Territorial Ambition

Download or read book Territorial Ambition written by S. Charles Bolton and published by University of Arkansas Press. This book was released on 2020-04-10 with total page 170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Both modern historians and early nineteenth-century observers have emphasized the wild and picturesque aspects of the Arkansas Territory, suggesting that the settlers here were more preoccupied with indolence or brawling than with economic progress. This study, first published in 1993, demonstrates that despite all its frontier roughness, Arkansas was characterized by a restless ambition that transformed the area from frontier and subsistence living to a highly productive agricultural society. This ambition – with its brutal Indian removal and expansion of slave labor – rendered Arkansas more similar to its southern neighbors than contemporary and modern portrayals would make it seem.