CHAPTER III.

THE GEORGIA COMPANY.

YAZOO PURCHASE--GOVERNOR MATHEWS--JAMES JACKSON--BURNING OF THE YAZOO
ACT--DEVELOPMENT OF FREE GOVERNMENT--CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION--SLAVERY:
ITS INTRODUCTION AND EFFECTS.


The grant by the British Government of the territory of Georgia to
General Oglethorpe and company, comprised what now constitutes the
entire States of Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi, except that
portion of Alabama and Mississippi lying below the thirty-first degree
of north latitude, which portions of those States were originally part
of West Florida.

The French settlements extended up the Mississippi, embracing both
sides of that river above the mouth of Red River, which discharges
into the former in the thirty-first degree of north latitude. The
river from the mouth of the Bayou Manshac, which left the river
fourteen miles below Baton Rouge, on the east side, up to the
thirty-first degree of north latitude, was the boundary line between
West Florida and Louisiana. Above this point the French claimed
jurisdiction on both sides; but Georgia disputed this jurisdiction
over the east bank, and claimed to own from the thirty-first to the
thirty-sixth degree of latitude. There were many settlements made by
Americans upon this territory at a very early day,--one at Natchez,
one at Fort Adams, and several on the Tombigbee, the St. Stephens, at
McIntosh's Bluff, and on Bassett's Creek. These settlements formed the