by Richard Lawry

Created on: January 20, 2009

Arkansas became United States territory in 1803 when President Jefferson purchased over 800,000 square miles of land from Napoleon Bonaparte, the Emperor of France. After the Louisiana Purchase a few Americans slowly began arriving to settle Arkansas. They did not offically own the land, because the land was neither surveyed nor offered for sale until after 1815.

The survey of the Louisiana purchase was ordered by President James Monroe. It began after the end of the War of 1812, as a means for the federal government to pay its veterans with land. The nation's greatest asset was land west of the Mississippi River, and it was necessary to survey that land so that it might be apportioned fairly to veterans and sold to settlers and other investors who were already moving into the area. The official land survey began in October 1815. The survey opened up the territory to settlement.

The area we now know as Arkansas was first a part of the Louisiana Territory and then of the Missouri Territory before it became a separate territory in 1819. Arkansas Post, established by the French in 1686, was the first permanent white settlement in Arkansas. When the Arkansas Territory was organized, Arkansas Post became the capital.

When the Territory of Arkansas was created in 1819, almost immediately land speculators began claiming land of the south bank of the Arkansas River that would become Little Rock. In 1821, the legislature chose Little Rock to become the territorial capital and the city was founded that same year. By the late 1820s, the city consisted of about 400 residents and 60 buildings, mostly built of logs.

The first state Capitol in Little Rock was begun by Governor John Pope in 1833. At that time nine out of ten Arkansans were farmers, growing mostly cotton and corn. The population came largely from Kentucky and Tennessee, a part of the westward movement of Scottish, Irish, and English stock from Virginia and the Carolinas since early colonial times.

In the early 1830's the issue of statehood for Arkansas was first discussed. Part of the appeal of statehood for many citizens in the territory was that statehood would ensure that Arkansas would avoid the United States government's appropriation of public land for use as Indian reservations.

An important milestone which helped Arkansas secure statehood was the results of the 1836 census. The Arkansas territory surpassed the required minimum statehood population of forty thousand. According to the census, more than fifty-two thousand people lived in the territory, which meant Arkansas met the population requirement for being one of the new states. The Arkansas Territory was larger than the state of Arkansas. After statehood the leftover area to the west had post offices that continued for some years to use Arkansas postmarks although they were actually in territory known as Indian Country. After voting on a State Constitution, Arkansas was declared the 25th state of the United Stated on June 15th, 1836.

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