Ozarks is a toponym believed to be derived as an English-language adaptation of the French abbreviation aux Arcs (short for aux Arkansas, meaning of/at Arkansas). Originally, in the decades prior to the French and Indian War, aux Arkansas referred to the trading post at Arkansas Post, located in wooded Arkansas Delta lowland area above the confluence of the Arkansas River with the Mississippi River. Arkansas seems to be the French version of what the Illinois tribe (further up the Mississippi) called the Quapaw, who lived in eastern Arkansas in the area of the trading post. Eventually, the term came to refer to all Ozark Plateau drainage into the Arkansas and Missouri rivers.