Early Life
Young was born in Tennessee to a farming family in 1799. In the early 1820s he had moved to Missouri where he farmed briefly on the Missouri River at Charitan.
In Missouri, Young was on the far western edge of the American frontier, not far from the border of the Spanish-controlled territories of present day Texas, New Mexico and the Southwestern United States. Under the Spanish colonial system, trade between Americans and the Spanish outpost at Santa Fe was prohibited.
By 1821, the new Republic of Mexico had won the Mexican War of Independence from Spain, and a number of American adventurers living in Missouri were eager to test whether trade with the Mexican authorities in Santa Fe would be allowed. After a first small group of Americans returned successfully in December 1821 from a small trading foray, Young eagerly signed up to join a somewhat larger group going to trade in Santa Fe.
Read more about this topic: Ewing Young
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