History of Missouri
Their large cities included thousands of individual residences, but they are known for their surviving massive earthwork mounds, built for religious, political and social reasons, in platform, ridgetop and conical shapes.
[12] Meanwhile, the French governor of Louisiana granted a trade monopoly over the parts of the Illinois Country lying west of the Mississippi River to New Orleans merchant Gilbert Antoine de St. Maxent and his partner, Pierre Laclède.
[22] To reduce the influence of British traders, Spain renewed efforts to encourage French settlers to decamp from Illinois to Missouri, and in 1778, the Spanish offered generous land grants, basic supplies, and access to enslaved African Americans to Catholic immigrants on the east bank of the Mississippi River.
[30] As part of this effort, in 1789 Spanish diplomats in Philadelphia encouraged George Morgan, an American military officer, to set up a semi-autonomous colony in southern Missouri across from the mouth of the Ohio River.
[49] At the time of the transfer, the purchase was initially divided into two parts: land north of the thirty-third parallel (including present-day Missouri) became the District of Louisiana, which was added to the jurisdiction of the Indiana Territory under Harrison.
[58] In 1811, Indiana Territorial Governor Harrison led an early attack on the forces of Shawnee Chief Tecumseh at the Battle of Tippecanoe, provoking fighting between tribes east of the Mississippi and American settlers there.
[61] These units were created by local citizens concerned about the lack of efforts by the federal government to defend the territory; although they primarily served in a defensive capability, they at times provided the backbone of offensive expeditionary forces.
As Douglas Hurt has argued, based on research by Jeff Bremer, the ownership of land meant more than financial opportunity: St. Louis, the principal city of the upper territory, was situated at the confluence of major northern and western waterways; second, it had several merchants who could outfit an expedition; and third, it was an entrepot of information and experienced travelers who might be hired to assist any group.
[98] Wealthy planters from Kentucky and Tennessee moved into the Little Dixie region in the central part of the state, where they bought up large tracts of fertile land and brought in slaves to do the work of growing hemp and tobacco.
[104] This was in large part connected to the nature of slavery in Missouri, which had an especially intimate quality; owners directly oversaw their slaves (without overseers), worked alongside them every day, and lived in the same or adjacent houses.
As Wells wrote of his time as a slave in St. Louis, "Though slavery is thought, by some, to be mild in Missouri, when compared with the cotton, sugar, and rice-growing States, yet no part of our slave-holding country is more noted for the barbarity of its inhabitants, than St.
[114] Several Missouri politicians, including Senator David R. Atchison and former Attorney General B.F. Stringfellow, encouraged Missourians to settle in the newly opened lands in 1854 as a bulwark against antislavery settlers arriving from New England.
[128] During Jackson's January 1861 inaugural address, he blamed Northern abolitionists for the crisis facing the United States, and he claimed to hope that the Union would not coerce South Carolina to withdraw its secession.
[130] After Lincoln's election, Blair began organizing the Republican Wide Awake clubs, which had been primarily composed of antislavery Germans, with other pro-Union groups in the city into Home Guard military units.
[137] In an attempt to ascertain the strength of the encampment, Lyon entered under disguise, and, noting small Confederate flags and references to Jefferson Davis, decided to clear the camp using federal troops from the arsenal.
The formal establishment of a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers District at Saint Louis on February 19, 1872, signaled a significant effort by the federal government to provide regional leadership in the post Civil War era.
[186] Busch pioneered pasteurization to keep beer fresh, and he marketed Anheuser-Busch products nationally using refrigerator cars and by providing saloons with free prints of a painting that included advertising for the company.
Another factor in the continued economic issues of the farmer was the increasing availability of credit from eastern bankers; high interest rates frequently led to repossession of farmland and sheriff's sales during the 1890s.
[202] Most of the immigration to Missouri in the nineteenth century was of families, and women left diaries, letters, and memoirs documenting preparations for the journey, the nerve-wracking Atlantic crossing, and the long train rides from New York City to St. Louis[203] and their final destinations.
In antebellum St. Louis, prostitutes working in orderly, discreet brothels were seldom arrested or harassed—unless they were unusually boisterous, engaged in sexual activities outside their established district, or violated other rules of appropriate conduct.
He helped enact Progressive legislation, including an initiative and referendum provision, regulation of elections, education, employment and child labor, railroads, food, business, and public utilities.
Officials and communities throughout the state mounted their own displays of patriotism and support for the Allies, with special emphasis on mobilizing public opinion and further strengthening agricultural programs and economies that had already been bolstered by prewar market demands.
In 1917 when the U.S. Food Administration, headed by Herbert Hoover, began promoting voluntary guidelines for increased farm production and reduced consumer use of items in short supply, Missouri met, and in many cases exceeded, the national standards.
[248] Missouri painter Thomas Hart Benton created a mural series known as The Year of Peril, and the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra performed at concerts sponsored by the United Service Organizations (USO).
[249] As a result of the departure of soldiers and higher employment rates among adults, juvenile delinquency increased, leading many Missouri communities to establish curfews and build recreational facilities for youth.
[259] In 1948 the first statewide elections after the adoption of the 1945 Missouri Constitution were held; Forrest Smith, former state auditor, won the Democratic primary and the governor's office with the support of labor unions and city political machines.
[261][263] In 1956, as with his gubernatorial predecessor Forrest Smith, Donnelly retired at the end of his term; fellow Democrat James T. Blair Jr., the son of a Missouri Supreme Court justice, won election easily.
[279] When he ran for reelection in 1988, Ashcroft's wide popularity allowed him to defeat Betty Hearnes by a 64 to 34 percent margin, a wider spread than that achieved by George H. W. Bush, who Missourians selected for president that year.
[282] By the end of his second term, state spending had risen to more than $10 billion, although he maintained that he supported greater fiscal discipline; when he left office in 1992, he began building campaign funds and, in 1994, ran for the seat held by Senator Danforth, who was retiring.
[294] Even after the end of lawsuits for damages, informal discrimination in housing continued well into the 1950s because of a practice among realtor groups of expelling members who sold homes to blacks in white neighborhoods.
