Immediately Czechs settled in the region.
There are dozens of websites that celebrate the contribution of Czechs to the states that were carved out of the Louisiana Purchase. A quick search on Yahoo or Google will bring you to sites pertaining to the major Czech Centers of Nebraska, Iowa, Wisconsin, Missouri and both North and South Dakota. As I am dealing primarily with the State of Louisiana I will let those interested in the other states find their own way.
The SVU also has significant information on Czechs throughout the Louisiana Purchase.
In all the years I have been reading about the Louisiana Purchase I have never seen any direct evidence that connects Czechs and the settling of this new region of the United States. Instead, they are treated as separate subjects, or concentrate just on the local towns and individual states. There can be no doubt, though, that Czechs made a contribution to the settlement and development of the Louisiana Purchase.
However, New Orleans and Louisiana served as a jumping off point for many of those immigrants. After all, of the 3900 or so people identified just between 1850 and 1880 only about 100 stayed. The rest moved northwards. Therefore it is not unreasonable to suppose that many Czechs in these northern states have a Louisiana connection. Perhaps they don't even know about this connection. I have not seen any evidence of knowledge on this area of historical study in all of the Czech American websites I have visited.
Also, I haven't seen so much as speculation on how long Czechs remained in New Orleans after arriving before moving north. But it is not without reason that some must have remained some time, both making a contribution and picking up their first American cultural cues in New Orleans.
Further, because the Mississippi River and New Orleans were the means for those to the north to export their goods and import items they needed, there can be no doubt that Czechs along any of the rivers which eventually find there way to New Orleans had to do commerce in Louisiana and New Orleans. There is reason to believe that Czech merchants arriving in New Orleans might have found local Czechs living here, and perhaps unexpectedly found a welcome and shared language that might otherwise been lacking had New Orleans no Czech Community at all.
I would be most interested in hearing from anyone who has ever considered any aspect of this Czech -- Louisiana Purchase connection.
One of the first Blocks to land in America was Jacob Block, who briefly lived in Baltimore, Maryland, and Williamsburg, Virginia, before settling permanently in Richmond, Virginia. In Baltimore he had been a grocer; in Richmond he became a merchant. He was very active in Jewish affairs and, before his death in 1835, he had served as president of Beth Shalome, the only Jewish congregation in Richmond at the time.25
Jacob's son, Eleazer Block (1797-?)26, after completing his studies at the College of William and Mary, moved to St. Louis, Missouri, becoming the "first Hebrew lawyer" in that city.
About the time Jacob Bloch lived in Baltimore, Williamsburg and Richmond, a close relative of his, Simon Block, resided in the same places. His name appears on the Baltimore list of retailers who were granted licenses in 1797. In 1804, he was among the signers of a petition in Richmond. In 1810, according to court records, he was a resident of Williamsburg. He later moved to Missouri and eventually to Cincinnati, where he died. The Jewish Congregation of Cincinnati mourned his loss, as "this venerable gentleman being the oldest amongst us, we considered him the father of this congregation."
There was another Simon Block, called "Jr." to distinguish him from "old" Simon Block, living in Richmond at the time. Like his namesake, he moved to Missouri, establishing himself as a merchant in Cape Girardeau. Following his early death in 1826, the court appointed Eleazer Block (probably his brother) as the guardian of his ten minor children.
Eleazer's brother, Capt. Abraham Block (?1857), is considered to have been one of the original pioneer settlers of Arkansas. According to his obituary:
Capt. Block was born in Bohemia, but emigrated to this country more than fifty-five years ago. He married in Virginia, removed from Virginia to Arkansas in 1823, and was one of the pioneers or the Upper Red River country, then almost a wilderness. Resettled in the village of Washington, where he has since resided loved and esteemed by all who knew him, and among the commercial community of New Orleans and the planters of Red River and southern Arkansas he was almost universally known. He sleeps according to his cherished wish among his people, in the Portuguese cemetery, on the Metairie Ridge in the city.27
Eleazer and Abraham Block had a sister, Louisa, who married Abraham Jonas (1801-64), a personal friend of Abraham Lincoln, whom Jonas had met in connection with the newly-founded Republican party. In addition to serving as postmaster of Quincy, Illinois, Jonas was a merchant, lawyer and state legislator. When he died, President Lincoln appointed his widow, Louisa, to finish his term as postmaster. They had five sons, one of whom, Benjamin Franklin Jonas (1834-1911),28 a lawyer in New Orleans, was elected to the U.S. Senate as a Democratic senator from Louisiana. Benjamin's sister Rosalie Jonas married Adolph Meyer (1842-1908), who served as a Congressman from Louisiana for 20 years.
I had read and knew by heart the history of the U.S. I longed for it, and I determined to get there some time. I never could brook the idea that I am not quite as good politically as anybody else. The United States of America, where the fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of man, and the entire quality of political rights prevail, was my land of choice.
Pollak came from a family of 11 children, his father having been "a high toned, honorable and much honored and successful merchant." When the father died he left to each member of the family the sum of 10,000 florins, which in those days was considered a generous inheritance. While attending gymnasium, Simon Pollak had a private tutor; as a result, he was able to enter the department of philosophy at the university upon completion of his fourteenth year, and the medical department at the age of 16. He received the degree of Doctor of Medicine in 1835 in Prague and the degree of Doctor of Surgery and Obstetrics in 1836 in Vienna.
Upon his arrival in the United States, he practiced general medicine in New York, New Orleans, Nashville and Louisiana. He eventually settled in St. Louis, where he attained fame as an ophthalmologist. In St. Louis he organized the first school for blind children and the first eye and ear clinic west of the Mississippi. He was also active and successful in the fight against cholera, which was then raging among the European immigrants.
During the Civil War, Pollak served as general hospital inspector for the U.S. Sanitary Commission, supervising the sanitary conditions in the hospitals, camp barracks and prisons.