Editing Arkansas (section)

===Purchase and statehood===
{{Main|Louisiana Purchase|District of Louisiana|Louisiana Territory|Missouri Territory|Organic act#List of organic acts|Arkansas Territory}}
[[File:Arkansasterritory.PNG|thumb|Map of the [[Arkansas Territory]]]]
[[Napoleon Bonaparte]] sold [[Louisiana (New France)|French Louisiana]] to the United States in 1803, including all of Arkansas, in a transaction known today as the [[Louisiana Purchase]]. French soldiers remained as a garrison at [[Arkansas Post]]. Following the purchase, the balanced give-and-take relationship between settlers and Native Americans began to change all along the frontier, including in Arkansas.<ref>Arnold et al. 2002, p. 79.</ref> Following [[Missouri compromise|a controversy over allowing slavery in the territory]], the [[Territory of Arkansas]] was organized on July 4, 1819.<ref name="Arkansas" group="lower-alpha" /> Gradual emancipation in Arkansas was struck down by one vote, the [[Speaker of the United States House of Representatives|Speaker of the House]] [[Henry Clay]], allowing Arkansas to organize as a slave territory.<ref>Johnson 1965, p. 58.</ref>

[[Slavery in the United States|Slavery]] became a wedge issue in Arkansas, forming a geographic divide that remained for decades. Owners and operators of the cotton [[plantation economy]] in southeast Arkansas firmly supported slavery, as they perceived [[Slavery|slave labor]] as the best or "only" economically viable method of harvesting their commodity crops.<ref>{{cite journal |last= Bolton |first= S. Charles |title= Slavery and the Defining of Arkansas |journal= The Arkansas Historical Quarterly |date= Spring 1999 |volume= 58 |issue= 1 |page= 9 |doi= 10.2307/40026271 |jstor= 40026271 }}</ref> The "hill country" of northwest Arkansas was unable to grow cotton and relied on a cash-scarce, [[subsistence farming]] economy.<ref>Scroggs 1961, pp. 231–232.</ref>

[[File:Arkansas Centennial state houses single, 3c, 1936 issue.jpg|thumb|upright=1.4|Arkansas statehood, 100th anniversary issue; released on June 15, 1936, on the 100th anniversary of Arkansas statehood. The old state house is depicted at center, the fort surrounding the [[Arkansas Post]] at left with the present day state capitol building at right.<ref>{{cite web |first= |last= |title=3c Arkansas Centennial state houses single |publisher=[[w:Smithsonian National Postal Museum|' Smithsonian National Postal Museum]] |year=1936 |accessdate=January 10, 2024 |url=https://postalmuseum.si.edu/object/npm_1980.2493.2674 |ref=smithsonian}}</ref>]]
As European Americans settled throughout the East Coast and into the Midwest, in the 1830s the United States government forced the [[Indian Removal|removal]] of many [[Native Americans in the United States|Native American]] tribes to Arkansas and [[Indian Territory]] west of the [[Mississippi River]].

Additional Native American removals began in earnest during the territorial period, with final Quapaw removal complete by 1833 as they were pushed into Indian Territory.<ref>White 1962, p. 197.</ref> The capital was relocated from Arkansas Post to [[Little Rock, Arkansas|Little Rock]] in 1821, during the territorial period.<ref>{{cite journal |title= Territorial Governors of Arkansas |last= Eno |first= Clara B. |journal= Arkansas Historical Quarterly |date= Winter 1945 |volume= 4 |issue= 4 |page= 278 |doi= 10.2307/40018362 |jstor= 40018362 }}</ref>

{{See also|Admission to the Union|List of U.S. states by date of admission to the Union}}

When Arkansas applied for statehood, the slavery issue was again raised in [[Washington, D.C.]] Congress eventually approved the [[Arkansas Constitution]] after a 25-hour session, admitting Arkansas on June 15, 1836, as the 25th state and the 13th [[slave state]], having a population of about 60,000.<ref>Scroggs 1961, p. 243.</ref> Arkansas struggled with taxation to support its new state government, a problem made worse by [[Holford Bonds|a state banking scandal]] and worse yet by the [[Panic of 1837]].