Historians from the southern US analyze broad political, economic, cultural, intellectual, and social themes as they have impacted the region since colonial times. They diverge from the recent emphasis on the perspective of the masses to declare that, for better or worse, there has always been an elite there that has altered the society everybody l

Viewed from the perspective of blacks and whites who benefited from the Arkansas Freedmen's Bureau, this history documents the struggle of freedpersons building homes, families, churches, and communities in Arkansas during Reconstruction.