Fort Smith
Fort Smith span the years 1817-1896. Soldiers, laundresses, Native Americans, civilians, federal judges and marshals, deputy marshals, jail guards, lawyers, and outlaws all played a role in the history that unfolded here.
Fort Smith span the years 1817-1896. Soldiers, laundresses, Native Americans, civilians, federal judges and marshals, deputy marshals, jail guards, lawyers, and outlaws all played a role in the history that unfolded here.
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The groundwork for Fort Smith's role in U.S. and Arkansas history was laid early and deep, as the native tribes that originally peopled the area during the Stone Age established communities in what later became valued and contested lands.
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Early inhabitants of western Arkansas have been characterized as "bluff dwellers" whose civilization dates back to 10,000 BC. The bluff dweller culture was absorbed into that of invading tribes, and by the time that Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto ventured into Arkansas in 1541, the most numerous Arkansas residents were of the Quapaw tribe.
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In 1682, French explorer Robert cavelier de La Salle claimed the area for France as part of the Louisiana Territory. In Arkansas and back east, relocation of native peoples soon began as early European settlers required more land on which to live, hunt, and farm.
The later 1700s saw an increasing mix of native tribes west of the Mississippi, not all of who were on friendly terms. Closer proximity naturally resulted in heightened tensions and conflicts, endangering not just the tribe members themselves but also the increasing population of fur traders and pioneers who were employing the Arkansas River Valley as a funnel into the southwest.
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After Arkansas became an official part of the United States as the District of Arkansas in 1803, the federal government perceived a need to intervene in intertribal hostilities on the western edge of the burgeoning country.
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A new fort was established in 1817 on the banks of the Arkansas River where it meets the Poteau River, on a promontory of bluffs called Belle Point; the fort was named for General Thomas Smith of the federal garrison in St. Louis. For the next seven years, Fort Smith military personnel arbitrated clashes between the Osage and Cherokee tribes, negotiated treaties, and also patrolled the borders of the United States that were contested by Spain.
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For twenty-one years, Judge Isaac C. Parker held the bench of the U.S. Court for the Western District of Arkansas. His tenure was unique in the history of the federal judiciary; while most U.S. district judges toiled away on civil cases, Parker heard thousands of criminal complaints involving disputes and violence between Indians and non-Indians. He sentenced 160 people to death, and for fourteen years he did so while the condemned had no right of appeal.
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(The Gallows at Fort Smith)
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Remembered in Western novels and films as a "Hanging Judge," Isaac Parker's real career and accomplishments in Fort Smith are far more fascinating and complicated.
