of the southern states.
As mentioned earlier in this standard, Atlanta was first known as Terminus, the “end of the line”. As a railroad town from its beginning, Atlanta became the first major American city to be built on a location without a navigable river.
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A confederation of several southeastern tribes, the Creek Nation was the most populous tribe in the state and held the largest amount of land. In the colonial period of Georgia, the Creek Nation became a major trading partner with the colony. Many white Georgians intermarried with the Creek and became members of the tribe. Due to these economic and social ties, Georgians initially hoped that the Creek would become members of the plantation economy. While some did, many chose to continue their traditional life style. Their interactions with runaway slaves also led many Creek to oppose the institution of slavery.
Earlier in Georgia’s history, the Creek chose to side with the English during the Revolution; thus, causing an antagonistic relationship with many Georgians. Once the deer trade ended, due to a decrease in animal’s population, many White Georgians coveted Creek land and pushed state and federal leaders for their removal. Due to this pressure, there were several major Creek land cessions after the Revolution including the Treaty of New York in 1790, which stipulated that the Creeks cede most of land east of the Ocmulgee River to the United States.
In 1813, a civil war broke out between the Creek Indians. This war, called the Red Stick War, was named after the faction of Creeks who wanted to fight the White settlers who were encroaching on their land (those that did not want to fight were called White Sticks). The war resulted in a Creek defeat by future President Andrew Jackson at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, in present day Alabama. Following this war, the Creek lost 22 million acres of land. In 1825, under the Treaty of Indian Springs, a Creek Chief named William McIntosh signed away the remainder of Creek land in Georgia after taking a bribe from an Indian agent.
William McIntosh (1778-1825) was a Creek chief with a Scottish father and Creek mother. McIntosh was also first cousins with Georgia’s governor George Troup and was related by blood or marriage to several prominent Georgia families. This helped solidify his political connections and loyalty to the United States. McIntosh infuriated his Creek tribesmen by consistently siding with the United States on several occasions, even during the Red Stick War. After the war, the Creek Nation suffered through a terrible famine and McIntosh used this opportunity to regain his status in Creek society by befriending an U.S. Indian agent. Due to this alliance, McIntosh gained the influential position of allocating food and supplies to those Creeks in need.
McIntosh was in favor of changing the traditional Creek lifestyle by encouraging the move to agricultural production and slaveholding. McIntosh led this lifestyle himself, being the owner of two plantations. Most Creeks did not support his abandonment of their traditional ways.
The final conflict between McIntosh and the Creek was his decision to sign the Second Treaty of Indian Springs (1825). McIntosh, along with six other Creek chiefs, agreed to sell the remainder of Creek land in Georgia for $200,000, without the tribe’s consent. McIntosh received extra cash for his personal lands in the treaty. Upon hearing about what they considered to be a bribe, the Creek Nation ruled to execute McIntosh for his actions. On April 30, 1825, 200 Creek warriors carried out McIntosh’s execution at his home by shooting and stabbing him repeatedly. Nevertheless, the Second Treaty of Indian Springs officially removed the Creek from Georgia’s borders.
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The Cherokee lived in the mountains of North Georgia long before Spanish exploration. After the English settled South Carolina and Georgia, they became an important trading partner with England. While the Creek traded with both the French and the English, the Cherokee were exclusively loyal to the English; this loyalty caused much conflict between themselves and the Creek. During the Revolution, the Cherokee continued to support the British and fought the Americans even after the war officially ended. The hostilities continued until 1793.
Once peace was established, the Cherokee made several treaties with the United States government, including one that led to the Federal Road being built through their land. During this time period, the Cherokee began to believe that their best hope for maintaining their land would be to transform their society to resemble that of the United States. In the 1820s, the Cherokee developed a written language, a written constitution, and a newspaper. They invited Moravian missionaries to set up schools and adopted an agricultural system that included the use of slavery. However, none of these changes stopped the White settlers in Georgia from demanding their removal. Once gold was discovered in 1828, the push for Cherokee removal to west of the Mississippi River became greater.
In 1832, the Cherokee won the Supreme Court case Worcester v. Georgia. This decision should have protected the tribe from removal as it maintained that the Cherokee were an independent nation and were not subject to Georgia law. However, in 1835, a small group of Cherokees signed the Treaty of New Echota without permission from the Cherokee government. Upon receiving it, Andrew Jackson signed the treaty and Congress approved it. In 1838, most of the Cherokee were forcefully removed from the state and suffered on the Trail of Tears to Oklahoma.
John Ross (1790-1866) was the principal chief of the Cherokee Nation. He was born in present day Alabama, and his family later moved to Georgia. Ross, similar to McIntosh, was also of mixed heritage. Like many of the Creek chiefs, Ross spoke English and practiced many European customs. Ross became a successful business man when he began selling goods to the U.S. government in what became Chattanooga, Tennessee. He used the profits he earned to buy a plantation and create a ferry business.
Ross used his wealth and connections to win several governmental positions in the Cherokee Nation, eventually becoming principal chief in 1827. During the same time, White Georgians were lobbying to remove the Cherokee from the state. When gold was discovered in Dahlonega in 1828, it all but assured that the Cherokee would eventually be displaced.
However, Ross had faith in the U.S. Government, primarily the U.S. Supreme Court, and believed that the government would protect the most “civilized” tribe in the Southeast. Even after Congress passed the Indian Removal Act (1830) it still appeared that the Cherokee would be able to stay in Georgia when the Supreme Court ruled in their favor in Worcester v. Georgia. This ruling declared that the Cherokee were a sovereign nation and were not under the jurisdiction of the United States or the state of Georgia. Nonetheless, this ruling did not protect the Cherokee from removal as President Andrew Jackson refused to enforce it.
Ross continued to fight removal until 1838, when he negotiated a deal with the U.S. government to pay for his moving expenses. However, this still did not completely protect Ross from tragedy on the Trail of Tears. Ross’ wife died of exposure on the long journey to Oklahoma. After arriving in Oklahoma, Ross continued to serve as principal chief of the Cherokee. During the Civil War, Ross initially sided with the Confederacy, but soon supported the Union. This caused a split between the Cherokee in Oklahoma with Ross remaining chief of those Cherokee who supported the United States. After the war, Ross became chief of the reunited tribe and remained in this position until his death in 1866.
The Dahlonega Gold Rush sped the removal of the Cherokee from north Georgia. Legend has it that in 1828, a young man named Benjamin Parks kicked an unusual stone while deer hunting in North Georgia. This stone was actually a gold nugget, and Park’s find led to America’s first gold rush in Dahlonega. No matter if this story is true or not, (there are many others describing how gold was discovered) someone discovered gold around 1828, and soon almost everyone knew about it. This discovery did not bode well for the Cherokee.
Soon after the discovery, thousands of White gold miners began clamoring for Cherokee land and began to settle there without permission. So many Whites wanted to claim land in the area that Georgia held a land lottery in the region in 1832. It did not matter that the Cherokee still lived on the land that was being allocated through the lottery. Hungry for land and gold, Whites began to demand the removal of the Cherokee. In 1838, the Cherokee were removed from the region by the U.S. Army. This began the Trail of Tears.
For two decades, gold was plentiful in and around Dahlonega. So much gold was found that in 1838, the U.S. government set up a mint. This mint produced almost 1.5 million gold coins. Nevertheless, as the years passed, gold became much more difficult to mine in the area. In 1849, California’s more famous gold rush began and brought thousands of Americans out west to find their fortunes. Even though there was still gold in north Georgia, Georgia’s gold rush ended as soon as the first nugget was found in California.
Worcester v. Georgia (1832) was a landmark court case that should have protected the Cherokee from removal. The Supreme Court’s decision declared that the Cherokee Nation was sovereign and was subject to their own laws. As a sovereign nation, the state of Georgia could not interfere in their affairs. However, Andrew Jackson’s decision to not enforce the court’s ruling lead to the Cherokee’s removal.
As with many other Supreme Court decisions, this overarching recognition of the Cherokee’s rights as a sovereign nation started with the actions of a few people. In this case, several missionaries, including Samuel Worcester, who were living among and supporting the Cherokee were arrested (several times) for living amongst the tribe without Georgia’s permission. The state finally prosecuted the missionaries and sentenced them to four years of hard labor in a Milledgeville prison.
The Cherokee Nation hired lawyers to represent the missionaries to appeal their sentencing. The Supreme Court ruled in their favor and Chief Justice John Marshall condemned legislators of Georgia for their actions. However, due to President Jackson’s unwillingness to enforce the court’s decision, Georgia kept the missionaries in prison and continued to push the federal government for removal. In the end, after a small faction of Cherokee signed a treaty accepting removal in 1835, the entire tribe was eventually removed from the state.
Due to local and national criticism of the state for keeping the missionaries in prison, Governor Wilson Lumpkin pardoned the missionaries in 1833. Worcester continued his missionary work with the Cherokee and moved to Oklahoma with them. He died there in 1859.
Though the Supreme Court’s ruling was unsuccessful in protecting the Cherokee from removal, the decision is still a precedent today in court decision concerning Native American tribal rights.
Andrew Jackson and John Marshall played significant roles during the Indian Removal on opposite ends of the spectrum. As discussed previously, Marshall ruled in favor of the missionaries and the Cherokee in general, in the Worcester v. Georgia decision. In his ruling, he condemned Georgia for its actions against the missionaries and wrote that Indian nations were “distinct, independent political communities retaining their original natural rights.”
On the other hand, Andrew Jackson, who had fought with and against American Indians, believed that they should be moved to Indian Territory. One Cherokee, who had fought with Jackson against the Creeks, is said to have stated that if he knew how Jackson would have treated American Indians when he became president, he would have killed him when he had the chance. Some researchers have claimed that the primary reason that Jackson wanted to remove the American Indian tribes out of the southeast was due to their past history of siding with the British and other European powers during wars against the United States. Others have said it was Jackson’s way of pacifying the Southern states after his threat to invade South Carolina during the Nullification Crisis. Still others have argued that it was Jackson’s intense racial prejudice of American Indians that led to his actions. No matter the reason, or combination of reasons behind Jackson’s decision, by not enforcing the ruling of the Supreme Court, he did not meet his Constitutional requirements as president. When asked about his choice, Jackson is often quoted as saying “John Marshall has made the decision, now let him enforce it.” The New Georgia Encyclopedia claims that Jackson did not utter the famous quote about John Marshall, instead he said “The decision of the Supreme Court has fell stillborn, and they find that it cannot coerce Georgia to yield to its mandate.” Andrew Jackson was actually out of office during the Trail of Tears in 1838. His former vice president Martin Van Buren had been elected president in 1833.
The Trail of Tears is the end result of many years of litigation between the state of Georgia and the United States government. In 1838, after a series of court cases, petitions, and treaties, President Martin Van Buren ordered the U.S. Army to forcefully remove the Cherokee from Georgia. Cherokee who lived on private land, not tribal land, were not forcefully removed. Led by General Winfield Scott, the army rounded up as many Cherokee as they could locate and housed them in temporary stockades. Once they were satisfied that they found as many Cherokee as they could, the Army began the forced march to Oklahoma. This march was called the “Trail of Tears” due to the fact that the under-supplied Cherokee lost over 4,000 people to disease and exposure. In North Carolina, 400 Cherokee were able to escape removal. This group became known as the Eastern Band of the Cherokee. The Cherokee in Oklahoma are called the Western Band. The Cherokee Nation is now the largest tribe in the United States.
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