Library Guides: Thomas Jefferson Statue at the University of Missouri: Jefferson and the Louisiana Purchase

The Louisiana Purchase, Indian Removal, and Slavery's Expansion

Congress erected a new monument at Jefferson's grave at Monticello in 1883. When University of Missouri President Samuel Spahr Laws applied to have Jefferson's original monument moved to Columbia, he made the case that MU was the first land-grant university founded on land included in the 1803 Louisiana Purchase, acquired during Jefferson's presidency.

MU has many books that discuss the Louisiana Purchase and subsequent admission of the state of Missouri to the United States. The following works were selected as examples because they deal with that portion of the Louisiana Purchase that became the state of Missouri in particular, and with Thomas Jefferson's relationship to the events and decisions affecting these lands and their inhabitants.

Mr. Jefferson's Lost Cause by Roger G. Kennedy
ISBN: 0195153472
Publication Date: 2003
Thomas Jefferson advocated a republic of small farmers--free and independent yeomen. And yet as president he presided over a massive expansion of the slaveholding plantation system--particularly with the Louisiana Purchase--squeezing the yeomanry to the fringes and to less desirable farmland. Roger Kennedy examines that gap between Jefferson's stated aspirations and what actually happened.
Wolf by the Ears by John R. van Atta
Call Number: E373 .V23 2015
ISBN: 9781421416526
Publication Date: 2015
The first organized Louisiana Purchase territory to lie completely west of the Mississippi River and northwest of the Ohio, Missouri carried special significance for both pro- and anti-slavery advocates.
“Humane and Considerate Attention”; Indian Removal From Missouri, 1803-1838 by Billy J. McMahon. M.A. Thesis, Maryville University
Publication Date: 2013
In 1803 there were thousands of indigenous people living in what eventually became Missouri. Over the course of the following decades, thousands more Indians from over a dozen different nations settled there in exchange for land east of the Mississippi River. By 1838, however, nearly all Native Americans had been expelled further west, by the will of state and local officials, empowered by the policy of forced immigration advocated by President Andrew Jackson.