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The Arkansas Post (; ), officially the Arkansas Post National Memorial, was the first European settlement located along the Mississippi River, in the Mississippi Alluvial Plain, and in the present-day U.S. state of Arkansas. In 1686, Henri de Tonti established it on behalf of Louis XIV for the purpose of trading with the Quapaw.
The French, Spanish Empire, and Americans, who acquired the territory in 1803 with the Louisiana Purchase, considered the site of strategic value. It was the capital of Arkansas from 1819 until 1821 when the territorial government relocated to Little Rock.
During the fur trade years, Arkansas Post was protected by a series of fortifications. The forts and associated settlements were located at three known sites and possibly a fourth. Some of the historic structures have been lost as the waterfront has been subject to erosion and flooding. The land encompassing the second (and fourth) Arkansas Post site (Red Bluff) was designated as a state park in 1929. In 1960, about of land at the site were protected as the Arkansas Post National Memorial, a National Memorial and National Historic Landmark.
Since the 1950s, three Archaeology excavations have been conducted at Arkansas Post. Experts say the most extensive cultural resources at the site are archaeological, both for the 18th and 19th-century European-American settlements, and the earlier Quapaw villages. Due to changes of the Arkansas River and its navigation measures, the local water level has risen closer to the height of the bluffs, which used to be well above the river. The site is now considered low lying. Erosion and construction of , , and locks on the Arkansas and Mississippi rivers have resulted in the remains of three of the historic forts now being underwater in the river channel.
The French settlers initially called the post Aux Arcs ("at the home of the Arkansas." Arkansea was the Algonquian name used by the Illinois and related tribes to refer to the Quapaw, and was adopted by the French.) The traders first built a simple wooden house and fence at the site. This was the first European settlement on the entire Mississippi River, the first permanent French holding along the west of the Mississippi, and the first European settlement in the Mississippi Alluvial Plain. Here the French conducted the first documented Christian services in Arkansas.
The importance of the post was fully realized in 1699, when King Louis XIV began to invest more resources into French Louisiana. John Law's Mississippi Company made a venture from 1717 to 1724 recruiting Germans settlers to develop the surrounding area as a major agricultural hub. The plan was to grow crops on the lower Arkansas for trade with Arkansas Post, New Orleans (which did not have the climate to support grain cultivation), and Illinois Country. The French brought about 100 slaves and indentured servants to the area as workers, and offered land grants to German settlers. But this project failed when the company withdrew from Arkansas Post, due to financial decline related to the Mississippi Bubble. Most of the slaves and indentured servants were relocated or sold elsewhere along the Lower Mississippi River, but a few remained in or near the post, becoming hunters, farmers, and traders. By 1720, the post had lost much of its significance to the French because of the lack of profit, and the population was low. In 1723, the post was garrisoned by thirteen French soldiers, and Lieutenant Avignon Guérin de La Boulaye was the commander. Father Paul du Poisson was the priest at the post from July 1727 until his death in 1729. The post was significantly expanded in 1731, when its new commander, First Ensign Pierre Louis Petit de Coulange, built a , a powder magazine, a prison, and a house for him and future commanders.
On May 10, 1749, during the Chickasaw Wars, the post engaged in its first military action. Chief Payamataha of the Chickasaw attacked the rural areas of the post with 150 of his warriors, killing and capturing several settlers.
The site of this first post is believed to be near what is now called the Menard–Hodges site, located about (but about by road) from the Arkansas Post Memorial. This property, also a National Historic Landmark, is owned by the National Park Service, and is undeveloped.
In 1752, Captain Paul Augustin Le Pelletier de La Houssaye, the next commander, rebuilt the post's major structures, such as the barrack, prison, and powder magazine. In addition, he expanded the commander's house to include a chapel and quarters for the priest. He added a warehouse, hospital, bake house, and latrine. To protect the post's new buildings, he erected a stockade eleven feet in height.
Initially, the Spanish kept the post at the third site and built the first Fort Carlos there to defend it. The majority of the post's population remained French. This reality complicated Spain's effort for diplomacy. In 1772, Commander Fernando de Leyba was ordered to assert dominance over the local French and to reduce the amount of feasts and gifts they provided for the local Quapaw, as it was costing the colonial government too much. The Quapaw nearly came to blows with the Spanish, but eventually Commander Leyba conceded to previous practice and restored the goods, and conflict was avoided.
made by the Louisiana Fixed Infantry Regiment and Quapaw during the Colbert raid on Fort Carlos III.]] Gálvez gave permission for de Villiers to move the post back to the site of the second French post, 36 miles upriver at Red Bluff, and in 1779, the post was relocated. The colonists hoped the settlement would be less flood-prone. Fort Carlos III was built here in July 1781, near the former Le Houssaye fort. It consisted of several small buildings surrounded by a stockade. During the last two decades of the 18th century, several Americans from the new United States settled at the post. They developed a separate American village on the bluffs north of the river, nearer to the Quapaw villages. Many of these settlers arrived as refugees from the American Revolutionary War.
The only battle of the Revolution fought in present-day Arkansas took place on April 17, 1783, when Captain James Colbert of the 16th Regiment of Foot led a force of British partisans and Chickasaw allies on a Colbert raid. This was part of a small British campaign against the Spanish on the Mississippi River during the American Revolutionary War, when power was shifting in North America. The Spanish defended it with their soldiers, Quapaw allies, and settlers acting as Indians to scare off the partisans.
Fort Carlos III suffered from constant river erosion, so the Spanish relocated the military garrison to a site about half a mile from the waterfront and, in March 1791, built Fort San Estevan (renamed Fort Madison after the Louisiana Purchase). Fort San Estevan included a commandant's house, large barracks, storehouse and kitchen, all surrounded by a stockade.
The American settlers predominately lived in the separate villages north of the post, although further American settlement began after purchase by the United States. Americans built new buildings in the main part of the post alongside French and Spanish ones. The post was guarded by Fort Madison, in use until 1810, when it was abandoned in turn due to erosion and flooding.Wesley, Edgar Bruce (1935). Guarding the Frontier. University of Minnesota Press, p. 41.
In 1805, the U.S. government built a federal trading house at the north end of the post, operated by Jacob Bright. The location became a major frontier post for travelers heading west, with explorers such as Stephen Harriman Long and Thomas Nuttall passing through, although the government closed the federal house in 1810.
Arkansas Post was selected to be the capital of Arkansas County in 1813. In 1819, it was selected as the first capital of the new Arkansas Territory. It became the center of commercial and political life in Arkansas. The territory's first newspaper, the Arkansas Gazette, was founded in 1819 at the post by William E. Woodruff.
A tavern owned by William Montgomery was operated at the post, in Bright's trading house, from 1819 to 1821. This structure also served as the meeting place for the first Arkansas Territorial General Assembly in February 1820. During its period as territorial capital, Arkansas Post grew substantially, and two towns were established near it.
Gradually, settlement developed further into the Arkansas River Valley, and Little Rock became the territory's dominant settlement. When the territorial capital was moved there in 1821, the territory's major businesses and institutions moved as well. Arkansas Post lost much of its importance as a result.
The settlement continued to be active as a river town through the 1840s after steamboat traffic increased on the rivers. A French entrepreneur, Colonel Frederick Notrebe, came to dominate commercial life at the post. His establishment consisted of a house, a store, a brick store, a warehouse, a cotton gin, and a press. In the 1840s, the post was expanded with several new buildings, including one to serve as the Arkansas Post Branch of the State Bank of Arkansas. By the 1850s, the post was in a period of decline, and the population shrank significantly.
A well and cistern were built at the post in the early 1800s and remain intact at the memorial site to this day.
The Union victory relieved much of the harassment by Confederate forces on the Mississippi and contributed to the eventual victory at Vicksburg, Mississippi.
During the period of Confederate control, the state bank building was used as a hospital. Parts of the Confederate road, trenches, and artillery positions built at the post during this era are still visible at the memorial site.
The Memorial commemorates the complex history of several cultures and time periods: the Quapaw, French settlers who were the first colonists to inhabit the small entrepôt, the short period of Spanish rule, an Colbert raid in 1783, the settlement's role as the first territorial capital of Arkansas, and as the site of an American Civil War battle in 1863.
The former site of Arkansas Post was made into a state park in 1929. The park began with 20 acres donated by Fred Quandt, a descendant of German immigrants whose family still lives in Arkansas. In the following years, additional acreage was acquired and numerous improvements made with the support of Works Progress Administration labor.
On July 6, 1960, the site was designated a National Memorial, and a National Historic Landmark on October 9, 1960. As with all National Historic Landmarks, Arkansas Post was administratively listed on the National Register of Historic Places on October 15, 1966.
In 1964 the National Park Service undertook some partial reconstruction of colonial remains at the site, including Fort Carlos III built by the Spanish. Additional archeological excavations of the colonial settlement were done for the National Park Service in 1966 and 1970–1971. Nineteenth-century buildings identified include the state bank and residences. Most of the residences were built in a French or Spanish colonial style, although a house's architecture varied based on the resident's culture. Also discovered in various excavations were thousands of ceramic shards. John Walthall, the state archeologist for Arkansas, said in the 1990s that the archeological resources constitute the most valuable cultural resources within the area of the memorial, including nearly unexplored Quapaw settlements, as well as the 18th- and 19th-century European and American settlements. Archeological ventures have generally been more successful in the more northerly portion of the historic site because it was less prone to erosion and flooding. No physical traces remain of the post's historical waterfront because of such erosion.
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