The Edge of the World: Settlement, Production, and Trade in Early American Southwest Arkansas

Summary

The Atlantic World is usually used to focus on sites in the Chesapeake or other Eastern Seaboard loci of early settlement. By many reckonings, however, the Atlantic World endured well into the 19th century, and, if we take as a definition of the Atlantic World a focus on marine trade between the colonies and colonizers, then we must cast a much wider net. The earliest stages of settlement in the Trans-Mississippi South would certainly be included here. This paper explores the settlement of southwest Arkansas, an area founded on cotton production for export to industries in the northeastern United States and Europe. Drawing together market towns, farms, plantations, and ferries, the extension of the economic networks of the Atlantic World provided the basis for the early settlement of southern Arkansas.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Across the Pond: New Ventures in a New World   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2013

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Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 431