Editing Missouri (section)

===Early history===
[[Archaeology|Archaeological]] excavations along river valleys have shown continuous habitation since about 9000 BCE.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Missouri - History|url=https://www.britannica.com/place/Missouri-state|access-date=March 3, 2021|website=Encyclopedia Britannica|archive-date=March 9, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210309080758/https://www.britannica.com/place/Missouri-state|url-status=live}}</ref> Beginning before 1000 [[Common Era|CE]], the people of the [[Mississippian culture]] created regional political centers at present-day [[St. Louis]] and across the [[Mississippi River]] at [[Cahokia]], near present-day [[Collinsville, Illinois]]. Their large cities included thousands of individual residences. Still, they are known for their surviving massive [[Earthwork (archaeology)|earthwork mounds]], built for religious, political and social reasons, in [[Platform mound|platform]], [[ridge]]top and [[Cone (geometry)|conical]] shapes. Cahokia was the center of a regional trading network that reached from the [[Great Lakes]] to the [[Gulf of Mexico]]. The civilization declined by 1400 CE, and most descendants left the area long before the arrival of Europeans. St. Louis was at one time known as Mound City by the European Americans because of the numerous surviving prehistoric mounds since lost to urban development. The Mississippian culture left mounds throughout the middle Mississippi and Ohio river valleys, extending into the southeast and the upper river.

The land that became the state of Missouri was part of numerous different territories, possessed changing and often indeterminate borders, and had many different [[Native Americans in the United States|Native American]] and European names between the 1600s and statehood. For much of the first half of the 1700s, the west bank of the [[Mississippi River]] that would become Missouri was mostly uninhabited, something of a no man's land that kept peace between the [[Illinois]] on the east bank of the Mississippi River and to the North, and the Osage and Missouri Indians of the lower Missouri Valley. In the early 1700s, French traders and missionaries explored the whole of the Mississippi Valley, and named the region "Louisiana". Around the same time, a different group of French Canadians established five villages on the east bank of the Mississippi River and identified their settlements as being in le pays des Illinois, "the country of the Illinois". When settlers of [[French Canadians|French Canadian]] descent began crossing the Mississippi River to establish settlements such as Ste. Genevieve, they continued to identify their settlements as being in the Illinois Country. At the same time, the French settlements on both sides of the Mississippi River were part of the French province of [[Louisiana]]. To distinguish the settlements in the Middle Mississippi Valley from French settlements in the lower Mississippi Valley around New Orleans, French officials and inhabitants referred to the Middle Mississippi Valley as La Haute Louisiane, "The High Louisiana", or "Upper Louisiana".
[[File:George Caleb Bingham 001.jpg|thumb|''[[Fur Traders Descending the Missouri]]'' by Missouri painter [[George Caleb Bingham]]]]
The first European settlers were mostly ethnic [[French Canadian]]s, who created their first settlement in Missouri at present-day [[Ste. Genevieve, Missouri|Ste. Genevieve]], about {{convert|45|mi|km}} south of St. Louis. They had migrated in about 1750 from the [[Illinois]] Country. They came from colonial villages on the east side of the Mississippi River, where soils were becoming exhausted and there was insufficient river bottom land for the growing population. The early Missouri [[Human settlement|settlements]] included many enslaved Africans and Native Americans, and slave labor was central to both commercial agriculture and the fur trade. Sainte-Geneviève became a thriving agricultural center, producing enough surplus wheat, [[Maize|corn]] and tobacco to ship tons of grain annually downriver to Lower Louisiana for trade. Grain production in the Illinois Country was critical to the survival of Lower Louisiana and especially the city of New Orleans.

St. Louis was founded on February 14, 1764, by French fur traders [[Gilbert Antoine de St. Maxent]], [[Pierre Laclède]], and [[Auguste Chouteau]].<ref name="Cazorla et al">Cazorla, Frank; Baena, Rose; Polo, David; and Reder Gadow, Marion. (2019) ''The governor Louis de Unzaga (1717–1793) Pioneer in the Birth of the United States of America''. Foundation, Malaga, pages 49, 57–65, 70–75, 150, 207</ref> From 1764 to 1803, European control of the area west of the Mississippi to the northernmost part of the Missouri River basin, called Louisiana, was assumed by the Spanish as part of the Viceroyalty of [[New Spain]], due to [[Treaty of Fontainebleau (1762)|Treaty of Fontainebleau]]<ref name="foley 1989 26">Foley (1989), 26.</ref> (in order to have Spain join with France in the war against England). The arrival of the Spanish in St. Louis was in September 1767.

St. Louis became the center of a regional [[fur trade]] with Native American tribes that extended up the Missouri and Mississippi rivers, dominating the regional economy for decades. Trading partners of major firms shipped their furs from St. Louis by river down to New Orleans for export to Europe. They provided a variety of goods to traders for sale and trade with their Native American clients. The fur trade and associated businesses made St. Louis an early financial center and provided the wealth for some to build fine houses and import luxury items. Its location near the confluence of the Illinois River meant it also handled produce from the agricultural areas. River traffic and trade along the Mississippi were integral to the state's economy. As the area's first major city, St. Louis expanded greatly after the invention of the [[steamboat]] and the increased river trade.