Georgia Western Territory 1798 Yazoo Land Fraud map Upper Mississippi Land Co.
Georgia Western Territory 1798 Yazoo Land Fraud map Upper Mississippi Land Co. Georgia Western Territory 1798 Yazoo Land Fraud map Upper Mississippi Land Co. Georgia Western Territory 1798 Yazoo Land Fraud map Upper Mississippi Land Co. Georgia Western Territory 1798 Yazoo Land Fraud map Upper Mississippi Land Co.
$ 650.00

A Correct Map of Georgia Western Territory. (Upper Mississippi Company, Georgia Company, Mississippi Company & Tennessee Company).

Issued 1798, London by C. Dilly. Engraved by J. Russell. The scarce London example, which was directly based upon the 1797 Boston plate but newly engraved in London making it a completely new variant of the American version..

Scarce early copper engraved map with original outline hand coloring (note the thin "green verdigris" outlines showing on reverse of map which confirm the paint age oxidation).

Yazoo Land Fraud map: Of historical note for early/ contemporaneous depicting of all four of the short-lived Land Company grant areas which were formed and sold as part of the infamous "Yazoo Land Fraud". 

If you want a quick, fascinating and morbidly hilarious read, google it and visit the website of New Georgia Encyclopedia. There they give a wonderful brief overview of the sequence of events which transpired around this event. 

Basically it was a group of (ahem) corrupt, self-serving politicians in state office who came up with a plan (scheme) to privately profit from selling off vast portions of the still unsettled state of Georgia west of the Alabama River. It was sold to four large land speculator companies, who planned to subdivide and sell smaller parcels on to the general public- basically, everyone making money off the state selling it's land into private hands. What's not to love, right? Anyhow, turns out a remarkably intelligent and skilled state Senator named James Jackson couldn't believe it, he was like wtf, seriously? are you kidding me? so he quickly resigned his seat, rushed home and in short order master-minded the termination and annulment of the original sale. The legal battles continued on for years, but in the end, turns out competence, greater good and social cooperation actually matter. Let us remember this lesson.

These very land grant areas are all named and outlined here in original hand color done at the time, meaning they were still cartographically alive and existing as real concepts on maps such as this. The American 1797 examples of this "same" map rarely display such early hand coloring at all, and particularly not to the land grants. Only a relatively small numbers of maps of this era capture these Land grant areas in western Georgia, this one doing so in a visually pronounced manner. 

An historically significant early map depicting the then still largely uninhabited (aside from native populations) western part of the state (by modernized settlers) as it then existed above "West Florida" which then here still included New Orleans.

Orig. fold-lines as issued. 

Overall clean, light offsetting (as typical for folded maps of this era) which is easy to overlook, a nice looking example with pleasant age patina.

Sheet size c. 8 1/8” x 7 1/2”. Plate area c. 6 7/8 x 5 7/8".

Pictures show this nice map well. Please review them carefully at your leisure so you may clearly see what you are buying.

B15016