Yazoo land scandal

The Yazoo land scandal, Yazoo fraud, Yazoo land fraud, or Yazoo land controversy is a massive fraud perpetrated from 1794 to 1803 by several Georgia governors and the state legislature.

They sell large tracts of land in what is now the state of Mississippi to political insiders at very low prices.

Although the law enabling the sales is overturned by reformers, the land claims are challenged in the courts for years, reaching the US Supreme Court.

In the landmark decision, Fletcher v. Peck (1810), the Court rules that the contracts are binding and the state cannot retroactively invalidate the earlier land sales.

It is one of the first times the Court has overturned state law.The Yazoo land fraud is often conflated with the Pine Barrens speculation.

This involves Georgia's high-ranking officials making multiple gifts of grants of land for the same parcels, grants amounting to three times more land than exists in the state of Georgia.

This real estate speculation occurs about the same time as that in Mississippi.

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