Untitled - the Digital Library of Georgia

CHAPTER VI
GEORGIA'S TERRITORIAL DOMAIN AS FIXED BY THE TREATY OF PARIS IN
1783—EXTENDS TO THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER ON THE WEST AND TO THE
ST. MARY'S RIVER ON THE SOUTH—AN ADDITIONAL STRIP ACQUIRED
WEST OF THE CHATTAHOOCHEB, BELOW THE THIRTY-THIRD PAR
ALLEL—SOUTH CAROLINA CLAIMS ALL THE TERRITORY OP GEORGIA
SOUTH OF THE ALTAMAHA RIVER AS A PART OP HER ORIGINAL
DOMAIN, NOT CEDED IN GEORGIA'S CHARTER—THIS CLAIM ABANDONED
UNDER THE TREATY OF BEAUFORT, IN 1787—IMPOVERISHED CONDITION
OF THE STATE AT THE CLOSE OF THE REVOLUTION—BUT THE DOMI
NANT SPIRIT OF THE ANGLO-SAXON ASSERTS ITSELF—IMMIGRATION
FROM VIRGINIA AND NORTH CAROLINA INTO WILKES—GENERAL
MAT.I-IEWS SETTLES A COLONY ON THE GOOSE POND TRACT—JOHN
TALBOT ACQUIRES A LARGE GRANT—DR. LYMAN HALL BECOMES GOV
ERNOR—HANDSOME ESTATES GRANTED TO REVOLUTIONARY HEROES—
GENERAL NATHANAEL GREENE—GENERAL ANTHONY WAYNE—MAJOR
JAMES JACKSON—BOTH THE CREEKS AND THE CHEROKEES, HAVING
SIDED WITH THE ENGLISH, FORFEIT LARGE TRACTS OF LAND.
NOTES: GEORGIA'S FIRST NEWSPAPER—CHIEF JUSTICES UNDER THE
CONSTITUTION OF 1777.
Under the Treaty of Paris, signed in 1783, Georgia was left in nomi
nal possession of all the territory for which her charter called. This
embraced not only the fertile domain of coxintry between the Altamaha
and the Savannah rivers, but a wide belt of territory extending from
the headwaters of these streams westward to the Mississippi River. If
a straight line be drawn on our present-day map from West Point,
Georgia, to a point on the Mississippi where a tributary stream, called
the Yazoo River, enters the Father of Waters, this line, corresponding
roughly with the thirty-third degree of north latitude, will represent the-
southern boundary of Georgia's western domain, as denned in the terms
of her original grant from the Crown of England.
But Georgia's territorial domain embraced at this time an additional
strip of very great importance, extending in width along the Atlantic
coast from Darien at the mouth of the Altamaha to St. Mary's, at a
point where the Florida line touches the Atlantic Ocean. In length this
strip extended to the Mississippi River. For years Spain had claimed
this fertile zone to the south of the Altamaha; but, in 1763, having ceded
Florida to England, her claims Avere no longer a standing menace and
Georgia's southern frontier was, therefore, extended from Darien to
St. Mary's.
South Carolina regarded this extension with looks far from com-
325