ARKANSAS HISTORICAL QUARTERLY, Volume 51 (Spring 1992), p. 69
The Significance of the Arkansas
Colonial Experience
BY MORRIS S. ARNOLD
TO SPEAK of the gentry of colonial Arkansas may seem to some to be doubly oxymoronic: First, because the phrase "colonial Arkansas" itself has an odd ring in the ears, summoning up pictures of sturdy hillfolk in tricornered hats; and, second, because we have all learned that eighteenth-century Arkansas Post gave shelter mainly to hunters and vagabonds of small means and less education. It is nevertheless the case that there were a number of persons of gentle birth who made their way to the Arkansas wilderness in colonial times to assume such positions of prominence as were available in the area at the time.
- Most of these people were attached to the military and most of them,
too, were the commandants of the Arkansas Post to whom was entrusted both
the civil and military government of the Arkansas River region. But there
is an aspect of their careers that needs to be emphasized so that they
may be appreciated as the men and women of parts that they truly were.
The French and Spanish colonial administrations attracted persons of their
quality to the forest posts of Louisiana by allowing them to engage in
business and trade. They were, in many respects, merchant-capitalists first
and military officers second. For instance, Pierre de Coulange, who reestablished
the Arkansas garrison in 1732, came upriver from New Orleans to be commandant
before he even had his ensign's commission from Louis XV (1).
- _____________________________
- Morris S. Arnold is United States District Judge, Western District of Arkansas. This article represents the
- substance of an address delivered at the fiftieth annual meeting of the Arkansas Historical Association in Little Rock on April 5, 1991.
- 1. Fontaine Martin, A History of the Bouligny Family and Allied
Families (New Orleans,
1990), 27. 
