Headright Grants and Surveying in Northeastern Georgia

Bibliographic Data

ID4492070
AuthorsSam Bowers Hilliard (corresponding author)
Year1982
Volume72
Issue4
Pages416
Publication date1982-10-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueGeographical Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0016-7428 • E-ISSN: 1931-0846
PublisherJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/214594
OpenAlexW2328344493
LanguageEN
Citations received5

vey, especially in the parts of the world where European concepts of private landownership were imposed in areas that had not been previously subdivided. The United States is one such area, and the story of the alienation, political organization, and subdivision of its land is a basic theme in American history.' Land was granted or sold in parcels that ranged in size from a few acres to hundreds of thousands of acres, and it was laid out in as many shapes as the human mind can imagine. The result is a landscape that is rich in variety and fascinating in detail.2 The study of land grants and surveying attracts geographers for several reasons. The subject is central to the settlement process because landholding patterns reveal a great deal about the attitudes toward land as a resource and the politics underlying land acquisition. The initial survey systems created patterns on the land that often persisted for generations. The landholding unit, the cadaster, may be considered the starting point for making inferences about an area. Finally, settlement of the United States was essentially a scramble for land, and knowledge of that process is necessary for understanding American society. In this article I examine the system of land survey and acquisition in one county in northeastern Georgia. The examples are properties that lie in presentday Hart County, Georgia, even though most of the grants were made under the political jurisdictions of Franklin, Wilkes, and Elbert counties from which Hart County was created in 1853. The first grants were made in the late 1770s, although most were dated between 1785 and 1800. Land continued to be granted as long as tracts were available, but after 1800 the number of grants each year declined steadily until the last few acres passed into private own

Archaeology · Geography · Political science · American Environmental and Regional History · Land Rights and Reforms