Howard County is a county in the U.S. state of Missouri, with its southern border made by the Missouri River. As of the 2010 census, the population was 10,144. Its county seat is Fayette. The county was organized January 23, 1816 and named for Benjamin Howard, the first Governor of the Missouri Territory.HistoryLocated on the north bank of the Missouri River, Howard County was settled primarily from the Upper Southern states of Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia. They brought slaves and slaveholding traditions with them, and cultivated hemp and tobacco. Howard was one of several counties settled mainly by Southerners along the Missouri River in the center of the state. Because of this, this area became known as Little Dixie, and Howard County was at its heart. Following the 1848 revolutions in the German nations, many German immigrants also came to this region.Because of the reliance on slave labor, by 1860 African American slaves composed at least 25 percent of the county's population. Many Howard County residents supported the Confederacy during the Civil War. After the end of Reconstruction, Jim Crow laws and segregation were enforced in the county. Five African Americans were lynched in Howard between 1891 and 1914: Olli Truxton, Frank Embree, Thomas Hayden, Arthur McNeal, and Dallas Shields.
