A Brief History
The most prolific researcher on French Arkansas History, Judge Morris S. Arnold, once wrote: “‘Colonial Arkansas’ is not a phrase one frequently hears: Indeed, I still recall the curious ring that it left in my ears when I first heard it.” Arnold was speaking from personal experience when first learning about French Colonial Arkansas history. In fact, Arkansas has a long trajectory of French exploration and immigration beginning in 1673 when Father Jacques Marquette and his colleague Louis Jolliet descended the Mississippi River and arrived among the Quapaws along the banks of the Arkansas River. Others soon followed such as Sieur de la Salle and Henri de Tonti, who established Arkansas Post in 1686. Ultimately, over the course of eight decades, most especially after 1721, French men, women, and children arrived along the banks of the Arkansas and Mississippi Rivers. As families increased or expanded, the French established simple homesteads along the banks of the Arkansas River. Commercial ventures and military obligations supported their efforts, as did transportation of goods and services up and down the Arkansas and Mississippi Rivers towards the Illinois country as well as New Orleans.
The French and the Quapaws were in constant contact with each other throughout the entire presence of the French within their region. This Native group lived along the Arkansas River, oftentimes within close proximity to Arkansas Post and the subsequent French hamlets built nearby. Their alliance was remarkably sound throughout their historic time together. To strengthen their relationship, the Quapaws often welcomed their French guests through the celebration of the calumet, a sacred ceremony that not only promoted alliances through reciprocity, but also developed kinship relationships by adopting the other into their culture. Because of their period of time together, the immigration of French into the region led to intermarriage with the Quapaws, either through the Catholic tradition or à la façon du pays [in the Quapaw manner], and provided new citizens of both cultures along the Arkansas River Valley.
Arkansas became a member of the United States in 1836. Unfortunately, as Americans moved in, the Quapaws and the French were both displaced physically, spiritually, and emotionally. Local and state officials ostracized the French, excluded them from juries and grand juries and ridiculed their religion, even the way they built their houses. To the newcomers, the French were amiable but indolent. As for the Quapaws, they were removed from Arkansas altogether and forced into northeast Oklahoma. And yet, French speaking individuals continued to move into the territory. As an example, in 1878 Dr. Isaie Michel Thyfault, a French-Canadian doctor, immigrated into the Mississippi Valley region and explored the Arkansas River so as to establish French settlements and churches along its banks, this supported by the Little Rock and Fort Smith Railroad as well as the Holy Ghosts Fathers. (This latter organization, founded by Father Joseph Strub, a German Catholic priest, had already established St. Joseph’s colony near Conway, Arkansas to support German immigrants to the state.) Though the Civil War had ended just ten years prior, Thyfault was humbled by the good treatment he experienced as a “Northerner” within the bounds of Arkansas. Ultimately, French Catholics moved into the state after Thyfault’s exploration of the Arkansas River Valley, thus marking a near 200 year expanse of time for French immigration within Arkansas’ boundaries. Today, some 300 years after French immigration began, the French/Quapaw connection remains. Through a strong alliance and intimate relationships, we see the lingering marks of these immigrants and their Native kin on the names of creeks, rivers, towns and historic sites such as Arkansas Post. Most importantly, the “curious ring” of French names remains ever present through the hundreds of direct descendants of these early inhabitants who continue to reside within Arkansas and within the Quapaw nation in Oklahoma.
Explore French Immigrants, Explorers, and Native Quapaws
Below, you can access a narrative of some of the immigrants buried at St. Peter’s Cemetery, New Gascony, Arkansas.