Page:History of Southeast Missouri 1912 Volume 1.djvu/13



The term, Southeast Missouri, like most terms made up from geographical expressions, is of indefinite application, being used in quite different ways by different people and at different times. In its widest significance it designates the east half of that part of the state south of the Missouri river, which contains somewhat more than a quarter of the entire area of the state. Sometimes its use is restricted to the counties lying in the alluvial plains of the Mississippi river, frequently called the swamps. Other meanings are given to the term also, but all of them have a vagueness of application which can be avoided only by arbitrary definition. As here used the term includes the counties of Jefferson, Washington, Iron, St. Francois, Madison, Ste. Genevieve, Perry, Reynolds, Wayne, Bollinger, Stoddard, Scott, Cape Girardeau, Carter, Ripley, Butler, Mississippi, New Madrid, Pemiscot, and Dunklin. These counties have an area of twelve thousand square miles and in 1910 their population was 362,453.

As the term is here used it is of course an arbitrary one, but definiteness in its use may not be secured without arbitrary limits being set. There are, however, certain considerations which led to the restriction of the term in the manner here proposed. In the first place the area chosen is practically that included within the three districts of Ste. Genevieve, Cape Girardeau, and New Madrid as laid out by the French and Spanish; with but few exceptions all the counties mentioned were settled before the transfer of the territory to the United States; and the larger number of the early settlements within the state are contained within Southeast Missouri as the term is here defined.

Another consideration which led to the selection of these limits is the fact that notwithstanding many striking differences in topography the section of the state here chosen for discussion has had a fairly uniform development. The causes which led to the settlements in one part of the section are substantially the same which led to settlements in other parts, and the general character of the settlements and the life of the people do not exhibit any great diversities.

Southeast Missouri, as here defined, consists of two sections differing widely in physical features. The line dividing the two sections runs from the Mississippi river at Cape Girardeau, southwest through Cape Girardeau, Stoddard, Butler, and Ripley counties dividing the latter two into almost equal parts; and reaches the state line about halfway between the east and west lines of Ripley county. This line is marked throughout most of its course by bluffs averaging from seventy to one hundred feet in height and known as the Mississippi escarpment. East and south of this line of bluffs are the alluvial bottoms of the Mississippi, the St. vii