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Headright system
During the settlement of the colony, much of the land east of the Oconee River belonging to the Indians was given to settlers by means of the headright system. Under this system, each white male counted as a “head” of a family and had the “right” to receive up to 1,000 acres. Although parts of this system lasted until the early twentieth century, it was largely replaced by a land lottery in 1803. -
University of Georgia
In 1785, the University of Georgia was charted as a land grant university. It is the oldest school of its kind in the nation. The university, which was to oversee all public schools in the state, opened for classes in 1801. The first building for all male, all white students body was Franklin College, and for many years, the University of Georgia was frequently called Franklin College -
Louisville
In spite of the many difficulties it faced at the end of the American Revolution, the war-torn state of Georgia devoted some of its attention a new idea: the establishment of a state university system. Reasoning that the new nation required an educated people, the state mandated that lands be surveyed to support such an institution in 1784. Less than a year later, January 27, 1785, the state made history by chartering the University of Georgia. -
cotton gin
By April 1793, Whitney had designed and constructed the cotton gin, a machine that automated the separation of cottonseed from the short-staple cotton fibre. -
Yazoo Land Fraud
Governor George Mathews signs into law a bill that agrees to sell almost 40 million acres to speculators at the starting the Yazoo Land Fraud. This corrupt deal led to the downfall of many popular politicians of the day. -
land lottery
Georgia turned to the lottery system because of the corrupt Yazoo Land Fraud, when the legislature sold thousands of acres to speculators. Names were put in one drum, lot numbers in another. Names could be entered multiple times based on age, marital status, military service, years of residence, and success in previous lotteries. Selling the land for an average of 7 cents an acre, the lotteries had far-reaching consequences: more widespread landownership shifted political power away from aristoc -
Railroads
The Georgia Railroad Company was chartered December 21, 1833, by a group of Athens citizens lead by James Camak. Their goal was to build a railroad from Athens to Augusta. Construction began in 1835, starting at Augusta. The company changed its name to Georgia Railroad & Banking Company in 1836. -
Baptist/Methodist
southern Baptists met in Augusta to form the Southern Baptist Convention. Baptists in the South left the American Baptist Union when its foreign mission board would not accept slave owners as missionaries
