Arkansas Historical Law Guide

Contents

Legal Ages at a Glance

General Principles

An English common-law system

Arkansas law came from England. Before the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 the land was French and then Spanish, and the civil law — the system built on written codes descended from Roman law — governed there. The American territory and then the state took the English common law instead: judge-made law, handed down through court decisions rather than written by a legislature. The choice was made by statute. The common law of England, together with those acts of the British Parliament that helped it along and were passed before 1607, was the rule courts decided by in Arkansas unless the General Assembly changed it¹. Property between husband and wife followed the common law of coverture — the rule that a wife's legal identity merged into her husband's during the marriage.

One practical consequence is worth knowing at the outset. Arkansas handled probate — wills, estates, and guardianships — in the county courts, so those records sit with county government. The governmental timeline that frames every record runs: Louisiana Purchase (1803); Arkansas Territory organized (1819); statehood (June 15, 1836).

A common law rewritten by statute

The General Assembly replaced common-law rules with statutes over time, and a handful of dates anchor the changes a researcher will see in the records:

• 1838 — the Revised Statutes, the state's first general code, set the ages for marriage, wills, guardianship, and the poll tax that governed for the rest of the century.
• 1868 — the Reconstruction Constitution gave married women property of their own and made Black men competent as witnesses and eligible as jurors.
• 1873 — women reached full age at 18, and a married woman gained control of her own property.
• 1874 — the present Constitution confirmed the married woman's separate property.
• 1911 — the first juvenile court act moved children's cases out of the criminal courts.
• 1949 — a new Probate Code restated the law of wills and of the administration of estates, and set a single age of 18 for making a will².

For any given year, the rule in force is the statute where one had been passed by then, and the common law otherwise.

Legal Age of Adulthood

Majority at twenty-one — and eighteen for women

Full legal age in Arkansas was 21, a rule drawn from the common law. Anyone under full age was an "infant" in legal language. The Revised Statutes of 1838 said the same thing from the other direction: a guardianship ran until the ward turned 21, whether the ward was male or female³.

An act of 1873 lowered the age for women. From that year a female was of full age at 18 and a male at 21, and until those ages they were minors⁴. A woman of 18 could therefore do anything an adult could do — own and sell her land freely, make a will of land, and sue in her own name. This is one of the most useful facts in Arkansas research, because it moves a woman out of minority three years sooner than a man, and the records reflect it.

Both sexes reached majority at 18 from 1975, after the period covered here.

A minor's legal capacity

A minor could own property. What the law limited was the minor's power to dispose of it. A deed or contract made by a minor was voidable: it stood unless the minor rejected it within a reasonable time after coming of age⁵. In practice a minor's land was managed by a guardian, and any sale went through a court proceeding. From 1891 a probate sale of a minor's land made under proceedings that did not substantially comply with the statute was voidable, so a later suit to undo a guardian's sale is a common sequel⁶.

Other ages that differed by sex

Two other ages differed by sex, and are easy to confuse with majority:

• Apprenticeship. A bound boy served to 21 and a bound girl to 18. A child over 10 chose the master or mistress, who promised in the indenture to teach a trade⁷. The indenture was made in the county court, and it names the child, the parent or officer who bound them, and the master.
• Marriage. The minimum marrying age was lower for girls than boys (below). A married 16-year-old was still a minor.

Marriage

Who was old enough to marry

In the territorial years the common-law ages governed: a boy could marry at 14, a girl at 12. The territorial marriage law fixed no age of its own. What it required was consent and a record. From 1829 a man about to marry a female under 18 had to obtain a certificate from her parents or guardian stating that they were willing, and give it to the minister, justice of the peace, or other person authorized to perform the ceremony; the officiant then had ninety days to file a certificate of the marriage with the clerk of the circuit court, who entered it on record⁸.

From 1838 a statute set the ages, and they held for more than a century. Every male who had reached the full age of 17 and every female who had reached the full age of 14 was capable in law of contracting marriage; below those ages the marriage was void, meaning no marriage at all in the eyes of the law. The rule was carried forward word for word through the digests of 1848, 1858, 1874, 1884, and 1894 and into the twentieth-century codes⁹.

An act approved 6 February 1941 rewrote the section, raising the ages to 18 for a male and 16 for a female and keeping the rule that a marriage below those ages was absolutely void. It carried an emergency clause and so took effect the day it was approved, which makes that date the dividing line: a marriage before it is measured against 17 and 14, and a marriage after it against 18 and 16¹⁰. A later act of 1964 changed "void" to "voidable" — good unless a court undid it — and validated many earlier under-age marriages, so a marriage that looked void when made was often good by the time an estate was settled.

Parental consent

Consent of a parent or guardian, given in person or in writing to the clerk who issued the license, was required from 1838 for a male over 17 and under 21, and for a female over 14 and under 18¹¹. A consent paper in the license file therefore tells you the applicant was under that age.

The act of 1941 tightened how consent was proved and what followed if it was missing. A male under 21 or a female under 18 had to furnish the clerk satisfactory evidence that a parent or guardian consented before the license could issue, and the consent of both parents of each party was required. One parent's consent was enough only where the parents had divorced and that parent had exclusive custody, or where the other had given up custody by abandonment or desertion. A single signature in a 1940s license file therefore points to a divorce, a custody order, or a desertion. Where consent was not given, or where a party had lied about their age, the marriage could be set aside and annulled on the parent's or guardian's application to the chancery court¹⁰. From 1941, then, a contested under-age marriage leaves an annulment suit in the chancery records rather than nothing at all.

A valid marriage required a license and a ceremony

A valid Arkansas marriage required a license and a ceremony before an authorized official. The statutes prescribing how a marriage was licensed and performed were mandatory, so a couple who lived together as husband and wife without a ceremony were not married¹². The core record is the marriage license and the officiant's return, filed with the county clerk. A minister was supposed to have his credentials recorded with the county before he officiated, and in 1891 the General Assembly declared every marriage already solemnized by a regularly ordained minister or priest legal and valid whether his credentials had been recorded or not¹³. A gap in the ministers' register therefore does not put a marriage in doubt.

One qualification helps with migrating families. Arkansas honored a marriage that was valid where it was made, including a common-law marriage — one created by agreement and living together, with no ceremony, in a state that allowed it. The Supreme Court applied the rule to age in 1880: a girl married at twelve in a state that followed the common law was validly married, and stayed married in the eyes of Arkansas law when the couple moved here, even though the Arkansas statute set fourteen¹⁴.

Enslaved people and people of color

Enslaved people had no legal capacity to marry, so no civil marriage record was made for them.

Interracial marriage was barred for almost the whole period. The marriage chapter of the Revised Statutes, adopted at the October 1837 session, declared all marriages of white persons with negroes or mulattoes illegal and void¹⁵. The section is missing from the digest of 1874, which runs straight from the prohibited degrees of kinship to the grounds for annulment, and present again in the digests of 1884 and 1894, both of which declare a marriage of a white person with a negro or mulatto void, with a punishment section alongside. The 1884 digest prints the 1838 section itself as its source, so what changed over those ten years was which compiler chose to print the rule. A separate act of 1911 went after cohabitation rather than marriage. It made concubinage between a white person and a person of the negro race a felony punishable by one month to a year at hard labor, treated living together as proof of it, and defined a person of the negro race as anyone with "any negro blood whatever" — the "one-drop" rule. Where a woman had borne a mulatto child, a magistrate could issue a warrant against the man charged as the father, so the act leaves a criminal file naming both parents¹⁶. These laws became unenforceable with Loving v. Virginia (1967) and were repealed in 1969.

One act of 1921 matters for the record it creates rather than for any prohibition. From that year the clerk of the county court had to write the race of the parties on the record of every marriage where their race was other than Caucasian or white, on a penalty of twenty-five dollars for each omission¹⁶. An Arkansas marriage record from 1921 onward therefore states the race of a couple who were not white.

Property Ownership

Which men could own land

Every free man could buy, hold, and sell land outright, whatever his means. A foreign-born man could own land as well. Under the common law an alien could take land by buying it or by will and hold it against everyone but the state, and the state could claim it only after a formal inquiry; what he could not do was take land by inheritance. Arkansas softened that early. The Revised Statutes let an alien pass an inheritance on, and an act approved in December 1874 removed the disabilities of alienage outright, so that aliens could take land by inheritance, will, or deed and pass it on the same way¹⁷. The Constitution of 1874 put resident aliens — people born abroad who were living in Arkansas without having become citizens — on the same footing as citizens for owning property, enjoying it, and passing it to their heirs. A widow took dower in her alien husband's land just as in any other, which was itself a departure from the common law, where the widow of an alien took none¹⁷.

Enslaved men had no legal capacity to own property of any kind; land they lived on or worked belonged in law to the enslaver. A free person of color could hold property, but on terms that tightened decade by decade. From 1838 a free negro or mulatto settling in the state had to obtain a certificate of freedom and post a bond. In February 1859 the General Assembly ordered them out. No free negro or mulatto was to live in Arkansas after 1 January 1860. One found in the state after that date was to be arrested by the sheriff without a warrant and hired out for twelve months at the courthouse door, then paid his hire and told to leave within thirty days; if he stayed, he was presented to the circuit court, tried by a jury, and sold at auction. Children between 7 and 21 were to be hired out until they came of age. A free person who wished to stay could choose a master or mistress and be adjudged that person's property. The same act made it unlawful to emancipate a slave in Arkansas at all¹⁸. That changed in February 1867, when the General Assembly gave people of color the right to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, convey, and assign real and personal property, and to make wills — the same terms as anyone else, confirmed the next year by the Constitution of 1868¹⁹.

Which women could own land

For a woman, everything turned on whether she was married. A single woman or widow — a feme sole, "woman alone" — could buy, own, sell, mortgage, sue, and be sued exactly as a man could. A woman transacting freely in the deed books is almost always unmarried or widowed.

A married woman was a feme covert, "covered woman," under coverture. Before the reforms below, her husband controlled her property: he took the rents and profits of her land and owned her personal property, and her contracts had no force on their own.

The reforms came in stages. An act of 8 December 1846 let a married woman take property in her own name by bequest, gift, or distribution, and let a woman marrying after the act keep as her own the slaves she brought with her, free of her husband's debts — though he kept their management and their earnings, and it took a joint deed of husband and wife to sell them. An act of 11 January 1851 added that property given to her by a deed or will saying in terms that it was to be held free of her husband's liabilities belonged to her alone, and was safe from his creditors whether the debt came before or after her title. The protection came at a price in paperwork: before she could claim it she had to file a sworn schedule of the property that came through her in the recorder's office — under the 1846 act in the county where the property lay as well as the county where the couple lived, and under the 1851 act in the county where she lived²⁰. That schedule is a county land record, and it names the wife, the husband, and the source of her property. The Constitution of 1868 promised her a separate estate — property that stayed hers inside the marriage. An act of 1873 gave her control of it. The Constitution of 1874 then confirmed the rule that governed for the rest of the period. A married woman's property, owned before marriage or acquired after, remained hers. It could not be taken for her husband's debts, and she could leave it by will or sell it as if she were unmarried²¹.

When a wife had to sign her husband's deed

This is one of the most useful dating tools in Arkansas land research, because a wife's signature — or its absence — tells you the man was married.

The driver is dower: a widow's right to the use of one-third of her husband's land for the rest of her life. Arkansas dower reached every parcel the husband had owned at any time during the marriage, not merely the land he held when he died²². Because that claim hung over all his land from the day of the wedding, a buyer needed the wife to give it up, and she gave it up by joining in her husband's deed. From 1838 she had to appear before the court or officer apart from her husband and say she signed freely; the officer then wrote a certificate to that effect on the deed itself²³. That separate interview is the privy examination, and its certificate is often the only place a wife's own words appear in the land records. A husband's deed signed by him with his wife joining to give up dower is the normal Arkansas form throughout the period.

Dower was a life interest, not ownership: the widow had the use of her third for life, while the land itself passed to the heirs. Its male counterpart, curtesy — the widower's right to use his late wife's land for his life — required that a living child had been born of the marriage²⁴.

Which children could own land

A child could own land at any age, taking it by inheritance, gift, or purchase just as an adult did. Selling it was the constraint: a minor's deed stood unless the minor rejected it within a reasonable time after coming of age²⁵. Own at any age; sell freely at full age.

Witnessing a deed

From 1838 a deed had to be signed in front of two disinterested witnesses — people with nothing to gain by it. Failing that, the grantor, the person making the deed, acknowledged it before an authorized officer in the presence of two such witnesses, who then signed it themselves²⁶. Competency, not age, was the test for a witness: any person who understood an oath and could relate what they saw could serve, and in practice deed witnesses were adults, since a witness might have to appear years later to prove the deed. Recording the deed with the county recorder is what made it good against later buyers.

Inheritance

Land and personal property

Arkansas divided an intestate estate — one left by a person who died without a will — along two tracks, as the common law did. Land descended to the heirs; personal property (money, livestock, furniture, debts owed to the deceased) was distributed after the debts were paid. A single chapter of the Revised Statutes governed both²⁷.

Land descended to all the children equally. Sons and daughters took alike, and younger children with older, subject to advancements — a child already given land or goods during the parent's lifetime had that gift counted against their share.

The widow's and children's shares

The widow's share turns on whether there were children, and it works differently for land and for personal property:

The children took the land subject to the widow's dower, and the rest of the personal property in equal shares²⁸. Note the difference the table makes. Where there were children the widow owned her share of the goods but held only the use of her third of the land for life, which is why you so often find a widow living on the homeplace while the children hold the title. Where there were no children she owned half of everything, and can sell it.

Minors, guardians, and the age of fourteen

A minor inherited immediately — title passed to the heirs the moment the ancestor died. Managing that inheritance fell to a guardian, who gave bond, invested the estate, accounted for it, and handed it over when the ward came of age²⁹. That final settlement is one of the most valuable documents in Arkansas genealogy: it dates the ward's coming of age — 21 for a young man, and 18 for a young woman after 1873 — which approximates a birth year, and it frequently reveals a female ward's married surname.

A guardian was appointed chiefly because a minor owned property, especially property that came from someone other than a living parent. At 14 a ward could choose their own guardian, and the court appointed the person chosen unless there was good reason not to³⁰. A guardianship record in which the child chooses is therefore evidence the child had reached 14, which brackets a birth year.

One rule generates a record that often puzzles researchers. From 1873 a married woman could not be guardian of a minor's estate, and a woman guardian's own marriage ended her appointment, though she could still be guardian of the child's person³¹. A new guardian appearing in the middle of a minority, with the mother still living, usually means the mother remarried.

Children born outside marriage

At common law a child born outside marriage could inherit from no one. Arkansas extended inheritance first on the mother's side: such a child was the mother's heir and inherited her estate, and the mother inherited from the child³².

Inheritance from the father followed legitimation — the act that made the child the father's lawful child in law. From 1838 a child was legitimated if the parents married afterward and the father acknowledged the child as his; a private act of the legislature or a court proceeding would also do it³³. Where paternity was contested, it was settled in a bastardy proceeding in the county court. The mother made a complaint on oath naming the father; the judge issued a warrant, and the affidavit, warrant, and all the papers were filed with the county clerk. If the father was so found, he paid the mother her lying-in expenses and, if she asked for it, a monthly sum toward the child's keep until the child turned seven, and gave bond to hold the county harmless. The mother was a competent witness, and a mother who would not name the father could be held in jail until she did so or gave security herself³⁴.

Wills, executors, and witnesses

The age to make a will was 21 for land and 18 for goods. From 1838 a person of 21 could dispose of real and personal estate by will, and a person over 18 could make a will of goods and chattels — personal property³⁵. Because a woman was of full age at 18 from 1873, a woman of 18 could make a will of either land or goods. The Probate Code of 1949 unified the age at 18 for everyone.

The age to serve as executor or executrix — the person named in a will to carry it out — was 21. An executor or administrator appointed by the court had to be of full age; a court could lift the legal limits of minority for a male over 18 or a female over 16 and let them serve, and a separate statute confirmed that a married woman could serve³⁶. Where a named executor was under 21, the court put the estate in other hands until he came of age.

A witness to a will could be of any age; what mattered was that the witness had nothing to gain under it. From 1838 a will had to be signed by the maker, or by someone else in the maker's presence and at his direction, and signed at the end by at least two witnesses at the maker's request. A gift to one of those witnesses was cut down to what the witness would have taken had there been no will, unless other disinterested witnesses also proved the will. A will written entirely in the maker's own hand needed no witnesses at all, and was proved instead by people who knew the handwriting³⁷. These handwritten wills are common in the Arkansas record.

Taxation

What was taxed

Two taxes on individuals leave usable records for most of the period: the poll tax, also called a head tax or capitation, which was a flat tax on a person rather than on property, and the property tax on land and personal property. In the twentieth century the state added an income tax (1929) and a general sales tax (1935).

For genealogy the poll tax is the prize, because it lists men who owned nothing, which makes tax lists into census substitutes.

The poll tax

The Constitution of 1836 allowed a poll tax for county purposes, and the Revised Statutes of 1838 put it into effect: the county court could lay a poll tax of up to one dollar a year on every free male over 21 and under 60³⁸. So a man appears as a poll at 21 and drops off at 60, and the amount varies by county and year because the county court set it. A county could excuse a man for poverty or infirmity, which is one reason a living man can vanish from a poll list.

After the Civil War the poll tax became a school tax. The Constitution of 1868 barred the General Assembly from levying a poll tax except for school purposes, and the Constitution of 1874 fixed the figure: one dollar a year on every male inhabitant of the state over 21, for the common schools. There was no upper age now, so a man stayed on the list as long as he lived in the state. The revenue acts carried the rule through the rest of the period³⁸. From 1895 the assessor had to mark on the tax list whether the person assessed was white or colored, the clerk had to carry that mark into the tax books, the collector had to show it on the receipt, and the collector's annual return had to give the number of poll taxes paid by each race. An Arkansas poll tax record from 1895 onward therefore states a man's race as well as his name³⁸.

The receipt itself became worth keeping. In 1891 the General Assembly proposed a constitutional amendment requiring a man to show a poll tax receipt, or other evidence that he had paid, before he could vote, with an exception for a man who had turned 21 since the last assessment. It went to the voters at the general election of September 1892 and was declared adopted, and the collector's machinery grew up around it: a man who paid received a separate poll tax receipt, on a printed blank supplied by the state auditor, and had his name entered on the collector's official list of those who had paid³⁹. That is why poll tax receipts and the collector's lists survive in quantity from the 1890s onward.

The income and sales taxes

Arkansas taxed income from 1929, enacted not as a statute of its own but as part of a broader act that declared various businesses, employments, and professions to be privileges and levied license fees and taxes on them⁴⁰, and added a retail sales tax in 1935 at two per cent of the gross proceeds of retail sales, styled by its own first section the Arkansas Emergency Retail Sales Tax Law⁴¹. Both fall on transactions rather than on a person of a given age, so neither builds an age-based list the way the poll tax does, but income-tax and estate-tax papers can turn up in a settled estate.

Courts

Jury service

A juror had to be a qualified elector — a voter — which set the working age at 21, and a resident of the county. Before the Civil War a grand juror had also to be a free white male citizen of the State and either a freeholder or a householder: a man who owned land, or who headed a house of his own⁴². By 1884 the property test was gone, and jury commissioners chose both grand and petit jurors from the electors of the county, taking men of good character, approved integrity, and sound judgment⁴³.

An act of 1891 reshaped how a panel was filled. Petit jury service was limited to four weeks, with a fresh panel for each four weeks of a long term. Instead of summoning bystanders to complete a short jury, a court could have the commissioners return an extra list of at least twenty-five names, sealed in a box and drawn in open court as needed. Physicians, surgeons, practicing attorneys, ministers, officers of a court, and ferry-keepers could not be compelled to serve, and the court could excuse anyone over 60, along with road overseers, school directors, and constables⁴⁴. After 1891, then, the men who fill out a panel come from a drawn list rather than from the courtroom.

Black men reached the jury box through the electorate rather than by any jury act of their own. The Constitution of 1868 made every male citizen of 21 who met the residence requirement a qualified elector, with no racial qualification, and the General Assembly followed in July 1868 with a one-sentence act: all qualified electors of the state, and none other, were competent jurors⁴⁵. Competence as a witness had come the year before, with the act of February 1867. In practice Black men were often excluded, and after the 1890s most were kept off the panel.

Women came within reach of jury service once they could vote, since jurors were drawn from the electors. What the General Assembly passed in 1921 was not a grant of eligibility but an exemption: no woman could be compelled to serve against her will, her refusal had to be made to the officer who summoned her and not afterwards, and nothing prevented her from serving if she wished, provided she could otherwise qualify. In practice women were routinely excused⁴⁶.

Criminal responsibility

The Revised Statutes of 1838 set the ages, and they lasted into the twentieth century⁴⁷:

• Under 12 — a child could not be found guilty of any crime or misdemeanor.
• 12 to 14 — a child could be convicted only if the State proved the child knew the difference between good and evil.
• 14 and over — full criminal responsibility, tried as an adult.

Arkansas's first Juvenile Court Act, in 1911, changed this for younger children. Any boy under 17 or girl under 18 who broke a law of the State, was incorrigible, kept bad company, left home without cause, or was growing up in idleness became a "delinquent child." The act gave the county courts original jurisdiction over these cases and directed that they be tried by the court without a jury⁴⁸. After 1911, then, a younger child's case moves out of the ordinary criminal record and into a separate book the act calls the "Juvenile Record," kept by the county court. Two provisions limit what a researcher will find: the disposition could not be used as evidence against the child in any other case, and the child's name could not be published in a newspaper without a written order of the court.

An amending act of 1921 pushed the jurisdiction much further up the age range, extending the categories of dependent, neglected, and delinquent children for both sexes to anyone under twenty-one, married or single, and letting the juvenile court order restitution and support for a wife or children. From 1921, then, a young married man of nineteen could be before the juvenile court, and his case will sit in the juvenile record rather than the criminal docket.

Witnesses

A witness of any age could testify, if he or she understood the obligation of an oath and could relate facts. The trial judge examined a child personally before allowing testimony; a very young child's unsupported word carried little weight, but that went to how much the testimony was worth rather than to whether the child could testify at all⁴⁹.

Before Reconstruction, people of color could give evidence only in cases involving other people of color, and were barred from testifying against a white party⁵⁰. That bar fell in February 1867, when the General Assembly gave formerly enslaved and free people of color the right to swear out written statements and to give evidence, a change confirmed by the federal Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the Constitution of 1868. Women were competent witnesses throughout the period; the limit that reached a married woman's testimony was the common-law rule about husbands and wives testifying for or against each other.

(Guide compiled by Jeniann Nielsen with AI assistance from Claude Opus 4.8 and Gemini Pro 3.1. Check primary sources as needed.)

Sources & Where to Verify

Every rule above is tagged with the law it rests on. The lists below show where to read those laws in full, and the reference works consulted, so anything here can be checked against the original sources.

Constitutions

• Arkansas. Constitution of the State of Arkansas, 1836. Printed in the front matter of the Revised Statutes of the State of Arkansas (1838), 21–39, and separately in Arkansas — Admission into the Union as a State: Constitution of Arkansas. Poll tax for county purposes, 39. Digital images. Google Books. https://books.google.com/books?id=OBQtAQAAMAAJ.
• Arkansas. Constitution of the State of Arkansas, 1868. Separate estate of a married woman; civil standing of people of color. Not examined for this guide. Arkansas General Assembly. https://www.arkleg.state.ar.us/ArkansasLaw.
• Arkansas. Constitution of the State of Arkansas, 1874. Art. 2, § 20 (resident aliens and citizens on the same footing as to property); art. 9, § 7 (married woman's separate property); art. 7, § 28 (county courts). Text printed in A Digest of the Statutes of Arkansas (Mansfield, 1884), 20–45. Arkansas General Assembly. https://www.arkleg.state.ar.us/ArkansasLaw.

Codes and Digests

• The Advancing Genealogist. "Historic Arkansas Statutory Law." A curated, linked list of every historic Arkansas digest and many session-law volumes. https://advancinggenealogist.com/historic-arkansas-statutory-law/.
• Arkansas Code (current). Each section printed with its full derivation chain, which is the roadmap back to the nineteenth-century text. Justia. https://law.justia.com/codes/arkansas/.
• Arkansas Statutes 1947, Comprising Statutes of a General and Permanent Nature. Compiled under the supervision of the Arkansas Statute Revision Commission, Robert A. Leflar, chairman. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1947. Not read for this guide.
• Ball, William McK., and Sam. C. Roane, revisers. Revised Statutes of the State of Arkansas, Adopted at the October Session of the General Assembly of Said State, A.D. 1837. Notes and index by Albert Pike. Boston: Weeks, Jordan and Company, 1838. The foundation volume for this guide: common and statute law of England (182), apprentices (101), revenue and the poll tax (213), conveyances and relinquishment of dower (187–92), crimes and capacity (236), descents and distributions (328–30), dower (335–41), guardians and wards (428–29), juries (482–83), marriage (535–38), free negroes and mulattoes (584–86), wills (764–65). Digital images. Google Books. https://books.google.com/books?id=ohxEAAAAYAAJ.
• Castle, John T., of the Little Rock bar, comp. Supplement to Crawford and Moses' Digest of the Statutes of Arkansas, Embracing the General Statutes Enacted at the Legislative Sessions of 1921, 1923, 1925, 1927, and the Special Sessions of 1923 and 1924, Together with Notes of Decisions of the Supreme Court of Arkansas. St. Louis, Mo.: Thomas Law Book Company, 1927. Imprint read from the title page, which settles a conflict in the catalog records: the Arkansas Judiciary's compilation list is right and the Google Books record, which gives the Press of Democrat Printing & Lithographing Company, is wrong. The volume covers every general statute passed between 1921 and 1927, which is what establishes that no anti-miscegenation act was passed in those years. Women on juries, §§ 6336a–6336c, from Act 402 of 1921 (503); race to be designated on marriage records, §§ 7058a–7058b, and on divorce records, §§ 3505a–3505b, from Act 179 of 1921; case notes under the concubinage section, § 2602. Digital images. Google Books. https://books.google.com/books?id=F81HAQAAIAAJ.
• Castle, John T., of the Little Rock bar, comp. Supplement to Kirby's Digest of the Statutes of Arkansas, Embracing the General Statutes Enacted at the Legislative Sessions of 1905, 1907, 1909, and the Regular Session of 1911, with Notes of Decisions of the Supreme Court of Arkansas and of the Federal Courts. Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1911. Imprint read from the title page; the Google Books catalog record for the scanned copy wrongly gives the Gammel-Statesman Publishing Company. Carries the 1911 juvenile court provisions (139–44) and the 1911 definition by descent (156), but the volume is in snippet view only and neither was read. Digital images. Google Books. https://books.google.com/books?id=v7sZAAAAYAAJ.
• Crawford, T. D., and Hamilton Moses, comps. A Digest of the Statutes of Arkansas, Embracing All Laws of a General Nature. Little Rock, Ark.: Press of Democrat Print. & Lithographing Co., 1921. Not read for this guide.
• English, E. H., comp. A Digest of the Statutes of Arkansas, Embracing All Laws of a General and Permanent Character in Force at the Close of the Session of the General Assembly of 1846. Little Rock: Reardon & Garritt, 1848. Married women and their separate property, with the sworn schedule filed in the recorder's office (711–13); the same chapter, with its source acts, is in Gould's Digest below. Digital images. Google Books. https://books.google.com/books?id=a4c0AQAAMAAJ.
• Gantt, Edward W., comp. A Digest of the Statutes of Arkansas, Embracing All Laws of a General and Permanent Character in Force at the Close of the Session of the General Assembly of 1873. Little Rock: Little Rock Print. and Pub. Co., 1874. Digital images. Google Books. https://books.google.com/books?id=WtRHAQAAIAAJ.
• Gould, Josiah, comp. A Digest of the Statutes of Arkansas, Embracing All Laws of a General and Permanent Character in Force at the Close of the Session of the General Assembly of 1856. Little Rock: Johnson & Yerkes, State Printers, 1858. The essential antebellum volume: conveyances (ch. 37, 264–66), criminal capacity and free negroes and mulattoes as witnesses (ch. 51, 324, 384), dower (ch. 60, 454), guardians and wards (ch. 81, 571), jurors (ch. 98), marriages (ch. 109, 760), married women (ch. 111, 765–67), and the county poll tax (916). Digital images. Google Books. https://books.google.com/books?id=r9NHAQAAIAAJ.
• Kirby, William F., comp. A Digest of the Statutes of Arkansas, Embracing All Laws of a General Nature in Force at the Close of the Session of the General Assembly of 1903. Austin, Tex.: Gammel-Statesman Pub. Co., 1904. Not read for this guide.
• Mansfield, William W., comp. A Digest of the Statutes of Arkansas, Embracing All Laws of a General and Permanent Character. Little Rock, Ark.: Mitchell & Bettis, 1884. Constitution of 1874 (20–45), bastardy (ch. 13, 243–45), full age of males and females (277, 724), criminal capacity (425), dower of a childless widow (585, § 2592), jury selection (811, §§ 3982, 3984), marriage and the anti-miscegenation section with its source act (911, §§ 4593–95), the state poll tax (1084), the constitutional school poll tax (1174, § 6120). Digital images. Google Books. https://books.google.com/books?id=c9VHAQAAIAAJ. Also, with a full text layer that can be searched. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/mansfieldsdigest.
• Moore, Avery E., comp. A Digest of the Revenue Laws of the State of Arkansas. Compiled in the Auditor's Office. Little Rock: Thompson Lithograph and Printing Co., 1903. Closes the gap between the antebellum county poll tax and the twentieth century: the state per capita tax of one dollar on every male inhabitant over 21 for common schools, from the Act of 8 April 1891 (§ 27, 25); the marking of race on assessments, tax books, receipts, and the collector's return, from an act of April 1895 (§ 97, 47–48); and the poll tax receipt and the collector's official list of those who paid (§§ 346–347, 117–18). Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/digestofrevenuel1903arka.
• Pope, Walter L., comp. A Digest of the Statutes of Arkansas, Embracing All Laws of a General Nature in Force at the Close of the Regular Session of the General Assembly of 1937. Examined and approved by C. M. Buck. 2 vols., 3,968 pp. Texarkana, Tex.: Press of Helms Print. Co., 1937. The compilation in force through the end of the period covered here, and the source of most of the section numbers quoted by the Women's Bureau. No digitized copy has been located; the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies, Central Arkansas Library System, holds a print set at ARK KFA3630 .A214. Not read for this guide: every section number attributed to it in the notes below comes from the Women's Bureau bulletin or from the citation chains printed in the current code.
• Sandels, L. P., and Joseph M. Hill, comps. A Digest of the Statutes of Arkansas Embracing All Laws of a General Nature in Force at the Close of the Session of the General Assembly of 1893. Columbia, Mo.: Press of E. W. Stephens, 1894. Digital images. Google Books. https://books.google.com/books?id=o5A0AQAAMAAJ.
• Steele, J., and J. M'Campbell, comps. Laws of Arkansas Territory. Compiled under the direction of John Pope, Governor. Little Rock, Ark. Ter.: Printed by J. Steele, 1835. The territorial compilation, certified by the governor as containing the laws of the territory. Read for this guide: the Marriages title, which fixes no age of capacity but requires a parental consent certificate for a bride under 18 and the filing of the marriage certificate with the circuit clerk, and the Wills and Testaments title, which bars a married woman from making a will except under a marriage settlement or her husband's prior written authority. It carries no married women's property provision. Digital images. Google Books. https://books.google.com/books?id=rPlHAQAAIAAJ. Also, with a full text layer that can be searched, from the Library of Congress Early State Records Project. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/esrp642658712.

Session Laws

• Acts of the ... General Assembly of the State of Arkansas. The Library of Congress Early State Records Project run of the Arkansas session laws, 1818 to 1871, scanned from microfilm with a full text layer that can be searched, each session a separate file within one item. Read for this guide: the Act of 8 December 1846 on the rights and property of married women, in the Sixth Session volume (Little Rock: Printed by B. J. Borden, Printer to the State, 1846), 38–39, file 1846.012; the Act of 11 January 1851 amending it, in the 1850–51 volume (Little Rock: Printed at the Arkansas Banner Office, Lambert & Whiteley, State Printer), 122–23, file 1850.110; and Act 151 of 12 February 1859, removing free negroes and mulattoes from the state, in the Twelfth Session volume (Little Rock: Johnson & Yerkes, Public Printers, 1859), 175–78, file 1858.110. Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/esrp586037841.
• Acts and Resolutions of the General Assembly of the State of Arkansas, Passed at the Session ... which Began on Monday, January 12th, and Adjourned on Saturday, April 4th, 1891. Morrilton, Ark.: Pilot Printing Company, State Printers, 1891. Act 37, marriages solemnized by an ordained minister legalized (59); Act 63, regulating the jury system (111–13); Act 106, protecting the estates of minors (189); Proposed Amendment No. 2, the poll tax receipt as a qualification to vote (314). Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/actsjointresolu01arkagoog.
• Acts and Resolutions of the General Assembly of the State of Arkansas. By session, on HathiTrust. Every volume in this run is public domain and served in full view. The page-image server refuses automated requests, but the site's text-only accessibility view returns the OCR of any page, one page at a time, at https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/ssd?id=IDENTIFIER;seq=NUMBER — which is how the 1929 and 1935 acts below were read. Read for this guide: Act 32 of 1941 at pp. 66–67, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.b3682778; Acts 402 and 404 of 1921 at pp. 418–21, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/nyp.33433009076724; Act 63 of 1929, the privilege, license, and net income tax act, at pp. 153–241, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.b3682771; and Act 233 of 1935, the Arkansas Emergency Retail Sales Tax Law, at pp. 591–605, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.b3682776. Searched without result for the supposed 1947 anti-miscegenation act: https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.b3682781. This run holds no 1949 volume, so the Probate Code of that year was not read.
• Acts of the General Assembly of the State of Arkansas, Passed at the Session Held at the Capitol, in the City of Little Rock, Which Begun on Monday, the Fifth Day of November, A.D. Eighteen Hundred and Sixty-Six, and Adjourned, on the Twenty-Third Day of March, Eighteen Hundred and Sixty-Seven. Little Rock: Gazette Office, Woodruff & Blocher, Public Printers, 1867. The act of February 1867 giving people of color the right to be affiants, to give evidence, and to hold and convey property (99). Digital images. Google Books. https://books.google.com/books?id=r_dHAQAAMAAJ.
• Acts, Concurrent Resolutions and Proposed Constitutional Amendments of the Fifty-Third General Assembly of the State of Arkansas, Passed at the Regular Session Held at the Capitol in the City of Little Rock, Arkansas, Convening on the 13th Day of January, 1941, and Adjourning on the 13th Day of March, 1941. Little Rock, Ark.: Arkansas Printing & Lithographing Company, [1941]. Act 32, raising the marrying ages to 18 and 16 and adding the parental-consent proviso (66–67). Imprint read from the title page, which carries no year. Digital images. HathiTrust. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.b3682778.
• Acts of the General Assembly of the State of Arkansas, Passed at the Session Held at the Capitol, in the City of Little Rock, Which Begun on Thursday, the Second Day of April, A.D. Eighteen Hundred and Sixty-eight, and Adjourned on the Twenty-third Day of July Eighteen Hundred and Sixty-eight. Little Rock, Ark.: John G. Price, State Printer, 1868. Act No. XI, "An Act Defining the Qualification of Jurors," approved 13 July 1868, making all qualified electors of the state, and none other, competent jurors (35). Digital images. Google Books. https://books.google.com/books?id=CsY3AAAAIAAJ.
• Acts of the General Assembly of the State of Arkansas. Little Rock Printing and Publishing Company, 1873. Full age of males at 21 and females at 18 (187); married women as guardians (191); protection of married women (382). Digital images. Google Books. https://books.google.com/books?id=1xI0AQAAMAAJ.
• Public Acts of the Thirty-eighth General Assembly of the State of Arkansas, Passed at the Regular Session ... 1911. Little Rock: Democrat Printing & Lithographing Co., 1911. Act 215, creating the juvenile court and defining a delinquent child (168–74); Act 320, making concubinage between the races a felony and defining a person of the negro race (296–97). Digital images. HathiTrust. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/nyp.33433009076609.
• Session-law volumes still outstanding: Act 140 of 1949 (Probate Code), for which no digitized volume has been located in any of the standard collections; and the approval dates of Act 63 of 1929 and Act 233 of 1935, whose HathiTrust volumes can be searched but not paged. There was no re-enacting anti-miscegenation act of 1884 and none in 1921: the 1884 digest prints the Revised Statutes section of 1838 as its own source, and the 1927 supplement, which carries every general statute from 1921 through 1927, adds nothing to the prohibition.

Court Cases

• Barnett v. State. 35 Ark. 501 (1880).
• Brissett v. Sykes. 313 Ark. 515, 855 S.W.2d 330 (1993).
• Drake v. Sides. 95 Ark. 74 (1910).
• Furth v. Furth. 97 Ark. 272, 133 S.W. 1037 (1911).
• Harrod v. Myers. 21 Ark. 592 (1860).
• Hill's Adm'rs v. Mitchell. 5 Ark. (5 Pike) 608 (1844).
• Jones v. Minogue. 29 Ark. 637 (1874).
• Pace v. Richardson. 133 Ark. 422, 202 S.W. 852 (1918).
• Rice v. Palmer. 78 Ark. 432 (1906).
• Watson v. Billings. 38 Ark. 278 (1881).
• Arkansas Reports. Full text of the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century opinions, volume by volume, with the printed page numbers marked. Digital images. Caselaw Access Project. https://static.case.law/ark/. Barnett, Hill's Adm'rs, Jones, and Rice were read there; the rest are cited from the annotations printed in the digests.

Secondary and Reference Works

• Arkansas Judiciary. "Arkansas Historical Compilations — Statutes." The imprints of every Arkansas territorial and state compilation from 1835 to the present, with the compilers named. PDF. https://www.arcourts.gov/sites/default/files/2024May31.pdf.
• Arkansas State Archives. "Research FAQs and Tips." What the archives holds for each of the seventy-five counties — microfilmed marriage, probate, tax, land, and court records — and how the county-records listing is searched. https://www.arkansasheritage.com/arkansas-state-archives/collections-and-research/research-faqs-and-tips.
• Association of Arkansas Counties. "Juvenile Justice: History to Reform." https://www.arcounties.org/media/articles/juvenile-justice-history-to-reform/.
• Encyclopedia of Arkansas. Central Arkansas Library System. Entries on the Poll Tax, Anti-miscegenation Laws, the One-Drop Rule, Jim Crow Laws, Arkansas Married Woman's Property Law, Law, and the State Judiciary. https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net.
• FamilySearch. "Arkansas, Probate Records." What the probate files contain — petitions, inventories, accounts, decrees, oaths of executors, and guardianship papers — and their coverage from 1817. https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Arkansas,_Probate_Records_-_FamilySearch_Historical_Records.
• McKinney, J. Cliff. "With All My Worldly Goods I Thee Endow: The Law and Statistics of Dower and Curtesy in Arkansas." 38 University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review 353 (2016). https://lawrepository.ualr.edu/lawreview/vol38/iss3/8/.
• U.S. Women's Bureau. "The Legal Status of Women in the United States of America: Report for Arkansas." Bulletin 157-3. Law stated as of 1 January 1938, rev. 1948. PDF. FRASER. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/files/docs/publications/women/b0157-03-rev_dolwb_1949.pdf.
• University of Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service. "Arkansas' Growing State Sales Tax." https://www.uaex.uada.edu.
• "The Woman Juror." Women Lawyers' Journal 15, no. 2 (January 1927). Lists Arkansas among the states qualifying women for jury service by specific enactment in 1921. PDF. Women's Legal History, Stanford Law School. http://wlh.law.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/the-woman-juror-15wlj151927.pdf.

Citations

1. Revised Statutes of the State of Arkansas, Adopted at the October Session of the General Assembly of Said State, A.D. 1837 (Boston: Weeks, Jordan and Company, 1838), 182, ch. 28, § 1; digital images, Google Books (https://books.google.com/books?id=ohxEAAAAYAAJ : accessed 23 July 2026). The section receives the common law of England and the acts of the British Parliament in aid of or to supply the defects of the common law made before the fourth year of the reign of James I, that is 1607. It was carried forward through Gould's Digest (1858) and Mansfield's Digest (1884) to C. & M. Dig. (1921), § 1432, Pope's Dig. (1937), § 1679, and A.S.A. 1947, § 1-101 (now Ark. Code § 1-2-119). ↩
2. Acts 1949, No. 140, the Probate Code, § 1 ("This act may be cited as the ‘Probate Code’"), codified at A.S.A. 1947, § 62-2001, now Ark. Code § 28-1-101; and § 17, "Any person of sound mind eighteen (18) years of age or older may make a will," codified at A.S.A. 1947, § 60-401, now Ark. Code § 28-25-101. The act was read through the derivation and "meaning of this act" lines printed with the current code, which list the sections it became: they run through wills, the probate of wills, administration, claims, and distribution, and include no part of the guardianship chapter. The 1949 session volume is not digitized: HathiTrust's run of the series jumps from 1947 to 1951, and the Arkansas State Library's digitized session laws end at 1933. The change of age is confirmed from the other direction by Hardy v. Ross, 237 Ark. 76, 371 S.W.2d 522 (1963), upholding a will made at 18 by a woman under the earlier rule because the statute had been changed before her death. Arkansas Code, Title 28, with derivations (https://law.justia.com/codes/arkansas/ : accessed 27 July 2026). ↩
3. Revised Statutes (1838), 428 (a guardianship continues until the ward reaches 21, whether male or female). The same rule at Gould's Digest (1858), ch. 81 (Guardians and Wards), 571. ↩
4. Acts of the General Assembly of the State of Arkansas (Little Rock Printing and Publishing Company, 1873), 187; digital images, Google Books (https://books.google.com/books?id=1xI0AQAAMAAJ : accessed 23 July 2026). Males of 21 and females of 18 are of full age for all purposes, and are minors until those ages. Carried into A Digest of the Statutes of Arkansas (Mansfield, 1884), 277, 724, and cited in later chains as Acts 1873, No. 78; see also Drake v. Sides, 95 Ark. 74 (1910). Universal majority of 18 for both sexes came later, Acts 1975, No. 892 (now Ark. Code § 9-25-101). ↩
5. Harrod v. Myers, 21 Ark. 592 (1860); Watson v. Billings, 38 Ark. 278 (1881); Pace v. Richardson, 133 Ark. 422, 202 S.W. 852 (1918). ↩
6. Acts of 1891, 189, Act 106, "An Act to Protect Estates of Minors From Loss," approved 8 April 1891 (probate sales of real estate made pursuant to proceedings not in substantial compliance with statutory provisions are voidable). ↩
7. Revised Statutes (1838), 101 (minors bound to 21 if male and to 18 if female, to a master or mistress chosen by the ward if over ten, who covenants to teach a useful art or trade). ↩
8. J. Steele and J. M'Campbell, comps., Laws of Arkansas Territory (Little Rock, Ark. Ter.: Printed by J. Steele, 1835), title "Marriages," §§ 1–6; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/esrp642658712 : accessed 27 July 2026). The title fixes no age of capacity, so the common-law ages received under the reception statute (note 1) governed. Section 3, from the territorial act approved 14 November 1829, makes it the duty of every man about to intermarry with a female under eighteen to obtain a certificate from her parents or guardian certifying their willingness, to be presented to the justice of the peace, preacher of the gospel, or other person authorized to solemnize the ceremony. Section 4 requires that person to file a certificate of the marriage with the clerk of the circuit court of the county where the ceremony was performed within ninety days, on a forfeit of twenty dollars, and sets a forfeit of one hundred dollars for solemnizing a marriage without first obtaining the consent certificate; sections 5 and 6 direct the clerk to record the certificate for a fee of fifty cents. The printed page numbers of this title are not legible in the digitized copy. ↩
9. Revised Statutes (1838), 535, ch. 94, § 2 (every male of the full age of seventeen and every female of the full age of fourteen capable in law of contracting marriage; below those ages the marriages are void); the same text in A Digest of the Statutes of Arkansas, comp. William W. Mansfield (Little Rock, Ark.: Mitchell & Bettis, 1884), 911, citing Rev. Stat., ch. 94; digital images, Google Books (https://books.google.com/books?id=c9VHAQAAIAAJ : accessed 23 July 2026). The chain runs on through C. & M. Dig., § 7037, and Pope's Dig., § 9017, as printed in the history line to Ark. Code § 9-11-102; that the marriage-capacity section of Pope's Digest is § 9017 is confirmed by the amending act of 1941 (note 10). The same words at Gould's Digest (1858), ch. 109 (Marriages), § 2, 760. ↩
10. Acts, Concurrent Resolutions and Proposed Constitutional Amendments of the Fifty-Third General Assembly of the State of Arkansas, Passed at the Regular Session Held at the Capitol in the City of Little Rock, Arkansas, Convening on the 13th Day of January, 1941, and Adjourning on the 13th Day of March, 1941 (Little Rock, Ark.: Arkansas Printing & Lithographing Company, [1941]), 66–67, Act 32, "An Act to Amend Section 9017 of Pope's Digest and for Other Purposes," approved 6 February 1941; digital images, HathiTrust (https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.b3682778 : accessed 23 July 2026). Section 1 rewrites Pope's Digest § 9017: "Every male who shall have arrived at the full age of 18 years, and every female who shall have arrived at the full age of 16 years, shall be capable in law of contracting marriage; if under those ages, their marriages shall be absolutely void." A proviso requires a male under 21 and a female under 18 to furnish the clerk satisfactory evidence of parental or guardian consent before the license issues; requires the consent of both parents of each contracting party, except where the parents have been divorced and one given exclusive custody, or where one has surrendered custody by abandonment or desertion, in which cases the custodial parent's consent suffices; and allows the marriage to be set aside and annulled in chancery on the application of the parent or guardian where consent was not given or a party misrepresented their age. Section 3 declares an emergency — marriages between persons of immature ages creating domestic-relations problems, with the parent having insufficient control over a minor child's marriage contract — so the act took effect on passage rather than after the usual interval. The title page gives the place and the printer but no year, hence the bracketed date; the session adjourned 13 March 1941. Changed to "voidable," with validation of earlier under-age marriages, by Acts 1964 (1st Ex. Sess.), No. 5, § 1. ↩ ↩
11. Revised Statutes (1838), 538 (no license for a male over seventeen and under twenty-one, nor for a female over fourteen and under eighteen, without the consent in person or in writing of the parent or guardian); still the rule at Pope's Dig. (1937), § 9044, per U.S. Women's Bureau, Legal Status of Women in Arkansas, item 18. ↩
12. Furth v. Furth, 97 Ark. 272, 133 S.W. 1037 (1911). ↩
13. Acts and Resolutions of the General Assembly of the State of Arkansas, Passed at the Session ... which Began on Monday, January 12th, and Adjourned on Saturday, April 4th, 1891 (Morrilton, Ark.: Pilot Printing Company, State Printers, 1891), 59, Act 37, "An Act to Legalize Marriages in Certain Cases," approved 10 March 1891; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/actsjointresolu01arkagoog : accessed 23 July 2026). The act reaches marriages already solemnized by a regularly ordained minister or priest whether or not he had recorded his license or credentials as required by Mansfield's Digest, § 4600. ↩
14. Barnett v. State, 35 Ark. 501, 503 (1880): by the Arkansas statute a female may become a wife at fourteen, citing Gantt's Digest, § 4172, and the marriage of a female at twelve, contracted in a state where the common-law rule prevailed, would be recognized by the Arkansas courts as valid when the parties removed into the state; digital images, Caselaw Access Project (https://static.case.law/ark/35/html/0501-01.html : accessed 27 July 2026). The same point is printed as an annotation to the marriage-age section of Mansfield's Digest (1884), 911. The modern statement of the rule is Brissett v. Sykes, 313 Ark. 515, 855 S.W.2d 330 (1993); it is now codified at Ark. Code § 9-11-107. ↩
15. Revised Statutes (1838), 535–36, ch. 94, § 4 ("All marriages of white persons with negroes or mulattoes are declared to be illegal and void"). The Revised Statutes were adopted at the October 1837 session, which is why later writers date the ban to an act of 1837. Carried into A Digest of the Statutes of Arkansas, Embracing All Laws of a General and Permanent Character in Force at the Close of the Session of the General Assembly of 1856, comp. Josiah Gould (Little Rock: Johnson & Yerkes, State Printers, 1858), ch. 109, § 4, 760; digital images, Google Books (https://books.google.com/books?id=r9NHAQAAIAAJ : accessed 23 July 2026). ↩
16. The prohibition is absent from the marriage chapter of A Digest of the Statutes of Arkansas, comp. Edward W. Gantt (Little Rock: Little Rock Print. and Pub. Co., 1874), §§ 4171–76, 752; digital images, Google Books (https://books.google.com/books?id=WtRHAQAAIAAJ : accessed 23 July 2026). It reappears at Mansfield's Digest (1884), § 4593, 911, "of white persons with negroes and mulattoes to be void," which prints its source as Rev. Stat., ch. 94, § 4 — the 1838 section itself rather than a later act — with the punishment at § 1851 per that volume's index; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/mansfieldsdigest : accessed 27 July 2026). The section is also at Sandels & Hill's Digest (1894), § 4909, 1125. For the cohabitation felony: Public Acts of the Thirty-eighth General Assembly of the State of Arkansas (Little Rock: Democrat Printing & Lithographing Co., 1911), 296–97, Act 320, "An Act to Prohibit the Amalgamation of the Caucasian Race and Persons of the Negro Race by Concubinage," approved 30 May 1911, §§ 1–6, effective twelve months after passage; digital images, HathiTrust (https://hdl.handle.net/2027/nyp.33433009076609 : accessed 23 July 2026). The act of 1921 that secondary accounts describe is a record-keeping act, not a prohibition: Acts of 1921, Act 179, 246, § 1, requiring the clerks of the county courts to designate on the record of all marriages the race of the participating parties where that race is other than Caucasian or white, with a fine of twenty-five dollars for each offense by § 3, printed at John T. Castle, comp., Supplement to Crawford and Moses' Digest of the Statutes of Arkansas (St. Louis, Mo.: Thomas Law Book Company, 1927), §§ 7058a–7058b (§ 2 of the act, at § 3505a, imposes the same duty in divorce proceedings). That supplement covers every general statute enacted from 1921 through 1927 and adds nothing to the prohibition itself, carrying only case notes under the concubinage section, C. & M. Dig. § 2602, citing Hovis v. State, 162 Ark. 31, and Murphy v. State, 171 Ark. 620. Secondary accounts also describe a revised penalty statute in 1947. That date points to the codification Arkansas Statutes 1947 rather than to an act of that session: the 1947 session volume returns no hit for "concubinage," "mulatto," or "negro blood," while returning hits for "marriage"; Acts (1947), digital images, HathiTrust (https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.b3682781 : accessed 23 July 2026). ↩ ↩
17. Ark. Const. of 1874, art. 2, § 20, printed in Mansfield's Digest (1884), 45 (no distinction between resident aliens and citizens in regard to the possession, enjoyment, or descent of property). For the common-law rule and the statutes: Jones v. Minogue, 29 Ark. 637, 644–45 (1874), holding that an alien may acquire an estate in land good against all the world except the state, and against the state until office found, and may take by purchase, which in its enlarged sense includes a devise, although at common law alien issue are not heirs at law; noting that the statute enabling aliens to transmit an inheritance had been the law since the Revised Statutes, ch. 49, § 6, carried to Gantt's Digest, § 2167; and noting that the act approved 15 December 1874, amending § 235 of Gantt's Digest, enables aliens to take lands by inheritance, will, or deed and to transmit by deed, will, or descent, and removes all disabilities of alienage in favor of heirs and devisees; digital images, Caselaw Access Project (https://static.case.law/ark/29/html/0637-01.html : accessed 27 July 2026). For dower: Hill's Adm'rs v. Mitchell, 5 Ark. (5 Pike) 608, 612 (1844), holding that by the common law the widow of an alien was not entitled to be endowed, but that under the Arkansas statute she takes dower in like manner as the wife of a native-born citizen; digital images, Caselaw Access Project (https://static.case.law/ark/5/html/0608-01.html : accessed 27 July 2026). The rule was still in force at the end of the period: U.S. Women's Bureau, Legal Status of Women in Arkansas (rev. 1949), item on dower (dower inures to the widow of an alien as if he had been native-born, Pope's Dig. § 4399); PDF, FRASER (https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/files/docs/publications/women/b0157-03-rev_dolwb_1949.pdf : accessed 23 July 2026). ↩ ↩
18. Revised Statutes (1838), 584–86, ch. 103 (certificate and bond required of a free negro or mulatto settling in the state); A Digest of the Statutes of Arkansas, comp. Josiah Gould (Little Rock: Johnson & Yerkes, State Printers, 1858), chapter on slaves and free persons of color; digital images, Google Books (https://books.google.com/books?id=r9NHAQAAIAAJ : accessed 23 July 2026). The removal act is Acts Passed at the Twelfth Session of the General Assembly of the State of Arkansas, Which Was Begun and Held in the Capitol, in the City of Little Rock, on Monday, the First Day of November, 1858, and Ended on Monday, the Twenty-first Day of February, 1859 (Little Rock: Johnson & Yerkes, Public Printers, 1859), No. 151, 175–78, "An Act to remove the free negroes and mulattoes from this state," approved 12 February 1859; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/esrp586037841 : accessed 27 July 2026), file 1858.110. Section 1 forbids residence after 1 January 1860. Section 2 directs the sheriff to arrest, without warrant, any free negro or mulatto over twenty-one found in the state after that date, and, after twenty days' notice, to hire him out at public outcry at the courthouse door for twelve months, the hire to be paid to him at the end of the term with instructions to leave the state within thirty days. Sections 3 and 4 provide for presentment by the prosecuting attorney, trial by jury, and sale at public auction of anyone who remains. Section 6 directs the sheriff to seize those between seven and twenty-one and hire them out until they are of age. Section 8 allows a free negro or mulatto who wishes to stay to choose a master or mistress and to be adjudged that person's property. Section 10 makes it unlawful to emancipate any slave in the state. Section 11 directs the county courts to place motherless children under seven and the aged and infirm in the county poor house. ↩
19. Acts of the General Assembly of the State of Arkansas (Little Rock: Gazette Office, Woodruff & Blocher, Public Printers, 1867), 99; digital images, Google Books (https://books.google.com/books?id=r_dHAQAAMAAJ : accessed 23 July 2026). People of color may be affiants, give evidence, inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, convey and assign real and personal property, make wills and testaments, and have the full and equal benefit of the rights of personal security, personal liberty, and property. ↩
20. The Act of 8 December 1846: Acts Passed at the Sixth Session of the General Assembly of the State of Arkansas (Little Rock: Printed by B. J. Borden, Printer to the State, 1846), 38–39, "An act for the preservation and protection of the rights and property of married women," approved 8 December 1846; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/esrp586037841 : accessed 27 July 2026), file 1846.012. Section 1 lets any married woman become seized and possessed of property, real or personal, by direct bequest, demise, gift, or distribution in her own right and name, provided it does not come from the husband after coverture; sections 2 and 3 keep to her the slaves she brings to the marriage and those she acquires during it, exempt from liability for her husband's debts or contracts; section 4 leaves their control, management, and the produce of their labor with the husband; section 5 requires the joint deed of husband and wife to sell them; section 7 requires her and her husband to make out a schedule of the property derived through her, under oath and verified by the oath of another reputable person, to be filed in the recorder's office of the county in which the property is, as well as the county in which they live. The Act of 11 January 1851: Acts Passed at the Session of the General Assembly of the State of Arkansas, Begun and Held at the Capitol, in the City of Little Rock, on Monday, the Fourth Day of November, 1850, and Ended on Monday the Thirteenth Day of January, 1851 (Little Rock: Printed at the Arkansas Banner Office, Lambert & Whiteley, State Printer), 122–23, "An Act to amend chapter one hundred and four (104) of the Statutes of the State of Arkansas under the head of married women," approved 11 January 1851; same digital images, file 1850.110. It repeals sections 7 and 8 of that chapter, requires the schedule to be filed in the recorder's office of the county where she lives, and provides that where a deed, bequest, grant, decree, or other transfer expressly sets forth that the property is designed to be held exempt from the liabilities of her husband, it belongs exclusively to her and is not liable to execution or sale for his debts, whether contracted before or after her title accrued, with a proviso that no conveyance from a husband to his wife entitles her to the benefit of the act. The session ordinal and the year of printing are not legible on the title page of the scanned 1850–51 volume. The chapter as digested is at Gould's Digest (1858), ch. 111 (Married Women), §§ 1–8, 765–67, and at A Digest of the Statutes of Arkansas, Embracing All Laws of a General and Permanent Character, comp. E. H. English (Little Rock: Reardon & Garritt, 1848), 711–13; digital images, Google Books (https://books.google.com/books?id=a4c0AQAAMAAJ : accessed 23 July 2026). No married women's property provision appears in the territorial compilation of 1835, whose Wills title bars a married woman from making a will except under a marriage settlement or a written authority from her husband executed before the marriage; the act of 1846 is the first. ↩
21. Ark. Const. of 1874, art. 9, § 7; Ark. Const. of 1868 (the earlier separate-estate guarantee); Acts of 1873, 382, "an act for the protection of married women," cited in later chains as No. 126, and carried through C. & M. Dig. (1921), § 5580, Pope's Dig. (1937), § 7230, and A.S.A. 1947, § 55-404. See U.S. Women's Bureau, Legal Status of Women in Arkansas, items 5, 9. ↩
22. Revised Statutes (1838), 336, ch. 52, § 1 (a widow endowed of the third part of all the lands whereof her husband was seized of an estate of inheritance at any time during the marriage). ↩
23. Revised Statutes (1838), 190–91 (relinquishment of dower authenticated by the married woman appearing before the proper court or officer, in the absence of her husband, and declaring that she signed freely; the officer grants a certificate to be endorsed on the deed). ↩
24. J. Cliff McKinney, "With All My Worldly Goods I Thee Endow: The Law and Statistics of Dower and Curtesy in Arkansas," 38 University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review 353 (2016); PDF, UA Little Rock Law Repository (https://lawrepository.ualr.edu/lawreview/vol38/iss3/8/ : accessed 23 July 2026) (curtesy a life estate requiring the birth of living issue, modified in 1925 to a one-third or one-half life estate). ↩
25. Harrod v. Myers, 21 Ark. 592 (1860); Watson v. Billings, 38 Ark. 278 (1881); Pace v. Richardson, 133 Ark. 422 (1918). ↩
26. Revised Statutes (1838), 189 (a conveyance executed in the presence of two disinterested witnesses, or in default thereof acknowledged by the grantor in the presence of two such witnesses, who then subscribe it); the same rule at Mansfield's Digest (1884), 277. The same rule at Gould's Digest (1858), ch. 37 (Conveyances), §§ 11–12, 265, which also carries the wife joining in her husband's deed. ↩
27. Revised Statutes (1838), 328–30, ch. 49 (descents and distributions; children of the whole and half blood inherit equally in the same degree). ↩
28. Revised Statutes (1838), 336–39, ch. 52, §§ 1, 20–21 (dower of one-third of the lands for life and one-third of the personal estate absolutely where there are children; where the husband leaves a widow and no children, one-half of the real estate and one-half of the personal estate, absolutely and in her own right); the same rule at Mansfield's Digest (1884), 585, § 2592. See also U.S. Women's Bureau, Legal Status of Women in Arkansas, item 15 (Pope's Dig. §§ 4396, 4420–4421). The rule enlarging a childless spouse's share to the whole estate after a three-year marriage came with the Inheritance Code of 1969 (Ark. Code § 28-9-214). The rule is explicit at Gould's Digest (1858), ch. 60 (Dower), §§ 21–22, 454: where the husband leaves children, the widow takes her third of the land for her natural life and one-third of the personal estate in her own right; leaving a widow and no children, she is endowed of one-half of the real estate and one-half of the personal estate, "absolutely and in her own right." ↩
29. Revised Statutes (1838), 429 (guardian's bond and accounting); U.S. Women's Bureau, Legal Status of Women in Arkansas, items 25–26 (Pope's Dig. §§ 6203, 6220, 6234–6235). ↩
30. Revised Statutes (1838), 428–29 (a minor of the age of fourteen years or upwards may choose a guardian, and the court, if there be no just cause to the contrary, shall appoint the person chosen). The age of fourteen survives in the present code, where the court weighing whom to appoint must have due regard to any request made by a minor of fourteen or over, and a ward who has reached fourteen may petition to have his guardian replaced — Ark. Code §§ 28-65-204, 28-65-219, both carrying a printed derivation from Acts 1985, No. 940, which rewrote the guardianship chapter. The same rule at Gould's Digest (1858), ch. 81, § 7, 571, with § 8 for a ward under fourteen or out of the State. ↩
31. Acts of 1873, 191 (no married woman shall be guardian or curator of the estate of a minor, and a woman guardian's marriage revokes her appointment; she may be guardian of the person). ↩
32. Revised Statutes (1838), 328, ch. 49 (children born outside marriage inherit and transmit on the part of the mother); U.S. Women's Bureau, Legal Status of Women in Arkansas, item 29 (Pope's Dig. § 4340). ↩
33. Revised Statutes (1838), 328, ch. 49 (where the parents afterwards intermarry and the father recognizes the children as his, they are deemed legitimate). ↩
34. Mansfield's Digest (1884), ch. 13 (Bastardy), §§ 445–458, 243–45, from the Act of 29 November 1875, §§ 1–11, as amended by the Act of 17 March 1879; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/mansfieldsdigest : accessed 27 July 2026). The county court has exclusive original jurisdiction (§ 445; and see Ark. Const. of 1874, art. VII, § 28). On the complaint of a woman of the county, on oath, charging a person with being the father, the judge or clerk issues a warrant (§ 446), and the affidavit, warrant, and all papers in the case are returned to and filed in the office of the county clerk (§ 447). On a finding that the accused is the father, judgment goes against him for the lying-in expenses, not less than five nor more than fifteen dollars, and, if the mother claims it, for a monthly sum of not less than one nor more than three dollars from the birth of the child until it reaches seven, with a bond of three hundred dollars to indemnify the county (§ 450). The mother is a competent witness and her dying declarations are evidence (§ 456); a mother who will not disclose the father may be committed to the county jail until she does so or gives security (§ 457). The corresponding sections of the digest in force at the end of the period are Pope's Dig. (1937), §§ 933–940, as summarized in U.S. Women's Bureau, Legal Status of Women in Arkansas; those section numbers are the Women's Bureau's, not taken from the volume itself. ↩
35. Revised Statutes (1838), 764, §§ 1–2 (a person of twenty-one years and upwards, of sound mind, may devise all his estate real and personal; a person over eighteen may by will dispose of goods and chattels); U.S. Women's Bureau, Legal Status of Women in Arkansas, item 14 (the same ages at Pope's Dig. §§ 14510, 14511). Unified at 18 for both sexes by Acts 1949, No. 140, § 17, the Probate Code; A.S.A. 1947, § 60-401, now Ark. Code § 28-25-101. ↩
36. U.S. Women's Bureau, Legal Status of Women in Arkansas, items 2 and 5 (guardians, curators, executors, and administrators appointed by the court must be at least 21, Pope's Dig. § 6224; the disabilities of a minor over 18 male or 16 female may be removed, §§ 7451–7453; a married woman may serve as executrix or administratrix, § 7227). The section numbers are the Women's Bureau's; read the administration chapter of the period digest for the earlier form. ↩
37. Revised Statutes (1838), 765 (a will signed by the testator or by another in his presence and at his direction, with at least two attesting witnesses signing at the end at his request; a will written entirely in the testator's own hand valid without attesting witnesses, proved by witnesses to the handwriting), and 768 (proof of handwriting where the subscribing witnesses are dead, insane, or absent). ↩
38. Revised Statutes (1838), 213 (county tax: on each free male over the age of twenty-one years and under sixty, a poll tax not exceeding one dollar, at the discretion of the county court), and 39 (Ark. Const. of 1836, art. 7, § 3: no poll tax to be assessed for other than county purposes). Unchanged at Gould's Digest (1858), 916, so that rule ran from 1838 through the close of the 1856 session. For the school poll tax: Ark. Const. of 1868, art. X, § 1 (the levying of taxes by the poll is grievous and oppressive, therefore the general assembly shall never levy a poll tax excepting for school purposes), and Ark. Const. of 1874, art. XIV, §§ 1 and 3, both printed in Mansfield's Digest (1884), the latter at § 6120, 1174 (support of common schools by taxes not exceeding two mills on the dollar, and by an annual per capita tax of one dollar, to be assessed on every male inhabitant of this state over the age of twenty-one years). The levying section is at Mansfield's Digest, 1084, ch. 129 (Revenue), under "Rate of Taxation — For State Purposes," from the Act of 5 March 1879; its printed section number is illegible in the digitized copy and falls between §§ 5597 and 5599. Digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/mansfieldsdigest : accessed 27 July 2026). Restated from the Act of 8 April 1891 at Avery E. Moore, comp., A Digest of the Revenue Laws of the State of Arkansas (Little Rock: Thompson Lithograph and Printing Co., 1903), § 27, 25; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/digestofrevenuel1903arka : accessed 27 July 2026). For the race marking: Digest of the Revenue Laws (1903), § 97, 47–48, from an act of April 1895 — assessors to indicate on the tax lists whether the person assessed is of the white or colored race; clerks to carry the entry into the tax books for the collectors; the collector to indicate it in preparing his receipts and, at final settlement, to report the amount of taxes paid respectively by persons of the white and colored race, the aggregate paid by each, the total number of poll taxes paid, and the number paid by each race — the act's day of approval is garbled in the digitized copy. ↩ ↩ ↩
39. Acts and Resolutions of the General Assembly of the State of Arkansas (1891), 314, Proposed Amendment to the Constitution No. 2 (a poll tax receipt or other evidence of payment required of a voter, excepting a man who reached twenty-one since the assessment next preceding the election); digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/actsjointresolu01arkagoog : accessed 23 July 2026). It was submitted at the general election of September 1892 and declared adopted. Its ratification was afterwards contested: Rice v. Palmer, 78 Ark. 432, 446 (1906), held that under Ark. Const. of 1874, art. 19, § 22, the majority needed to adopt an amendment is a majority of the electors voting at the general election, not merely a majority of those voting on the amendment; digital images, Caselaw Access Project (https://static.case.law/ark/78/html/0432-01.html : accessed 27 July 2026). A second poll tax amendment was submitted to the voters in 1908; see the Encyclopedia of Arkansas entry on the Poll Tax. For the collector's machinery: Avery E. Moore, comp., A Digest of the Revenue Laws of the State of Arkansas (Little Rock: Thompson Lithograph and Printing Co., 1903), §§ 346–347, 117–18 — a separate poll tax receipt on payment and the payer's name entered on the collector's official list of persons who have paid poll tax, which the collector may not refuse because property taxes are unpaid; the auditor to furnish the printed blank receipts; and the "time for collecting taxes" defined as the period between the first Monday in January and the Saturday next preceding the first Monday in July; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/digestofrevenuel1903arka : accessed 27 July 2026). ↩
40. Acts of the General Assembly of the State of Arkansas (1929), vol. 1, 153–241, Act 63, "An Act To Declare the Carrying on of Certain Businesses, Employments and Professions to be Privileges, Levying Certain License Fees and Taxes Thereon, Imposing a Net Income Tax, Making Provision For the Collection Thereof; Providing For a Reduction of the Tax on Real and Personal Property and for Other Purposes," approved 27 February 1929; digital images, HathiTrust (https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.b3682771 : accessed 27 July 2026), read through that site's text-only accessibility view. The act runs to 105 sections; § 105, the emergency clause, applies the money raised to buildings at the Hospital for Nervous Diseases and the Tuberculosis Sanitarium. The income tax was therefore enacted as one part of a broad privilege- and license-tax act rather than as a statute of its own. An earlier draft of this guide followed a secondary source in calling this Act 118 of 1929; that number is wrong. Now Ark. Code § 26-51-101 et seq. ↩
41. Acts of the General Assembly of the State of Arkansas (1935), 591–605, Act 233, "An Act to Provide for the Raising of Revenue to Sustain Common Schools, to Provide for the Support of Charitable Institutions and Other Worthy Causes by Prescribing and Levying Certain Specific Taxes; to Provide for the Ascertainment, Assessment, and Collection Thereof," approved 28 March 1935; digital images, HathiTrust (https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.b3682776 : accessed 27 July 2026), read through that site's text-only accessibility view. Section 1 gives the short title, the Arkansas Emergency Retail Sales Tax Law; section 2 states the purposes as relief for the free common schools, for the wards of the state supported from the Charities Fund, and for other worthy causes; the levying section, at 594, imposes a tax of two per centum of the gross proceeds derived from retail sales; section 24 is the emergency clause. ↩
42. Revised Statutes (1838), 482–83 (a grand juror to be a householder or a freeholder, and otherwise qualified according to law; a juror to be twenty-one, a resident of the county, and not otherwise disqualified). Stated in full at Gould's Digest (1858), ch. 98 (Jurors), § 5: "Every grand juror shall be a free white male citizen of this State, over the age of twenty-one years, resident of the county, a householder or a freeholder, and otherwise qualified according to law." ↩
43. Mansfield's Digest (1884), 811, §§ 3982, 3984 (the jury commissioners select grand and petit jurors from the electors of the county). No property qualification appears in this digest. See also U.S. Women's Bureau, Legal Status of Women in Arkansas, item 32 (jurors are electors of good character and sound judgment). ↩
44. Acts of 1891, 111–13, Act 63, "An Act to Regulate the Jury System," approved 23 March 1891, §§ 1–6. ↩
45. Acts of the General Assembly of the State of Arkansas, Passed at the Session Held at the Capitol, in the City of Little Rock, Which Begun on Thursday, the Second Day of April, A.D. Eighteen Hundred and Sixty-eight, and Adjourned on the Twenty-third Day of July Eighteen Hundred and Sixty-eight (Little Rock, Ark.: John G. Price, State Printer, 1868), No. XI, 35, "An Act Defining the Qualification of Jurors," approved 13 July 1868: all qualified electors of this State, and none other, shall be competent jurors. And Ark. Const. of 1868, art. VIII (Franchise), § 2 (every male person who has attained the age of twenty-one years and is a citizen of the United States, or has legally declared his intention to become one, resident six months in the state and ten days in the county, is a qualified elector entitled to vote if registered, unless disqualified under section 1), the disqualifications of § 1 reaching only conviction of a crime punishable by death or confinement in the penitentiary, and paupers, idiots, and insane persons; printed in Mansfield's Digest (1884), 138; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/mansfieldsdigest : accessed 27 July 2026). For the drawing of jurors from the electors: Mansfield's Digest (1884), 811, §§ 3982, 3984. The article as printed in Mansfield's is the substituted Article VIII, submitted for ratification under the act of 23 January 1873 and proclaimed adopted that year; read the article as originally framed for the text in force from 1868 to 1873. And see the federal Civil Rights Act of 1866. ↩
46. Acts of the General Assembly of the State of Arkansas (1921), 418–19, Act 402, "An Act for the Exemption of Women from Compulsory Jury Service," approved 25 March 1921; digital images, HathiTrust (https://hdl.handle.net/2027/nyp.33433009076724 : accessed 23 July 2026). Section 1: no woman shall be compelled to serve on any jury against her will. Section 2: her refusal may be made to the officer serving the writ of summons, or when notifying her of her selection as a juror, and not thereafter. Section 3: nothing prevents a woman, when summoned, from serving if she so desires, provided she can otherwise qualify as a juror as provided by law. Carried into John T. Castle, comp., Supplement to Crawford and Moses' Digest of the Statutes of Arkansas, Embracing the General Statutes Enacted at the Legislative Sessions of 1921, 1923, 1925, 1927, and the Special Sessions of 1923 and 1924 (St. Louis, Mo.: Thomas Law Book Company, 1927), 503, §§ 6336a–6336c, printed under the heading of the jury chapter as Act 402, Acts 1921, p. 418, imprint read from the title page. Note that the act assumes a woman could already qualify and exempts her from compulsion; it does not itself confer eligibility. "The Woman Juror," Women Lawyers' Journal 15, no. 2 (January 1927), PDF, Women's Legal History, Stanford Law School (http://wlh.law.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/the-woman-juror-15wlj151927.pdf : accessed 23 July 2026), lists Arkansas among the states qualifying women for the jury by specific enactment in 1921. ↩
47. Revised Statutes (1838), 236 (capacity to commit crime at fourteen, or before that age if the person knows the distinction between good and evil; an infant under twelve not to be found guilty of any crime or misdemeanor); the same rule at Mansfield's Digest (1884), 425. The same sections at Gould's Digest (1858), ch. 51 (Criminal Law), §§ 3–4, 324. ↩
48. Public Acts of the Thirty-eighth General Assembly of the State of Arkansas (Little Rock: Democrat Printing & Lithographing Co., 1911), 168–74, Act 215, "An Act Creating and Establishing a Juvenile Court in the Several Counties of This State," §§ 1–4; digital images, HathiTrust (https://hdl.handle.net/2027/nyp.33433009076609 : accessed 23 July 2026). Section 1 defines a "delinquent child" as any male child under seventeen or female child under eighteen who violates a law of the State, is incorrigible, associates with thieves or immoral persons, absents itself from home without cause, or is growing up in idleness or crime, and bars the use of the disposition as evidence against the child in any other cause and the publication of the child's name in a newspaper without a written order of the court. Section 2 gives the county courts original jurisdiction, with all trials by the court without a jury. Section 3 directs that the findings be entered in a book known as the "Juvenile Record," and that the court may be called "The Juvenile Court." Section 4 lets any reputable resident file the petition. Amended by Acts (1921), 419–21, Act 404, "An Act to Amend the Juvenile Court Law, to Extend the Age of Dependent and Delinquent Children," approved 25 March 1921; digital images, HathiTrust (https://hdl.handle.net/2027/nyp.33433009076724 : accessed 23 July 2026). Section 1 extends the ages of "dependent," "neglected" and "delinquent" children for both sexes to include such children while under twenty-one, whether married or single; section 2 empowers the juvenile courts to order restitution and support for a wife or children; section 3 sends appeals to the circuit court, tried without a jury, with no supersedeas releasing the child from the custody adjudged. ↩
49. The common-law competency test for witnesses, received under the reception statute (note 1): competency turned on understanding the oath and the ability to relate facts, not on age. ↩
50. Gould's Digest (1858), ch. 51 (Criminal Law), pt. XI (Free Negroes and Mulattoes), § 1, 384: free negroes and mulattoes are liable for trespasses and felonies as white persons are and tried in like manner, "except, that persons of their own color shall be competent witnesses to testify for or against such free negro or mulatto," citing Rev. Stat., ch. 44, div. 8, art. 3, § 7. Changed by the act of February 1867, Acts of 1867, 99, giving people of color the right to be affiants — to swear out written statements — and to give evidence, and confirmed by the federal Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the Constitution of 1868. ↩