Brooks County is a county located in the U.S. state of Georgia. As of the 2010 census, the population was 16,243. The county seat is Quitman. The county was created in 1858 from portions of Lowndes and Thomas counties by an act of the Georgia General Assembly and is named in honor of U.S. Representative Preston Brooks from South Carolina, who physically assaulted abolitionist Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts in the Senate chamber after an argument about slavery.Brooks County is included in the Valdosta, GA Metropolitan Statistical Area. In the lynching era, from 1880 to 1930, this county had the highest number of lynchings in Georgia, which was the state with the highest number of lynchings in the country. All of the victims were black, including at least 13 killed in the May 1918 lynching rampage in this county.HistoryNative Americans and the SpanishHistoric Native peoples occupying the area at the time of European encounter were the Apalachee and the Lower Creek. The first Europeans in what is now Brooks County were Spanish missionaries from their colony in Florida, who arrived around 1570.
