Peter Caulder

This episode of the 1836 Podcast, shares the story of Peter Caulder, a free Black man, a War of 1812 veteran, and a frontier settler who spent more than thirty years building a life in northern Arkansas. After helping establish Fort Smith, Caulder chose to remain in the Arkansas Territory, where he legally acquired land, raised a family, and became part of the Ozark frontier along the White River. But as Arkansas moved from frontier territory to slaveholding state, the laws that once allowed his freedom and property slowly turned against him. In 1859, despite his military service and decades of residence, Peter Caulder was forced to leave Arkansas under threat of enslavement—driven out not by failure or crime, but by law. This is the forgotten story of a man who lived as an Arkansan, helped build the state’s early frontier, and was ultimately expelled by the very government he had served.