S.A.L.M.A. & Higher Education
In 1785, the Georgia General Assembly set aside 40,000 acres of public land to charter the University of Georgia as the nation's first "land-grant university." What did this charter designation mean for higher education?
What is setting aside state/federal land to fund and construct a public university system accessible to all citizens?
Under this land distribution policy utilized in Georgia immediately following the Revolutionary War, white male heads of households were granted up to 200 acres of free land, plus additional land for family members and enslaved people, up to a 1,000-acre limit.
What is the Headright System?
Invented by Eli Whitney in 1793, this labor-saving mechanical device revolutionized Southern agriculture by performing what specific, time-consuming task?
cleaning and separating seeds from raw cotton fibers
In 1790, this prominent Creek leader met with President George Washington and signed the Treaty of York, ceding Creek territory east of the Ocmulgee River in exchange for federal promises to protect remaining Creek lands.
Alexander McGillivray
The 1828 discovery of gold near this North Georgia town in the Blue Ridge region triggered America's first gold rush and led thousands of white prospectors to illegally invade Cherokee territory.
Dahlonega Gold Rush
This early Georgia founding father wrote the charter for the University of Georgia, asserting that an educated citizenry was essential for democratic government and that higher education should be made affordable for all citizens, not just the wealthy.
Who is Abraham Baldwin?
This massive political scandal occurred in 1795 when land speculators bribed members of the Georgia General Assembly to pass a law selling 35 million acres of western land near the Mississippi River for less than two cents per acre.
What was the Yazoo Land Fraud?
By making it profitable to process short-staple cotton across Georgia's interior upcountry, the cotton gin transformed the state's agricultural economy into what type of single-crop economic system?
cotton monoculture (or an economy dependent on a single cash crop)
In 1825, Lower Creek Chief William McIntosh signed the Treaty of Indian Springs, ceding all remaining Creek territory in Georgia to the state government. Why was his action considered an act of treason under Creek law?
ceding ancestral Creek land to white government officials without the consent or approval of the Creek National Council
This Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation spent years fighting against forced removal by writing petitions to Congress, organizing political campaigns, and taking legal appeals directly to the United States Supreme Court.
Chief John Ross
To match the steady westward movement of Georgia's population between 1777 and 1868, the state relocated its capital city five times. What mnemonic acronym is used to remember these five capitals in chronological order?
What is S.A.L.M.A. (Savannah, Augusta, Louisville, Milledgeville, Atlanta)?
When enraged Georgia citizens voted corrupt legislators out of office and repealed the Yazoo Land Act, Georgia ceded its western territory to the federal government in 1802. What river was established as Georgia's permanent western border as a result?
What is the Chattahoochee River?
Although the cotton gin was intended to reduce manual farm labor, its ability to process raw cotton at unprecedented speeds led directly to what major, tragic social impact across Georgia and the South?
Exponential increase in the demand for enslaved agricultural labor and slave ownership
This Georgia governor—who was a first cousin of Creek Chief William McIntosh—aggressively pressured the federal government to honor its 1802 agreement to extinguish Native American land claims within Georgia's borders.
Governor George Troup
In the landmark 1832 Supreme Court case Worcester v. Georgia , Chief Justice John Marshall issued what historic legal ruling regarding the Cherokee Nation and the state of Georgia?
Ruling that the Cherokee Nation was a distinct, sovereign community in which the laws of Georgia had no force
Georgia's capital city shifted sequentially from Savannah to Augusta, Louisville, Milledgeville, and finally Atlanta. What was the primary motivation for state leaders to repeatedly move the capital city westward?
What was the westward expansion and movement of Georgia's population toward the interior upcountry?
Following the Yazoo Fraud, Georgia abandoned the Headright System and adopted a randomized land distribution method in 1803. In this system, citizens bought chances to have their names drawn from one rotating drum while land lot descriptions were drawn from a second drum.
What was the Land Lottery System?
First chartered in Georgia during the 1830s, the primary economic purpose of building early railroad lines was to solve what major transportation challenge for inland cotton planters?
Transporting heavy cotton crops rapidly from inland plantations to coastal shipping ports like Savannah
Because he violated tribal law by giving away ancestral Creek land without the authorization of the Creek National Council, Chief William McIntosh suffered what fate at his home in 1825?
execution by members of his own tribe
When Chief Justice John Marshall declared Georgia's anti-Cherokee laws unconstitutional, President Andrew Jackson reacted to the Supreme Court ruling by taking what action?
Ignoring the Supreme Court ruling and refusing to enforce it, allowing Georgia to seize Cherokee land
Although Louisville was chosen as capital in 1796 to access interior trade along the Ogeechee River, outbreaks of this mosquito-borne illness—combined with continued population expansion to the northwest—forced state leaders to move the capital to Milledgeville in 1807. What was the Mosquito born illness called?
What was malaria?
In contrast to the older Headright System, which distributed land on a "first-come, first-served" basis, how did the Land Lottery system provide a more democratic and equal opportunity for ordinary Georgians, widows, and veterans?
It replace corrupt land speculation with a randomized, equal chance for everyday citizens (including widows and veterans)
Established in 1837 at the southern end of the Western & Atlantic Railroad line, this boomtown was originally named "Terminus" before being renamed Marthasville and eventually evolving into this major rail hub and current state capital.
Atlanta
The intense pressure placed on the Creek Nation to cede their western lands between 1790 and 1825 was driven by white settlers' demand for land to expand the cultivation of what highly profitable cash crop?
cotton
To resist removal and prove they were a civilized, sovereign nation, the Cherokee adopted many aspects of white American culture, including writing a constitution, establishing plantation farms, and printing what bilingual newspaper created using Sequoyah's syllabary?
Cherokee Phoenix