Pine Bluff, officially the City of Pine Bluff, is the tenth-most populous city in the U.S. state of Arkansas and the county seat of Jefferson County. The population of the city was 41,253 in the 2020 census.

Pine Bluff is situated in the Southeast section of the Arkansas Delta and straddles the Arkansas Timberlands region to its west. Its topography is flat with wide expanses of farmland, similar to other places in the Delta Lowlands. Pine Bluff has numerous creeks, streams, and bayous, including Bayou Bartholomew, the longest bayou in the world and the second most ecologically diverse stream in the United States. Large bodies of water include Lake Pine Bluff, Lake Langhofer (Slack Water Harbor), and the Arkansas River.

The area along the Arkansas River had been inhabited for thousands of years by indigenous peoples of various cultures. They used the river for transportation as did European settlers after them, and for fishing. By the time of encounter with Europeans, the historical Quapaw were the chief people in the area, having migrated from the Ohio River valley centuries before. ^{[citation needed]}

Records dating back to 1801 show that “fifty miles up the Arkansas River on the Bonne Reserve lived Joseph Bonne, Michael Bonne and other taxpayers named Bonne.” Joseph Bonne was interpreter for the United States government at the signing of the Quapaw Cession at St. Louis, Missouri, August 21, 1818.

Due to a great flood in 1819, Bonne and his wife, Mary Imbeau, moved five miles upstream from the Bonne Reserve to the place later named Pine Bluff. This was the first bluff above the mouth of the river and was covered by towering pine trees, the eastern boundary of the coastal plain of South Arkansas.

Bonne built a log cabin with a lean-to which served as his home... as well as a tavern with lodging accommodations for travelers. The settlement was officially named “The Town of Pine Bluff” by the county court on October 16, 1832.

With its proximity to the Arkansas River, the town served as an inland port for steamboat travel and shipping. Steamboats provided the primary mode of transport, arriving from downriver ports such as New Orleans. From 1832 to 1838, Pine Bluff residents would see Native American migrants on the Trail of Tears waterway who were being forcibly removed by the United States Army from the Southeast to the Indian Territory west of the Mississippi River.

From 1832 to 1858, the town was a station on the Trail of Tears for the Seminole and their slaves, who were forcibly removed from Florida Territory to the Indian Territory. They included the legendary Black Seminole leader John Horse, who arrived in the city via the steamboat Swan in 1842.