The Billings gazette. [volume] (Billings, Mont.) 1896-1919, 1903-04-07
A LITTLE HISTORY.

n. A LII TIE HISTORY.
st. Louis Globe-Democrat: Not all
of the province of Louisiana which
Bonaparte sold to Jefferson was trans.
ferred by Iaussat, the French repub.
lies representative at New Orleans,
to General Wilkinson and Governor
W. @. G. Claiborne, when, in that city,
ON December 20, 1903, they received
the territory on behalf of the Unit
ed States That part of the province
called Upper Louisiana was still to be
dealt with. Broadly stated, this COM
prised all the old French territory
west of the Mississippi outside of
the present state of Louisiana.
Though far larger in area than the
part OF the territory which Wilkinson
and Claiborne received, it had fewer
inhabitants, numbering somewhat
over 10000, all but a small portion of
whom were in the limits of the pres
ent state of Missouri, the remainder
being in Arkansas. A little less than
1900 of these 10000 people in Upper
Louisiana we're negroes, all except
a few of these being slaves. On
March 8, 1904, Don Carlos Default
Delassus, the Spanish commandant in
St. Louis, handed over the territory
to Major Amos Studdard, represent
ing the French republic in this cere-
mony, and on the following day,
March 10, Stoddard transferred it to
the United States. w
The ninety-nine years which have
passed since the old French territory
of Upper Louisiana first greeted the
stars and stripes have seen a physical
and social transformation in this re-
gion scarcely paralleled in any other
large portion Of the United States.
The wilderness of those days has
been divided into eleven states and
two territories. Missouri was the first
OF these to become organized, Arkan-
a was the second. and then, in this
order, followed Iowa, Minnesota and
Kansas. the last-named state enter
ing the Union in the closing days of
January, 1861, three weeks after
South Cardinals attack on the Star
of the West, which was entering
Charleston harbor with reinforce
ments for Major Robert Anderson and
the United States troops in Fort Sum-
ter, started the rebellion. Nebraska,
Colorado, the two Dakotas, Montana
and Wyoming have been organized
since Appomatox, the four last named
coming in a little over a dozen years
ago. Two territories, Oklahoma and
the Indian Territory, remain outside
of the statehood circle. The 10000
inhabitants of Upper Louisiana on
the day that Stoddard passed the ter
ritory over to the United States nine
ty-nine years ago had expended into
13, 40 900 in 1900.
This is part of the story which the
past ten decades in this locality tells.
But it is only a small part of it. BY
getting possession of the region I'M
west of the Mississippi
along it's entire length. the possibility
for the erection of q new Canada on
our western border at the big rivers
verge vas averted, all the acquisitions
of territory-Texas, the Oregon coun-
try 1.-THE present states of Oregon,
Washington and Idaho and parts of
Montana and Wyoming), New Mex
eco, (including the present New Mex
leo, Arizona, Utah and Nevada. and
parts of Colorado and Wyoming), and
.alifornia-which have since been
made were rendered inevitable, and
the country was started or its career
Of territorial and social expansion
which has not yet ended. The pos
of the Mississippi and the
territory on its west side saved the
Union in 1876. first by rendering it
geographically impossible that a set
If customs houses should be set upl