A couple of items about Arkansas I want to share with you – number one is the western boundary. Arkansas is the smallest of all the states west of the Mississippi, it would have been larger if the United States government had not lied to the original territory founders. It probably all goes back to Desoto’s trip here through the sixteen hundreds or earlier. This Spainard discoverer, who may have been as far north as Eureka Springs, Ark., brought the kiss of death to the state’s Indian population. He brought with him the germs of the disease Small Pox.
Even after people died, the living ones took their clothing and the disease continued to rage. Indians who found dead white men – were soon the victim of the same scourge when they fit themselves in the deceased people’s clothing.
When Lewis and Clark explored Thomas Jefferson’s new lands from the Louisiana Purchase, the only tribe they fought with were the Black Feet. They were fierce fighters and kept the Sioux up in the northland woods and off the Plains. But the reason you hear so little about them in later history is Small Pox nearly exterminated them completely.
Very early in the history of the United States, a vaccine with cow pox, a milder version, provided immunities for a person. They gave the vaccine by scratching you and your parents probably have the scars on their upper arm from the vaccine. But the disease still killed lots of folks, and many people who survived had horrible scarring from the bug.
Since the Indians living in Arkansas were so few, they moved the civilized tribes here to get them out of the other southern states. Cherokees originally were given all the land west of the White River.
The territory founders were promised 50 miles of land west of the Kansas-Missouri line as the western boundary. This was to be the western line going north and south of the territory. But when the government had to move the Cherokees again, they split that division and instead ran the line from the Missouri-Kansas line southward.
Fort Smith, Ark., was the original fort to stop the Osage and newly arriving Cherokees from fighting. The soldiers assigned had to cut their own fire wood and raise their own crops, as well as build the fort. How much soldiering could they do and be self sustaining?
Number two they also were to remove all white settlers in the land east of the White River. They did burn out some settlers and their crops for trespassing, but soon that was not a good political move as lots of folks had flocked to the new land from Tennessee where they like Daniel Boone, were swindled out of their land.
The army moved west from Fort Smith because they expected the far west boundary to be at Fort Gibson.
So all you folks in eastern Oklahoma can breathe a sigh of relief. If Arkansas had it’s way, you’d be Arkies. God bless you and try to stay dry.
Western novelist Dusty Richards and his wife Pat live on Beaver Lake in northwest Arkansas. For more information about his books you can email Dusty by visiting ozarksfn.com and clicking on ‘Contact Us’ or call 1-866-532-1960.

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