Articles
Georgia’s Track Record on Injustice
Compiled by Marla Boole
In tracing the history of injustice in Georgia a case could certainly be made for the inclusion of native tribes as perpetrators of unjust practices. However, the Word of God tells us that where much is given, much is required (Luke 12:47-48). Because the European nations claimed to be Christians and promoters of Christian civilization, their responsibility to carry out the will of God and live in accordance with His standards was far greater.
Some of the first Europeans to enter Georgia were the Spanish. The explorer, Hernando de Soto traversed Georgia beginning in 1540. De Soto went through the land raiding native villages to steal food and enslave the people. Catholic priests traveled with de Soto and erected a wooden cross in the vicinity of present-day Macon on Easter Sunday, 1540. Eventually, he passed through a native village near present-day Rome, Georgia and stole the natives’ winter supply of food and took many of the tribespeople captive. In the 1600s, the Spaniards set up missions along the coast of Georgia. The “converts” made in these and other Spanish Catholic Missions were usually coerced into a life of virtual slavery. According to the New Georgia Encyclopedia, “One important consequence of . . . incorporation into the . . . mission system was the repartimiento. Under this system of obligatory wage labor a specified number of unmarried male Indians were required to go to St. Augustine each year to work in the Spanish cornfields or to build and maintain Spanish fortifications. Chiefs could select which subordinates were drafted each year, and these workers were paid in inexpensive trade goods for each day of labor. . . . Workers often caught and spread epidemic diseases during their terms of service, and sometimes they died as an indirect result of overwork and exhaustion.”
On the coast of Georgia, St. Marys was named for a Spanish Mission that was built there in the 1600’s. The Spaniards made many Indian “converts” who later rebelled and slaughtered the monks. The abuse and mistreatment had become intolerable to the natives and they felt their only way to be free was to kill their abusers. Eventually the missions closed down and the Spaniards returned to St. Augustine.
Throughout the following decades, traders from the English colonies began settling along the frontier. Many of these traders would create a dependency among the natives for trade goods, then as payment for debts supposedly owed to the colonists, the natives would be forced to trade land. These unfair trading practices finally resulted in war. In 1715, the Yamassee Indians, who were part of the Creek Federation of Tribes, went to war against the traders located along the Savannah River. As the natives pursued the settlers across the river into South Carolina, the South Carolinian colonists turned to the Cherokee for help. The Cherokee and Creek had been enemies for many years, so the Cherokee were quite willing to join the assault on the Creek. The Creek were defeated and withdrew south into Florida and further west into what became the colony of Georgia.
When the colony of Georgia began in 1733, General Oglethorpe respected the natives and made treaties with them. For many years the English colonists and the native inhabitants lived in peace. But the struggles between England, France, and Spain over control of the land caused constant turmoil and produced divided loyalties among the natives. Over the next 100 years, native tribes were continually pushed westward as they relinquished land to the settlers.
Slavery was outlawed in colonial Georgia under the original charter. The colony of South Carolina allowed slavery, however, and colonists in Georgia felt they should have a legal right to own slaves as well. Over a period of years, they secretly imported slaves from South Carolina by bringing them across the Savannah River. In 1748, a British soldier, Major Heron, commander of the 42nd regiment, stoutly defended his right to own slaves and imported some to the island of St. Simons. Slavery was finally legalized in 1749. By 1753 the Plantation System was growing as the strict land laws under the original Georgia Trustee Charter expired. By 1775 there were about 20,000 white residents and 17,000 blacks in Georgia.
In 1785 an attempt was made by several groups of politicians to obtain large grants of land in Georgia for as little money as possible. The goal was to buy low and sell high and even to sell non-existent land to unwary settlers. This first attempt to defraud the public failed, but eventually the Yazoo Land Bill succeeded and passed in 1795. This was the first political scandal in Georgia history. The 1795 legislature was the last one to meet in Augusta, prior to moving the state capitol to Louisville, GA. Governor George Mathews, who had previously vetoed a similar land bill, fell to intense political pressure and signed the Yazoo bill into law. Two of Mathews’ sons bought western lands.
George Mathews’ parents had migrated to the United States from Ulster, Ireland. He and his older brother Sampson were in a business partnership together. They engaged in a variety of activities in the state of Virginia which included land speculation and property leasing. Mathews fought in the Revolutionary War and afterwards moved to Georgia. He obtained an appointment as a Wilkes County justice and became a commissioner for the new town of Washington, GA. Eventually he became Governor of Georgia. Prior to his signing of the Yazoo Land Bill, Mathews had been involved in another land speculation scheme involving the Pine Barrens. The Pine Barrens were sold to settlers who were told the land would be suitable for farming, which was far from the truth. The soil was sandy and only fit for growing pine trees. Obviously, Mathews was not a man of high moral scruples. He was married three times, having divorced one of his wives for going to visit her relatives against his wishes.
The signing of the Yazoo Land Bill brought disgrace to Mathews and spelled the end of his political career in Georgia. The public rose up in protest over this bill and the methods that were used to pass it. They voted the perpetrators out of office but the bureaucratic snarl that was created by this scandal eventually went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. The associated legal settlements took 23 years and 4.3 million dollars to resolve. In order to settle the claims related to the Yazoo scandal, in 1802 the state of Georgia agreed to sell its western territory to the United States in exchange for a promise to remove the Indians from its remaining territory. The United States accepted the transfer of the Yazoo Land Fraud claims along with the cession of Georgia’s western claims which extended all the way to the Yazoo River in what later became Mississippi.
In 1823 Georgia Governor George Troup, an avowed Indian hater, began devising a way to get the Creek Indians removed from the state. He convinced his first cousin, Creek Chief William McIntosh to cede the Creek lands to Georgia. McIntosh felt strongly that the Creeks should sell their land and move to land promised in the West. He could see that the Americans continually wanted more and more land. He signed the Treaty of 1825 at the Indian Spring Hotel but he had never gotten a consensus from the other chiefs. He knew there would be trouble so he wrote to his cousin, Governor Troup asking for support, but the promised troops never arrived. While the treaty was being signed, leaders of the Upper Creek villages stood outside the hotel and swore revenge on McIntosh.
McIntosh was ambushed at his home in Carroll County because he had betrayed his Creek Indian brethren. He fought desperately but was wounded and fled from his home which had been set on fire. After falling, McIntosh was scalped. Three days later, troops finally arrived and buried him on the grounds of his plantation.
In 1828 gold was discovered in north Georgia. As settlers rushed into the area in pursuit of gold, the push began in earnest to remove the remaining natives, the Cherokee, from the state. In 1838, the Cherokee were forced to march west on what became known as The Trail of Tears. Approximately 4000 Cherokee died on the trail due to hardship, hunger, and disease. Complicity between politicians in Georgia and Washington, D.C. stripped an entire people group of their land and dignity and brought about the loss of many lives. Treaties, agreements, and promises were continually broken. This is one of the saddest chapters in Georgia history.
As the state of Georgia took shape, new counties were established. Each county was required to provide a central location for a county seat where a court house could be built and legal matters could be decided. The judicial system of Georgia consisted of these local courts and eight Superior Court judges who traveled around the state holding court periodically. There was virtually no accountability in this court system and many cases were decided arbritrarily on the basis of a particular judge’s whims and prejudices.
Regarding the legal system in Georgia, Governor John Forsyth, later Secretary of State under both Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren, lamented in 1828 that:
"Under the present arrangement of eight Judges of the Superior Court, each confined to the circuit for which he was elected, supreme in his authority, not bound by the decisions of his predecessors or contemporaries, and not always by his own, while these will be in their turn disregarded by his successor, there can neither be uniformity nor certainty in the laws for the security of the rights of persons or property. . . The confusion produced by contemporary contradictory decisions, everyday increases - property is held and recovered in one part, and lost in another part of the state under like circumstances - rights are asserted and maintained in one circuit, and denied in another, in analogous cases." Georgia House Journal, 1828, p. 15.
It wasn’t until 1845 that a Supreme Court was established in Georgia. The Supreme Court justices traveled the state at their own expense and held court in nine different locations throughout the year. This system continued until 1865 when the state constitution was finally amended to provide for the Supreme Court to be located at the seat of government.
The Civil War from 1861-65 brought the plantation system to an end and resulted in the rise of a share-cropping system in Georgia. Many former black slaves worked on white-owned land and raised crops. Out of the total yield of crops they were given a portion. This system however, was often little better than slavery. According to the New Georgia Encyclopedia:
“Because farm credit was lacking in the South, landowners often provided food and other necessities, then deducted the cost from the workers' share of the harvested crops.”
The outcome of this system was that sharecroppers would get farther and farther behind on their expenses and were dependent on the landowners for tools, animals, and seed for planting. It was a dead-end existence which was extremely difficult if not impossible to escape.
The black population was prevented from effectively participating in the political process and was denied economic opportunities. The Ku Klux Klan used force and intimidation against them to keep them in their “place.” From 1866 until the mid-1900s, many blacks were arrested on trumped up charges or for trivial infractions. Beginning in 1894 prison inmates, most of whom were black, were subject to being placed on “chain-gangs” or leased out to private companies as cheap labor. This practice continued until 1908, when it was finally abolished.
After an investigation by the U.S. Congress in 1871, the Ku Klux Klan went underground for a time. However, in 1915, the Klan emerged again and began gathering momentum. By 1925 Klan members included the governor, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, several mayors of cities, lawyers, judges, policemen, and school board members. Floggings and lynchings occurred frequently. Georgia led the nation in lynchings in 1886, with the last lynching occurring in 1962.
With the coming of World War II, things began to change for the black population because of the mixing of racial groups in the military. When black servicemen returned after the war, they were no longer willing to sit by and allow racial discrimination to go unchallenged. In 1954 the Civil Rights era began with the passage of Brown vs. Board of Education which forced schools in Kansas to begin integrating. Martin Luther King, Jr. led the bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama in 1955 and moved to Atlanta in 1960. From 1960 to 1973 there were major breakthroughs for the black population in desegregation and participation in the political process. Atlanta’s first black mayor, Maynard Jackson, was elected in 1974.
While great strides have been made toward racial equality and justice in Georgia, much remains to be done. Georgia ranks 9th in size of U.S. population but ranks 5th in size of prison population with 61.19 % of the inmates being black. One in fifteen Georgians is under some form of correctional supervision according to the Georgia Department of Corrections.
Another area of injustice is the murder of pre-born babies. In March of 1970, “Mary Doe” attempted to obtain a “therapeutic abortion” which was permissible under Georgia law. In April of that year, “Mary Doe” and her lawyers sought to overturn Georgia’s abortion laws. This case became known as “Doe v. Bolton” and expanded the ruling of Roe v. Wade which resulted in the legalization of abortion throughout America. Pre-born babies are currently aborted at the rate of 2 for every 10 births in Georgia (Georgia Right to Life statistics from 2005-2006 Fact Sheet). The loss of life among our most vulnerable citizens throughout the last 33 years is staggering.
Out of the children who survive conception and birth, many will experience fatherlessness, poverty, and death through abuse or neglect. For children ages 1-5 homicide is the second leading cause of death and for children ages 5-14, the third leading cause of death. Of children ages 5-17, 19% live below the poverty level in Georgia. According to Douglas Nelson of the Casey Foundation, “For children to succeed, we need two things: More families out of poverty, and more two-parent families. The simple fact of the matter is that kids depend on parents for resources, supervision and guidance. And it’s just tougher in a single-parent household.” Unfortunately the church, which should provide an extended family of faith for the lonely and the fatherless, has fallen short by not stepping in to bring instruction in godly behavior or to take up the slack for those who need help.
All human beings should be valued and treated with respect and the weak and the helpless should be defended. This is the basis of true justice. Clearly repentance and reform are desperately needed.
Sources: The New Georgia Encyclopedia - http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org
Georgia Studies, by Donald T. Wells
A Panorama of Georgia, by DeVorsey, Rice, Williams, and London
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, June 11, 2003
About North Georgia – http://ngeorgia.com
Florida History and De Soto - http://www.floridahistory.com/inset7.html
Georgia Supreme Court webpage: http://www.gasupreme.us/scbroch.html#history
Child Welfare League of America http://www.cwla.org/advocacy/statefactsheets/2006/georgia.htm
Epidemiology Report: Leading Causes of Death in Georgia 1999-2002 http://health.state.ga.us/pdfs/epi/cdiee/causesofdeath.99_02.pdf
