Two
hundred miles south of Atlanta, two hundred miles west of
the Atlantic, and one hundred miles north of the Great Gulf
lies Dougherty County, with ten thousand Negroes and two
thousand whites. The Flint River winds down from Anderson-
ville, and, turning suddenly at Albany, the county-seat, hur-
ries on to join the Chattahoochee and the sea. Andrew Jackson
knew the Flint well, and marched across it once to avenge the
Indian Massacre at Fort Mims. That was in 1814, not long
before the battle of New Orleans; and by the Creek treaty that
followed this campaign, all Dougherty County, and much
other rich land, was ceded to Georgia. Still, settlers fought
shy of this land, for the Indians were all about, and they were
unpleasant neighbors in those days. The panic of 1837, which
Jackson bequeathed to Van Buren, turned the planters from
the impoverished lands of Virginia, the Carolinas, and east
Georgia, toward the West. The Indians were removed to
Indian Territory, and settlers poured into these coveted lands
to retrieve their broken fortunes. For a radius of a hundred
miles about Albany, stretched a great fertile land, luxuriant
with forests of pine, oak, ash, hickory, and poplar; hot with
the sun and damp with the rich black swamp-land; and here
the corner-stone of the Cotton Kingdom was laid.
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