I have made a map of of a township/section/range and color coordinated each land patent for the state of origin the grantee. With a few sections completed I have noticed a trend. The early settlers for North/Northeastern Alabama came from three main states. Tennessee, South Carolina, and Virginia. These three states make up around 95% of the early settlers following the Creek War (1814), to about 1823. After that time the makeup is of different states.
I can understand why the early settlers came from Tennessee. I have looked at several names and have found out that they served in Jackson's or Coffee's army. So they saw the land firsthand. In the other Tennessee cases I have come to the conclusion that the settlers are either neighbors of the soldiers or people that heard the news of a new land.
What I'm having trouble finding information on is the settlers from South Carolina and Virginia. Some of these settlers would be considered economically challenged in a new sense that coming to Alabama would make for a good starts. However, more than half of these cases are fairly wealthy individuals that are buying over 120 acres or more of land at a time. In one case I found where a settler sold his entire South Carolina farm to make the move. From the description I read, the farm was quite sizeable and well established. After the sale and move to Alabama I could not find anything on the settler so I assume this move did not have the same success as his original farm.
What was the draw for these Virginia and South Carolina settlers? I have done some searching on my own and the Panic of 1819 seems to explain some of it (mainly the poorer settlers looking for a fresh start) but it doesn't explain the well of settlers and the overall trend of Virginia and South Carolina. Hoping for some insight on this.
Alabama was originally a part of the Mississippi Territory, annexed by the US in 1804, but it wasn't really open to settlers the first few years. Land speculators spread out across the territory in anticipation of the coming land sale and marked out the best land. In 1809, President Madison ordered the first land sales of the Mississippi Territory but sales were tepid at first for a few reasons. The biggest was ongoing tension between Great Britain and the US Federal Government, and hostile Native American nations like the Creek. In 1811, the federal government opened an office in Huntsville, and land sales began in earnest, but largely from moneyed speculators. After the War of 1812 was over, and the Creek Civil War, also known as Red Stick War ended in 1814, the land became much safer for American settlers. After further wars, Native American land in Alabama was reduced to only a fraction by 1817. With the acquisition of Mobile and Pensacola, shipping became easier from Alabama as well.
But why did rich farmers from Virginia and South Carolina in particular move to Alabama? Economics. Alabama had vast virgin soil ready for farming. The Alabama Black Belt, so named for its tremendously rich, black, soil was perfect for plantation style cash crops. Fertile parts of the Tennessee Valley extended into north Alabama as well. Many plantation based cash crops like cotton were detrimental to soil quality over time. Virginia, Georgia, and the Carolinas had been farmed intensively for hundreds of years and the soil was becoming played out. More work was required to make the same crop each year. By moving to Alabama, huge profits could now be generated with the same size plantation and slaves.
Well off farm owners were the most likely to be able to afford speculator prices and negotiate the corruption in the system of land sales. They could also quickly improve the land with slave labor to prepare it for farming; whereas, a non slave owner would be putting large sums of money into paid laborers to improve the land, or have to do all the labor themselves. Many poorer farmers attempted this and financially failed, defaulting the land back to the speculator to sell again but now in an improved state. Since the Atlantic slave trade had been closed a few years before as well, massive profit could be made by moving and selling slaves in new slave states. The creation of the cotton gin just a few years earlier also made cotton even more profitable in these new lands.
I'd like to add that people buying and selling 120 acres of farm land are likely well off and more comfortable than your average farmer, but definitely not wealthy in the sense of how we think of the traditional southern plantation elite wealthy. Plantations often had hundreds or thousands of acres, and over 100 slaves working on them at a time. A farm of 120 acres probably only required between 5 and 10 slaves depending on the crops and domestics, but would return a comfortable lifestyle for the owner. This farmer would be somewhere in the top 10-20%, economically speaking. I just want to make sure you aren't imaging whole Plantations like Tara from Gone with the Wind uprooting and moving.