In describing the lifestyle of families living along the White River near the Missouri border at Sugar-Loaf Prairie in December 1818, Schoolcraft noted that “these people subsist partly by agriculture, and partly by hunting. They raise corn for bread, and for feeding their horses…but none for exportation. No cabbages, beets, onions, potatoes, turnips, or other garden vegetables. Corn and wild meats, chiefly bear’s meats, are the staple articles of food.” Schoolcraft explained that the Arkansawyers considered hunting as the “principal, the most honourable, and the most profitable employment.”[1]
[1] Rafferty, Rude Pursuits, 62-63.
Arkansas Wildlife History 