Tombigbee District

The Tombigbee District, also known as the Tombigbee settlements, was one of two areas, the other being the Natchez District, that were the first in what was West Florida to be colonized by British subjects from the Thirteen Colonies and elsewhere. This later became the Mississippi Territory as part of the United States. The district was also the first area to be opened to white settlement in what would become the state of Alabama, outside of the French colonial outpost of Mobile on the Gulf Coast. The Tombigbee and Natchez districts (also originally a French settlement) were the only areas populated by whites in the Mississippi Territory when it was formed by the United States in 1798.

The Tombigbee District was an area mostly on the west side of the Tombigbee River in Alabama; it was first opened to settlement by British colonists under the Treaty of Mobile, negotiated between the British government of West Florida and the Choctaw at a Native American congress held in Mobile in March–April 1765. The British had "acquired" this territory from France in 1763 through the Treaty of Paris, after they defeated France in the Seven Years' War. They also acquired other French territories in North America east of the Mississippi River.

The boundaries of the district were roughly limited to the area within a few miles of the Tombigbee River and included portions of modern extreme southern Clarke County, northernmost Mobile County, and most of Washington County.

The boundaries set by the treaty in 1765 were described as starting at Grosse Pointe on Mon Louis Island, then up the western coast of Mobile Bay, then up the Mobile River (Then considered part of the "Tombecbee") to the confluence of Alibamont (Alabama) and Tombecbee (Tombigbee) rivers, and afterwards along the western bank of the Alibamont River to the Chickianoce River (probably Reedy Creek near Choctaw Bluff in modern Clarke County, Alabama), and from the confluence of the Chickianoce and Alibamont rivers followed a straight line westward to the confluence of the Bance (Jackson Creek in Clarke County) and Alibamont rivers; from there it followed the western bank of the Bance River until its confluence with the Talltukpe River (Tattilaba Creek); from there it followed a straight line to the Tombecbee River opposite Atchalikpe (Hatchatigbee Bluff); and from Atchalikpe it followed a straight line to the source of the Buckatanne River (Buckatunna Creek in Wayne County, Mississippi) down the Buckatanne River to its confluence with the Pascagoula River, and down the Pascagoula River to a point 36 miles (58 km) from the Gulf of Mexico (thought at the time to correspond with the 31st parallel north); and then by a due west line, as far as the Choctaw Nation have a right to grant. The treaty further stated that "none of his Majesty's white subjects should be permitted to settle on the Tombecbee River to the northward of the rivulet called Centebonck" (Santa Bogue Creek in Washington County, Alabama).

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