History of Indiana

Prehistory and exploration

Archaeologists discovered the remains of some of Indiana’s earliest known inhabitants at Angel Mounds, an archaeological site on the Ohio River near Evansville. Historical records show that in the early 17th century the indigenous Algonquin peoples organized the tribes of the area into the Miami Confederation, which fought to protect the lands from the unfriendly Iroquois. The most powerful tribes in the confederation were the Miami (specifically the Wea and Piankashaw bands) and the Potawatomi. Later that century, the Delaware began to move into the White River region (in response to encroachment by European settlers and the Iroquois) from the Ohio country to the east.

In 1679 French explorer René-Robert Cavelier, sieur (lord) de La Salle, traveled by boat from Michigan down the St. Joseph River into what is now northern Indiana. To the south, traders from North Carolina, South Carolina, and Pennsylvania settled on the Ohio and the Wabash river shores. The southern settlements threatened the French traders, to whom these rivers and regions were a channel to the Mississippi—a means of connecting Canada and Louisiana. To protect their route to the Mississippi, the French built Fort-Miami (1704), near present-day Fort Wayne; Fort-Ouiatanon (1719), near what is now Lafayette; and Fort-Vincennes (1732), one of the first permanent white settlements west of the Appalachians, at Vincennes.

In 1763 the area was ceded to England, which forbade further white settlement. The prohibition was largely ignored, and in 1774 Parliament annexed the lands to Quebec. During the American Revolution (1775–83) Virginia, Connecticut, and Massachusetts made claims on the land, and in 1779 George Rogers Clark secured the area for the rebelling colonies by leading his troops on a surprise march from Kaskaskia to Vincennes.

Territorial period

In 1783 lands lying west of Pennsylvania, north of the Ohio River, east of the Mississippi River, and south of the Great Lakes were ceded to the United States by the Peace of Paris treaties, which ended the American Revolution. In 1784 the first U.S. settlement was established at Clarksville, on the northern bank of the Ohio River. Through the Ordinance of 1787 the ceded lands were amalgamated to create the Northwest Territory, which included present-day Indiana. The ordinance prohibited slavery in the region but did not abolish slavery already in existence. In 1800 the Northwest Territory had at least 175 slaves.

Warfare between the indigenous groups and the white settlers continued until 1794, when Gen. Anthony Wayne defeated the indigenous peoples in a battle near Fallen Timbers, near the present-day Ohio-Indiana line, and forced them to make land concessions. Increasing numbers of white immigrants from Southern states entered the area after 1800, leading to renewed native resistance. In 1811 the last major encounter, the Battle of Tippecanoe, was fought near Lafayette, with Gen. William Henry Harrison the victor. With the end of indigenous resistance came rapid settlement and in 1816 statehood. The territorial capital, Corydon, became the first capital of Indiana. Over the next 25 years or so, the major tribes abandoned the area.

Statehood

The patterns of rural life and local autonomy were established in the first half of the 19th century as settlement progressed from south to north. The utopian community of New Harmony, on the Wabash River in the southwest, was settled by George Rapp in 1815 and taken over by Robert Owen in 1825. In 1801 the first college was founded in Vincennes, and in 1820 Indiana University was chartered. A single-car, horse-drawn railroad arrived in Shelbyville in 1834. The constitution of 1851, which remains the framework of state government, made it nearly impossible for the state to go into debt, reinforced the powers of local government, and created a tax-supported public school system. Article XIII prohibited the entrance of black people into the state, but this was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1866 as being in conflict with the federal Civil Rights Act of that year.

Agricultural expansion in the mid-to-late19th century was quickly overshadowed by growth in industry, which was propelled largely by the American Civil War, and by the turn of the 20th century the northern part of the state had emerged as a major industrial sector. With the founding in 1906 of the steelmaking city of Gary—midway between the iron ore deposits of the Mesabi Range of Minnesota, the coal deposits of the central Appalachians, and the limestone resources of southern Indiana and Illinois—and the subsequent development of automobile manufacturing in South Bend, Indiana completed its shift from an agricultural to an industrial base.

The isolation, independence, and spirit of grassroots democracy that underlay the constitution of 1851, however, continued to leave their mark upon the state. For example, the document was written at a time when towns and villages were days rather than minutes or hours apart, and, consequently, meetings of the legislature were held only biennially. Despite vast improvements in infrastructure and transportation, it was not until 1970 that annual meetings of the legislature were approved. Widespread attachment to an ideology of localism has been one of the roots of Hoosiers’ ongoing resistance to such constitutional change.

In the late 1980s, Indiana entered a period of rapid political and economic development that continued into the 21st century. Dan Quayle, a Hoosier member of the Republican Party, was elected vice president of the United States as George Bush’s running mate in 1988. The governorship, however, simultaneously shifted to the Democratic Party, where it remained for 16 years, before a Republican was returned to office in 2005. Meanwhile, economic growth continued throughout the state, with Indiana retaining its lead in the production of steel. Sales of Indianan products to foreign markets—mainly Canadian and Mexican—increased steadily. The economic upsurge was accompanied by an explosion of new subdivisions around the major urban areas of the state, principally Indianapolis. Urban renewal and revitalization dramatically changed the central business district of the capital, with the construction of new shopping complexes, office buildings, sports centres, university facilities, and hotels; a major professional sports stadium in the city was demolished (to make room for an expanding convention centre complex), and a new stadium opened in 2008.