Missouri Enters The Union

Congress of the United States for 3 1/2 years spent most of their time trying to agree on Missouri Statehood.

Missourians can be proud of the years they were required to wait to be accepted as a state because the people acted like a "Republic" in exercising all the powers of a sovereign state with no actual connections to the Federal Union. The only binding control was reverence for principles and a great desire to be free.

In a final compromise, congress asked the Missouri territorial legislature to pass the "Absurd Act" as it was called. Congress made the "Solemn Act" a requirement before admission as a state. It read as follows: The restrictive clause excluding free negroes and mulattoes from settling in the state should not be constructed to effect any citizen of any other state where their rights were guaranteed under the constitution of The United States.

When a copy of the approved act was delivered to President Monroe he declared Missouri a state August 21, 1821. There was another move by the enemies of Missouri in the final act to accept the slate. When Missouri met and formed a constitution on July 19, 1820 they included all the Riverways in the state of Missouri as part of Wayne County. When the Congress of the United Slates, on August l0, 1821, admitted the state of Missouri into the union, the strip south of 37 degree north latitude and west of the St. Francis River was again left unattached. This area remained in dispute for a number of years, not only because of the number of slaves in the area but also because there were a large number of Indians and mixed bloods living on the land. These people held title to their land only as members of clans under tribal law and. As such, they were not included in the census nor shown on assessment lists.

The Last Retreat

In the Ozark uplands, the last scene in the squeeze of the Indians toward the west was played. This was the last real estate which the white settlers considered to be worth the taking. As is true to day, the balance of nature was being destroyed by overpopulation and waste: furthermore, since imigrant Indians and mixed bloods who lived under their protection had other guns and destructive tools, the wildlife and its habitat was being destroyed. For many years, the "Tallow Wacker" and "Bear Hunter" had killed not for food, but for fat. From the animals they killed, so much grease was taken to the west bank of the Mississippi River that the area where the trail from the Ozarks upland ended was called the "Greasy Bent."

In the travels of the author, Schoolcraft, an authority in this area during the early nineteenth century, through the Ozark uplands the abundance of game was noted. A few years later, however, reports to the United States government show a scarcity of game in the area. To many, this gave an excuse to force the hunting, gathering Indians further west and the United Slates Government was encouraged to make new treaties with the indians that would trade land in Kansas and Oklahoma for their Missouri claims. As statehood for Missouri neared, many mixed bloods and white people changed their ways of life to more closely approximate the living standards of the settlers and their names were changed to English names. They made claims to the land and banded into settlements for protection from raiding parties of the Osage tribes and other Indian clans from the north and east who were floating through the area looking for better hunting grounds.

Such groups of Indians were numerous but very mixed. Some were on their last retreat and one could find fewer than ten full bloods in the group by the time they arrived in the Ozarks upland. The larger tribes: Kickapoo, Pinkashaw, Peoria, Seneca, Sac, Fox, Iowa and Miamis.

Typical of the condition of these bands, due to war and disease, was a band of hostile Miamis overtaken in southern Missouri by General Dodge. The report shows, of 153 taken prisoner, 31 were men and boys and 122 were women and children.

The Delaware-Shawnee who had been given land in Missouri were treated somewhat better. On November 7, 1825, the Shawnee received, for their lands in Missouri, fifty square miles of Kansas Territory, $14000 for land and improvements, the services of a blacksmith and a five year supply of iron.

On December 26, 1832, the Delaware were given land, $5,000 in merchandise, $2,000 in livestock, a mill and the services of a miller for five years, a school and teacher for three years and $1,000 to make a first crop.

One can see, from these settlements, that the Indians had begun to ask for the things which would help them to establish a new way of life. They had made their last retreat from the hunting, gathering form of life they had always known.

By the year 1822, the United States land survey for this area was completed and settlers could receive titles to their holdings by recording them in official records.

As the Indians were moving west, farms could be purchased at the land office for cash and as the acres were purchased and recorded, townships were formed and adopted by Wayne County.