In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

1) Introduction: Antebellum Arkansas "Every man left his honesty and every woman her chastity on the other side ofthe Mississippi, on moving to Arkansas." -Governor Archibald Yell, quoted in the Little Rock Arkansas Gazette, August 14, 1844 Union soldiers nicknamed her Rackensack; the western geographer Timothy Flint said she was the "epitome ofthe world." Somewhere between these two different points of view lay the historical reality known as Arkansas.! The state, which joined the Confederacy on May 6, 1861, contained four distinct types of people: mountaineers eking out a traditional subsistence in the hills and hollows of the northwest and southwest; yeoman farmers situated on the better farming land in the uplands and along the numerous streams; large slaveowning planters generally located in the best bottom land ofthe Red, White, Arkansas, and Mississippi Rivers; and the motley swamp dwellers, poor white trash, and hunters living on the periphery of the plantation economy. Contrary to the situation in most of the South, geography scattered these types in irregular profusion around the state. Thus a given county frequently contained townships radically different from each other in every conceivable way. Sectional rivalry, so evident in the history of most Southern states, appeared in Arkansas at the local level and reemerged on the state level in a crazy-quilt of subtle and diffuse patterns. The Louisiana Purchase opened Arkansas for American settlement. In the place of the handful of French settlers present in 1803, the 1820 census revealed 12,482 whites and 1,617 Negroes. In 1819 "A Citizen" wrote in the Gazette: "Our territory is rapidly emerging from the sable gloom which so long shrouded and concealed its merits from the citizens of the states." Eighteen months later a Helena Fourth of July toast proposed: "Our territory must improve-our little towns thrive-our climate and soil good-our rivers fine-and all we want is the art of man. "2 The reality, however, was depressing. Potential settlers headed off for Texas leaving behind unpaid bills at the Gazette. In vain did Judge S. P. Eskridge describe the inhabitants of Arkansas as "correct in their morals, kind and liberal among one another, and hospitable to strangers." Fruitlessly, editor William E. Woodruff of the Gazette reported every Texas atrocity story, and assured readers that' 'the rage for emigrating to Texas is beginning to subside. " From the vantage point of Helena or Memphis, potential settlers heard great stories about Texas, and they saw hundreds of miles of formidable swamps in Arkansas.3 2 Chapter 1 The greatest single drawback to fast development was the difficulty of travel. Contrary to what the natives always told travelers, the western rivers were navigable for no more than half the year. Without roads, communications were uncertain at best. On one occasion, the mail to Little Rock was lost when the mailman's canoe overturned and he was drowned. Residents of the city in 1824 had no mail delivery for two months.4 Agitation for a road developed early. Its construction was hailed as a cure-all. "When completed," wrote editor Woodruff, "this road will be of immense utility to the territory, and will be the means ofadding greatly to the present rapid increase of our population. " Work was begun, but the contractor ran into trouble. One of the surveyors admitted that the route was bad, but said he and his associates had gone ahead Knowing that an important interest in the territory depended on that report, and also, of the effect it would have to announce to the people that no communication could be had with the Mississippi by means of a road. Traveler G. W. Featherstonhaugh reported that the surveyors, "following the example ofthe ancient Roman roads in England, [had] taken the shortest line to get to the top, and carried it up at about an angle ofsixty degrees. Our horse, therefore, came to a dead standstill. "5 Immigrants, however, braved the difficulties. On December 9, 1828, Woodruff reported arrivals to be four times as numerous as before, and' 'the press of wagons is so great at the ferry at Memphis, that many ofthem are compelled to wait several days before they can cross over." Little Rock served as a frontier entrepot for travelers headed for the Red River valley or southwest Arkansas.6 But the road from Memphis was only a marginal success. On February 29, 1832, Woodruff reported that it had been twenty-one days since any mail had arrived, because of the "dreadful state of...

Share