The settler drive to the American West was inexorable. After generations of farming, much of the fertile land of Virginia was gone, and increasing numbers of farmers packed up their belongings and moved to the frontier. The lands of Alabama and Mississippi, still claimed by Georgia at the time, were the main attraction, particularly as their climates made them ideal for raising tobacco, the cash crop of the age. Spain had for a while disputed American claims to the territory, but ultimately relinquished everything north of the border of modern-day Florida, and the race was on to settle and organize the lands.

On this day, April 7, in 1798, a short month after the Spanish completely withdrew from the ceded lands, the Mississippi Territory was organized. It made up the southern halves of the eventual states of Alabama and Mississippi.

The rest of the two states came from the Georgia Yazoo Land Scandal. Georgia legislators and insiders formed a committee to obtain land from the Georgia government (the very same one they were on). Essentially they sold land to themselves, paying only token amounts. When the scandal was discovered, much of the land was taken from Georgia and reapportioned between the other states.