Boone County, Missouri: Little Dixie

Boone County was named for Boone's Lick Country, a salt lick which the sons of Daniel Boone relied on for their stock. Emigrants before 1820 were primarily slave holders from the Upper South States of Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia. One third of early settlers were from Madison County, Kentucky. They grew familiar crops: hemp and tobacco. Large acreages were most efficient and these they claimed. Six counties north and south of the Missouri River were so predominantly Southern in influence that the area was known as Little Dixie. Boone County was its heart. In 1820 Missouri was admitted as a slave holding state. By 1860 25% of the residents of Boone County were slaves.

After 1820 emigrants of German descent came to Missouri in large numbers. They had no interest in owning slaves and settled on smaller acreages amidst the Southerners. They would gradually change the political balance from slave to non-slave but now it was not safe to publicly denounce slavery. After their marriage in 1838 Edward and Martha Elizabeth Silver along with Edward’s mother and father, George and Martha Silver, moved into this community and society of slave holders. Edward’s brother, George W, was with them also. What did the Silvers, once fellow travelers with anti-slavery Quakers in Indiana, feel and think? The consequences of publically opposing slavery were often threats, assaults, arson, and murder.