Editing Missouri River (section)

==American frontier==
===Fur trade===
[[File:George Caleb Bingham 001.jpg|thumb|right|''Fur Traders on Missouri River'', painted by [[George Caleb Bingham]] c. 1845|alt=Painting of two figures and a cat on a boat in a placid body of water]]
As early as the 18th century, fur trappers entered the extreme northern basin of the Missouri River in the hopes of finding populations of [[North American beaver|beaver]] and [[North American river otter|river otter]], the sale of whose pelts drove the thriving [[North American fur trade]]. They came from many different places – some from the Canadian fur corporations at Hudson Bay, some from the Pacific Northwest (''see also'': [[Maritime fur trade]]), and some from the midwestern United States. Most did not stay in the area for long, as they failed to find significant resources.<ref>
{{cite web
|url=http://lewis-clark.org/content/content-article.asp?ArticleID=2970
|title=Manuel Lisa's Fort Raymond: First Post in the Far West
|publisher=The Lewis and Clark Fort Mandan Foundation
|website=Discovering Lewis and Clark
|access-date=October 18, 2010
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120512004804/http://lewis-clark.org/content/content-article.asp?ArticleID=2970
|archive-date=May 12, 2012
|url-status=dead
}}
</ref>

The first glowing reports of country rich with thousands of game animals came in 1806 when Meriwether Lewis and William Clark returned from their two-year expedition. Their journals described lands amply stocked with thousands of buffalo, beaver, and river otter; and also an abundant population of [[sea otter]]s on the Pacific Northwest coast. In 1807, explorer [[Manuel Lisa]] organized an expedition which would lead to the explosive growth of the fur trade in the upper Missouri River country. Lisa and his crew traveled up the Missouri and Yellowstone Rivers, trading manufactured items in return for furs from local Native American tribes, and established a fort at the confluence of the Yellowstone and a tributary, the [[Bighorn River|Bighorn]], in southern Montana. Although the business started small, it quickly grew into a thriving trade.<ref>
{{cite web
|url=http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/fur-trader-manuel-lisa-dies
|title=Fur trader Manuel Lisa dies
|publisher=A&E Television Networks
|website=This Day in History
|access-date=October 18, 2010
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100308043436/http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/fur-trader-manuel-lisa-dies
|archive-date=March 8, 2010
|url-status=dead
}}
</ref><ref>
{{cite web
|url=http://lewis-clark.org/content/content-article.asp?ArticleID=2868
|title=Post-Expedition Fur Trade: "The Great Engine"
|publisher=The Lewis and Clark Fort Mandan Foundation
|website=Discovering Lewis and Clark
|access-date=October 19, 2010
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101124211252/http://lewis-clark.org/content/content-article.asp?ArticleID=2868
|archive-date=November 24, 2010
|url-status=live
}}
</ref>

Lisa's men started construction of [[Fort Raymond]], which sat on a bluff overlooking the confluence of the Yellowstone and Bighorn, in the fall of 1807. The fort would serve primarily as a trading post for bartering with the Native Americans for furs.<ref>{{harvp|Morris|1912|pp=40–41}}</ref> This method was unlike that of the Pacific Northwest fur trade, which involved trappers hired by the various fur enterprises, namely [[Hudson's Bay Company|Hudson's Bay]]. Fort Raymond was later replaced by [[Fort Lisa (North Dakota)|Fort Lisa]] at the confluence of the Missouri and Yellowstone in North Dakota; a second fort also called [[Fort Lisa (Nebraska)|Fort Lisa]] was built downstream on the Missouri River in Nebraska. In 1809 the [[St. Louis Missouri Fur Company]] was founded by Lisa in conjunction with William Clark and Pierre Choteau, among others.<ref>{{harvp|South Dakota State Historical Society|South Dakota Department of History|1902|pp=320–325}}</ref><ref name="npsfur">
{{cite web
|url=http://www.nps.gov/history/nr/travel/pierre_fortpierre/early_exploration_fur_trade_essay.html
|title=Early Exploration and the Fur Trade
|publisher=U.S. National Park Service
|access-date=October 19, 2010
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120415095319/http://www.nps.gov/history/nr/travel/pierre_fortpierre/early_exploration_fur_trade_essay.html
|archive-date=April 15, 2012
|url-status=live
}}
</ref> In 1828, the [[American Fur Company]] founded [[Fort Union Trading Post National Historic Site|Fort Union]] at the confluence of the Missouri and Yellowstone Rivers. Fort Union gradually became the main headquarters for the fur trade in the upper Missouri basin.<ref>{{cite web
|url=http://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/lewisandclark/uni.htm
|title=Fort Union Trading Post National Historic Site
|publisher=U.S. National Park Service
|website=Lewis & Clark Expedition
|access-date=February 11, 2012
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120213234948/http://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/lewisandclark/uni.htm
|archive-date=February 13, 2012
|url-status=live
}}</ref>

[[File:Fort Clack on the Missouri february 1834 0048v.jpg|thumb|left|''[[Fort Clark Trading Post State Historic Site|Fort Clark]] on the Missouri'' in February 1834, painted by [[Karl Bodmer]]]]
Fur trapping activities in the early 19th century encompassed nearly all of the Rocky Mountains on both the eastern and western slopes. Trappers of the Hudson's Bay Company, St. Louis Missouri Fur Company, American Fur Company, [[Rocky Mountain Fur Company]], [[North West Company]] and other outfits worked thousands of streams in the Missouri watershed as well as the neighboring Columbia, Colorado, Arkansas, and Saskatchewan river systems. During this period, the trappers, also called [[Mountain man|mountain men]], blazed trails through the wilderness that would later form the paths pioneers and settlers would travel by into the West. Transport of the thousands of beaver pelts required ships, providing one of the first large motives for river transport on the Missouri to start.<ref>{{harvp|Sunder|1993|p=10}}</ref>

As the 1830s drew to a close, the fur industry slowly began to die as silk replaced beaver fur as a desirable clothing item. By this time, also, the beaver population of streams in the Rocky Mountains had been decimated by intense hunting. Furthermore, frequent Native American attacks on trading posts made it dangerous for employees of the fur companies. In some regions, the industry continued well into the 1840s, but in others such as the Platte River valley, declines of the beaver population contributed to an earlier demise.<ref>{{harvp|Sunder|1993|p=8}}</ref> The fur trade finally disappeared in the Great Plains around 1850, with the primary center of industry shifting to the Mississippi Valley and central Canada. Despite the demise of the once-prosperous trade, however, its legacy led to the opening of the American West and a flood of settlers, farmers, ranchers, adventurers, hopefuls, financially bereft, and entrepreneurs took their place.<ref>{{harvp|Sunder|1993|pp=12–15}}</ref>

===Settlers and pioneers===
{{See also|Department of the Missouri|American Indian Wars}}
[[File:George Caleb Bingham - Boatmen on the Missouri - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|''Boatmen on the Missouri'' c. 1846]]
The river roughly defined the [[American frontier]] in the 19th century, particularly downstream from Kansas City, where it takes a sharp eastern turn into the heart of the state of Missouri, an area known as the [[Boonslick]]. As first area settled by Europeans along the river it was largely populated by slave-owning southerners following the [[Boone's Lick Road]]. The major trails for the opening of the American West all have their starting points on the river, including the [[California Trail|California]], [[Mormon Trail|Mormon]], [[Oregon Trail|Oregon]], and [[Santa Fe Trail|Santa Fe]] trails. The first westward leg of the [[Pony Express]] was a ferry across the Missouri at [[St. Joseph, Missouri]]. Similarly, most emigrants arrived at the eastern terminus of the [[First transcontinental railroad]] via a ferry ride across the Missouri between [[Council Bluffs, Iowa]], and Omaha.<ref>{{harvp|Dick|1971|pp=127–132}}</ref><ref>
{{cite web
|url=http://www.history.com/topics/transcontinental-railroad
|title=The Transcontinental Railroad
|publisher=History Channel
|website=History.com
|access-date=October 7, 2010
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110726215500/http://www.history.com/topics/transcontinental-railroad
|archive-date=July 26, 2011
|url-status=live
}}
</ref> The [[Hannibal Bridge]] became the first bridge to cross the Missouri River in 1869, and its location was a major reason why Kansas City became the largest city on the river upstream from its mouth at St. Louis.<ref>
{{cite web
|url=http://www.kclibrary.org/?q=blog/week-kansas-city-history/bridge-future
|title=Bridge to the Future
|publisher=Kansas City Public Library
|date=December 9, 2009
|access-date=October 7, 2010
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120512010207/http://www.kclibrary.org/?q=blog/week-kansas-city-history/bridge-future
|archive-date=May 12, 2012
|url-status=dead
}}
</ref>

True to the then-ideal of [[Manifest Destiny]], over 500,000 people set out from the river town of [[Independence, Missouri]], to their various destinations in the American West from the 1830s to the 1860s. These people had many reasons to embark on this strenuous year-long journey – economic crisis, and later gold strikes including the [[California Gold Rush]], for example.<ref>
{{cite web
|url=http://www.nebraskahistory.org/publish/publicat/books/ourbooks/mattes.htm
|title=The Great Platte River Road
|publisher=Nebraska State Historical Society
|date=June 30, 1998
|access-date=January 7, 2011
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120503200231/http://www.nebraskahistory.org/publish/publicat/books/ourbooks/mattes.htm
|archive-date=May 3, 2012
|url-status=usurped
}}
</ref> For most, the route took them up the Missouri to Omaha, Nebraska, where they would [[Great Platte River Road|set out along the Platte River]], which flows from the Rocky Mountains in Wyoming and Colorado eastward through the Great Plains. An early expedition led by [[Robert Stuart (explorer)|Robert Stuart]] from 1812 to 1813 proved the Platte impossible to navigate by the [[dugout canoe]]s they used, let alone the large sidewheelers and sternwheelers that would later ply the Missouri in increasing numbers. One explorer remarked that the Platte was "too thick to drink, too thin to plow".<ref>Cech, p. 424</ref> Nevertheless, the Platte provided an abundant and reliable source of water for the pioneers as they headed west. Covered wagons, popularly referred to as ''prairie schooners'', provided the primary means of transport until the beginning of regular boat service on the river in the 1850s.<ref>Mattes, pp. 4–11</ref>

During the 1860s, gold strikes in Montana, Colorado, Wyoming, and northern [[Utah]] attracted another wave of hopefuls to the region. Although some freight was hauled overland, most transport to and from the gold fields was done through the Missouri and Kansas Rivers, as well as the [[Snake River]] in western Wyoming and the [[Bear River (Great Salt Lake)|Bear River]] in Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming.<ref>Holmes, Walter and Dailey, pp. 105–106</ref> It is estimated that of the passengers and freight hauled from the Midwest to Montana, over 80&nbsp;percent were transported by boat, a journey that took 150 days in the upstream direction. A route more directly west into Colorado lay along the Kansas River and its tributary the Republican River as well as pair of smaller Colorado streams, [[Big Sandy Creek (Colorado)|Big Sandy Creek]] and the [[South Platte River]], to near Denver. The gold rushes precipitated the decline of the [[Bozeman Trail]] as a popular emigration route, as it passed through land held by often-hostile Native Americans. Safer paths were blazed to the [[Great Salt Lake]] near [[Corinne, Utah]], during the gold rush period, which led to the large-scale settlement of the Rocky Mountains region and eastern [[Great Basin]].<ref>Athearn, pp. 87–88</ref>

[[File:Karl Bodmer Travels in America (43).jpg|thumb|left|Karl Bodmer, ''[[Fort Pierre, South Dakota|Fort Pierre]] and the Adjacent Prairie'', c. 1833, – the river, river bluffs and floodplain are depicted around the fort settlement|alt=Painting of a fort surrounded by tepees on the bank of a river curving around a series of bluffs]]
As settlers expanded their holdings into the Great Plains, they ran into land conflicts with Native American tribes. This resulted in frequent raids, massacres and armed conflicts, leading to the federal government creating multiple treaties with the Plains tribes, which generally involved establishing borders and reserving lands for the indigenous. As with many other treaties between the U.S. and Native Americans, they were soon broken, leading to huge wars. Over 1,000 battles, big and small, were fought between the U.S. military and Native Americans before the tribes were forced out of their land onto reservations.<ref>
{{cite AV media
|section-url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/interview/tcrr-interview/
|section=Native Americans
|publisher=PBS
|title=Transcontinental Railroad
|series=The American Experience
|medium=film
|access-date=October 5, 2010
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110906013820/http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/interview/tcrr-interview/
|archive-date=September 6, 2011
|url-status=live
}}
</ref><ref>
{{cite web
|url=http://www.history.army.mil/html/reference/army_flag/iw.html
|title=U.S. Army Campaigns: Indian Wars
|website=U.S. Army Center for Military History
|publisher=U.S. Army
|date=August 3, 2009
|access-date=October 7, 2010
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101109084007/http://www.history.army.mil/html/reference/army_flag/iw.html
|archive-date=November 9, 2010
|url-status=dead
}}
</ref>

Conflicts between natives and settlers over the opening of the Bozeman Trail in the Dakotas, Wyoming and Montana led to [[Red Cloud's War]], in which the [[Lakota people|Lakota]] and [[Cheyenne]] fought against the U.S. Army. The fighting resulted in a complete Native American victory.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia
|title=Red Cloud's War (United States history)
|encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica
|access-date=October 5, 2010
|url=https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1563057/Red-Clouds-War
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091120071748/https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1563057/Red-Clouds-War
|archive-date=November 20, 2009
|url-status=live
}}</ref> In 1868, the [[Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868)|Treaty of Fort Laramie]] was signed, which "guaranteed" the use of the [[Black Hills]], [[Powder River Country]] and other regions surrounding the northern Missouri River to Native Americans without white intervention.<ref name="Laramie1868">{{cite web
|last=Clark
|first=Linda Darus
|url=https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/sioux-treaty/
|title=Teaching with Documents: Sioux Treaty of 1868
|publisher=National Archives
|series=Expansion & Reform
|access-date=November 10, 2010
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101110032749/http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/sioux-treaty/
|archive-date=November 10, 2010
|url-status=live
}}</ref> The Missouri River was also a significant landmark as it divides northeastern Kansas from western Missouri; pro-slavery forces from Missouri would cross the river into Kansas and spark mayhem during [[Bleeding Kansas]], leading to continued tension and hostility even today between [[Kansas and Missouri]]. Another significant military engagement on the Missouri River during this period was the [[Battle of Boonville|1861 Battle of Boonville]], which did not affect Native Americans but rather was a turning point in the [[American Civil War]] that allowed the [[Union (American Civil War)|Union]] to seize control of transport on the river, discouraging the state of Missouri from joining the [[Confederate States of America|Confederacy]].<ref>
{{cite web
|url=http://www.cr.nps.gov/hps/abpp/battles/mo001.htm
|title=Boonville
|publisher=U.S. National Park Service
|series=CWSAC Battle Summaries
|access-date=March 5, 2011
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131110035105/http://www.cr.nps.gov/hps/abpp/battles/mo001.htm
|archive-date=November 10, 2013
|url-status=live
}}
</ref>

However, the peace and freedom of the Native Americans did not last for long. The [[Great Sioux War of 1876]]&ndash;77 was sparked when American miners discovered gold in the Black Hills of western South Dakota and eastern Wyoming. These lands were originally set aside for Native American use by the Treaty of Fort Laramie.<ref name="Laramie1868"/> When the settlers intruded onto the lands, they were attacked by Native Americans. U.S. troops were sent to the area to protect the miners, and drive out the natives from the new settlements. During this bloody period, both the Native Americans and the U.S. military won victories in major battles, resulting in the loss of nearly a thousand lives. The war eventually ended in an American victory, and the Black Hills were opened to settlement. Native Americans of that region were relocated to reservations in Wyoming and southeastern Montana.<ref>{{harvp|Greene|2003|p= {{mvar|xv–xxvi}} }}</ref>