The GRE AT EXPEDITION Exploring the Louisiana Purchase and Its Impact on Arkansas Arts + Humanities Arkansas Sponsored by the Quapaw Tribe ABOUT FUSION: ARTS + HUMANITIES ARKANSAS Fusion: Arts + Humanities Arkansas is an educational program designed to enrich the teaching of our state’s heritage and culture and celebrate our human achievement through programs in history, literature, philosophy, civics, and other disciplines. To achieve these goals, the Clinton Presidential Center convenes cultural institutions, historians, and community organizations to plan and execute an annual Fusion program featuring a series of symposia and an exhibition highlighting one theme from Arkansas’s history and culture. The 2018 Fusion: Arts + Humanities Arkansas program is entitled Exploring the Louisiana Purchase and Its Impact on Arkansas. The Louisiana Purchase is the largest land acquisition in American history. It doubled the size of the United States and included all or part of 15 present-day U.S. states – including the entire state of Arkansas – and parts of two Canadian provinces. The 2018 Fusion program features conversations with historians and authors on the subject, an Acadian-Creole musical performance, and period-appropriate reenactors participating in-character. It is designed to bring a new perspective of the history of the Louisiana Purchase to the classroom. The Great Expedition: Exploring the Louisiana Purchase and Its Impact on Arkansas highlights the domestic and international importance of the Louisiana Purchase and also tells the story of what became known as The Great Expedition, led by William Dunbar and George Hunter through present-day northern Louisiana and southern Arkansas. The exhibit includes three original Louisiana Purchase Treaty documents from the National Archives and Records Administration. Additional objects include a journal and compass used by William Dunbar and George Hunter as well as a death mask and portrait of Napoleon Bonaparte. This resource guide is designed to provide an overview of the topics and historic milestones presented in the 2018 Fusion program and exhibition. THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE: The Louisiana Purchase has been called the greatest land acquisition in history. In 1803, U.S. President Thomas Jefferson signed the agreement to buy the vast territory of Louisiana from Napoleon Bonaparte, the French leader, thus doubling the size of the United States. The new territory included over 820,000 square miles of land west of the Mississippi River. Stretching from the Gulf of Mexico to the present day Canadian border, the Louisiana territory – named for French King Louis XIV – included all or part of 15 present-day U.S. states, including the entire state of Arkansas, and parts of two Canadian provinces. The United States purchased the entire Louisiana territory for $15 million, approximately 3 cents per acre. The Louisiana Purchase allowed the U.S. government to open new land in the west for settlement, secure its borders against foreign threat, and allow Americans to ship goods duty free at new port cities. In Arkansas, the Louisiana Purchase brought an end to French and Spanish dominance as Americans moved into the area. THE DUNBAR-HUNTER EXPEDITION: After the Louisiana Purchase Treaty was ratified, President Thomas Jefferson commissioned four expeditions into the Louisiana Purchase territory. Between 1804 and 1807, President Jefferson sent Meriwether Lewis and William Clark into the northern regions of the territory; Zebulon Pike into the Rocky Mountains, the Southwest, and two smaller forays; Thomas Freeman and Peter Custis along the Red River; and William Dunbar and Dr. George Hunter to explore the “Washita” River and “the hot springs” in what is now Arkansas and Louisiana. William Dunbar The exploration by Dunbar and Hunter remains significant today. It provided Americans with the first scientific study of the varied landscapes as well as the animal and plant life of early southern Arkansas and northern Louisiana. The expedition resulted in the time period’s most reliable map of the region. Because the Dunbar-Hunter expedition ended a year before Lewis and Clark’s, the journals of Dunbar and Hunter became the first reports to President Jefferson describing the landscapes and people within the new territory. TIMELINE OF THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE AND ITS IMPACT ON ARKANSAS April 30, 1803: The Louisiana Purchase Treaty is signed by French and American negotiators. Robert Livingston and James Monroe had been authorized by President Thomas Jefferson to pay $10 million for New Orleans and the surrounding area. When the French offered all of the Louisiana Territory for $15 million, they were certain the U.S. would agree and proceeded quickly to finalize the treaty. October 20, 1803: The United States Senate ratifies the Louisiana Purchase Treaty. The Senate ratified the Louisiana Purchase Treaty by a vote of twenty-four to seven. The agreement paved the way for westward expansion beyond the Mississippi. November 30, 1803: Louisiana is transferred from Spanish control to French Control. The Treaty of San Ildefonso returned Louisiana to French control from Spain in 1800. However, the treaty was kept secret, and Louisiana remained under Spanish control until a transfer of power to France. The transfer finally took place on November 30, 1803, just three weeks before the cession to the United States. December 20, 1803: France turns New Orleans over to the United States. France turned New Orleans over on December 20, 1803, at The Cabildo. On March 10, 1804, a formal ceremony was conducted in St. Louis to transfer ownership of the territory from France to the United States. Bonaparte faced a major setback and eventual defeat in the Haitian Revolution. Faced by imminent war against Britain and bankruptcy, he recognized French possessions on the mainland of North America would Lousiana Purchase Treaty Courtesy of the National Archives be indefensible and sold them to the United States—the Louisiana and Records Administration Purchase—for less than three cents per acre ($7.40 per km²). August 17, 1804: Dunbar requests permission to conduct exploration of Louisiana Purchase. Dunbar wrote to Jefferson asking for permission to attempt what he and Hunter initially considered a trial run up a tributary of the Red River, a smaller stream called the “Washita.” Dunbar said that there were many “curiosities” along the Ouachita River, and, in particular, he referred to a location he named “the boiling springs”—the present-day Hot Springs National Park. October 1, 1804: A formal ceremony transfers the Louisiana Territory from France to the United States. Effective on October 1, 1804, the purchased territory was organized into the Territory of Orleans (most of which became the state of Louisiana) and the District of Louisiana, including land north of the present- day border between Louisiana and Arkansas, which was temporarily under the control of the governor and judges of the Indiana Territory. October 16, 1804: Hunter-Dunbar Expedition departs. The team of 19 departed from St. Catherine’s Landing on the east bank of the Mississippi River. As Dunbar and Hunter ascended the Red, Black, and Ouachita rivers, the journals of both men became replete with descriptions of soil types, water levels, flora, fauna, and daily astronomical and thermometer readings. To construct the most accurate map possible, William Dunbar used a pocket chronometer and an instrument called a circle of reflection— an instrument usually set on a tripod used to calculate latitude using the horizon and a star or planet. January 27, 1805: Hunter-Dunbar Expedition ends. The expedition finally arrived in Natchez on January 27, and during the following weeks, Dunbar and Hunter settled their accounts and began to work on their reports to Jefferson. Dunbar’s journals arrived on the president’s desk more than a year before Lewis and Clark returned from their trip to the northwest. The Dunbar journals and, later, the Hunter journals provided Jefferson his first glimpse into the new territory from a commissioned exploration team. March 2, 1819: Arkansas becomes a territory. When Missouri applied for statehood, Arkansas’s northern border was established. The Arkansas Territory would stretch from the Flag raising in the Place d'Armes of Mississippi River and west to the Rocky Mountains. Arkansas New Orleans, marking the transfer of Post became the territorial capital until it was moved to Little Rock sovereignty over French Louisiana to the United States, December 20, 1803, as in 1821. Treaties with the Choctaw Indians in 1824 and Cherokee depicted by Thure de Thulstrup. Indians in 1828 established Arkansas’s present-day western border. NOTES June 15, 1836: Arkansas is the 25th state admitted to the Union. Arkansas’s population began to grow rapidly in the 1830s based on the potential for commercial agriculture and with improvements in transportation. In accordance with the Missouri Compromise, Arkansas rushed to join the Union at the same time as Michigan. Sources: Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture “Louisiana Purchase”; National Archives “Louisiana Purchase Treaty”; Kelby Ouchley “Dunbar-Hunter Expedition”; Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture “Hunter-Dunbar Expedition”; Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture “Louisiana Purchase through Early Statehood, 1803 through 1860” SELECTED OBJECT DESCRIPTIONS AND IMAGES THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE TREATY DOCUMENTS In this transaction with France, signed on April 30, 1803, the United States purchased 828,000 square miles of land west of the Mississippi River for $15 million. For roughly 3 cents an acre, the United States doubled its size, expanding the nation westward. Robert Livingston and James Monroe closed on the greatest real estate deal in history when they signed the Louisiana Purchase Treaty in Paris on April 30, 1803. They were originally authorized to pay France up to $10 million for the port of New Orleans and the Floridas. When offered the entire territory of Louisiana—an area larger than Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Portugal combined— the American negotiators swiftly agreed to a price of $15 million.