page_title: Colonial history of Missouri
section_title: Spanish period 1762–1803
hierarchical_section_title: Colonial history of Missouri / Spanish period 1762–1803
caption_attribution_description: English: Map of the early settlements and forts of Upper Louisiana (colonial-era Missouri) created using background image from DEMIS mapserver and Inkscape to add details and boundaries.
context_page_description: The Colonial history of Missouri covers the French and Spanish exploration and colonization: 1673–1803, and ends with the American takeover through the Louisiana Purchase
context_section_description: Shortly after the founding of Ste. Genevieve, disputes between France and England over control of the Ohio Valley resulted in the outbreak of the French and Indian War in 1754. The British won and France lost all of its holdings. France gave Spain control of Louisiana in November 1762 in the Treaty of Fontainebleau.  About 1000 French settlers lived in Missouri, in small farming villages stretched out along the Mississippi and Missouri rivers.
  However, due to slow transit times, word of the Treaty of Fontainebleau did not arrive in Louisiana until 1765. In that period, the French governor of Louisiana granted a trade monopoly over Missouri to New Orleans merchant Gilbert Antoine de St. Maxent and his partner, Pierre Laclède. In August 1763, Laclede and his stepson Auguste Chouteau departed New Orleans for Missouri where in February 1764,they established St. Louis on high bluffs overlooking the Mississippi.
  Although Laclede had brought the news in December 1763 of the transfer of the eastern Illinois Country to the United Kingdom, the French commander Pierre Joseph Neyon de Villiers only received his orders to begin evacuations in April 1764. Villiers departed for New Orleans in June 1764 with 80 families, and he transferred temporary control to his subordinate, Louis St. Ange de Bellerive, who was given responsibility to monitor the remaining settlers in Illinois. Concern about living under British rule led many French settlers to decamp for Missouri, especially with encouragement from Laclede; upon the arrival of the British at Fort de Chartres in October 1765,. St. Ange was the interim commander of the entire upper Louisiana region until 1767.
caption: Map of early Missouri settlements and trading posts
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