Cotton became a staple in the Delta soon after the Louisiana Purchase in 1803.

By the time Arkansas achieved statehood in 1836, Delta planters had established a cotton kingdom borne on the backs of enslaved laborers.  

After the Civil War, southern planters faced the prospect of regaining control of lost land and labor to farm it. Day laborers and tenant farmers replaced slaves as the source of agricultural labor.

Both black and white farm workers under this new system often found themselves in situations that weren’t much better than slavery.