Jon David Cash has produced an engaging and highly readable account of Arkansas’s early history, deftly moving from the Quapaws’ interactions with European colonial powers to important nineteenth-century political events and some leading personalities who participated in them. The reader will encounter vivid descriptions of frontier dueling, bear hunting, the state’s participation in the Mexican-American War, and the town of Napoleon’s disappearance into the Mississippi River. Along the way, documentary interludes illuminate the text: excerpts from the writings of G. W. Featherstonhaugh, Frederich Gerstaecker, Charles Fenton Mercer Noland, Thomas Bangs Thorpe, William Minor Quesenbury, and even Mark Twain contribute context and texture to the story. Arkansas’s historiography is richer for Cash’s work.

"Start with some stabbings, bear hunts and duels and you’ll get the kind of history that ought to regale any reader. Seriously folks, you couldn’t make this stuff up about life on the American frontier and you sure won’t find a better storyteller than Jon Cash.
          
Cash renders an excellent account of how one state and its cast of characters – some fascinating and some downright mean – helped shape the early United States. He is a gifted historian and a delightful storyteller as well."

"Tales of the Arkansas Frontier by Jon David Cash is for both students of history and those who are simply curious about the past. Cash’s accessible style of writing and storytelling introduces the reader to the names behind well-known cities and counties in Arkansas, such as Conway, Crittenden, and Yell, and even includes tales of bear hunting and Mark Twain’s time on the Mississippi River."

"Tales of the Arkansas Frontier: Territorial and Early Statehood Eras is a book that will appeal to professional historians, general readers, and students of U.S. and Arkansas history. The documents in this collection exemplify important national themes from the antebellum period. Cash presents a “vibrant living enigma of colorful characters” that never fails to illuminate and entertain. A well-written introductory essay chronicles Arkansas history from the seventeenth century to the late nineteenth century, examines major themes of the period, and sets the stage for the documents that follow. A series of fatal frontier duels in the 1820s, a gripping knife-fight on the floor of the Arkansas House of Representatives in 1837 that left one of the participants mortally wounded, bear-hunting on the Little Red River, and steamboats bustling along the mighty Mississippi – famously described by Mark Twain – provide some of the scenes that greet the reader on these pages. The fascinating stories of Archibald Yell and “Cush” Quesenbury chronicle the expansion of the southern frontier as the country grew from coast to coast in the 1840s and add accounts of their military exploits to an already lively collection. Importantly, Cash provides thorough scholarly annotation with more than 150 references that cite nearly 200 published works and document collections. Combining entertaining and elucidating tales with careful scholarship, this book will no doubt find its way into history classrooms on university campuses and enjoy a wide general readership outside academia."

"It is wonderful to have this important collection of early Arkansas historical sources available in one volume. No other aspect of Arkansas history is more important than our territorial and early statehood days. The strength of the late Dr. Cash’s book is its variety of contributors and its focus on what caused Arkansas’ early image as a violent and backward frontier."