1835 Webster Map of the United States - Geographicus - UnitedStates-webster-1835

The history of slavery in Arkansas began in the 1790s, before the

Louisiana Purchase The Louisiana Purchase (french: Vente de la Louisiane, translation=Sale of Louisiana) was the acquisition of the territory of Louisiana by the United States from the French First Republic in 1803. In return for fifteen million dollars, or app ...

made the land territory of the United States. Arkansas was a slave state from its establishment in 1836 until the Thirteenth Amendment of the

U.S. Constitution The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It superseded the Articles of Confederation, the nation's first constitution, in 1789. Originally comprising seven articles, it delineates the natio ...

was ratified in 1865. Slaveholders were initially clustered in the eastern and southern sections of Arkansas Territory closer to the

Mississippi River Delta The Mississippi River Delta is the confluence of the Mississippi River with the Gulf of Mexico in Louisiana, southeastern United States. The river delta is a area of land that stretches from Vermilion Bay on the west, to the Chandeleur Isla ...

. Topography was more varied in the north and west, so there were fewer slaves in those sections. Enslaved people would live in rural or urban antebellum Arkansas. Development of Arkansas caused rapid growth in the slave population. In 1810, 188 of the total population were slaves, and by 1820 it had risen to 1,617. The amount of enslaved people continued to grow through the territorial period and up to the Civil War. By 1830, the enslaved population reached 4,576, 19,935 by 1840, 47,100 by 1850 and 111,115 by 1860. As the enslaved population grew, it constituted a larger and larger portion of the total population, growing from 11% in 1820 to 25% in 1860. Arkansas was one of slave-importing states of the

Deep South The Deep South or the Lower South is a cultural and geographic subregion in the Southern United States. The term was first used to describe the states most dependent on plantations and slavery prior to the American Civil War. Following the war ...

; according to the ''

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'', Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama imported "more than 250,000 slaves from the border slave states" in 1836. According to the '' Arkansas Historical Quarterly'' in 1944, "Most of the slaves in Arkansas were used for the cultivation of cotton, which was the major product of the state. All the counties that had more slaves than whites were cotton-producing counties." The cotton calendar was plowing in February, planting April and May, hoeing in June, avoiding the Arkansas Delta heat and humidity while the cotton grew in July and August, picking in September, and ginning in October. According to Historian Orville Taylor, roughly 1 in 4 white people owned slaves and many more benefited from slavery as leasing slaves was not an uncommon practice. Under early Arkansas law, "Slaves could testify for and against free negroes or mulattoes on trial for trespass or felony, but not against white persons." Blacks could legally own real and personal property they could not legally own black slaves. Slaveowners could be fined for making slaves work on Sundays. Enslaved people were a relatively small proportion of the population until 1840, but by 1860, slaves were owned by people in every county. Free people of color were driven out of the state by series of punitive laws beginning in 1843; by 1860 there were only 30 free people of color in Arkansas. Hiring out slave labor was widespread in Arkansas and provided significant household income to enslavers. Every county had a slave patrol, and in 1859 a city paper in

Little Rock ( The "Little Rock") , government_type = Council-manager , leader_title = Mayor , leader_name = Frank Scott Jr. , leader_party = D , leader_title2 = Council , leader_name2 ...

bellyached "that the city's slave patrol was not up to controlling the blacks that 'traverse the streets at all hours of the night free from hindrance...'" (while carrying around knives and pistols no less.) Arkansas had the second-lowest proportion of slaves any state in the Confederacyonly Tennessee had fewer slaves as a percentage of the overall population. There were 5,526 recruitments to the

U.S. Colored Troops The United States Colored Troops (USCT) were regiments in the United States Army composed primarily of African-American (colored) soldiers, although members of other minority groups also served within the units. They were first recruited during ...

from Arkansas.

History

Violence had always been a prevalent issue in the South. Violence worsened as the Ku Klux Klan spread through nearly every southern state as they targeted recently freed African Americans. Governor Powell Clayton arrested the members of this terrorist group by utilizing state militia which had things back in order by early 1869. To further prevent the issue, Governor Edmund J. Davis formed “a skilled police force that made 6,000 arrests between 1870 and 1872, effectively stopping Klan activities and protecting freedmen from violence.”

History

See also

References

Further reading