From 1789 to 1796, Georgia governors George Walton,

Edward Telfair Edward Telfair (1735 – September 17, 1807) was a Scottish-born American Founding Father, politician and slave trader who served as the governor of Georgia from 1786 to 1787 and again from 1790 to 1793. He was a member of the Continental Congres ...

, and George Mathews, while in office, made gifts of land grants covering more than three times as much land as Georgia then contained. In all they made grants of 29,097,866 acres (117,755 km²) of land in counties that consisted of only 8,717,960 acres (35,280 km²). In Montgomery County alone, with an area of 407,680 acres (1,650 km²), three men received land grants totaling 2,664,000 acres (10,780 km²). All the grants given in Montgomery County totaled 7,436,995 acres (30,096 km²). While single grants were limited to a maximum of 1,000 acres (4 km²) per person, multiple 1,000-acre (4 km²) grants were given to individuals. The land was portrayed as fertile when in reality it was a pine barren.About North Georgia
The Pine Barrens Speculation and Yazoo Land Fraud
archived 30 October 2018, accessed 1 December 2022 The Pine Barrens speculation is often conflated with the

Yazoo land scandal The Yazoo land scandal, Yazoo fraud, Yazoo land fraud, or Yazoo land controversy was a massive real-estate fraud perpetrated, in the mid-1790s, by Georgia governor George Mathews and the Georgia General Assembly. Georgia politicians sold large ...

, which occurred at about the same time and dealt with land in present-day

Alabama (We dare defend our rights) , anthem = "Alabama" , image_map = Alabama in United States.svg , seat = Montgomery , LargestCity = Huntsville , LargestCounty = Baldwin County , LargestMetro = Greater Birmingham , area_total_km2 = 135,765 ...

and

Mississippi Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...

. The Yazoo scandal "quickly overshadowed" the Pine Barrens scandal. In the Yazoo case, the

Georgia legislature The Georgia General Assembly is the state legislature of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is bicameral, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. Each of the General Assembly's 236 members serve two-year terms and are directl ...

authorized sales of millions of acres of land at low prices, to enable speculation by political insiders. It led to a landmark

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

decision in 1810, '' Fletcher v. Peck''.

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References

Further reading