Opening The Ozarks PDF Download

This study examines the spread of settlement into the Ste. Genevieve District of the eastern Ozarks of Missouri from the initial French colonial emplacement at Ste. Genevieve on the Mississippi River in the mid-eighteenth century to 1830 in the American period. It thus involves the transition from French and Spanish to American strategies to occupy land. The focus is on the choice of lands to occupy, how settlers acquired land, and how they developed communities. The extensive land records collected from diverse sources by the Ste. Genevieve Project at the University of Missouri-Columbia form the core of the documentary base for the study. The first part considers the natural environment for settlement purposes. The second is a history of Spanish and American administrative actions concerning the land settlement process with a focus on the extent to which official government land policies were carried out or were superseded by cultural traditions of settlers. Part three explores thirty-six neighborhoods of the district through a conceptual framework of seven basic settlement forms, bringing out the ethnic and racial diversity of settlers, different natural environments, and changing processes of acquiring and holding land. Part four analyzes population and transportation networks, then shows how the neighborhoods were integrated into an incipient settlement system with St. Louis at the hierarchical top. The study concludes by considering the Ste. Genevieve District within the larger context of American frontiers and emphasizes the value of detailed geographic study to capture the diversity of regions being settled.