History of Arkansas  The history of Arkansas began millennia ago when humans first crossed into North America. Many tribes used Arkansas as their hunting lands but the main tribe was the Quapaw, who settled in the Arkansas delta upon moving south from Illinois. Early French explorers gave the territory its name, a corruption of Akansea, which is a phonetic spelling of the Illinois word for the Quapaw. This phonetic heritage explains why "Arkansas" is pronounced so differently than "Kansas" even though they share the same spelling. What began as a rough wilderness inhabited by trappers and hunters became incorporated into the United States as part of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 and became the Territory of Arkansaw in 1819. Upon gaining statehood in 1836, Arkansas had begun to prosper under a plantation economy that was heavily reliant on slave labor. After the American Civil War, Arkansas was a poor rural state based on cotton. Prosperity returned in the 1940s and it became famous for its political leadership, including President Bill Clinton (Governor, 1979–81 and 1983–92), and as the base for the Walmart Corporation. Beginning around 11,700 B.C.E., the first indigenous people inhabited the area now known as Arkansas after crossing today's Bering Strait, formerly Beringia. The first people in modern-day Arkansas likely hunted woolly mammoths by running them off cliffs or using Clovis points, and began to fish as major rivers began to thaw towards the end of the last great ice age. Forests also began to grow around 9500 BCE, allowing for more gathering by native peoples. Crude containers became a necessity for storing gathered items. Since mammoths had become extinct, hunting bison and deer became more common. These early peoples of Arkansas likely lived in base camps and departed on hunting trips for months at a time. Further warming led to the beginnings of agriculture in Arkansas around 650 BCE. Fields consisted of clearings, and Native Americans would begin to form villages around the plot of trees they had cleared. Shelters became more permanent and pottery became more complex. Burial mounds, surviving today in places such as Parkin Archeological State Park and Toltec Mounds Archaeological State Park, became common in northeast Arkansas. This reliance on agriculture marks an entrance into Mississippian culture around 950 CE. Wars began occurring between chieftains over land disputes. Platform mounds gain popularity in some cultures. The Native American nations that lived in Arkansas prior to the westward movement of peoples from the East were the Quapaw, Caddo, and Osage Nations.