Pine Barrens speculation


From 1789 to 1796, Georgia governors George Walton, Edward Telfair and, George Mathews, while in office, made gifts of land grants covering more than three times as much land as Georgia then contained. In all they made grants of 29,097,866 acres of land in counties that consisted of only 8,717,960 acres.
In Montgomery County alone, with an area of 407,680 acres, three men received land grants totaling 2,664,000 acres. All the grants given in Montgomery County totaled 7,436,995 acres. While single grants were limited to a maximum of 1,000 acres per person, multiple 1,000-acre grants were given to individuals.
The Pine Barrens Speculation is often conflated with the Yazoo land scandal, which occurred at about the same time. In that case, the legislature authorized sales of millions of acres of land at low prices, to enable speculation by political insiders. It led to a landmark United States Supreme Court decision in 1810, Fletcher v. Peck. The Yazoo land scandal dealt with land in present-day Alabama and Mississippi.