Editing Platte Purchase (section)

==Purchase==
When Missouri entered the Union, its western border was established as 
<blockquote>"a meridian line passing through the middle of the mouth of the [[Kansas River|Kansas river]], where the same empties into the Missouri river, thence, from the point aforesaid north, along the said meridian line, to the intersection of the parallel of latitude which passes through the rapids of the river Des Moines, making the said line correspond with the Indian boundary line."<ref name="compromise">{{cite act |title=An Act to authorize the people of the Missouri territory to form a constitution and state government, and for the admission of such state into the Union on an equal footing with the original states, and to prohibit slavery in certain territories. |date=March 6, 1820 |url=https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=22&page=transcript}}</ref></blockquote>The purchase extended Missouri's western border north of the Kansas River east along the Missouri River to 95°46′ west longitude.

Less than a year after the [[Indian Removal Act]] of 1830, by which the US was authorized to remove the Native American population, the Missouri General Assembly was petitioning Congress to more clearly define the border on the northwest corner of the state. The Legislature noted the boundary was not clear, and that the land was not surveyed, thus leading to settlers encroaching on the lands. The most spectacular example of encroachment was [[Joseph Robidoux IV|Joseph Robidoux]], who had been operating an [[American Fur Company]] trading post at [[St. Joseph, Missouri]] since 1826.

On January 27, 1835, Senator [[Lewis F. Linn]] wrote John Dougherty, an Indian agent, to inquire about acquiring the land. Dougherty agreed, noting that the territory was preventing access to Missouri River shipping by Missouri residents east of the purchase line. According to an early 20th-century historian, Dougherty's reputation among the Native Americans was that of the "Controller of [[Alcohol and Native Americans#Firewater myths|Fire-water]]" from the Missouri River to the Columbia River.<ref name="Houck">{{cite book|title=A History of Missouri: From the Earliest Explorations and Settlements Until the Admission of the State Into the Union|volume=1|author=Louis Houck|date=1908|publisher=R. R. Donnelley & Sons Company|url=https://archive.org/details/ahistorymissour01houcgoog/page/n38/mode/2up|pages=10–12|access-date=2020-03-29}}</ref>

The first tribes to give up their land were the [[Potawatomi]], who ceded their land in the [[Treaty of Chicago]]. They agreed to this in 1833 but the treaty wasn't finalized until 1835. The Potawatomi (about 1,000 to 2,000) moved north to a reservation in [[Pottawattamie County, Iowa]] ([[Council Bluffs, Iowa]]).<ref name="kancoll">{{cite web|url=http://www.kancoll.org/books/cutler/deschist/indhistp8.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20030420204042/http://www.kancoll.org/books/cutler/deschist/indhistp8.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=2003-04-20|publisher=kancoll.org|title=Indian History, Part 8|access-date=2017-01-08}}</ref> They moved again 1837–1838 in the [[Potawatomi Trail of Death]] to [[Osawatomie, Kansas]].

The formal application came in the summer of 1835 at a meeting on the Dawes farm near [[Liberty, Missouri]]. Andrew S. Hughes, the US Indian agent for the Sauk and Meskwaki peoples, presided over a meeting of Missouri residents who formally asked Congress to acquire the land. Missouri senator [[Thomas Hart Benton (politician)|Thomas Hart Benton]] introduced a bill to acquire the land and it was approved with little opposition in June 1836.<ref name="Houck"/>

An agreement was reached on September 17, 1836, with the chiefs [[Chief Mahaska|Mahaska]] and [[No Heart (chief)|No Heart]] of the [[Ioway]] tribe and leaders of the combined [[Sauk people|Sauk]] and [[Meskwaki]] tribes in a ceremony at [[Fort Leavenworth, Kansas]]. It was presided by [[William Clark (explorer)|William Clark]], the Superintendent of Indian Affairs, who was based in St. Louis.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=United States |url=https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008319763 |title=Indian affairs: laws and treaties |last2=Kappler |first2=Charles Joseph |date=1975 |publisher=Govt. Print. Off. |location=Washington |chapter=Treaty with the Iowa, etc., 1836 |chapter-url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.31210003349790&view=1up&seq=476&skin=2021}}</ref> (He was one of the leaders of the [[Lewis and Clark Expedition]].) Noted diplomat [[Jeffrey Deroine]], a formerly enslaved man, served as an interpreter for this treaty.<ref>Olson, G. (2015). ''Jeffrey Deroine: Ioway Translator, Frontier Diplomat.'' United States: Truman State University Press.</ref>

The [[United States Senate|Senate]] approved the treaty on February 15, 1837. On March 28, 1837, President [[Martin Van Buren]] issued a proclamation supporting the annexation. In October 1837, the Missouri General Assembly accepted the land and placed it all initially in the newly created Platte County.<ref name="Houck"/><ref>{{cite book|title=Alexander William Doniphan: Portrait of a Missouri Moderate|author=Roger D. Launius|author-link=Roger D. Launius|publisher=Columbia: University of Missouri Press|date=1997|page=31}}</ref>

This addition increased the land area of what was already the largest state in the Union at the time (about 66,500 square miles (172,000&nbsp;km<sup>2</sup>) to Virginia's 65,000 square miles, which then included West Virginia).<ref>{{cite book|title=The Shaping of America: A Geographical Perspective on 500 Years of History, Volume 2: Continental America, 1800–1867|author=Meinig, D.W.|date=1993|publisher=New Haven: Yale University Press|page=437|isbn=0-300-05658-3}}</ref> The acquisition challenged the [[Missouri Compromise]] of 1820 by expanding slavery into free territory north of the southern Missouri border with Arkansas ([[Parallel 36°30′ north]]), and the Indian Removal Act. It required a second relocation of tribes who had just been moved "permanently" west of the Missouri border, as part of the forced [[Indian removal]] policy of ethnic cleansing from lands wanted by whites.<ref name="Houck"/>

The tribes were paid $7,500 for their land. The U.S. government was "to provide agricultural implements, furnish livestock", and a host of other small items. The tribes agreed to move to reservations west of the Missouri River in what was to become [[Kansas]] and [[Nebraska]]. Furthermore, the U.S. government was to "build five comfortable houses for each tribe, break up {{convert|200|acre|km2|1}} of land, fence {{convert|200|acre|km2|1}} of land, furnish a farmer, blacksmith, teacher, interpreter."<ref name=":0"/> The reservations are today known as the [[Iowa Reservation]] and the [[Sac and Fox Reservation]]. The tribes gave up 3.1 thousand square miles of land for reservations of 29 square miles combined (26 for the Sac and Fox and 3 for the Ioway).

[[Michigan]] entered the Union on July 4, 1836. By the time the Platte Purchase was finalized, Missouri remained the second biggest state.