Alabama (meaning "clearers of the thicket" in Choctaw) was at the crossroads of French, Spanish, and English interests in pre-Revolutionary times. As a result, lands within its modern boundaries were sites of international contention until the conclusion of the French and Indian War (also known as the Seven Years' War) in 1763, when the Treaty of Paris terminated French and Spanish claims to Alabama and acknowledged England's hegemony. This agreement ignored Alabama's indigenous peoples, who by the late eighteenth century consisted of four main groups: the Cherokees, Choctaws, Chickasaws, and Creeks. During the American Revolution, these natives fought on both sides, as well as with the Spanish, who invaded the region from New Orleans and successfully ousted English troops from the region. At the conclusion of the war, political control of Alabama remained divided, with Spain claiming the gulf coast and the newly independent (from England) state of Georgia claiming the remaining portions. The subsequent Treaty of New York (1790), signed by Creek representatives and federal officials—along with the new U.S. government's claims to Alabama lands as part of the national domain—invalidated Georgia's claims and facilitated inclusion of the northern and central sections of Alabama into the Mississippi Territory in 1798.
Treaties signed in 1805-1806 between the U.S. government and the Chickasaw and Cherokee nations took native lands, which were sold to settlers under the Land Law of 1800. The construction of a Federal Road through southern Alabama began in 1805. In addition, the United States seized Mobile from Spain in 1812. These developments and internal factionalism among Alabama's native communities helped precipitate the Creek War (1813-1814). After Red Stick Creek traditionalists destroyed the outpost of Fort Mims, a compound built by white settlers, the ensuing outcry led the U.S. administration to pledge to put an end to the Red Stick uprising. U.S. forces declared war (forces were primarily state militia from the Tennessee, Georgia, and Mississippi territory—-no official declaration of war was made by Congress) on 30 August 1813 after the outpost of Fort Mims was destroyed. During the next year, armies led by Andrew Jackson steadily destroyed Red Stick resistance and ultimately defeated the natives along the banks of the Horseshoe Bend in the Tallapoosa River on 27 March 1814. In the treaty signed at Fort Jackson (Montgomery) in August, Jackson forced the Creeks (traditionalists and accommodators alike) to give up two-thirds of their Alabama lands. Settlers from the east, hoping to profit from cotton production, quickly inhabited the surrendered tracts. This "Alabama fever" saw the population of the region grow from about 15,000 at the end of the colonial era to 127,901 in 1820. During the next decade, settlers established plantations throughout the rich agricultural lands in the southern part of the state known as the "black belt," while the future capital of Montgomery was founded and Mobile emerged as a major port of the southeasteastern U.S. By 1830 at least 309,527 people lived in Alabama, including 117,484 African American slaves, most of whom were brought to Alabama by recent immigrants from the east. Seeing that Alabama possessed a smaller population than Louisiana and the western portions of the Mississippi Territory due to past boundary disputes, residents requested that the national government create a separate territory out of the larger Mississippi polity. They found support from Southern politicians seeking additional sectional votes. As a result, Congress established the Alabama Territory on 3 March 1817. A little more than two years later, on 14 December 1819, Alabama became the twenty-second member of the United States, and over the next decade it emerged as the heart of the South in terms of its dependence on cotton, use of slaves, and advocacy of states' rights.