Arkansas

THERE WERE A number of Native American tribes, such as the Quapaw, Caddo, and Osage, living in Arkansas before the Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto arrived in the area toward the end of the 16th century. It was a part of Spanish America and then became a portion of the Louisiana Purchase, acquired by the United States in 1803. Organized as a territory on July 4, 1819, Arkansas was granted statehood on June 15, 1836, as the 25th state of the Union, and the 13th slave state.

The first governor of Arkansas was James Sevier Conway, a Democrat, and with the exception of the period of Reconstruction, all the governors of Arkansas until 1967 were Republicans. From Tennessee, Conway was a surveyor who took over land at what became Little Rock, the state capital. During his term as governor, he established a federal arsenal at Little Rock, and spent the state money on schools, roads, and military patrols. His family were destined for prominence in the history of Arkansas, with a younger brother becoming governor, another brother, Henry Wharton Conway, becoming a member of the 18th, 19th and 20th Congresses, and a distant cousin, General James Lawson Kemper, becoming a Confederate General and Governor of Virginia. A first cousin, Henry Massey Rector, was also elected governor, with Rector's son, Colonel Elias W. Rector, twice running for the governorship of the state, and his grandson, James Rector, who was the first Arkansan to participate in the Olympic Games.

Leaving office in 1840, Conway returned to his plantation, and his successor was Archibald Yell. Although born in North Carolina, he had also grown up in Tennessee, [Page 45]and his election campaigns were always said to be lively with him taking part in a shooting match with would-be voters, and donating meat to the poor. In 1844, Yell resigned as governor in order to take up a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. This resignation resulted in Samuel Adams, president of the Arkansas senate, continuing as governor for the unexpired term. Adams was the only one of the first six governors who had not been born in, or grown up, in Tennessee.

The fourth governor, Thomas Stevenson Drew, had been a delegate to the Arkansas Constitutional Convention in 1836, and in 1844 was elected governor, and re-elected 4 years later. He resigned in 1849, protesting the low salary for the governor, and Richard C. Byrd, from the state senate, acted as governor. Roane, the next governor, fought in the Mexican-American War alongside former governor Archibald Yell, who was mortally wounded at the Battle of Buena Vista in February 1847.

The seventh governor, Elias Nelson Conway, brother of James Sevier Conway, the first governor, had been offered the nomination in 1844, but only finally accepted it in 1852. He rebuilt the state finances and was succeeded by his first cousin, Henry Massey Rector, a longtime Arkansas politician. In 1860, along with the election that saw Rector elected, Arkansas voted for John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky, leader of the southern Democrats in the U.S. presidential election.

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