9781422286067

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Central Mississippi River Basin: Arkansas, Iowa, Missouri

Oklahoma). On June 14, 1836, Arkansas was admitted as the 25th state. Although Arkansas was a slave state, its residents were somewhat divided on the issue of slavery. Many residents did not have slaves, as the crops that could be grown in the northeastern part of Arkansas did not require cheap labor. After the election of Abraham Lincoln in November 1860, seven southern states voted to secede from the Union and form their own country, the Confederate States of America. Arkansas residents, how- ever, voted to remain part of the United States. However, when Lincoln refused to allow the southern states to secede, and asked Arkansas to send troops to Fort Sumter, South Carolina, to quell the rebellion there, state leaders refused. In May 1861, at a second convention, Arkansas leaders voted to join the Confederacy. During the war Arkansas was strategically important because it could control river traffic on the Mississippi River, a vital lifeline for U.S. trade and commerce. Several

eventually be forced by the U.S. gov- ernment to move to new lands farther west in Oklahoma. Over time, the lands of the Louisiana Purchase were broken into different entities, called territories. Once a territory was formed, its resi- dents could apply for statehood when certain conditions were met. The Arkansas Territory was formed in 1819. It included all of the present- day state, plus part of the land that would eventually become Oklahoma. Like other southern lands, slavery was permitted in Arkansas. Slave labor was used on large cotton planta- tions in the southeastern part of the territory. In 1820, the Arkansas Territory had a population of about 14,000. By the mid-1830s, the territo- ry’s population had reached 60,000, making it eligible for statehood. The territory’s leaders drafted a state con- stitution, and petitioned the U.S. Congress for admission to the United States. The state’s present-day bound- aries were set, with the western por- tion becoming part of what was then called Indian Territory (now