- Yazoo Fraud State Historical Marker
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Located at the Jefferson County Courthouse in Louisville
32.99856, -82.40804
(Text)
- "YAZOO FRAUD"
The notorious "Yazoo Fraud"
act was passed and later repealed in the old State Capitol that
stood here 1794-1807. The 1794 Georgia legislature sold 35,000,000
acres of land along the Yazoo River in what is now Alabama and
Mississippi at 1 1/2 cents per acre. James Jackson resigned as
U.S. Senator to run for the Georgia legislature and urge repeal
of the Yazoo act. He succeeded in 1796. The act itself and all
records of it were burned on the grounds here "with fire
from heaven" aided by a sunglass. the U.S. Supreme Court
upheld the land sales. Congress paid Georgia $1,250,000 for the
Yazoo territory (1802), then paid the land buyers $4,000,000
(1810). The land went into the new states of Alabama and Mississippi.
- 081-3 GEORGIA HISTORIC
MARKER 1978
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