390 
Indiana University 
and foreign elements. The greatest change came between 
1850 and 1860. In that decade there poured into Missouri a 
larger number of foreigners and northern colonists than ever 
before, while the flow of southerners continued, the tides from 
Kentucky and Tennessee, as has been pointed out, being es- 
pecially high. So varied a flood of incoming population great- 
ly changed the character of the population, and produced a 
more complex society. The new Missouri that was being 
created was thoroly divided on the slavery question and very 
far from unity in regard to the Kansas conflict. 
With a population of 700,000 in 1850, Missouri added a 
half-million during the following decade. St. Louis, with a 
population of 160,773 in 1860, was more than twice as large 
as ten years before. Of the more than 40,000,000 acres of land 
in Missouri, about 10,000,000 were included in the farms of 
1850. By 1860 another 10,000,000 acres had been added to this 
total.^^ New towns sprang up over the state, while old ones ex- 
panded to meet the demands of an increasing agricultural pop- 
ulation. It was in this decade that Kansas City, St. Joseph, and 
Hannibal first became important commercial centers. A great 
part of Missouri’s growth in population was due to the set- 
tlement of her vacant lands and to the exploitation of her 
undeveloped natural resources. Her growth was also due to 
her unparalleled river connections that gave rise to an enor- 
mous steamboat traffic in every direction ; to the railroad con- 
nections established during the decade; to the fact that her 
strategic location gave her a control of the trade that passed 
over the Oregon and Santa Fe routes ; to the fact that a great 
part of the migration, traffic, and travel connected with the 
settlement of Kansas was dependent on the Missouri River; 
and to the fact that parties of gold-seekers, bound for Cali- 
fornia or Colorado, used St. Louis and other points in the 
state as centers for the purchase of outfits and from which 
to make their departures."^® 
The truth is that the most strenuous stage in the peopling 
of Missouri came while the struggle for Kansas was on, and 
herein is to be found the main reason for the failure of Miss- 
Census of 1850, Compendium, 169 ; Census of 1860, Agi'iculturc, 222. 
DeBoiv’s Review, XXI, 87-89 (1856) ; ihid., XXIV, 213-216 (1858) ; Philip E. 
Chappell, “A History of the Missouri River”, in Kansas State Historical Society Transac- 
tions, IX, 273-294 ; Harrison A. Trexler, ‘‘Missouri-Montana Highways”, in MissouH 
Histoo'ical Review, XII, 67 ff. and 145 ff. ; Eugene M, Violette, History of Missouri (Bos- 
ton, 1918), chaps, ix, xi ; Herald of Freedom, April 26, 1856. 
