"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The notorious "Yazoo Fraud" act was passed and later repealed in the old State Capitol that stood here 1794-1807.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.