Arkansas History

The Arkansas Post was established in 1686 by Henri de Tonti. It was the first European settlement in the lower Mississippi River Valley which is now Arkansas. It was a trading post. 

"The Arkansas Traveler" was the name of a story and a song based on an incident in the 1840 campaign. It was between a sophisticated Arkansas planter who had a humorous encounter with an unlettered but clever squatter. Later appropriators of the image and dialouge made the traveler an outsider, leaving the squatter and his family to represent Arkansas and making Arkansas the butt of the joke.

Robert Crittenden was the first secretary and acting governor of Arkansas Territory in 1819. He was successful in his power. He appointed every official who could be appointed. He made Little Rock the state capital. 

"The Family" or "The Dynasty" were two brothers, James and Elias Conway. These brothers along with several cousins and in-laws formed a political "Dynasty" or "Family". They ryled Arkansas virtually unchallenged until the Civil War. James became the first governer of Arkansas in 1836 and Elias became the governer in 1852. 

Middle groud is the collaboration and cutural exchange between Native Americans and Europeans who encountered each other in the frontier. Richard White was the person who came up with the name Middle Ground. 

I see a theme that is starting to develop in Arkansas History. That is that we use the Indians and then we push them out when the white settlers are ready to take come in. Even when the Indians tried to adapt they still were not allowed to stay. They were pushed out. Due to wanting the land to always be up to par with the other regions it was involved a fight of who had the power and who owned the land. The state didn’t have much of a good image. When Hunter and Denbar went on their explore they didn’t give much information about what they found, instead they told us more about how the discovered the land that they did. During this time...