Conference To Feature The Greatest Land Deal In American History, The Louisiana Purchase

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - The most significant real estate deal in U.S. history took place in 1803, when Thomas Jefferson signed an agreement buying over 800,000 square miles of land from France for a mere four cents an acre. The new territory eventually became Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, North Dakota, Texas, South Dakota, New Mexico, Nebraska, Kansas, Wyoming, Oklahoma, Minnesota, Montana, and Colorado.

In 2003, as the nation celebrates the bicentennial of the Louisiana Purchase, the University of Arkansas will host a conference exploring its impact, "The Louisiana Purchase and the Transformation of Arkansas and the Southwest" on November 19 - 20 in Giffels Auditorium, Old Main. The public is invited.

"The Louisiana Purchase not only transformed American politics and society, but also accelerated the growth of the newly acquired region and had a profound, but largely negative, impact on the Native American Indian population," said Jeannie Whayne, chair of the history department and organizer of the conference. "We’re calling upon several of our top scholars at the U of A as well as bringing in a group of distinguished professionals to present lectures on various aspects of the Purchase."

The conference has been made possible through the cooperation of the University of Arkansas and the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies at the Central Arkansas Library, as well as the generosity of several sponsors, including the Hartman Hotz Lecture Series in Law and Liberal Arts, established by Dr. and Mrs. Palmer Hotz to honor the memory of Hartman Hotz; the Blair Center of Southern Politics and Society, dedicated to fostering political scholarship, public service, and the study of Southern politics, history, and culture; the Department of History’s Timothy P. Donovan Lecture, established to honor the memory of Professor Donovan; the Department of Anthropology’s Stigler Lecture Series, funded through the generosity of the Stigler Memorial Anthropology Lecture Fund; and the Arkansas Center for Oral and Visual History, all at the University of Arkansas; as well as the Arkansas Secretary of State’s Office and the Louisiana Purchase Bicentennial Committee.

Following is a complete listing of events.

7 p.m.: "Music of the American Frontier," a concert of music from the early 19th century by Clarke Buehling.

8 - 9 p.m.: "The Grand Expedition: Jefferson and the Mystery of the Red River" by Dan Flores, Hammond Professor of History, University of Montana, and author of Southern Counterpart to Lewis & Clark: The Freeman & Custis Expedition of 1806. Hartman Hotz Lecture. Reception afterward.

8 - 9 a.m.: "Early Experiences and Extended Difficulties: Native Americans Before and After the Purchase" by George Sabo III, UA Professor of Anthropology.

9:15 - 10:15 a.m.: "Choosing Enemies: Residents of the Louisiana Purchase Face Osage and American Expansionism" by Kathleen DuVal, recipient of an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship. Timothy B. Donovan Lecture.

10:30 - 11:30 a.m.: "The Forgotten Expedition: The Journey of Dunbar Hunter Along the Ouachita River in Arkansas and Louisiana, 1804-1805" by Trey Berry, Professor of History and Director of the Pete Parks Center for Regional Studies at Ouachita Baptist University, and Tim Knight, the J.D. Patterson Endowed Chair of Biology and Chair of the Biological Sciences Department at Ouachita Baptist University.

11:30 - 1 p.m.: Brown bag lunch and showing of the documentary "Forgotten Expedition"

1 - 2 p.m.: "The Louisiana Purchase and Arkansas in America’s Age of Expansion: A Study in State and National Development" by C. Fred Williams, Professor of History at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and editor of A Documentary History of Arkansas.

2:15 - 3:30 p.m.: "Briers and swamps and briers aplenty: The Robbins-Brown Survey Expedition and the Trials of Surveying the American Wilderness" by John P. Gill, principal of the Gill Elrod Ragon Owen & Sherman law firm in Little Rock, and William E. Ruck, an engineer with Garver Engineers of Little Rock and a member of the Louisiana Purchase Bicentennial Commemoration Advisory Team.

3:45 - 4:45 p.m.: "Lewis and Clark, Kidnappers: The Louisiana Purchase and American Expansion" by Elliott West, Alumni Distinguished Professor of History at the U of A and one of today’s premier scholars of Western history. Diane D. Blair Lecture.

5 - 6 p.m.: "Racially Revolting: The Black Experience and the Louisiana Purchase" by Charles Robinson, assistant professor in the Department of History at the U of A and author of Dangerous Liaisons: Sex and Love in the Segregated South.

6:15 - 7:15 p.m.: "Lewis and Clark and their Neighbors at Fort Mandan" by W. Raymond Wood., Professor Emeritus, Department of Anthropology, University of Missouri, Columbia. Stigler Lecture. Reception afterward.