Lesson Five: Stability and Change in Early Colonization

When we think about early European exploration of North America, the year 1492 usually comes to mind. Columbus was on a quest for gold and spices. Like other informed people of his time, he knew the world was round and he anticipated sailing west to reach Asia. Since Marco Polo and others had brought back marvelous things from their overland expeditions centuries before, and Portuguese sailors were seeking a route around the southern tip of Africa, the Spanish attempted to sail across the Atlantic Ocean. On this voyage, Columbus came upon the Americas—a continent between Europe and Asia that Native Americans had inhabited for thousands of years, building civilizations in many regions that astounded early European explorers with their size, sophistication, and grandeur.

In the early 16th century, Italian, English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese sailors charted the eastern coast of the continent, setting up missions and colonies such as the Spanish settlement of St. Augustine in 1565 (in modern Florida), the French settlement Charlesfort (in present day South Carolina) in 1562, or the English settlement in Jamestown (in Virginia) in 1607. Within several decades, European adventurers headed into the interior. The explorers faced intense cold and exhausting heat, vast plains and unfordable rivers, antagonized Indians and cunning guides, hunger and thirst, and disease and death. Yet they learned about the peoples and landscapes of this New World.

The region that became Arkansas was unknown to Europeans until the 1540s. On June 18, 1541, Hernando de Soto’s Spanish expedition, which began on the gulf coast of Florida, crossed the Mississippi River and they became the first Europeans to enter Arkansas. For the next two years, the Spaniards explored Arkansas in the hope of finding the kinds of riches—especially ornaments crafted of gold—that they had seized from indigenous populations in Mexico and Peru. Many southeastern Indian communities did, indeed, produce exquisite artworks, but these were crafted from other materials, including copper, marine shell, colorful stone, fired clay ceramics, or woven fabric. Though de Soto’s chroniclers described Indian settlements in Arkansas as “the best towns [in all of La Florida] they had seen up to then, and better palisaded and fortified, and the people of more beauty,” they eventually departed when it became clear that these people valued a different form of wealth than that after which the Spaniards sought.

When the de Soto expedition ended in 1543, the explorers were the last Europeans to see Arkansas for 130 years. In 1673, Father Jacques Marquette, a Jesuit missionary, and Louis Joliet, a coureur de bois (a trader who lived in Indian country), led a French expedition to explore the Mississippi River Valley and find the mouth of the river. They hoped the river flowed west and might be a route to the Pacific. It was the first step to extend French influence into the middle of the continent in order to convert the native peoples and set up a French-Indian trade network. Near the mouth of the Arkansas River, the Frenchmen encountered the Quapaw, whom they called the Arkansas, and named the river and the region after the tribe. At this time, Arkansas was sparsely populated with isolated villages and tribes but with an abundance of wild game and other resources.

Marquette’s expedition was followed by René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle’s 1682 expedition. In return for serving in LaSalle’s 1682 expedition, Henri de Tonti, a French officer born of Italian parents, received land and a trading concession at the juncture of the Arkansas and Mississippi rivers. In the summer of 1686, he arranged with the local Quapaw to establish a trading post, where they would exchange French goods for beaver and deer furs. They founded Arkansas Post near the Quapaw town of Osotouy in present-day Arkansas County.

In Arkansas, the focus of the colonial era was not on the promotion of immigration but on the exploitation of wild game for trade. Vast settlement did not begin until the 1840s. But by the end of the colonial era, individuals and families of French, Spanish, German, Dutch, Anglo-American, and African descent joined the Indian peoples and a myriad of tribes from across the continent in Arkansas.

As students learned in Lesson Four, Native Americans did not produce written records (though artistic images, like rock art, can be examined). European explorers, who began to visit North America in the 16th century, produced written accounts of their own activities and their observations of and encounters with Native Americans. Europeans introduced new plants and animals, diseases, and customs. Their written accounts often include information on how Native Americans incorporated these new plants, animals, and customs into their daily lives and how disease and change affected them. Because these accounts are generally based on eye-witness testimony, historians regard them as primary sources.

Similar to artifacts, every piece of paper that people left behind is full of clues to learn about the past. Historians spend a lot of time in archives studying documentary evidence to learn about the circumstances of everyday life and about significant events. These first-hand, original accounts and records about a person, place, object, or an event are known as primary sources.

Oral histories, objects, photographs, and documents such as newspapers, ledgers, census records, diaries, journals, and inventories, are primary sources. Primary sources differ from secondary sources in that a secondary source is an account, record, or evidence derived from an original or primary source. A textbook is an example.

To be useful, documents must be studied carefully and critically. Who is the author? What was the author’s relationship or observational vantage point relative to the circumstances or event described? What was the author’s intention in putting his or her observations into writing? For example, a male missionary living among Indians in the 17th century might provide very useful information about the town in which he resided, but his characterization of native religious ceremonies might be influenced, or biased, by his own religious beliefs. In addition, he probably had little to no access to activities performed by women and the children in their care, so his descriptions of daily activities might overemphasize the male sphere of work.

Researchers, both students and professionals, must look beyond the intended meaning to consider hidden agendas, unintended meanings, and bias, or the point of view of the creator of the document. Other elements to analyze include tone, grammar, word choice, and style. For example, 17th century French and Spanish as spoken and written in Arkansas are both very different from modern usages. Document type and purpose are also significant considerations: population census records, trading post record books, maps, diaries, formal reports by government officials, and ship passenger logs all contain different kinds of information organized and presented in very different ways. Primary sources have strengths and limitations. The “Primary Sources Strengths and Limitations Table” includes a summary for discussion.

All primary sources should be evaluated in conjunction with other evidence to determine whether the
document presents information that is exceptional or conforming with previously established patterns

For each student: “Arkansas Indians, 1541 – Present: A Case Study”, the “Every Map Tells a Story”, “The Early Explorers, Plants, and Primary Sources”, and the “Indians of Arkansas Timeline” worksheets; and the “Hoe Cake Recipe.

For the teacher: The map of “New France” attributed to Louis Jolliet and “World Maps” to project; examples of primary and secondary documents, like photographs, census records, maps, and a text book.

Bias: Interpreting a situation according to standards of one’s culture or worldview.

Colonization: The phenomenon of one group or society taking control of a territory beyond its homeland, whether or not it was already inhabited by others.

Cross-cultural encounters: The contact and interactions of various types, whether peaceful or violent, between people from different backgrounds.

Exploration: The action of traveling in or through an unfamiliar area in order to learn about it.

Primary sources: Any document (written description, photo, map, etc.) produced at the same time and place as the events described; an eye-witness account.

Secondary sources: An account sometimes based on an original or primary source, but produced at another time and/or place