| History of St. Louis |
|---|
 |
| Exploration and Louisiana |
| City founding and early history |
| Expansion and the Civil War |
| St. Louis as the Fourth City |
| Urban decline and renewal |
| Recent developments |
| See also |
The history of St. Louis, Missouri, from prehistory to 1762 was marked by the presence of the Moundbuilder indigenous culture, the explorations of Europeans, and the establishment of French trading posts along the Mississippi River.
The earliest settlements in the St. Louis area were built by the people of the Mississippian culture, who constructed more than two dozen burial mounds within what would become the city of St. Louis. [1] The earliest mounds in the area date to approximately 1050, but much about the mound builders in St. Louis is unknown. [2] Although some of the St. Louis area settlement is preserved at the Cahokia Mounds site in Illinois, the mounds in St. Louis were nearly all demolished. [2] Only one mound remains within the city (Sugarloaf Mound), although St. Louis retained the nickname "The Mound City" well into the 19th century. [2]
One of the primary causes of settlement for indigenous peoples was the presence of the Mississippi River and its tributaries, especially the Missouri River. [3] Native Americans used the large forests located along the river to construct canoes, which were then used for transport on the rivers. [4] After the end of the Mississippian culture in the 14th century and due to pressures from French Canadian settlers, Siouan-speaking groups such as the Missouria and Osage migrated to the Missouri valley, living in villages along the Osage and Missouri rivers. [1] Both groups lived in conflict with northeastern tribes such as the Sauk and Meskwaki, and all four groups confronted the earliest explorers of Missouri.
European exploration of the area began nearly a century before the city of St. Louis was officially founded. In the early 1670s, Jean Talon, the Intendant of New France, ordered an exploration of the potential of the Mississippi River after hearing of rumors that it connected to the Pacific Ocean. [5] On this mission, explorer Louis Joliet and Jesuit priest Jacques Marquette arrived at the Mississippi River in June 1673 and traveled past the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi to the mouth of the Arkansas River. [6] At this point Joliet returned north after determining the river would not reach the Pacific and fearing attack by Spanish settlers. [6]
Nine years later, French explorer La Salle led an expedition south from the Illinois river to the mouth of the Mississippi and claimed the entire valley for France. [6] La Salle named the Mississippi river basin Louisiana after King Louis XIV; the region between and near the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi was named Illinois Country. [6] As part of a series of forts in the Mississippi valley, in 1699 the French built a settlement on the east bank of the Mississippi at Cahokia, Illinois, near the Cahokia Mounds complex. [6] The next year, the Kaskaskia tribe established a village at a small river within the present area of St. Louis. With them two Jesuit priests, Pierre-Gabriel Marest and Francois Pinet, built a small mission at the site, naming the river the River Des Peres (River of the Fathers). However, by 1703 the site was abandoned as the Kaskaskia moved to the east bank and further south to a new settlement named Kaskaskia, Illinois.
Organized development of the Mississippi valley began with a grant of a trade monopoly in 1712 to Antoine Crozat, with the goal of finding and mining precious stones, gold and silver. [7] However, Crozat's venture failed by 1717 due to Spanish interference, and he relinquished his charter. [7] The next company to be granted a trade monopoly for the region was led by John Law, a Scottish financier. [7] In 1717, Law convinced Louis XIV to provide the Company of the West a 25-year monopoly of trade and ownership of all mines, while promising to settle 6,000 whites and 3,000 black slaves and build churches throughout the region. [7] The company founded New Orleans as the capital of Louisiana in 1718, and merged with other companies in 1719 to form the Company of the Indies. [7] In spite of a financial crisis and the ouster of Law in 1720, the Company of the Indies established a capital of the Illinois Country (upper Louisiana) at Fort de Chartres, 15 miles north of Kaskaskia on the east bank of the Mississippi. [8] Another early settlement near present-day St. Louis, Ste. Genevieve, Missouri, was built in 1732 across from the Kaskaskia village as a convenient port for salt and ore mined on the western side of the Mississippi. [8]
Although the Company of the Indies began making trade ties with Missouri River tribes in the early 1720s and 1730s, French economic policy focused on trade with the Spanish colony of New Mexico to the southwest. [9] Several trade expeditions between New Mexico and the Mississippi valley occurred between 1739 and the Seven Years' War of 1756–1763. [9] However, the war had destroyed the wealth of many French trading firms and merchants based in New Orleans, and the French governor of Louisiana began granting trade monopolies in several areas at the conclusion of the war to stimulate growth. [10]
Monroe County is a county located in the U.S. state of Illinois. According to the 2020 census, it had a population of 34,962. Its county seat and largest city is Waterloo.
Kaskaskia is a village in Randolph County, Illinois. Having been inhabited by indigenous peoples, it was settled by France as part of the Illinois Country. It was named for the Kaskaskia people. Its population peaked at about 7,000 in the 18th century, when it was a regional center. During the American Revolutionary War, the town, which by then had become an administrative center for the British Province of Quebec, was taken by the Virginia militia during the Illinois campaign. It was designated as the county seat of Illinois County, Virginia, after which it became part of the Northwest Territory in 1787. Kaskaskia was later named as the capital of the United States' Illinois Territory, created on February 3, 1809. In 1818, when Illinois became the 21st U.S. state, the town briefly served as the state's first capital until 1819, when the capital was moved to more centrally located Vandalia.
Cahokia was a village in St. Clair County, Illinois, United States. It was located east of the Mississippi River in the Greater St. Louis metropolitan area. As of the 2010 census, 15,241 people lived in the village, a decline from 16,391 in 2000. On May 6, 2021, the village ceased to exist, being incorporated into the new city of Cahokia Heights.
Ste. Genevieve is a city in Ste. Genevieve Township and is the county seat of Ste. Genevieve County, Missouri, United States. The population was 4,999 at the 2020 census. Founded in 1735 by French Canadian colonists and settlers from east of the river, it was the first organized European settlement west of the Mississippi River in present-day Missouri. Today, it is home to Ste. Genevieve National Historical Park, the 422nd unit of the National Park Service.
Manuel Lisa, also known as Manuel de Lisa, was a Spanish citizen and later, became an American citizen who, while living on the western frontier, became a land owner, merchant, fur trader, United States Indian agent, and explorer. Lisa was among the founders, in St. Louis, of the Missouri Fur Company, an early fur trading company. Manuel Lisa gained respect through his trading among Native American tribes of the upper Missouri River region, such as the Teton Sioux, Omaha and Ponca.
The Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site is the site of a pre-Columbian Native American city directly across the Mississippi River from present-day St. Louis, Missouri. This historic park lies in south-western Illinois between East St. Louis and Collinsville. The park covers 2,200 acres (890 ha), or about 3.5 square miles (9 km2), and contains about 80 manmade mounds, but the ancient city was much larger. At its apex around 1100 CE, the city covered about 6 square miles (16 km2) and included about 120 earthworks in a wide range of sizes, shapes, and functions.
The Illinois Country — sometimes referred to as Upper Louisiana —was a vast region of New France claimed in the 1600s in what is now the Midwestern United States. While those names generally referred to the entire Upper Mississippi River watershed, French colonial settlement was concentrated along the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers in what is now the U.S. states of Illinois and Missouri, with outposts on the Wabash River in Indiana. Explored in 1673 from Green Bay to the Arkansas River by the Canadien expedition of Louis Jolliet and Jacques Marquette, the area was claimed by France. It was settled primarily from the Pays d'en Haut in the context of the fur trade, and in the establishment of missions from Canada by French Catholic religious orders. Over time, the fur trade took some French to the far reaches of the Rocky Mountains, especially along the branches of the broad Missouri River valley. The French name, Pays des Ilinois, means "Land of the Illinois [plural]" and is a reference to the Illinois Confederation, a group of related Algonquian native peoples.
The Mississippian culture was a Native American civilization that flourished in what is now the Midwestern, Eastern, and Southeastern United States from approximately 800 CE to 1600 CE, varying regionally. It was known for building large, earthen platform mounds, and often other shaped mounds as well. It was composed of a series of urban settlements and satellite villages linked together by loose trading networks. The largest city was Cahokia, believed to be a major religious center located in what is present-day southern Illinois.
Louisiana or French Louisiana was an administrative district of New France. In 1682 French explorer René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle erected a cross near the mouth of the Mississippi River and claimed the whole of the drainage basin of the Mississippi River in the name of King Louis XIV, naming it "Louisiana". This land area stretched from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico and from the Appalachian Mountains to the Rocky Mountains. The area was under French control from 1682 to 1762 and in part from 1801 (nominally) to 1803.
The Battle of St. Louis, also known as the Battle of Fort San Carlos, was an unsuccessful attack by British-allied Indians on St. Louis on May 26, 1780, during the American Revolutionary War. A Loyalist fur trader led a large force of Indians and attacked the settlement.
The American Bottom is the flood plain of the Mississippi River in the Metro-East region of Southern Illinois, extending from Alton, Illinois, south to the Kaskaskia River. It is also sometimes called "American Bottoms". The area is about 175 square miles (450 km2), mostly protected from flooding in the 21st century by a levee and drainage canal system. Immediately across the river from St. Louis, Missouri, are industrial and urban areas, but nearby marshland, swamps, and the Horseshoe Lake are reminders of the Bottoms' riparian nature.
Spiro Mounds is an Indigenous archaeological site located in present-day eastern Oklahoma. The site was built by people from the Arkansas Valley Caddoan culture. that remains from an American Indian culture that was part of the major northern Caddoan Mississippian culture. The 80-acre site is located within a floodplain on the southern side of the Arkansas River. The modern town of Spiro developed approximately seven miles to the south.
The Merchants Bridge, officially the Merchants Memorial Mississippi Rail Bridge, is a rail bridge crossing the Mississippi River between St. Louis, Missouri, and Venice, Illinois. The bridge is owned by the Terminal Railroad Association of St. Louis. It opened in May 1889 and crosses the river 3 miles (5 km) north of the Eads Bridge.
The history of St. Louis began with the settlement of the area by Native American mound builders who lived as part of the Mississippian culture from the 9th century to the 15th century, followed by other migrating tribal groups. Starting in the late 17th century, French explorers arrived. Spain took over in 1763 and a trading company led by Pierre Laclede and Auguste Chouteau established the settlement of St. Louis in February 1764. It attracted French settlers leaving Illinois after their defeat in the Seven Years' War. The city grew in population due to its location as a trading post on the Mississippi River, as the western fur trade was lucrative. The city played a small role in the American Revolutionary War and became part of the U.S. through the Louisiana Purchase in 1803.
The Steed-Kisker culture is a cultural phase that is part of the larger Central Plains Village tradition of the Plains Village period. This term applies to the prehistoric peoples who occupied the Great Plains region of the modern-day United States in prehistoric times.
Missouri French or Illinois Country French also known as français vincennois, français Cahok, and nicknamed "Paw-Paw French" often by individuals outside the community but not exclusively, is a variety of the French language spoken in the upper Mississippi River Valley in the Midwestern United States, particularly in eastern Missouri.
The history of St. Louis, Missouri from 1763 to 1803 was marked by the transfer of French Louisiana to Spanish control, the founding of the city of St. Louis, its slow growth and role in the American Revolution under the rule of the Spanish, the transfer of the area to American control in the Louisiana Purchase, and its steady growth and prominence since then.
The Bois Brule Bottom is an alluvial floodplain in Bois Brule Township in Perry County, Missouri stretching between Bois Brule Creek to the west and the Mississippi River to the east.
Le Grand Champ is an alluvial floodplain, also called a bottom, extending along the Mississippi River in Ste. Genevieve County, Missouri.
The Colonial history of Missouri covers the French and Spanish exploration and colonization: 1673–1803, and ends with the American takeover through the Louisiana Purchase