Arkansas and Kansas

Arkansas (AR-kən-saw) is a state located in the Southern region of the United States. It has a diverse geography which ranges from the mountainous regions of the Ozarks and the Ouachita Mountains, which make up the U.S. Interior Highlands, to the eastern lowlands along the Mississippi River and the Arkansas Delta.

Arkansas is the 29th most extensive and the 32nd most populous of the 50 United States. The capital and most populous city is Little Rock, located in the central portion of the state.

The Territory of Arkansas was admitted to the Union as the 25th state on June 15, 1836.

As you might guess, the name “Arkansas” derives from the same root as the name for the state of Kansas.

The Kansa tribe of Native Americans are closely associated with the Sioux tribes of the Great Plains. The word “Arkansas” itself is a French pronunciation (“Arcansas”) of a Quapaw (a related “Kaw” tribe) word, akakaze, meaning “land of downriver people” or the Sioux word akakaze meaning “people of the south wind”. The "s" was added by the French to make a plural.

The pronunciation of Arkansas was made official by an act of the state legislature in 1881, after a dispute between two U.S. Senators from Arkansas. One wanted to pronounce the name ar-KAN-zəs (r -kansas) and the other wanted AR-kən-saw.

In 2007, the state legislature passed a non-binding resolution declaring the possessive form of the state's name to be Arkansas's, which has been followed increasingly by the state government.

Kansas is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States and is named after the Kansas River which flows through it, which in turn was named after the Kansa Native American tribe, which inhabited the area.

The tribe's name (natively kką:ze) is often said to mean "people of the wind" or "people of the south wind," although this was probably not the term's original meaning.

For thousands of years what is now Kansas was home to numerous and diverse Native American tribes. Kansas was first settled by European Americans in the 1830s.

Missouri and Arkansas sent settlers into Kansas all along its eastern border. These settlers attempted to sway votes in favor of slavery, but a secondary settlement were abolitionists from Massachusetts and other Free-Staters, who attempted to stop the spread of slavery from neighboring Missouri.

Kansas was admitted to the United States as a slave-free state on January 29, 1861, making it the 34th state to enter the Union.

Today, Kansas is one of the most productive agricultural states, producing high yields of wheat, sorghum and sunflowers. Kansas is the 15th most extensive and the 33rd most populous of the 50 United States.

Residents of Kansas are called "Kansans."

New Jersey

New Jersey was first claimed by the Dutch. The Dutch colony of New Netherland consisted of parts of several modern Middle Atlantic states.

Although the idea of land ownership was not recognized by the Native Americans who already occupied the area (see below), the Dutch West India Company policy required their colonists to "purchase" land from the natives.

Micheal Pauw established a patroonship named Pavonia along the North River which eventually became the Bergen. Peter Minuit's purchased lands along the Delaware River to establish the colony of New Sweden.

The entire region became a territory of England in 1664, when an English fleet took control of Fort Amsterdam and annexed the entire province.


During the English Civil War the Channel Island of Jersey remained loyal to the Crown and gave sanctuary to the King.

King James II granted the land between the Hudson River and the Delaware River (the land that would become New Jersey) to two friends who had remained loyal through the English Civil War: Sir George Carteret and Lord Berkeley of Stratton. The area was named the Province of New Jersey.

If you really want to go back in time, around 180 million years ago, during the Jurassic Period when the continents had not shifted, New Jersey bordered North Africa. (see Pangaea).

The pressure of the collision between North America and Africa gave rise to the Appalachian Mountains.

Then, about 18,000 years ago, the Ice Age resulted in glaciers that reached New Jersey. As the glaciers retreated, they left behind Lake Passaic, as well as many rivers, swamps, and gorges.

New Jersey was originally settled by Native Americans, with the Lenni-Lenape being dominant at the time Europeans arrived.

The Lenape were loosely organized groups that practiced small-scale agriculture (mainly based on corn) in order to increase their largely mobile hunter-gatherer society in the region surrounding the Delaware River, the lower Hudson River, and western Long Island Sound.

The Lenape society was divided into matrilinear clans (based upon common female ancestors) and these clans were organized into three distinct groups identified by their animal sign: Turtle, Turkey, and Wolf. They first encountered the Dutch in the early 1600s, and their primary relationship with the Europeans was through fur trade.

"Treaty of Penn with Indians" by Benjamin West

• New Jersey: A History
• Historic Print (L): A view of the falls on the Passaick, or second river, in the province of New Jersey
• The Province of New Jersey, 1664-1738 
• The Papers of Lewis Morris, Governor of the Province of New Jersey 
• Zion on the Hudson: Dutch New York and New Jersey in the Age of Revivals
• William Penn's Own Account of the Lenni Lenape or Delaware Indians
• The Indians of New Jersey: Dickon Among the Lenapes
• The Grandfathers Speak: Native American Folk Tales of the Lenape People
• Lake Passaic - An Extinct Glacial Lake

 

Arizona

    

Arizona is a state of the United States of America located in the southwestern region of the United States. The capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona is the 48th state and last of the contiguous states admitted to the Union, achieving statehood on February 14, 1912.

Arizona is one of the Four Corners states. It borders New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, California, touches Colorado, and has a 389-mile (626 km) international border with the states of Sonora and Baja California in Mexico. It is the largest landlocked U.S. state by population. In addition to the Grand Canyon, many other national forests, parks, monuments, and Indian reservations are located in the state.

The etymology of the name "Arizona" is not clearly fixed on one explanation. Historians note the Basque phrase aritz ona, "good oak, although the O'odham phrase alĭ ṣonak, "small spring" is also considered a possibility.

The name "Arizonac" was initially applied to the area near the silver mining camp of Planchas de Plata, Sonora, and later, in its shortened form of Arizona, it was applied to the entire territory.

Marcos de Niza, a Spanish Franciscan, explored the area in 1539 and met its original native inhabitants, probably the Sobaipuri. The expedition of Spanish explorer Coronado entered the area in 1540–42 during its search for Cíbola.

When Mexico achieved its independence from Spain in 1821, what is now Arizona became part of the Mexican Territory Nueva California, also known as Alta California.

In the Mexican–American War (1847), the U.S. occupied Mexico City and forced the newly founded Mexican Republic to give up its northern territories, including what later became Arizona. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848) specified that the sum of $15 million US dollars in compensation be paid to the newly formed Republic of Mexico.

Arizona was administered as part of the Territory of New Mexico until southern New Mexico seceded from the Union as the Confederate Territory of Arizona on March 16, 1861. Arizona was recognized as a Confederate Territory by presidential proclamation of Jefferson Davis on February 12, 1862 and this is the first official use of the name.

A new Arizona Territory, consisting of the western half of New Mexico Territory was declared in Washington, D.C., on February 24, 1863.

Other names including "Gadsonia", "Pimeria", "Montezuma", "Arizuma", and "Arizonia" had been considered for the territory. However, when President Lincoln signed the final bill, it read "Arizona", and the name became permanent.

Arizona: A History
Frommer's Arizona 2010
Backroads of Arizona Guide to Arizona's Most Scenic Backroad Adventures
Arizona Highways Photography Guide