Who was here before the French arrived?
Long before any French people set foot on the land that would one day be called Missouri, Native people made their home here. Missouri—which takes its name from the Missouria Native people—is located at the confluence of three great North American rivers—the Mississippi, the Missouri, and the Ohio—and is a transition zone between two biomes, the southeastern forests and the western prairies. These characteristics nurtured Native people for thousands of years; they have left traces such as stone tools that archaeologists have excavated in places like the Martens site in St. Louis County, showing that people were living here at least 11,000 years ago.
More recently, Missouri was home to the Mississippian culture which flourished between circa 1000 to 1300 A.D. The people of this culture were known for building large earthen mounds at places that served as both population centers and religious sites. A large set of mounds was erected on the site of present-day St. Louis, the origin of the city’s nickname as “Mound City.” As many as 26 mounds made up this group, situated on what is today downtown St. Louis and the surrounding area.
As part of the Mississippian culture, the site included not just mounds but also large plazas as well as agricultural farmsteads where corn, squash, and sunflowers were grown, along with other crops. This culture also included the mound complex at Cahokia, just across the Mississippi River from St. Louis. The mounds at the site of present-day St. Louis were nearly all destroyed during the nineteenth century. One mound—Sugarloaf—is still in existence. It is located on land purchased by the Osage people with the intention of preserving this sign of Native heritage in the St. Louis area. The entire complex, including the Cahokia site across the river, was abandoned by around 1350 A.D., for reasons that are not completely clear.
By the 17th century, the land that is now Missouri was inhabited by people of several different tribes. In the far north were Ioways and in the northwest, Otoes. In central and south-central parts of today’s state were the Missourias and the Osages: the latter were a dominant group around the Missouri River area. People of the Illinois confederacy lived near the Mississippi River from the northern to the central part of the state. To the south lived Quapaws; Choctaws and Chickasaws also spent periods of time in the territory of present-day Missouri, primarily to hunt. Reports from French travelers in the 18th century described Osage villages as being large and having dome-shaped lodges covered with bark or cattail mats. The Osage cultivated corn, beans, squash, and tobacco and also hunted and fished. Native people from Missouri also traveled west seasonally for bison hunts.
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