Missouri

NATIVE INDIANS OCCUPIED Missouri prior to the arrival of the first French missionaries in 1673. It was not until 1720 that substantial numbers of migrants came to settle; in 1724 Fort Orleans was built. The area was taken over by the Spanish in 1762, but was ceded back to France in 1800. The French sold it to the United States in 1803, and two years later the Louisiana Territory was organized with St. Louis, founded in 1764 as a French trading post, becoming the seat of government. In 1812 Louisiana was granted statehood, and the remainder of the area was renamed the Missouri Territory, with the first general assembly in the territory convened. In 1818, Missouri requested statehood as a slave state. In the Missouri Compromise of 1820, Missouri was admitted as a slave state, Massachusetts was split with the northern part of it becoming the state of Maine. This kept the balance between slave states and free states.

After being admitted to the Union, Missouri's capital was Saint Charles until 1826, when it was moved to Jefferson City. In the first gubernatorial election, Alexander McNair, born in Pennsylvania and a participant in the Whiskey Rebellion, easily defeated William Clark [Page 422](of Lewis and Clark fame), with McNair getting 75 percent of the vote. William Clark was the governor of the Missouri Territory 1813–20. McNair was from the Democratic-Republican Party, and although the first three governors were Democratic-Republicans, for the vast majority of Missouri's history, the state has had a Democratic governor.

The second governor, Frederick Bates, originally from Virginia, was elected in 1824, but died in office in the following year from pneumonia. As the elected lieutenant governor, Benjamin Harrison Reeves had already resigned, a special election was organized in which Abraham J. Williams was elected to fill the unexpired term of Bates. In 1826, John Miller, a publisher, was elected as the first Democratic governor, with every succeeding governor until the Civil War a Democrat. The third Democrat, governor, Lilburn Wycliffe Boggs, signed an Extermination Order to drive the Mormons from Missouri, and in the Haun's Mill Massacre, militiamen murdered 17 Mormon men and boys, who probably had not even heard of the order. This led to thousands of Mormons fleeing Missouri and an assassination attempt on Boggs, who later moved to California.