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		Struggle For Empire: Early Origins to 1815

		1764 A.D.

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BC 23000 AD 1100 1300 1500 1539 1656 1673 1675 1699 1720 1724 1756 1763 1764 1765 1769 1770 1771 1775 1776 1777 1778 1779 1780 1781 1782 1783 1784 1785 1787 1789 1790 1791 1792 1794 1797 1799 1800 1803 1804 1805 1807 1808 1809 1810 1811 1812 1814 1815 1816 1817		Pierre Laclede (a French resident of New Orleans) and Rene Auguste Chouteau, with a force of thirty men, begin building cabins and plant the good city of St. Louis as a fur trading center. It was named in honor of Louis XV, the reigning king of France, whose patron saint was Louis IX, better known as Saint Louis. He secretly hoped that a city at St. Louis might lead to the peaceable transfer of the original French settlements in nearby Illinois back to the rule of France which had lost them to the British by the Treaty of Paris, 1763. The north side of St. Louis was dotted with numerous Mississippian temple and burial mounds, giving it the nineteenth century nickname, "Mound City." The town was laid out following a grid pattern similar to that of New Orleans. The founding of St. Louis causes large numbers of French settlers in Cahokia to leave that oft-flooded city and relocate in St. Louis which is situated on higher ground. Richard McCarty, a forty-year-old Irish Protestant, turns Catholic in order to marry a seventeen-year-old French girl in Montreal, Ursule Benoit. McCarty served as a supply officer and helped the British capture Montreal in the French and Indian War. McCarty is seen by many as a shady character because it was thought that he secretly worked for both sides in the recent conflict.