Arkansas

A state split between delta plantations and Ozark hill farms, and the site of the first federal test of school desegregation. Arkansas came in with the Louisiana Purchase and was admitted in 1836, paired with Michigan to keep the Senate balanced. Its eastern delta grew cotton on the same alluvial soil as Mississippi with the same labour system, while the Ozark and Ouachita highlands to the northwest held small subsistence farms with almost no enslaved people - a division that made secession genuinely contested and produced substantial Unionist enlistment. The Elaine massacre of 1919, in which white mobs and troops killed an uncertain but large number of Black sharecroppers organising a union, is among the worst episodes of racial violence in American history. In September 1957 Governor Faubus used the National Guard to block nine Black students from Little Rock Central High School, and Eisenhower sent the 101st Airborne to escort them - the first time federal troops enforced desegregation. Walmart was founded at Rogers in 1962 and is now the largest company in the world by revenue. Tyson and JB Hunt are also headquartered in the northwest. Little Rock is the capital. It is the only state that produces diamonds. The state's name comes through French from a Siouan people, and its pronunciation is fixed by statute. Hot Springs was the first federal reservation set aside for preservation, in 1832, predating Yellowstone. The Ozarks cover the northwest. Bill Clinton was governor before the presidency. Rice is the state's largest crop.

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