Franscisco Cruzat served two terms as lieutenant governor of Upper Louisiana in New Spain. [Alcée Fortier, A History of Louisiana, 1904]

Francisco Cruzat, the only Spanish lieutenant governor of Upper Louisiana to occupy that…

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Henri Peyroux de Ia Coudrenière was born in France around 1743, the son of Marguerite-…

A detail from Thomas Hutchins’s 1778 map of the Illinois Country showing Ste. Genevieve, Kaskaskia, and Fort de Chartres. [Courtesy of the David Rumsey Historical Map Collection, Image 5045002]

During the first half of the eighteenth century, marriages between Native Americans and…

Charles de Hault Delassus. [Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis, Photographs and Prints Collection, N36696]

Following the Louisiana Purchase, Charles de Hault Delassus, Upper Louisiana’s last Spanish…

This 1778 map of the Illinois Country by Thomas Hutchins depicts the region as it appeared during Israel Dodge’s lifetime. [Courtesy of the David Rumsey Historical Map Collection, Image 5045002]

Israel Dodge exemplified the adventurous spirit of a young, expanding United States at the…

A detail from the Finiels map of the Mississippi River showing the area around St. Louis. The original is in the Archives de la Marine, Chateau, Vincennes, France. [Courtesy of Carl J. Ekberg]

Nicolas de Finiels, an expatriate French engineer who served the Spanish monarchy during…

This depiction of colonial Ste. Genevieve by artist Oscar Berninghaus is among the murals in the Missouri State Capitol. [State Historical Society of Missouri, color transparency in Ralph Walker Photographs Collection, P0108-017298-1]

The French Revolution induced many royalists to emigrate to the Louisiana Territory in the…

Charles Gratiot. [Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis, Photographs and Prints Collection, N12406]

At the time of the Louisiana Purchase, Charles Gratiot’s outspoken support for the incoming…

Plan of Hardeman’s Garden, also called Fruitage Farm, with labyrinth. [State Historical Society of Missouri, Glen O. Hardeman Collection, C3655]

John Hardeman, best remembered for the botanical showplace he created on the banks of the…

Francis White Cloud. Portrait by George Catlin, circa 1844–1845. [Courtesy of the National Gallery of Art]

The Ioways did not live in what is now Missouri for much of the historical era.…