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TIMELINE

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1 | 2 Timeline (Page 1)

1500's - 1600's
  • (1541) Spanish conqueror Hernando De Soto led first European expedition into Arkansas
  • (1673) Jesuit Father Jacques Marquette, trader Louis Jolliet reached Quapaw villages of "Akansae" and "Kappa"
  • (1682) Rene Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle claimed Mississippi valley for King Louis XIV of France; La Salle's party built Fort Prud'homme
  • (1686) Arkansas Post founded as first settlement on Mississippi River
1700's
  • (1700) French Catholic missionaries arrived to convert local Natives
  • (1721) Colonists abandoned Arkansas Post
  • (1738) French began two year war against Chickasaw Indians
  • (1762) France ceded Louisiana Territory to Spain
1800's
  • (1803) U.S. purchased Louisiana Territory
  • (1806) Louisiana Territory split, District of Arkansaw formed
  • (1811) New Madrid earthquake struck, many left homeless
  • (1812) Missouri Territory, including Arkansas, created by Congress
  • (1817) First post office established at Davidsonville; Cherokee given land in northwest Arkansas; Fort Smith established
  • (1818) Quapaw Indians ceded land between Red and Arkansas Rivers
  • (1819) Territory of Arkansas created
  • (1821) Territory capital moved from Arkansas Post to Little Rock
  • (1822) First steamboat on Arkansas River reached Little Rock
  • (1824) Quapaw Indians forced to cede lands south of Arkansas River
  • (1826) Smallpox epidemic reached Arkansas
  • (1836) Arkansas became twenty-fifth state
  • (1859) Legislation signed freeing all slaves
  • (1861) Arkansas seceded from Union; admitted to Confederate States of America
  • (1862) Battles of Pea Ridge and Prairie Grove; Union victorious
  • (1864) Teenaged Confederate soldier executed for spying; unionist convention abolished slavery, adopted new constitution
  • (1866) Ex-Confederates gained control of legislature; laws passed denying blacks right to sit on juries, serve in militia or attend white public schools
  • (1867) Congress passed Reconstruction Act, voided government of Arkansas and nine other southern states
  • (1868) Arkansas re-admitted to Union; Ku Klux Klan violence led to martial law in most of state
  • (1877) Hot Springs Reservation established
  • (1887) Bauxite discovered southwest of Little Rock
  • (1891) First "Jim Crow" law passed segregating blacks and whites on trains and trams

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Timeline continued...
Bill Clinton Father Marquette Hernando De Soto Nattie Caraway steamboat Winthrop Rockefeller



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