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Felix & Odile Pratt Valle slave quarters, southeast corner of Merchant & Second Streets, Sainte Genevieve, Missouri. The history of slavery in Missouri began in 1720, predating statehood, with the large-scale slavery in the region, when French merchant Philippe François Renault brought about 500 slaves of African descent from Saint-Domingue up the Mississippi River to work in lead mines in ...
Map and view of St. Louis, 1848. This is a list of slave traders working in Missouri from settlement until 1865: . Jim Adams, Missouri and New Orleans [1]; Atkinson & Richardson, Tennessee, Kentucky, and St. Louis, Mo. [2]
Missouri statehood, with the Tallmadge Amendment approved, would have set a trajectory towards a free state west of the Mississippi and a decline in southern political authority. The question as to whether the Congress was allowed to restrain the growth of slavery in Missouri took on great importance in slave states.
Missouri was initially settled predominantly by Southerners, who traveled up the Mississippi River.Many brought slaves with them. Missouri entered the Union in 1821 as a slave state following the Missouri Compromise of 1820, in which Congress agreed that slavery would be illegal in all territory north of 36°30' latitude, except Missouri.
Overall, Missouri's slave population represented 10 percent of the state's population in the 1860 U.S. Census. But in Little Dixie, county and township slave populations ranged from 20 to 50 percent by 1860, with the highest percentages for the counties developed for large plantations along the Missouri river.
The "Missouri Crisis" was resolved at first in 1820 when the Missouri Compromise cleared the way for Missouri's entry to the union as a slave state. The Missouri Compromise stated that the remaining portion of the Louisiana Territory above the 36°30′ line was to be free from slavery. This same year, the first Missouri constitution was adopted.
At the commencement of the Civil War, Missouri was a deeply divided state. Missouri had chosen to remain in the Union, and initially maintained a policy of neutrality towards both the Union and the Confederacy. However, Missouri was also a state in which slavery was still legal, a factor which generated sympathy for the Confederacy and secession.
In Mary Robinson's July 24, 1885, recollections, during an interview for the Missouri Republican's memorial to Grant following his death, she noted that "he always said he wanted to give his wife's slaves their freedom as soon as he was able." In 1859, Grant freed William Jones, the only person he is known to have enslaved.