Editing Perry County, Missouri (section)

===French and Spanish rule===
During the 18th Century, the Perry County area, like the rest of the future State of Missouri, was part of [[New France|French Louisiana]], also known as the [[Illinois Country]]. For most of the 18th Century the area of present-day Perry County was left largely uninhabited, even by the French of nearby [[Ste. Genevieve, Missouri|Ste. Genevieve]]. The latter was the first permanent [[White (U.S. Census)|White]] settlement in the Missouri area. In 1764, when the terms of the [[Treaty of Paris (1763)|1763 Treaty of Paris]] were announced in Louisiana, the French settlers found themselves transferred to an alien domination, that of Spain. In general the French were unhappy with the change of rule and the Spanish governance of the territory was an uneasy one, occasionally punctuated by armed rebellion. In the Ste. Genevieve area, the Spaniards, making a virtue of necessity, tended to let the French govern themselves.<ref name="archive.org">{{Cite book | url = https://archive.org/stream/saintegenevieves00yeal/saintegenevieves00yeal_djvu.txt | title = Sainte Genevieve; the story of Missouri's oldest settlement | author1 = The Bicentennial Historical Committee Sainte Genevieve, Missouri | year = 1935| publisher = St. Genevieve, Mo., Bicentennial Historical Committee }}</ref><ref name="The Spanish regime in Missouri">{{Cite book | url = https://archive.org/stream/saintegenevieves00yeal/saintegenevieves00yeal_djvu.txt | title = The Spanish regime in Missouri | author1 = LOUIS HOUCK | year = 1909| publisher = St. Genevieve, Mo., Bicentennial Historical Committee }}</ref>  During the 1770s and 1780s members of the [[Peoria tribe|Peoria Tribe]], whose situation had deteriorated under British and American rule in Illinois, migrated west across the Mississippi River into Ste. Genevieve and the lower part of the Bois Brule Bottoms.

The French population suffered continued harassment by the [[Osage Nation|Osage]] to the southwest. In the 1790s, [[Louis Lorimier]], authorized by Spanish officials, invited the [[Shawnee]] and [[Lenape|Delaware]] tribes in [[Ohio]] to immigrate and settle along [[Apple Creek (Mississippi River)|Apple Creek]] in Perry County in the hope that they would act as a buffer between the French to the north and the Osage to the south.<ref>{{Cite book | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=iHr4Z4a6VMEC&q=shawnee+village+perry+county+missouri&pg=PA524 | title = Missouri: A Guide to the Show Me State | isbn = 9781623760243 | author1 = Federal Writers’ Project | year = 1941| publisher = Best Books on }}</ref> Their largest village, [[Le Grand Village Sauvage, Missouri|Le Grand Village Sauvage]] - with a population of some 400, was located in the southern part of the county, just above Apple Creek, near present-day [[Old Appleton, Missouri|Old Appleton]]. Within a decade of the Native American immigration, Spanish authorities showed an interest in opening the area to colonization by Americans.<ref>{{Cite book | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=gX8_AAAAYAAJ&q=shawnee+delaware+perry+county+missouri&pg=PA214 | title = Hand-book of Missouri: Embracing Exhibits of the Agricultural, Commercial, Industrial ... Interests of the State | author1 = Missouri Immigration Society | year = 1880}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.greatriverroad.com/meetohio/countyperry.htm|title=Greatriverroad.com - Perry County, Missouri |access-date=December 31, 2015}}</ref> The first French settlers were Jean Baptiste Barsaloux and his father Girard Barsaloux who lived in the Bois Brule Bottom in 1787.<ref name="archive.org"/><ref name="The Spanish regime in Missouri"/>