History of Arkansas

[14] The French colonization of the Mississippi Valley would end with the later destruction of Fort St. Louis were it not for de Tonti establishing the small trading stop, Arkansas Post.

[15] The party originally led by La Salle would depart the Post and continue north to Montreal, where interest was spurred in explorers who had the knowledge that the French had a holding in the region.

[20] Its position 4 miles (6.4 km) up the Arkansas River made it a hub for trappers to start their journeys, although it also served as a diplomatic center for relations between the Spanish and Quapaw.

On April 17, 1783, present-day Arkansas experienced its only battle of the American Revolutionary War when Captain James Colbert of the 16th Regiment of Foot led a force of British partisans and Chickasaws against the Spanish village and fort.

Americans began moving west to Kentucky and Tennessee, and the United States wanted to guarantee these people that the Spanish possession of the Mississippi River would not disrupt commerce.

Napoleon Bonaparte's conquest of Spain shortly after the American Revolution forced the Spanish to cede Louisiana, including Arkansas, to the French via the Third Treaty of San Ildefonso in 1800.

[56] By 1830, the entire tribe had returned to Arkansas, and despite Governor Pope and Indian agent Richard Hannon, the Quapaw were removed to a separate reservation in northeast Oklahoma in 1833.

[69] Although the Victorian ideals of men and women maintaining different spheres of influence still held strong in communities, the system broke down on the frontier when survival took priority over the social contract.

Arkansas's territorial delegate and Family member Ambrose Sevier shared this concern about high taxes; however his inability to vote with Andrew Jackson to oppose the Whigs, the National Bank and other various economic policies eventually made him more amenable to statehood.

[77] Upland delegates, despite being led by slaveholder David Walker, wanted to proportion the congressional districts based on only free white men, which would give that region a political advantage.

This economic shift also allowed some Arkansans to work outside the factory or field as artisans, including James Black who is credited with creating the first Bowie Knife in Arkansas during the period.

John Roane, William Sebastian, Solon Borland, and Robert Johnson began rallying support for the Southern cause in Arkansas, including discussing secession.

Unpopular Confederate conscription laws and high taxes became major political and social issues in addition to reports of tremendous loss of life at such far off places as Shiloh in April 1862.

The Union Army defeated Confederate forces at the Battle of Fayetteville in April 1863, but a week later abandoned northwest Arkansas and retreated back into Missouri for the summer.

[110] After Union Major-General Benjamin Butler decided to treat escaped slaves flocking to his lines as contraband of war, plantation owners began moving them away from Federal armies.

The war began to turn against the Confederates in 1863, losing at the Battle of Helena despite a coordinated attack by generals Theophilus Holmes, Sterling Price, John Marmaduke, and James Fagan.

The expedition was a military campaign in south central Arkansas which involved Union forces stationed at Little Rock and Fort Smith under the command of Major-General Frederick Steele.

But the two pincers never converged, and Steele's columns suffered terrible losses in a series of battles with Confederate forces led by Price and General Kirby Smith.

This caused an uproar with the Arkansas regiments and as a compromise, Smith approved a plan by Sterling Price to organize a large-scale raid into Missouri that would coincide with the 1864 United States presidential election.

The cost of the war effort, loss of human capital, and Confederate currency losing value were serious issues for the south in addition to the destruction of property, infrastructure, and crops.

Following the frustrations of losing the war and slavery, the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) became the military arm of the Democratic party in much of the south, including Arkansas.

The resulting constitution gave blacks full citizenship, due process, and the right to vote, as well as free public schools for all races and the establishment of the University of Arkansas.

The period became known as the Gilded Age; real wages grew, but the concentration of wealth became more visible and contentious, leading working-class Americans to calls for reform in the labor, political, and economic systems.

[129] However, the group struggled to initiate reforms in Arkansas under charges of becoming co-opted by political and large-producer interests at the expense of smaller producers, and is historically viewed as pushing both radical and conservative agendas prior to fading from prominence by 1876.

However, the coalition featured two factions who had the same problems but fundamentally disagreed on how to solve them: one of anti-tariff Southern Democrats and another of Northern farmers who were traditionally Republican and supported tariffs.

Tractors and other new equipment displaced manual labor; fewer farm workers were needed and tens of thousands left the state for nearby cities such as Memphis as well as more distant St. Louis and Chicago.

The New Deal's Agricultural Adjustment Act helped restore cotton prices, while federal relief programs such as the CCC and WPA provided jobs for unemployed men and some women.

[149] The Agricultural Adjustment Act restored cotton prices and FDR's numerous federal relief programs, such as the CCC and WPA provided jobs primarily for unemployed men and for women who were heads of family.

However, in 1944, Caraway ran fourth in the Democratic primary, losing her Senate seat to freshman congressman J. William Fulbright, the young, dynamic former president of the University of Arkansas who had already gained a national reputation.

[153] Based on the order of President Franklin D. Roosevelt given shortly after Imperial Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, nearly 16,000 Japanese Americans were forcibly removed from the West Coast of the United States and incarcerated in two internment camp located in the Arkansas Delta.