Chicot County, Arkansas: History
Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto came to this area with his expedition in 1542, settling for a time in the village or territory known as Guachoya. The European-American town of Lake Village later developed in the 19th century at Lake Chicot, formed by an oxbow of the Mississippi River. Eighteenth-century French colonists named it Chicot because of the many cypress trees in the waterways. The word is translated to "stumpy, or knobby".
The area along the Mississippi River and major tributaries was developed as cotton plantations, the major commodity crop before and after the American Civil War of 1861–1865. Enslaved African Americans formed the labor force, comprising a majority of the population in the antebellum years. Major large cotton plantations included Sunnyside (owned in the 20th century by LeRoy Percy, planter and US Senator from Greenville, Mississippi); Florence, Patria, Pastoria, Luna, and Lakeport.
On February 14, 1864, 13 Black Union soldiers of the 1st Mississippi Volunteer Infantry (African Descent) were ambushed and killed at the Tecumseh plantation near Ross's Landing by Confederate guerillas of the 9th Missouri Cavalry. Union and Confederate forces fought at the Battle of Old River Lake from June 5 to 6, 1864.
The population of the rural county has declined since its peak in 1940. Earlier in the century, boll weevils threatened the cotton crop, and many African Americans left in the Great Migration for opportunity in northern and midwestern industrial cities. In addition, mechanization of agriculture and consolidation into industrial-style farms has reduced the need for farm labor.