GEORGIA PEACHES Chapter Six

I do not doubt state Representative and ex-U.S. Senator James Jackson (above) when he said he was prepared to shoot every man who voted for the Yazoo Land sale. Jackson was a well known as a duelist. In fact after the new state legislature convened in Louisville on 11 January, 1796, several of the members were threatened and challenged to duels unless they stopped trying to overturn the sale. Amazingly, they all forged ahead.  These people land speculators were greedy as hell.

First things first; the assembly elected the logical Jared Irwin (above) as the new Governor, a good balance to the emotional Representative Jackson. Then a special committee was created – chaired by Jackson – to take testimony on the great Yazoo Yard Sale, er, land sale.

And it was here, under oath, that the whole sordid tale came out. Jackson's final report seethed with indignation. “The public good was placed entirely out of view, and private interest alone consulted;...the rights of the present generation were violated, and the rights of posterity bartered... and the principles of aristocracy established in their stead.”  Now that is what a class war warrior really sounds like.

The Legislature offered up what became the “Rescinding Act”, which spent a thousand words justifying itself.  And then it declared the Yazoo land sales null and void. The buyers could have their money back (initial payments had been made). But Jackson insisted on going a step further. The act gave the government 3 days to expunge any reference to the sale in public records. Any county officer or court clerk found with a reference to the Yazoo sale on their books, even in an index, was to be fined $1,000 a day until the offending passage was removed. 

It was made illegal for courts to accept any lawsuits mentioning the Yazoo Land sale. Georgia would not even respond to any future Federal lawsuits involving the sale. The Rescinding Act was Orwellian two centuries before George Orwell. The entire Georgia legislature of 1795 had all become “un-persons”.

On 13 February, 1796 both houses of the Georgia state legislature approved the Rescinding Act, by 43 to 3 in the house and in the Senate by 14 to 4. That same day Governor Irwin signed it. Immediately the state house swarmed with men wielding scissors, slicing out all references to the  Yazoo sale from books. newspapers, calendars and advertisements. 

The Act also ordered that three days hence, “A fire shall be made in front of the State House door, and a line to be formed by the members of both branches around the same. The Secretary of State... shall....then produce the ... usurped act... and deliver the same to... the... Messenger of the House, who shall then pronounce “God save the state! And long preserve her rights! And may every attempt to injure them perish as these corrupt acts do now!” And at about four on the afternoon of 15 February, 1796, that is exactly what happened. They actually burned copies of the bill.

The local papers published romanticized accounts of the bonfire.  In the Chronicle it was noted that a magnifying lens had been used to start the fire. Thus, wrote the reporter, “God Almighty is at last brought into the scrape.”  But a Charleston, South Carolina newspaper also observed that the blaze was of  “very little to the satisfaction of the bystanders.” 

It wasn't that they didn't approve of the conflagration, but they had a new worry - the entire world's economy had just dropped into the toilet. And the man who had dropped it there was the Philadelphia speculator, James Greenleaf.

Okay, maybe it wasn't entirely James Greenleaf's fault.  But this silver tonged liar does seem to have been at the center of a lot of the distress in America. Mr. Greenleaf was the partner with Robert Morris (above), John Nicholson and James Gunn in the North America Land Bank. They were buying up as much land , including the Yazoo offerings, as possible to satisfy the anticipated demand from Dutch bankers, with whom young Greenleaf insisted he had intimate connections. 

Greenleaf had originally proven this a decade earlier, when in 1788, within  two weeks of his arrival in Holland, the then  22 year old American con man had met the Baroness Cornelia Elbertine Scholton van Ascht et Oud-Haarlem (above), and impregnated her.  Shortly there after, he not only left town, he fled the continent.

When she turned up pregnant, the reluctant Greenleaf was  convinced, probably with money, to return to Holland, where he wed the Baroness. It was Greenleaf's skill at seduction which convinced Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson to appoint Greenleaf as American envoy to Holland, meaning to their banks. (above). But eventually the Baroness realized her new husband was an amoral sleaze ball, and she attempted suicide. 

When Jefferson recalled Greenleaf, and he returned to the United States, the Baroness remained in Holland, with their son. The now 25 year old Greenleaf convinced a judge in Rhode Island he had been “tricked” into the marriage, and was granted a divorce. James Greenleaf was once again free, still handsome and young enough to be a seducer of women, and it turns out he could also seduce speculators like Morris, John Nicholson (above) and our old villain, James Gunn. Within minutes of the Yazoo land sale being approved by the Georgia assembly, James Greenleaf was bound back for Holland, to offer the wealthy Europeans a “safe” place to invest their money.  

Greenleaf arrived to find everybody in Europe investing their money in cannon and gun powder, as the French Revolution sparked fires all over the place.  The changed political situation, and his new reputation as sleaze encouraged most of his Dutch banking contacts  to give him the cold shoulder. Those willing to deal with him attracted no interest in buying shares in the  American Land Bank,  Defeated, James Greenleaf returned home, deeply in debt. So now, holding worthless shares in four worthless Yazoo land companies, these four conspirators would have to look for their suckers some place else. So Greenleaf was dispatched to buy housing lots in the new Federal City of Washington, D.C.

The government was not supposed to move-in until 1800, but construction of the capital (above, BG) and the President's mansion had already begun. And of course eventually there would have to be buildings for a Post Office,  a State Department and a War Department. 

And after black slaves had built all of those, somebody would have build places for workers in those offices to buy groceries, restaurants to eat in, buy clothing, and 'entertainment' – everything from books to ladies of the evening. A city had to be established where there was no reason for it being, except politics insisted it be there.  And Morris and Nicholson and Gunn leveraged their almost worthless Yazoo shares into property in the new Federal City - Washington, District of Columbia..

At some point Robert Morris gave young James Greenleaf $7,000 in cash to pay for a section of city lots. But the money never made it to the seller. That drove Morris to take a closer look at the company books, where he discovered Greenleaf had signed all of his personal debts over to the  North American Land Company, making Morris and Nicholson and Gunn responsible for repaying them. The young seducer, had seduced 3 more victims. 

Disingenuously, Robert Morris (above) later wrote to Benjamin Harrison, claiming, “Twas he (Greenleaf) that encouraged the very extensive land purchases which were made under a promise that he would procure in Holland the money necessary to support the same...” Suddenly the financial Mozart of the Revolution was claiming the entire Yazoo Swamp-Land Fraud, the wholesale bribery of an entire state legislature, had actually been the dastardly plan of a  28 year old serial Casanova. 

It was ridiculous, but I suppose such whining is a natural reaction when a “master of the universe” gets the shaft - it must be somebody else's petard, never their own that they are hoisted upon.  Blame it on the government regulators, or the greed of a business partner. It is never their greed that is blame for mistakes they make.

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GEORGIA PEACHES Chapter Five

I do not doubt state Representative and ex-U.S. Senator James Jackson' when he said he was prepared to shoot every man who voted for the Yazoo Land sale. Jackson was a well known as a duelist. In fact after the new state legislature convened in Louisville on 11 January, 1796, several of the members were threatened and challenged to duels unless they stopped trying to overturn the sale. Amazingly, they all forged ahead.  These people were ticked off.

First things first; the assembly elected the logical Jared Irwin as the new Governor, a good balance to the emotional Representative Jackson. Then a special committee was created – chaired by Jackson – to take testimony on the great Yazoo Yard Sale, er, land sale.

And it was here, under oath, that the whole sordid tale came out. Jackson's final report seethed with indignation. “The public good was placed entirely out of view, and private interest alone consulted;...the rights of the present generation were violated, and the rights of posterity bartered... and the principles of aristocracy established in their stead.”  Now that is what a class war warrior really sounds like.

The Legislature offered up what became the “Rescinding Act”, which spent a thousand words justifying itself.  And then it declared the Yazoo land sales null and void. The buyers could have their money back (initial payments had been made). But Jackson insisted on going a step further. The act ordered that the government had 3 days to expunge any reference to the sale in public records. Any county officer or court clerk found with a reference to the Yazoo sale on the books, even in an index, was to be fined $1,000 a day until the offending passage was removed. It was made illegal for courts to accept any lawsuits mentioning the Yazoo Land sale. Georgia would not even respond to any future Federal lawsuits involving the sale. The Rescinding Act was Orwellian two centuries before George Orwell. The entire Georgia legislature of 1795 had all become “un-persons”.

On 13 February, 1796 both houses of the Georgia state legislature approved the Rescinding Act, by 43 to 3 in the house and in the Senate by 14 to 4. That same day Governor Irwin signed it. Immediately the state house swarmed with men wielding scissors, slicing out all references to the  Yazoo sale. The Act also ordered that three days hence, “A fire shall be made in front of the State House door, and a line to be formed by the members of both branches around the same. The Secretary of State... shall....then produce the ... usurped act... and deliver the same to... the... Messenger of the House, who shall then pronounce “God save the state! And long preserve her rights! And may every attempt to injure them perish as these corrupt acts do now!” And at about four on the afternoon of 15 February, 1796, that is exactly what happened. They actually burned the bill.

The local papers published romanticized accounts of the bonfire.  In the Chronicle it was noted that a magnifying lens had been used to start the fire. Thus, wrote the reporter, “God Almighty is at last brought into the scrape.”  But a Charleston, South Carolina newspaper also observed that the blaze was of  “very little to the satisfaction of the bystanders.” It wasn't that they didn't approve of the conflagration, but they had a new worry - the entire world's economy had just dropped into the toilet. And the man who had dropped it there was the Philadelphia speculator, James Greenleaf.

Okay, maybe it wasn't entirely his fault. But this silver tonged liar does seem to have been at the center of a lot of the distress in America. Mr. Greenleaf was the partner with Robert Morris, John Nicholson and James Gunn in the North America Land Bank. They were buying up as much land as possible to satisfy the anticipated demand from Dutch bankers, with whom young Greenleaf insisted he had intimate connections, He had originally proven this a decade earlier, when in 1788, within  two weeks of his arrival in Holland, the then  22 year old American con man had met the Baroness Cornelia Elbertine Scholton van Ascht et Oud-Haarlem, and impregnated her.  Shortly there after, he not only left town, he fled the continent.

When she turned up pregnant, the reluctant Greenleaf was  convinced, probably with money, to return to Holland, where he wed the Baroness. It was Greenleaf's skill at seduction which convinced Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson to appoint Greenleaf as American envoy to Holland. But eventually the Baroness realized her new husband was an amoral sleaze ball, and she attempted suicide. When Jefferson recalled Greenleaf, and he returned to the United States, the Baroness remained in Holland, with their son. The now 25 year old Greenleaf convinced a judge in Rhode Island he had been “tricked” into the marriage, and was granted a divorce. James Greenleaf was once again free, still handsome and young enough to be a seducer of women, and it turns out speculators like Morris, Nicholson and Gunn.

Within minutes of the Yazoo land sale being approved by the Georgia assembly, James Greenleaf was bound back for Holland, to offer the wealthy Europeans a “safe” place to invest their money.  He arrived to find everybody in Europe investing their money in cannon and gun powder.  His old Dutch banking contacts gave him the cold shoulder. The only two banks that were willing to offer to sale  shares in his American Land Bank, Elsevier and Beelde-maker, did so halfheartedly, and attracted no buyers. There was no money coming from Holland to profit from the Yazoo land scheme. Defeated, James Greenleaf returned home, and the conspirators had to find their suckers some place else. So they sent  Greenleaf out to buy and sell housing lots in the new Federal City of Washington, D.C.

The government was not supposed to move-in until 1800, but construction of the capital and the President's mansion had already begun. And of course there had to be buildings for a Post Office,  a State Department and a War Department. And after black slaves built all those, somebody would have establish places for them to buy groceries, restaurants to eat in, buy clothing, and 'entertainment' – everything from books to ladies of the evening. A city had to be established where there was no reason for it being, except politics insisted it be there.  And Morris and Nicholson and Gunn leveraged their almost worthless Yazoo shares into property in the new Washington, District of Columbia..

At some point Robert Morris gave young James Greenleaf $7,000 in cash to pay for a section of city lots. But the money never made it to the seller. That drove Morris to take a closer look at the company books, where he discovered Greenleaf had signed all of his personal debts over to the  North American Land Company, making Morris and Nicholson and Gunn responsible for repaying them. The young seducer, had seduced 3 more victims. 

Disingenuously, Morris later wrote to Benjamin Harrison, claiming, “Twas he (Greenleaf) that encouraged the very extensive land purchases which were made under a promise that he would procure in Holland the money necessary to support the same...” Suddenly the financial Mozart of the Revolution was claiming the entire Yazoo Swamp-Land Fraud, the wholesale bribery of an entire state legislature, had actually been the dastardly plan of a  28 year old serial Casanova. It was ridiculous, but I suppose such whining is a natural reaction when a “master of the universe” gets the shaft - it must be somebody else's petard, never their own that they are hoisted upon.  Blame it on the government regulators, or the greed of a business partner. It is never their greed that is blame.

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GEORGIA PEACHES Chapter Six

I do not doubt state Representative and ex-U.S. Senator James Jackson',when he let it be known that he was prepared to shoot down every man who had voted for the Yazoo Land sale. Jackson was known as a duelist. But after the new state legislature convened in Louisville on 11 January, 1796, several of the members were threatened and challenged to duels unless they stopped trying to overturn the sale. Amazingly, they all forged ahead. These people were ticked off.

First things first; the assembly elected the logical Jared Irwin as the new Governor, a good balance to the emotional Representative Jackson. Then a special committee was created – chaired by Jackson – to take testimony on the great Yazoo Yard Sale, er, land sale.

And it was here, under oath, that the whole sordid tale came out. Jackson's final report seethed with indignation. “The public good was placed entirely out of view, and private interest alone consulted;...the rights of the present generation were violated, and the rights of posterity bartered... and the principles of aristocracy established in their stead.”  Now that is what a class war warrior really sounds like.

The Legislature offered up what became the “Rescinding Act”, which spent a thousand words justifying itself.  And then it declared the Yazoo land sales null and void. The buyers could have their money back (initial payments had been made). But Jackson insisted on going a step further. The act ordered that the government had 3 days to expunge any reference to the sale in public records. Any county officer or court clerk found with a reference to the Yazoo sale on the books, even in an index, was to be fined $1,000 a day until the offending passage was removed. It was made illegal for courts to accept any lawsuits mentioning the Yazoo Land sale. Georgia would not even respond to any future Federal lawsuits involving the sale. The Rescinding Act was Orwellian two centuries before George Orwell. The entire Georgia legislature of 1795 had all become “un-persons”.

On 13 February, 1796 both houses of the Georgia state legislature approved the Rescinding Act, by 43 to 3 in the house and in the Senate by 14 to 4. That same day Governor Irwin signed it. Immediately the state house swarmed with men wielding scissors, slicing out all references to the  Yazoo sale. The Act also ordered what that three days hence. “A fire shall be made in front of the State House door, and a line to be formed by the members of both branches around the same. The Secretary of State... shall....then produce the ... usurped act... and deliver the same to... the... Messenger of the House, who shall then pronounce “God save the state! And long preserve her rights! And may every attempt to injure them perish as these corrupt acts do now!” And at about four on the afternoon of 15 February, 1796, that is exactly what happened. They actually burned the bill.

The local papers published romanticized accounts of the bonfire.  In the Chronicle it was noted that a magnifying lens had been used to start the fire. Thus, wrote the reporter, “God Almighty is at last brought into the scrape.”  But a Charleston, South Carolina newspaper also observed that the blaze was of  “very little to the satisfaction of the bystanders.” It wasn't that they didn't approve of the conflagration, but they had a new worry - the entire world's economy had just dropped into the toilet. And the man who had dropped it there was the Philadelphia speculator, James Greenleaf.

Okay, maybe it wasn't entirely his fault. But this silver tonged liar does seem to have been at the center of a lot of the distress in America. Mr. Greenleaf was the partner with Robert Morris, John Nicholson and James Gunn in the North America Land Bank. They were buying up as much land as possible to satisfy the anticipated demand from Dutch bankers, with whom young Greenleaf insisted he had intimate connections, He had originally proven this a decade earlier, when in 1788, within  two weeks of his arrival in Holland, the then  22 year old American con man had met the Baroness Cornelia Elbertine Scholton van Ascht et Oud-Haarlem, and impregnated her.  Shortly there after, he not only left town, he fled the continent.

When she turned up pregnant, the reluctant Greenleaf was  convinced, probably with money, to return to Holland, where he wed the Baroness. It was Greenleaf's skill at seduction which convinced Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson to appoint Greenleaf as American envoy to Holland. But eventually the Baroness realized her new husband was an amoral sleaze ball, and she attempted suicide. When Jefferson recalled Greenleaf, and he returned to the United States, the Baroness remained in Holland, with their son. The now 25 year old Greenleaf convinced a judge in Rhode Island he had been “tricked” into the marriage, and was granted a divorce. James Greenleaf was once again free, still handsome and young enough to be a seducer of women, and it turns out speculators like Morris, Nicholson and Gunn.

Within minutes of the Yazoo land sale being approved by the Georgia assembly, James Greenleaf was bound back for Holland, to offer the wealthy Europeans a “safe” place to invest their money.  He arrived to find everybody in Europe investing their money in cannon and gun powder.  His old Dutch banking contacts gave him the cold shoulder. The only two banks that were willing to offer his shares in the American Land Bank, Elsevier and Beelde-maker, did so halfheartedly, and attracted no buyers. There was no money coming from Holland to profit from the Yazoo land scheme. Defeated, James Greenleaf returned home, and the conspirators had to find their suckers some place else. So they sent  Greenleaf out to buy and sell housing lots in the new Federal City of Washington, D.C.

The government was not supposed to move-in until 1800, but construction of the capital and the President's mansion had already begun. And of course there had to be buildings for a Post Office,  a State Department and a War Department. And somebody would have to build housing for workers, and places for them to buy groceries, restaurants to eat in, buy clothing, and 'entertainment' – everything from books to ladies of the evening. A city had to be established where there was no reason for it being, except politics insisted it be there.  And Morris and Nicholson and Gunn leveraged their almost worthless Yazoo shares into property in the new Washington, District of Columbia..

At some point Robert Morris gave young James Greenleaf $7,000 in cash to pay for a section of city lots. But the money never made it to the seller. That drove Morris to take a closer look at the company books, where he discovered Greenleaf had signed all of his personal debts over to the  North American Land Company, making Morris and Nicholson and Gunn responsible for repaying them. The young seducer, had seduced 3 more victims. 

Disingenuously, Morris later wrote to Benjamin Harrison, claiming, “Twas he (Greenleaf) that encouraged the very extensive land purchases which were made under a promise that he would procure in Holland the money necessary to support the same...” Suddenly the financial Mozart of the Revolution was claiming the entire Yazoo Swamp-Land Fraud, the wholesale bribery of an entire state legislature, had actually been the dastardly plan of a  28 year old serial Casanova. It was ridiculous, but I suppose such whining is a natural reaction when a “master of the universe” gets the shaft - it must be somebody else's petard, never their own that they are hoisted upon.  Blame it on the government regulators, or the greed of a business partner. It is never their greed that is blame.

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GEORGIA PEACHES Part Four

I know it is unfair to judge Patrick Henry by 21^st century standards. He was an 18^th century man. He was a slave owner, who measured his wealth in part by how many other human beings he owned. But the hypocrisy of speaking for freedom while holding part of humanity in bondage, was not completely lost on him or Jefferson or Washington. It might be helpful to remember that all of the founding fathers were only as brave and cowardly, wise and foolish, kind and cruel, selfish and giving as any person reading these words. And they were just as guilty as current politicians and modern “money managers” of humanity's greatest sin – a lack of humility.

Which brings me to the Virginia born, pugnacious and ambitious and very un-humble James Gunn. In 1777 this “arrogant (and) ambitious” 26 year old enlisted in the Continental cavalry under “Light Horse Harry” Lee. James rose to the rank of captain, and in 1780 he was dispatched to accompany General Gates, to recover the disaster when the British captured the port of Savannah, Georgia.. However Gates produced his own disaster at Camden. The fleet footed Gates was replaced by the very different General Nathaniel Greene. And Captain James Gunn provided General Greene with his first opportunity to restore discipline. The intimidating young Gunn had stolen a race horse from a South Carolina widow, and used it to cheat his fellow officers and locals in a “fixed” race. Reprimanded, James challenged his new commander to a dual. But Greene was protected by General Washington's orders that he not engage in duels. For once Gunn had to swallow the insult.

After the end of the land war at Yorktown, in late 1781, James Gunn decided to stay in Savannah. He passed the bar. He also renewed his demand that Nathaniel Greene give him satisfaction for the war-time insult. The matter was settled when the 43 year old Greene died of sunstroke, in 1785. The next spring James Gunn was called out by the militia to put down a slave “revolt”. In fact they had just run away. What the escaped slaves' plans actually were was unclear, but it was claimed there were 150 of them (unlikely), they were all men (unlikely) and they had been trained by the British (very unlikely). In any event, Gunn marched his little army ten miles northwest of Savannah, to Zubley's Ferry on the South Carolina border. He located the runaways and dispatched just 14 men to charge their encampment. The runaways fled into Bear Creek Swamp, where the brave Georgia militia butchered most of them. From that day forward, he was known derisively as “General Gunn”.

But the assault did not hurt his reputation in certain Savannah circles. And in 1787 James Gunn was appointed to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. However he could not be bothered to show up. Still, in 1789 the 36 year old bully was selected as one of Georgia's new United States Senators. He showed up for that job, missing about 40% of his roll call votes. His only real Senate claim to real fame was when he blocked one of President Washington's appointments, because the naval officer, Benjamin Fishbourn, would not play ball with Senator Gunn and his friends. It was the first Presidential appointment blocked by a Senator. Gunn saw government service as just an extension of his personal business, and he saw world events, like the French Revolution, as a series of business opportunities.

When the mob stormed the Bastille in Paris in July of 1789, they set set off a seemingly endless series of wars, as the royal houses of Europe ineffectually sought to suppress the revolutionaries, and the revolutionaries tried to outdo each other in grotesque self destructive violence. This chaos inspired all the spare cash in Europe to start looking for deeper pockets to hide in. Senator Gunn figured American land speculation, like that old forgotten Yazoo swamp-land scheme, would look safe by comparison. The partners Gunn chose would prove no more trustworthy than the French mob, or worse, the European nobility.

Remember the Bank of North America, the financial institution which had saved the revolution? It was the invention of Robert Morris, the “Mozart of American finance”, a Philadelphia speculator and patriot. Since the revolution, Morris had founded several canal companies, a steam engine manufacturing company, built the first rolling iron mill in America, and was in negotiations to buy half of western New York state for $333, 333.33. (Morris knew as much about self promotion as Donald Trump.) Morris's long time business partner was the trusted Comptroller for the state of Pennsylvania, John Nicholson. He was responsible for collecting the state's taxes, and liquidating the estates of absentee loyalists. He quietly got rich doing that, and now owned iron and textile manufacturing firms, himself. He had shared many of these opportunities with Morris. And to connect these three wealthy men to their European investors, Gunn, Morris and Nicholson chose as their fourth partner young James Greenleaf, the U.S. Counsel to the Netherlands, who boasted he could snap his fingers and produce a million dollars of gold and silver from his dutch banker friends.

Gunn also decided he needed a couple of local Georgia front men. James Wilson had twice been elected to the Continental Congress from New York, and had been one of the original men nominated by President Washington to the Supreme Court. At the time it was such an easy gig, ( in its first decade the court heard only nine cases), that Wilson did double duty covering the Federal courts in Georgia, which officially made him a local boy. And as a “silent partner”Gunn enticed Nathaniel Pendleton to invest in his scheme. Pendleton had been Georgia's Attorney General in 1785-86. He was now the Federal Judge for the district of Georgia, and could be counted on to make legal judgments that favored his friends. That was, of course, a secret to those who appeared in his courtroom. So, with the investors in place, Gunn now needed to get his hands on the old Virginia Yazoo company.

Remember Patrick Henry's partner, David Ross? He had built his fortune by buying up abandoned properties from fleeing loyalists, including the Oxford Iron Works, which he now owned in full and had converted to a fully slave labor enterprise. By 1787, when the Yazoo swamp-land schemes had been in vogue, Ross was one of the wealthiest men in Virginia, but his fortune was built on a precarious foundation,  with each new venture financed by borrowing on the last. The cancellation by Georgia of the Virginia Yazoo Companies' s project had reduced the value of company shares to almost nothing. And that had started the dominoes of Ross' empire, to falling. Creditors were now nipping at his heels, and slave iron workers were no more productive than plantation slaves. In 1791, Ross was forced to sell most of his shares in the Virginia Company, first 5% to South Carolinian Wade Hampton, (who was now running the Carolina Yazoo company) and most the rest to the rapacious Senator from Georgia, James Gunn.

Now, as mentioned earlier, the American Government had been trying to take the Yazoo lands off Georgia's hands for a decade and more. But the Peach State's politicians had repeatedly refused every offer. They were convinced there was money in 'them-there' swamps – somehow. The problem was, if they were going to find a profit in the place, they were going to have to defend it first. In 1793 the arrogant red faced fire-plug, Governor George Mathews had been elected to his second non-consecutive term, partly on a platform of defending Georgia's western border against all challengers, be it from Federal government, the Spanish or the Indians. And by the border Mathews meant the Mississippi River. But Georgia did not have the money to build the line of forts Mathews wanted, and for some reason, he couldn't get the Federal government to loan him the cash.

Logically, Georgia had no choice but to resurrect the Yazoo land deal. At least, that was the logic of Senator Gunn, and Governor George Mathews. Suddenly everything was coming together rather nicely for the Yazoo swamp land deals.

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