Louisiana became a territory of the United States following the Louisiana purchase from Spain in 1803 and achieved statehood in 1812. These events initiated a second wave of migration from the Atlantic states in search of new cheap, fertile land for farming. Several families from the Orangeburgh District of South Carolina ultimately settled in Louisiana after first spending time in Georgia, Alabama, or Mississippi. By the mid-19th century, these families clustered together predominantly in North and Central Louisiana, in Red River Valley and Claiborne, Bienville, Jackson, and Rapides Parishes where they established small to medium cotton farms.