Welcome to the Missouri Bicentennial Minute from the State Historical Society of Missouri.
Just who were Missourians at the time of statehood? This minute and the next one will focus on the population of territorial Missouri.
The first Europeans in the Missouri area were the French. Spain had claims in the region, but few settlers. Frenchmen settled near missions among the indigenous peoples at Cahokia and Kaskaskia, Illinois, in the late 1600s. French miners and trappers worked west of the Mississippi, and established a settlement at Mine la Motte in 1717-1723, including slaves imported to work in lead mines. Raids by the Osage ended this effort, though, and no permanent settlement occurred until Ste. Genevieve in 1735.
At the end of the French and Indian War in 1762, France ceded Louisiana to Spain. The area east of the Mississippi passed to Great Britain after the 1763 Treaty of Paris. French who wished to avoid British rule moved to Missouri, receiving generous inducements from the Spanish. St. Louis was founded at this time, followed by Carondelet in 1767, St. Charles in 1769, Mine à Breton (Potosi) around 1770, New Madrid in 1783, Florissant in 1786, Old Mines and St. Michel in about 1790, and Cape Girardeau in 1792.
Jurisdiction of the area fell to Spain as a provision of the 1783 Treaty of Paris that ended the Revolutionary War. The Spanish encouraged American settlement in the late 1780s, allowing George Morgan, an American military officer, to establish a colony at New Madrid. Spain had misgivings about the loyalties of Americans and their protestant religion, but also needed economic development of the colony and defense provided by settlers. Spain negotiated the return of Louisiana to France in 1800 in the Treaty of San Ildefonso. At the time of the Louisiana Purchase, French settlers dominated government and commerce, but the population was shifting to American settlers.