Compiled by Mary Emma Gibson and lola Potts

As we celebrate our nation's Bicentennial year, we also become interested in the history of our state and local community. Missouri was not one of the original thirteen colonies, so it had no part in our nation's earliest history. Marquette and Joliet explored some of the area of Missouri in 1613 and they discovered the mouth of the Missouri River. In 1682 the explorer, Cavelier, claimed the Mississippi Valley for France and named it "Louisiana". The development of the area did not begin until 1735 when the first permanent white settlement was established at Ste. Genevieve. The Indians who lived here remained virtually undisturbed until about 1812. At that time there were scattered white settlements in all areas of the state, but there was no hostility between the Indians and the whites. However, when Britain and the U.S. entered into the War of 1812, the Indians began harassing the Missouri pioneers and their settlements. The Missourians then built forts and stockades to protect themselves.

Many tribes of Indians lived in Missouri before the white man came and this was excellent hunting territory. The unusually tall Osage Indians lived in the south and west part of the state, the Missouri tribe lived in the east and central part of the state and the Fox and Sauk Indians lived north of the Missouri River.

The ownership of the Louisana Territory changed hands several times from 1735 to 1803. In 1803 France sold the territory to the United States and In 1812 Congress made Missouri a territory. At this time there were about 20,000 people living here and farming and mining were well started, and schools and churches had been built. A large proportion of the settlers had been Southerners with slaves so in 1820, when Missouri made application to become a state, she asked to be admitted as a slave state. This caused a controversy in Congress because they did not want to break up their balance of eleven free states and eleven slave states. They worked it out that Maine would be admitted as a free state and in 1821 Missouri was admitted as a slave state and was the 21st state in the Union.