Osage County Profile
In Order of Author: Brenden Kleiboeker, Sarah Choe, Jimmy Spears and Jacob Bode
Osage County is located in Central Missouri, and took the nearby river as its namesake. Near the Northwestern most point of the county is the confluence of the Osage and Missouri rivers — two of the largest rivers in the state. While the presence of two large rivers is economically important for the region, ethnic tensions are truly what makes Osage County such an interesting place to research.
For one, Osage County is known for being one of the most Catholic counties in Missouri, with over 50% of the population adhering to the Roman Catholic faith. The majority of this Catholic influence can be attributed to the German settlement which occurred in Osage County, but it was not always this way. In fact, the earliest settlers in Osage County were not German at all.
The earliest settlers in Osage County arrived in the far north reaches of the area along the Osage River. These settlers were French Canadians who settled in Osage County around 1805. Their settlement was appropriately named “French Village” and was located at the confluence of the Osage and Missouri rivers in Northwest Osage County. Other towns in Osage County were also founded by non-Germans before the great German settlement occurred in Osage County. Chamois, which is along the Missouri River in the northern portion of the county, was settled in 1818 by families from Virginia and was given a French name. Loose Creek was also originally on land owned by a French immigrant. More information on these settlements may be found here.
The earliest German settlements in Osage County began to be founded around the early to mid 1800s. Many of the first recorded immigrants to Osage County started alongside the Missouri River before finding their way to Central Missouri. While German immigrants were not pioneers to Missouri, they were relatively new to Osage County alongside other Anglo-Saxons. With Osage County being almost completely untilled land, many German immigrants migrated there with interest in cheap land, rich soil, and opportunities to expand economically through farming (Anderson 1994). This led to Osage County being heavily populated with a combination of Anglo-Saxons and German immigrants.
As Missouri becomes more developed, many more settlers grew interested in the realm of politics. Two particularly important topics for German Americans were slavery and emancipation. There was a divide between the Anglo-Saxons in the north parts of the county and the German immigrants in the south. Many Anglo-Saxons favored slavery and the economic benefits it afforded, and therefore didn’t approve of emancipation. On the other hand, German immigrants were focused on preserving the Union while eventually ending slavery. It is often confused that many German immigrants were radical abolitionists, when in reality many supported free soil, free labor, and a smooth transition to freeing slaves. Many believed that slavery was harmful to the Union and pushed for a gradual emancipation (Garrison 2020). The support that Abraham Lincoln received from German immigrants in Missouri was some of the only support he received from Missouri.
Because the influence of German immigrants was strong and pushed the border state to ban slavery, a divide formed between German-American immigrants and Anglosaxon immigrants. It was however not a hard split, as it was instead separated by townships. There was a lot of overlap and the split between the two sides mainly focused on political views and ethnic identities rather than a geographical split.
In the early 20th century, North and Osage County, Missouri, experienced a significant conflict that came to be known colloquially as the “Osage County War”. The conflict centered around a dispute over political and economic power between the northern and southern regions of the county. At the time, northern towns in Osage County were more populous and economically prosperous than southern German towns, and its residents held more political power. This caused tension between the two regions, as Germans in southern parts of Osage County felt that they were being unfairly marginalized.
German-Americans made up the majority of South Osage County’s immigrant population, and as Germany proceeded with its aggression in Europe during WW1, German-Americans became ostracized by society, and English and French-Americans residing in the south promptly moved up to the north to get away from what they thought was an internal enemy to the US. According to an article on showmemo.org, “Most people of German descent actively worked to convince their neighbors of their allegiance to their adopted nation rather than their nation of birth. Federal laws increasingly targeted those that were deemed not to have sufficiently demonstrated support for the U.S. war effort against Germany.” To translate: If you were German, you were a suspect. This concept can best be contextualized through a 1918 St. Louis Republic Political Cartoon titled, “Step on It.”
The foot labeled “100% Americanism” proves how that idea quite literally walked all over most German-Americans’ attempts to prove their allegiance, to no avail. Views on German Americans turned to an all-time low as they were marginalized by the English and French, and their efforts to separate themselves only made the stigma worse.
The German American community, after arriving in the early to mid 1800s, were seen as being reclusive and snobbish by the already established English and French settlers. This anti-German sentiment wasn’t astounding, as the German American settlers criticized the US government, especially when it came to their involvement in the first world war. They defended the German retaliation for the assassination of Arch Duke Franz Ferdinand, and derided Britain for their excessive censorship and militarism.
While these claims were alarming for other non-German residents of Osage County, it was the German American’s treatment of the then President Woodrow Wilson which angered them the most. German Americans hated the U.S. for involving itself economically in the conflict and hated Wilson for promoting trade to Britain. Other non-Germans defended Wilson’s reasoning for doing so, claiming that those who criticized him were not to be trusted, and that they didn’t want America to economically prosper.
The residents of Osage County found themselves along strictly regimented party and ethnic lines. The Germans were prone to supporting the German cause of the conflict, and even went as far as justifying the use of submarine warfare against the Lusitania, and found the invasion of Belgium in 1914 to be justified, as it had ties with England and, in their eyes, didn’t act neutral. These disagreements led to non-German residents verbally attacking the German residents of towns like Westphalia through newspapers, and in some cases, economical means. Circa 1917, a bridge and highway was proposed to be built through one of two locations. One option was Holtermans Ford in northern Osage, and the other was Kliethermes Ford off the Marie River around Westphalia. Residents of Westphalia requested that it was built near them, as it would’ve been a great opportunity for economic growth. However, their building location request was denied, and it was placed in a more Anglo-Saxon area at Holtermans Ford.
While the placing of the Bridge and today's Highway 50 wasn’t a direct attack on the welfare of German Americans during the First World War, it morally undermined their cause and made them feel as if they were on the losing side of an ethnic conflict.
The German Americans, in attempts to fight for the protection of their heritage, acted as American as possible and took part in nearby militias and military parades to demonstrate their solidarity with the American cause. Newspapers that actively criticized the British like the Volksblatt were closed down because of the immense pressure from locals to do so. Many Germans laid low in case they were suspected of treason or some other act of sedition. They also gave up on defending the teaching of German in schools, as it was seen as Un-American to be teaching children the language of the enemy. While this isn’t the only reason the German language began to see a decline in Missouri, the popular and governmental pressures and regulations against German sedition most definitely impacted the strength of German heritage in Missouri.
Conclusion: This conflict, although tough for German Americans, proved their tenacity and bravery in the face of strong and vocal opposition. While newspapers like the Volksblatt never re-opened their doors, German was still taught at the elementary level for many years to come, and there are still areas in southern Osage County which conduct church services in German. World War 1 and the ethnic conflict between German Americans and Anglo-Saxons, while not directly violent, demonstrated violations of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, and demonstrated how strong Germans were in their fight for free speech and expression.
