March 10, 1804

Captain George Carmichael accepted the transfer of Campo de la Esperanza—established by the Spanish in 1795 as San Fernando de las Barrancas on the Chickasaw Bluffs overlooking the Mississippi River—to the United States. In May 1803, France and the United States had signed the treaty for the Louisiana Purchase, adding Arkansas to the young republic. Two years later, the signing of the Treaty of San Lorenzo, which Americans called Pinckney’s Treaty, set the Mississippi River as the definite boundary between Spanish Louisiana and the United States. As part of the transfer, San Fernando de las Barrancas was moved to present-day Crittenden County and renamed Campo de la Esperanza (Hopefield).