Arkansas Family History Research From Ancestry.com Wiki This
entry was originally written by Wendy Bebout Elliott, Ph.D.,
FUGA for Red Book: American State, County, and Town Sources.
History of Arkansas Geographically located north of Louisiana
and flanked on the east by the Mississippi River’s west bank,
the development of the state of Arkansas spanned three
centuries. Long before frontiersmen from the newly formed United
States crossed the Blue Ridge Mountains and attempted settlement
along the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, Spanish and French
explorers came upon the native peoples living in what is now
Arkansas. In 1541 Hernando de Soto’s Spanish expedition crossed
the Mississippi River to Arkansas, spending several months in
the area. During the seventeenth century, French explorers made
their way through today’s Arkansas. A small French expedition of
two canoes from Canada voyaged down the Mississippi River to
Arkansas in 1673, led by Jacques Marquette, a Catholic priest,
and Louis Joliet, a fur trader. La