On the same day the 1st Amendment was passed, Congress voted to send $25,000 to help a missionary in St. Louis...

Where did you get the piece of information you began with—the statement in your question? That’s an excellent place to start.

A teacher is probably not going to give you an impossible assignment. Have you asked the teacher for a steer in the right direction?

Are you looking in books or only online? There are still quantities of solid information in books that have never been put online. Many of them have had the benefit of extensive research, fact checking, and peer review and they feature thorough bibliographies, whereas anybody can put anything online. So they are still a great resource, and you can follow threads from bibliography to index to bibliography almost like—links! Try your local or school library.

Interesting thought,

St Louis was bought as part of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803.

Sorry about that; you’re right, that bit of information would be helpful. Here is where I got it from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RD-h0E-feBg

If you knew which order the Catholic missionary was from, you could write or call their US offices and ask for any history they could provide.

Were the missionaries Jesuits, Priests of the Sacred Heart, Dominican, Benedictine or one of the other orders?

I wish I could tell you; that’s all the information I have. Sorry. And sorry I am making this harder for you all.

First amendment was ratified on Dec. 15, 1791. That’s one starting point.

That YouTube looked very much like an evangelical minister. Does he have a degree in constitutional law?

I am thinking the minister in the video massaged the facts to fit his agenda.

Ok, thank you all.

I would start by looking at the US Annals of Congress for 1791.

Another starting point that just occurred to me is to find out where the uploader of that video obtained it, who the minister is and how you could contact him to check his facts.

Thank you so much! I’ll do just that.

Good luck with your research and please update here. I’d be interested to hear what you find.

Will do!