History of Missouri

This article is about the history of the of.

17th century
In, Father and  sailed down the  in canoes along the area that would later become. The two established that the Mississippi River ran all the way to the sea. In, claimed the  for.

From this time up until the building of the first s in the in the, the Mississippi system waterways were the only means of  and  in the region. During the early years of French occupation, trade with the was the only major industry. It was carried on using s and s.

18th century
By, s were settling in considerable numbers, both by way of the and the mouth of the Mississippi. To meet the demands of rapidly expanding, s and s were introduced. In the same year, the Frenchman brought the first  to Missouri to work in. They both were also looking for gold in the mines of the Mississippi.

was built in along the north bank of the  by  in what is now.

In, was founded on the Mississippi. issued an concerning the use of black slaves in the territory.

gained control of the region in under the, but it did not assume control until. Under the Spanish regime, the code concerning black slaves was continued.

was founded in by the Frenchman. Five years later, he founded as a.

Louisiana Territory
Main article: 

Spain, in, negotiated the territory's cession back to France. The French ruler,, reasoned that the territory could not be protected from the expanding. He then sold it to the U.S. under for $15 million in  as part of the.

The set out in  to map the region and in, the  was , with the government seat in St. Louis.

The Mississippi-Ohio river systems were navigated by starting in  with the  steamboat travelling from  to. On of that year, the first of a series known as the  occurred, the largest in the history of the United States. Tremors were reported as far away as.

Missouri Territory
After became a state in, the remaining Louisiana Territory was renamed the. That year, the first general assembly of the Missouri Territory was created, with the five original counties being, , , , and.

In, the steamboat  reached Saint Louis. That year, the commerce from New Orleans to the Falls of the at  was carried in barges and keel-boats having a capacity of 60 to 80 tons each, with 3 to 4 months required to make a single trip. In steamboats were making the same trip in 15 to 20 days, by  in 6 days or less; and in  there were 230 steamboats, having an aggregate tonnage of 39,000 tons, engaged in trade on the Mississippi. Large numbers of flat boats, especially from the Ohio and its tributaries, continued to carry downstream; an extensive canal system in the state of, completed in , connected the Mississippi with the ; these were connected with the  and the  by the , which had been open since.

In, the first college west of the Mississippi River was founded, , a Catholic Jesuit Seminary that expanded into secular instruction as well.

Missouri Compromise
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Also in, Missouri requested admittance to the Union as a. This became a national controversy due to the delicate balance between free and slave states. In, the cleared the way for Missouri's entry to the union as a slave state, along with , a free state, to preserve the balance. Additionally, the Missouri Compromise stated that the remaining portion of the Louisiana Territory above the 36°30′ line was to be free from slavery. This same year, the first Missouri constitution was adopted. The following year,, Missouri was admitted as the 24th state, with the state capital temporarily located in Saint Charles until a permanent location could be selected. was chosen in as the site for the capital.

Before the steamboat was successfully employed on the Mississippi the population of the valley did not reach 2,000,000; but the population increased from approximately 2,500,000 in 1820 to more than 6,000,000 in 1840, and to 14,000,000 or more in 1860. The well-equipped passenger boats of the period immediately preceding the Civil War were also a notable feature on the Ohio and the Lower Mississippi.

During this time, both free blacks and slaves lived in Missouri. In 1824, the ruled that free blacks could not be re-enslaved, known as "once free, always free." In, the case began. , who were slaves, sued for freedom in state courts. This was on the premise that he had previously lived in a free state. This case continued until, culminating in a landmark decision rejecting Scott's arguments and sustaining slavery.

Platte Purchase
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At the time of its admission, the western border of Missouri was a straight line from Iowa to Arkansas based on the confluence of the with the  in the Kansas City. Land in what is now northwest Missouri was deeded to the and the combined  and. Following encroachments on the land by white settlers -- most notably --  persuaded the tribes to agree give up their land in exchange for $7,500 in the 1836. The land was ratified by Congress in 1837 and an area a little smaller than the combined area of and  was added to Missouri. It consists of, , , and  counties.

Gateway to the West
The was created in. Six years later, St. Louis was connected by telegraph to the east coast. The same year, the first west of the Mississippi was established.

The began in  and Saint Louis,,  and  became departure points for those heading to California, earning Missouri the nickname "Gateway to the West". was incorporated a year later on the banks of the Missouri River.

In, the began its short-lived run from Saint Joseph to.

Mormons and the 'Mormon War'
, the leader of the church (otherwise known as s) claimed to have received revelation that western Missouri, specifically the area around, and other areas of western Missouri, were to become  and a place of gathering. By the early 1830's Mormons came into the area, at first to Independence and its neraby environs. One Mormon community was set up in and was named, which Joseph Smith said was the place where Adam lived after being expelled from the Garden of Eden.

Many of the early settlers in western Missouri, who came from the southern states and brought along with them the institution of slavery, resented the newcomers. The Mormons would vote in blocs and congregate in concentrated areas, and would typically trade only amongst themselves, and they would not hold slaves; all this tended to make the 'old settlers' jealous and suspicious. Open claims by the Mormons that the area was given to them by God only worsened the situation. By the mid 1830's Mormons had effectively been driven from the Independence area, but they relocated to counties north and a little east. Disputes with old settlers began anew, and by 1838 open hostility was peaking again. Missouri governor issued the ominous sounding, which encouraged Missourians to expel Mormons by all means possible. Skirmishes and small battles occurred and a number of people were killed, mostly Mormons. Joseph Smith was jailed, along with other LDS leaders and held in several jails for more than five months, with no hope of a trial or court hearing. Smith was allowed to escape and he and his church moved to Illinois to form the city of Nauvoo in 1839. Missouri still holds many important sites still considered significant by the LDS and Community of Christ churches. In 1976 Missouri officially revoked the extermination order.

Civil War
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Immediately before the began, Missourians voted overwhelmingly against seceding from the Union. However, in the, the (and therefore anti-slavery)  received only a small percentage of Missouri votes, mostly from St. Louis. won the state's 12 &mdash; the only state he captured in his campaign. Sympathies ran for both sides, the and the Union, and it was in Saint Louis where the first blood was spilled in the "."

In, General issued a proclamation that freed slaves who had been owned by those that had taken up arms against the Union. Lincoln immediately reversed this unauthorized action. Secessionists tried to form their own state government, joining the Confederacy and establishing a capital in exile first in, Missouri and later in Texas (at ). By the end of the war, Missouri had supplied 110,000 troops for the and 40,000 troops for the.



Because of the state's strategic location linking Northern and Southern states, many important Civil War battles occurred in Missouri. Missouri was the location of the third largest number of engagements of any state, after Virginia and Tennessee. The pro-Southern state force known as the commanded by  initiated a long retreat from  to the Southwestern portion of the state in 1861. In, the Guard defeated a heavy detachment of Federal regulars commanded by Col. . Shortly afterward, the 12,000 man force of the combined elements of the Missouri State Guard, Arkansas State Guard, and Confederate regulars soundly defeated the Federal army of  at  or "Oak Hills".

Following the success at Wilson's Creek, southern forces pushed northward and captured the 3500-strong garrison at the first. At this time, Federal forces contrived to campaign to retake Missouri, causing the Southern forces to retreat from the state and head for Arkansas and later Mississippi.

In Arkansas, the Missourians fought at the battle of Pea Ridge, meeting defeat. In Mississippi, elements of the Missouri State Guard participated in the struggles at and, suffering heavy losses.



In 1864, Sterling Price plotted to liberate Missouri, launching his. Striking in the southeastern portion of the state, Price moved north, and attempted to capture but failed. Next, Price sought to attack St. Louis but found it too heavily fortified and thus broke west in a parallel course with the Missouri River. The Federals attempted to retard Price's advance through both minor and substantial skirmishing such as at and. Price made his way to the extreme western portion of the state, taking part in a series of bitter battles at the, , and. His Missouri campaign culminated in the in which over 30,000 troops fought leading to the defeat of the Southern army. The Missourians retreated through and  into Arkansas where they stayed permanently for the remainder of the war.

Besides organized military conflict, Missouri also spawned a breeding ground for. In such a bitterly divided state, neighbors frequently took up arms against neighbors. Such roving bands as and the men of  terrorized the countryside, striking both military installations and civilian settlements. Because of the widespread guerrilla conflict, and the support by citizens of border counties, Federal leaders were compelled to issue in 1863, forcing all citizens of Jackson, Cass, and Bates counties off of their land.

Under Federal control, the was closed to commerce, and when the war was over the prosperity of the South was temporarily ruined and hundreds of steamboats had been destroyed. Moreover, much of the commerce of the West had been turned from New Orleans, via the Mississippi, to the, via the Great Lakes and by the rapidly multiplying new lines of railways. There was, of course, some revival of the Mississippi commerce immediately after the war, but this was checked by a sandbar at the mouth of the south-west pass. Relief was obtained through the Ead's jetties at the mouth of the south pass in, but the facilities for the transfer of freight were far inferior to those employed by the railways, and the steamboat companies did not prosper.

In, Missouri abolished slavery, doing so before the adoption of the by an ordinance of immediate emancipation. Missouri adopted a new constitution, one that denied voting rights and had prohibitions against certain occupations for former Confederacy supporters.

Later 19th century
The Missouri's Club was organized in, to win the right to vote for women, and was the first such club in the nation.

Missouri adopted its 3rd on,. In, the bank robber was killed in.

20th century
On, , Captain  made the first  jump from a moving  over Missouri.

In, Missouri became the 11th state to ratify the , which granted the right to vote.

The first president from Missouri,, assumed the presidency in after the death of. Truman was re-elected in.

Construction began on the Saint Louis in.

In, court-ordered began in Missouri.

Pre-1900

 * Richard S. Brownlee, Gray Ghosts of the Confederacy: Guerrilla Warfare in the West, 1861-1865 (Louisiana State Univ. Press, 1958)
 * Albert Castel, "Order No. 11 and the Civil War on the Border," Missouri Historical Review 62 (July 1963): 357-68.
 * Lawrence O. Christensen and Gary R. Kremer. A History of Missouri: Volume IV, 1875 to 1919 ISBN 0-8262-1112-7, 200 4
 * Lawrence O. Christensen, William E. Foley, Gary R. Kremer, and Kenneth H. Winn, eds. Dictionary of Missouri Biography
 * Michael Fellman, Inside War: The Guerrilla Conflict in Missouri during the American Civil War (Oxford Univ. Press, 1989)
 * William E. Foley. A History of Missouri Volume I, 1673 to 1820 ISBN 0-8262-1285-9
 * Lorenzo J. Greene, Gary R. Kremer, Antonio F. Holland. Missouri's Black Heritage (1993)
 * Perry McCandless. A History of Missouri: Volume II, 1820 to 1860 ISBN 0826204945
 * William E. Parrish. A History of Missouri: Volume III, 1860 to 1875 ISBN 0-8262-0148-2
 * James Neal Primm; Economic Policy in the Development of a Western State, Missouri, 1820-1860 Harvard University Press, 1954

Post-1900

 * Lawrence O. Christensen and Gary R. Kremer. A History of Missouri: Volume IV, 1875 to 1919 ISBN 0-8262-1112-7, 200 4
 * Lorenzo J. Greene, Gary R. Kremer, Antonio F. Holland. Missouri's Black Heritage (1993)
 * Richard S. Kirkendall. A History of Missouri: Volume V: 1919 to 1953 ISBN 0-8262-0494-5, 200 4
 * Lawrence H. Larsen. History of Missouri. Volume VI: 1953 to 2003. (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2004. ISBN 0-8262-1546-7)
 * WPA; Missouri: A Guide to the "Show Me" State Duell, Sloan and Pearce, (1941)