Along the Mississippi: French Settlement
The earliest settlements of French-speaking people in what is now Missouri were along the Mississippi River. After La Salle claimed the whole of the Mississippi River drainage for France in 1682, an increasing number of French and French-Canadian traders and others came into the territory.
Before the French founded New Orleans at the mouth of the Mississippi in 1718, several French forts and French-Native villages were established just across the Mississippi from present-day Missouri. As the political and economic situation changed in the early 18th century, French-speaking settlers from those towns in what is now Illinois chose to cultivate land and subsequently establish villages on the west side of the river: these communities, including Ste. Genevieve and St. Louis, would become crucial centers of the French-speaking upper Mississippi Valley.
The first residents of Ste. Genevieve would continue the cultivation practices established across the river, planting wheat, tobacco, hemp, and flax, in addition to the maize and squash traditionally cultivated by Native people. The habitants of Ste. Genevieve exported these commodities, and others, to the rest of New France, in particular down the Mississippi to the Gulf Coast, marking an economic turn from sole dependence on the fur trade. At the same time, a distinct French and mixed French-Native culture developed there. St. Louis, founded shortly after Ste. Genevieve, saw its economy develop more centrally on the fur trade, as we will see. The French also wanted to exploit other resources in what is now Missouri, which led, for example, to the establishment the settlement of what is known today as Old Mines.
Up the Missouri River
Prior to the birth of these communities, however, in 1717-18 the French government gave responsibility for the administration and economic development of Louisiana—both Upper and Lower—to a private company, the Company of the Indies. In what is now the state of Missouri, the French wanted to continue their explorations on the Missouri River. Although the French had not yet ventured far up the Missouri, an erstwhile French soldier named Etienne Veniard, sieur de Bourgmont, traveled up the river, living and trading with the Osage and marrying a Missouria woman.
In spite of a problematic past, after publishing reports of his travels in Missouri, Bourgmont managed to gain the confidence of French authorities and the leaders of the Company, and was officially dispatched up the Missouri as a government representative in 1719. The goals for his expedition were, first, to establish a French presence in the region and discourage the Spanish from moving in from their colony to the west; second, to develop relationships with the Native people living in this area near the Missouri River; and, finally, to see if there were mineral resources such as lead or silver to be exploited there.
Accompanied by Father Jean-Paul Mercier, who had been working among the Tamaroa (Illinois) people at the French and Native village of Cahokia on the Mississippi (just across the river from present-day St. Louis), Bourgmont and his men built Fort Orleans near the Grand River just north of the Missouri River in present-day Chariton County. The fort had an initial garrison of about 40 men, but it was only occupied for a few years (1723-1736).
Here, the French could facilitate trade with multiple Native peoples, and the fort became a significant site of trade for both Osage and Missouria people. Today, experts are unsure of the fort’s exact location. In 1725, Bourgmont accompanied a delegation of Native people to France. The small group included representatives of the Missouria, Osage, Otoe, and Illinois people. Though the Natives returned to North America after their visit—during which they met the young King Louis XV—Bourgmont remained in France, leaving behind his Missouria wife and family in North America.
Other French traders came up the Missouri River to trade, but were not met with positive regard by the Native people. Bourgmont, in contrast, had established kin relations with the Missouria and had been able to develop trade relationships based on that important point of contact. When the financial situation of the Company of the Indies deteriorated and the Company pulled back from operations in the Missouri River area, more unlicensed fur traders, known as coureurs de bois, moved in. As the situation became more chaotic, in 1744 a detachment was sent from Fort de Chartres to restore order.
Ste. Genevieve
Closer to the Mississippi River, the small mixed French-Native settlements of Cahokia, Kaskaskia, and Fort de Chartres/Prairie du Rocher were growing. Numerous colonial records, including those kept by the notary (an official record-keeper) in Kaskaskia, document life in the village and the surrounding area including Fort de Chartres and Cahokia. By the mid-1700s, they included records of land grants on the west side of the Mississippi River at the site of what would become the village of Ste. Genevieve.
As the population of the villages on the east side of the Mississippi grew, so did the pressure on their agricultural land. The French-Canadian habitant farmers did not practice crop rotation, so even rich river bottom land was soon exhausted. In search of land to farm and to shelter their growing families, some residents of Illinois Country villages like Kaskaskia applied for grants of land on the river’s west side. These families would form the nucleus for the new village of Ste. Genevieve. Though the exact date of the village’s founding is not clear, historian Carl J. Ekberg has concluded that it was sometime in the mid-1700s, likely sometime around 1750. A census taken in 1752 indicated nine families living there.
Ste. Genevieve was organized in a form that is known as a “string town,” with properties strung along a main road that paralleled the Mississippi River. Several aspects of its organization were typical of a French village. First was the concentration of agricultural fields in a large common field: in order to grow their crops, landholders owned conjoining strips of a large field, which they cultivated individually. The entire large field was surrounded by a fence to keep livestock out. All landholders were responsible for the upkeep of this fence.
Second, residents had, in addition to their portion of the large common field, their residential property in the village. And finally, a common pasture was used by all grazing animals; this area was located between the Mississippi River and the fenced large common field. With all land requests needing to be approved by the royal administrative powers in place, the village was what Ekberg calls a “planned community” from its early days.
Economically, Ste. Genevieve benefited from sending a significant portion of its surplus agricultural production downriver to New Orleans each year. In addition, just south of Ste. Genevieve was a saline creek, which had long been used by Native people. As early as 1715, the French too were making salt at la Saline, and by the end of the century they were shipping 3500 barrels of salt per year to New Orleans. In addition, the lead mined nearby found a shipping outlet at Ste. Genevieve, marking the importance of the town as a transportation center in Upper Louisiana.
The history of Ste. Genevieve continues! Click on “Missouri: French Persistence after 1763” for more.
St. Louis
Shortly after the village of Ste. Genevieve came into being, another French settlement was implanted about 50 miles up the Mississippi River. All of Louisiana had recently become Spanish territory when trading privileges for the Illinois country were granted to Gilbert Antoine Maxent by the governor in New Orleans. Maxent’s junior business partner Pierre Laclède was tasked with founding a new trading post on the west side of the Mississippi. Laclède came up the Mississippi River, starting the trip of about three months in August 1763, accompanied by his 13-year-old stepson Auguste Chouteau.
The post that was founded, which would facilitate development of the fur trade throughout the territory to the west, would become the city of St. Louis. An account of the early days of St. Louis was written by Chouteau nearly 50 years later; it downplays the roles played by others in the first days of the post’s existence, but historian Ekberg has stressed that it was not a two-man show. Laclède and Chouteau were doubtless aided in their search for a likely site for the post by seasoned traders and habitants from places like Kaskaskia, Fort de Chartres, and Cahokia across the river who were familiar with the area.
In addition, the development of this new settlement took place as habitants were already actively moving to the west side of the Mississippi, as can be seen in the growth of Ste. Genevieve. In any case, a site was chosen for the new trading post not too long after Laclède and Chouteau’s arrival in the area in late 1763. That site, some 15 miles south of the mouth of the Missouri River, was on high ground but also offered access to the Mississippi River. Laclède, Chouteau, and those with them quickly set about getting land cleared and getting the trading post and residences set up.
The history of St. Louis continues! Go to “Missouri: French Persistence after 1763” for more.
La Vieille Mine (Old Mines)
French presence in the historic area of “Old Mines” began long before 1763, as the French sought to exploit the lead deposits in this region some 50 miles west of Ste. Genevieve. And their French traditions and language remained alive and well into the 20th century and beyond. To learn their story, go to the page “Missouri: French Persistence after 1763.”
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