Arkansas Territory

“ Looking at details, we find the same disproportions. Arkansas and Michigan, nearly equal in territory, were organized as States by simultaneous Acts of Congress; and yet in 1855 the whole valuation of Arkansas, including its asserted property in human flesh, was only $64,240,726, while that of Michigan, without a single slave, was $116,593,580. ”

“ The climate is subject to great extremes of heat and cold, and in the lower districts is unhealthy to new settlers. The staple products are cotton and maize; fruit is tolerably abundant. Many districts are admirably adapted for grazing, and great numbers of excellent cattle are reared. Arkansas was colonized as early as 1685 by the French. As part of Louisiana it was purchased by the United States in 1803. It was made into a separate territory in 1819, and admitted into the Union in 1836. ”

“ From Mount Pleasant, by Cowskin, Beatty’s prairie, and Vineyard, Arkansas, to Fort Smith. From Rocheport, by Connor’s mills, Cooper county, and Pisgah, to Round-hill post-office. From Bloomfield, Stoddard county, by the lower end of West prairie, to the house of Martin Wood. From Van Buren, by Charles Huddleston’s, to Izard court-house, Arkansas. From Jefferson city, by California, to the Round-hill post-office. From Carrollton, by Utica and Naves’s store, to Thompson’s settlement, in the territory attached to Livingston county. ”

“ To supply needed laws to replace various tribal statutes which had by Congress been made inoperative, the laws of Arkansas pertaining to certain matters have been extended over Indian Territory. The Federal laws have been made to apply to still other subjects, and officials under the Interior Department are charged with the enforcement of rules and regulations governing still further matters, and so on. So complicated and complex a state of affairs does this system of jurisprudence present that the people are dazed and often unable to determine what is law and who is authorized to enforce it. ”

“ The tributaries of the Arkansas within the State are mostly small streams, but the southeastern corner is drained by the large Neosho River and its main affluent, the Verdigris, which flow southward and enter the Arkansas in Indian Territory. ”

“ Another proposition by Mr. Taylor, simpler in form, that Slavery should not hereafter be introduced into this Territory, was lost by ninety nays to eighty-six yeas; and the Arkansas Bill, on the 20th of February, was read the third time and passed. In the Senate, Mr. Burrill, of Rhode Island, moved, as an amendment, the prohibition of the further introduction of Slavery into this Territory, which was lost by nineteen nays to fourteen yeas. And thus, without any provision for Freedom, Arkansas was organized as a Territory: and here was a triumph of Slavery. ”

“ Genevieve and Herculaneum are flourishing towns. The chief elevations are the Ozark and Iron mountains. The rivers are the Mississippi, Missouri, Osage, Gasconade, Maramec, St. Francis, White, Black, Currant, Grand and Chariton. The population is three hundred and eighty-one thousand one hundred and two.
State of Arkansas.—Arkansas lies in a very compact form between Louisiana and Missouri, having Zennepee and Mississippi on the east, and the western territory of Mexico on the west. It is 240 miles in length; 250 in breadth; and has an area of 54,500 square miles. ”

“ The Arkansas River, next to the Missouri, is the greatest Mississippi tributary, being nearly twenty-two hundred miles long and having its sources in the Rockies in Colorado, out of which it flows in a magnificent canyon. It comes for five hundred miles eastward through plains that are largely sterile, 405 enters Kansas, turns southeast in the Indian Territory, and crosses the State of Arkansas to its mouth, being navigable for eight hundred miles. ”

“ Travel was slow; for the roads were bad in Arkansas, while in the Territory there were great stretches of rolling hills and red, sandy barrens without any roads whatever. As the terrain grew flatter, the change from their native mountains depressed them more, perhaps, than they realized; but they found the people at the Indian agencies very affable, while most of the settled Indians seemed friendly and civil. ”

“ That in respect to all that portion of the Indian Territory not occupied by any of the five civilized tribes, the laws of the State of Arkansas relative to certain crimes shall be deemed and taken to be the law and in force therein, and the United States district court for the western district of Arkansas shall have exclusive original jurisdiction over all such offenses arising in said portion of the Indian Territory ”

“ All officers, civil and military, now holding commissions under authority of the United States, or of the territory of Arkansas, shall continue to hold and exercise their respective offices until they shall be superseded under the authority of the state. ”

“ The Arkansas River rises in the Rocky Mountains in north latitude forty-two degrees, near the borders of the territory of the United States and Mexico. It is about two thousand miles in length, running in a direction east south-east. Tributary streams are little known; they are remarkable for being deeply impregnated with salt. That part of Arkansas that traverses the Missouri territory is skirted, in great part, by extensive prairies. Spurs of the Masserne Mountains often reach the river. ”

“ The hill country of the northern part of the State has little land of agricultural value, the soil being sandy and thin; but the bottom lands, having a heavy black soil, are very productive. In the limestone regions are found much red clay and loam, the residual materials from the decomposition of the limestone. The higher lands of the Arkansas Valley, from Indian Territory to Little Rock, are composed of a dark, sandy loam. ”

“ The form Acanza is found on Vaugondy's map, 1783. About 230 Kwapas still live in Oklahoma and the Indian Territory.
[V-21] Arkansas Post perpetuates the name of the oldest establishment of whites in the lower Mississippi valley. The present village is on the N. bank of the Arkansaw r., in the county and State of Arkansas, 73 m. S. E. of Little Rock, the capital. Though never a locality of much importance, its place in history is secure and permanent. Early in the year 1685, Henri de Tonti, the famous trusty lieutenant of La Salle, was reinstated in command of Fort St. ”

“ The legislature was authorized, and did divide the territory into four judicial districts, and assigned them to the four judges. In addition to circuit duty, the judges were required to hold two terms of the superior court annually, at the seat of government of the territory. And the legislature of the territory was authorized in all cases, except when the United States was a party, to fix the respective jurisdictions of the district and superior court, and it was declared that the United States cases shall be tried in the superior court in the manner said cases are now (1828) tried. ”

“ There are no large cities. The oldest settlement is Arkansas Post (pop. in 1870, 683) , the chief town of Arkansas county, on the river of the same name, about 50 m. above its junction with the Mississippi. It was settled by the French in 1685. Little Rock, Pulaski county, the state capital (pop. 12,380) , is also situated on the Arkansas river, about 300 m. ”

“ That is, has one convention the power to declare void ab initio, the constitution of the state framed by a preceding convention? If this be true, and such be its effect, it necessarily follows, as a consequence, that, from the 6th of May, 1861, until the government under the present constitution took effect, there was no government whatever in the state of Arkansas; for no one will contend, that there can exist a government, without the adoption of some fundamental rules, by which the sovereignty is transferred from the individual members of society to a corporation of their own creation. ”

“ Lying along the Arkansas River, a few miles below Little Rock, there is a broad strip of country that was once the domain of a lordly race of men. They were not lordly in the sense of conquest; no rusting armor hung upon their walls; no ancient blood-stains blotched their stairways—there were no skeletons in dungeons deep beneath the banquet hall. But in their own opinion they were just as great as if they had possessed these gracious marks of medieval distinction. Their country was comparatively new, but their fathers came mostly from Virginia and their whisky came wholly from Kentucky. ”

“ The Arkansas, also, rising in a much more southern latitude than the Missouri, takes the lead of it in its annual excess, and its superabundant waters are disgorged and disposed of long before the breaking up of the icy barriers of the north ”

“ Let your people therefore, and the Chickasaws remain perfectly quiet until the proper time arrives, and look to me for advice. If any emissaries from Arkansas come among you, hear them and say nothing. So it is that wise men do. The State of Arkansas has nothing whatever to do with you, and cannot protect you. The Confederate States are both able and willing to do so; and when they have guaranteed your rights, it will be time enough for you to act. Your friend
(signed) Albert Pike. ”

“ The authority and jurisdiction of the United States were wholly overthrown and subverted in Arkansas. By action of the State Legislature, and of a Convention called by this Legislature, followed by a popular vote, the State was made de facto a member of the Rebel Confederacy. However much we may deny the rightfulness or the legality of the proceeding, there is no question with regard to the fact. ”

“ There are few libraries in Arkansas. In this matter her showing has long been among the very poorest in the Union relatively to her population. Daily papers are few in number. The state charitable institutions—insane asylum, deaf-mute and blind institutes—and the penitentiary, are at Little Rock.
Local government is of the ordinary southern county type, without noteworthy variations. Municipal corporations rest upon a general state law, not upon individual charters. ”

“ There is more land open to settlement in Arkansas than there was in the Cherokee Strip. The Little Rock Democrat wisely says: “Counting all kinds of our public lands in Arkansas, government, State and railroad, we have nearly 7,000,000 acres. If we could divide these lands into homestead tracts, advertise them extensively and donate them at stated periods to actual settlers, what an impetus would be given to the State. What the State needs is not money for her lands, but active and enterprising home builders, who would become wealth producers and tax builders. ”

“ It is nearly square in form, each side measuring about 250 miles, and covers an area of 53,850 square miles, of which 805 square miles are water. It ranks twenty-third in size among the States of the Union.
Topography. With the exception of a few high bluffs, the eastern margin of the State is subject to inundation from the Mississippi River, causing an overflowing of the numerous lakes, bayous, and swamps. But the region to the westward attains a higher elevation, and the surface is broken by numerous ranges of hills and low mountains, which have a general trend from east to west. ”

“ The room of the Assembly—plain, with windows on three sides, open to the sun and air, and not so large that conversational speaking cannot be heard in it—is not at all the modern notion of a legislative chamber, which ought to be lofty, magnificently decorated, lighted from above, and shut in as much as possible from the air and the outside world. Arkansas, which is rapidly growing in population and wealth, will no doubt very soon want a new State-house. Heaven send it an architect who will think first of the comfortable, cheerful rooms, and second of imposing outside display! ”

“ For that reason, if gentlemen mean to offer no obstructions to the admission of Arkansas, let them give the assurance by helping the weaker party through with the weaker question. We of the South cannot, and will not, as I pledge myself, offer any objections to the domestic institutions of Michigan with regard to slavery. Can any gentleman make the same pledge that no such proposition shall come from the North? Besides, the two bills are not now on an equal footing. The bill for the admission of Arkansas must be sent to a Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union. ”

“ When the rebellion in Arkansas shall have been so far suppressed that the loyal inhabitants thereof shall be free to re-establish their State government upon a republican foundation, or to recognize the one already set up, and by the aid and not in subordination to the military to maintain the same, they will then, and not before, in the opinion of your committee, be entitled to a representation in Congress, and to participate in the administration of the Federal Government. ”

“ There we lay, gazing at the bright, twinkling stars and listening to the music of the purple waters of the Arkansas as they rolled over a rocky riffle just above, until slumber closed our eyes and shut our thoughts from the fields of nature. ”