History of Missouri
17th century
In 1673, Father Jacques Marguette and Louis Jolliet sailed down the Missisippi river in canoes along the area that would later become Missouri. The two established that the Missisippi river ran all the way to the sea. In 1682, Robert Cavalier, Sieur de Salle took control of what was the Lousiana Territory for France.
During this time until the 19th century with the building of the first railways in the Mississippi basin, the Mississipi system waterways were almost the only means of communication and transportation in this region. During the early years of French occupation, trade with the Indians was the only important industry and was carried on using birch canoes and a few pirogues.
18th Century
By 1720 immigrants were coming in considerable numbers both by way of the Great Lakes and the mouth of the Mississippi, and to meet the demands of a rapidly expanding commerce barges and keelboats were introduced. Also in 1720, the frenchmen, Phillippe Francois Renault brought the first black slaves to Missouri to work in the lead mining districts.
1724 saw Fort Orleans being built upon the north bank of the Missouri river by Etienne de Bourgmont in what is now Carroll County Missouri. A few years later, Saint Genevieve was founded in 1750 on the Mississippi. King Lousis XV issued an edict concerning the use of black slaves in the terriority and this code was continued under the Spanish regime.
Spain gained control of the region in 1762 under the Treaty of Fontainebleu, but did not assume control until 1770.
Saint Louis was founded in 1764 by the frenchmen Pierre Laclede Blanchette. Five years later, he found Saint Charles as a trading outpost.
19th Century
1800 saw Spain negoiate with France to return control of the region back to France. France reasoning that it could not protect the region from the expanding United States, sold the territory to the US under President Jefferson for 11 million dollars in 1803.
Lewis and Clark set out in 1804 to map the region and in 1805, the territory of Lousianna was established with the government seat in Saint Louis.
Steamboat navigation was done on the Mississipi in 1811 with the "New Orleans" steamboat travelled from Pittsburg to New Orleans. However the boats were not able to reach St. Louis. On Dec 16 of that year, the New Madrid Earthquake occurred, the largest in the history of the United States. Temors were reported as far away as Philadelphia.
The territory of Missouri was carved from the territory of Lousianna in 1812. This year saw the creation of the first general assembly of the Territory of Missouri with the five original counties being Cape Girardeau, New Madrid, St. Charles, St. Louis, and Ste. Genevieve.
1817, the steamboat "Zebulon M. Pike" reached St. Louis. In 1817 the commerce from New Orleans to the Falls of the Ohio, at Louisville, was carried in barges and keel-boats having a capacity of 60 to 8o tons each, and 3 to 4 months were required to make a trip. In 1820 steamboats were making the same trip in 15 to 20 days, by 1838 in 6 days or less; and in 1834 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 produce down stream; an extensive canal system in the state of Ohio, completed in 1842, connected the Mississippi with the Great Lakes; these were connected with the Hudson river and the Atlantic Ocean by the Erie Canal, which had been open since 1825.
1818, Missouri requested admittance to the union as a slave state. This became a national controversy because of the slavery issue. 1820, Missouri was admitted to the union along with Maine, a free state, to preserve the balance of free and slave states as part of the "Missouri Compromise". Additionally, the Missouri Compromise stated that the remaining portion of the Lousianna Territory above the 36°30' line was to be free from slavery. This same year, the first Missouri constitution was adopted. 1821, Missouri was admitted as the 24th state with the state capitol temporarily located in St. Charles until a permanent location could be selected. Jefferson City was chosen in 1826 as the site for the capitol.
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,ooo,ooo 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 Missouri Supreme Court ruled that "Once free, Always free". In 1846, the Dred Scott case in which Dred and Harriet Scott sued for freedom occurred. He was allowed to sue for freedom based on the fact that he had previously lived in a free state. This case continued on until 1857.
In the Civil War the Lower Mississippi, the Ohio, and its two largest tributaries—the Cumberland and the Tennessee—being still the most important lines of communication west of the Appalachian Mountains, determined largely the movements of armies. The adherence of Kentucky to the Union excluded the Confederacy from the Ohio, but especially disastrous was the fall of Vicksburg and Port Hudson, whereby the Confederacy was cut in two and the entire Mississippi became a Federal highway.
Under Federal control it was closed to commerce, and when the war was over the prosperity of the South was temporarily gone 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 Atlantic seaboard, via the Great Lakes and by new lines of railways, the number of which rapidly increased. There was, of course, some revival of the Mississippi commerce immediately after the war, but this was checked by the bar at the mouth of the south-west pass. Relief was obtained through the Eads jetties at the mouth of the south pass in 1879, but the facilities for the transfer of freight were far inferior to those employed by the railways, and the steamboat companies did not prosper.
20th Century
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