In the 1600s, other tribes arrived from the east when they were driven out by Europeans, such as the peoples of Delaware. The first European to explore Indiana was the French explorer Robert de La Salle in 1679. The History of Human Activity in Indiana, a. In the Midwest, it began with the migratory tribes of Native Americans that inhabited Indiana as early as 8000 BC. The tribes succeeded each other in the domain for several thousand years and reached their peak of development during the period of the Mississipian culture.
The region entered recorded history in the 1670s, when the first Europeans arrived in Indiana and claimed the territory for the Kingdom of France. After France ruled for a century (with few settlements in this area), it was defeated by Great Britain in the French and Indian War (Seven Years' War) and ceded its territory east of the Mississippi River. Britain held the land for more than twenty years, until, after its defeat in the American War of Independence, it ceded the entire Trans-Allegheny region, including what is now Indiana, to the newly formed United States. The government divided the Trans-Allegheny region into several new territories.
The largest of these was the Northwest Territory, which the United States,. Subsequently, the Congress was subdivided into several smaller territories. In 1800, the Territory of Indiana became the first of these newly established territories. As the territory of Indiana grew in population and development, it was divided in 1805 and again in 1809 until, reduced to its current size and boundaries, it retained the name of Indiana and was admitted to the Union in 1816 as the nineteenth state.
The newly established state government established an ambitious plan to transform Indiana from a segment of the border into a developed, well-populated and prosperous state. The founders of the state initiated an internal improvement program that led to the construction of state-funded roads, canals, railroads and public schools. Despite the noble objectives of the project, the waste of expenses ruined the state's credit. In 1841, the state was about to declare bankruptcy and was forced to liquidate most of its public works.
Acting under its new Constitution of 1851, the state government enacted major financial reforms, demanded that most public office be filled through elections rather than appointments, and greatly weakened the governor's power. The ambitious development program of Indiana's founders was carried out when Indiana became the fourth largest state in terms of population, as measured by the 1860 census. Indiana gained political influence and played an important role in the Union during the American Civil War. Indiana was the first Western state to mobilize for the war, and its soldiers participated in almost every fighting during the war.
After the Civil War, Indiana remained politically important, as it became a decisive state in the U.S. UU. He helped decide to control the presidency for three decades. During the Indiana Gas Boom of the late 19th century, the industry began to develop rapidly in the state.
The Golden Age of Literature of the state began in the same period, increasing its cultural influence. In the early 20th century, Indiana became a strong manufacturing state and attracted numerous immigrants and internal migrants to its industries. He experienced setbacks during the Great Depression of the 1930s. The construction of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the expansion of the automotive industry, urban development and two wars contributed to the state's industrial growth.
During the second half of the 20th century, Indiana became a leader in the pharmaceutical industry due to innovations from companies such as Eli Lilly. After the end of the last glacial period, some twenty thousand years ago, Indiana's topography was dominated by fir and pine forests and was home to mastodons, caribou and saber-toothed cats. While northern Indiana was covered by glaciers, southern Indiana remained unaffected by the advancing ice, leaving plants and animals that could sustain human communities. The earliest known inhabitants of Indiana were Paleo-Indians.
There is evidence that humans were in Indiana as early as the archaic stage (8000—6000 BC). Hunting camps of the nomadic Clovis culture have been found in Indiana. Carbon dating of artifacts found in Wyandotte Caves in southern Indiana shows that humans mined flint there in early 2000 BC. These nomads ate quantities of freshwater mussels from local streams, as evidenced by their shell mounds found throughout southern Indiana.
The Early Woodland period in Indiana occurred between 1000 B.C. and 200 A.D., and produced the Adena culture. It domesticated wild pumpkins and made pottery, which were great cultural advances over the Clovis culture. The natives built burial mounds; one of its kind has been dated as the oldest earthwork in Anderson's Mounds State Park.
In general, the era of late forests is considered to have started around 600 d. C. and lasted until the arrival of Europeans in Indiana. It was a period of rapid cultural change.
One of the new developments that has not yet been explained was the introduction of masonry, shown by the construction of large stone forts, many of which overlook the Ohio River. Romantic legend attributed the forts to the Welsh Indians, who supposedly arrived centuries before Christopher Columbus arrived in the Caribbean; however, archaeologists and other scholars have found no evidence of that theory and believe that cultural development was engendered by the culture of the Mississippi. Evidence suggests that after the collapse of Hopewell, Indiana had a low population until the emergence of the Fort Ancient and Mississippian culture around 900 AD. The Ohio River Valley was densely populated by the inhabitants of Mississippi between 1100 and 1450 AD.
Its settlements, such as those of Hopewell, were known for their ceremonial earthmoving mounds. Some of these remain visible in places near the Ohio River. The mounds of Mississippian were built on a larger scale than the mounds built by Hopewell. Mississippi's agrarian culture was the first to grow corn in the region.
People also developed the bow and arrow and copper by working during this period of time. Mississippi society was complex, dense and highly developed; the largest city in Cahokia (Illinois) had up to 30,000 inhabitants. They had a class society with certain groups that specialized as artisans. The elite held related political and religious positions.
Its cities used to be located close to rivers. Representing its cosmology, the central developments were dominated by a large central mound, several smaller mounds and a large open plaza. Wooden palisades were later built around the complex, apparently for defensive purposes. The remains of an important settlement known as Angel Mounds are to the east of present-day Evansville.
Mississippi houses were generally square in shape, with plastered walls and thatched roofs. For reasons that are not yet clear, the inhabitants of Mississippi disappeared in the mid-15th century, some 200 years before Europeans first entered what would become modern Indiana. Mississippi Culture Marked the High Point of Native Development in Indiana. It was during this period that American Bison began a periodic walk from east to west across Indiana, crossing Ohio Falls and the Wabash River near present-day Vincennes.
These herds became important to the civilizations of southern Indiana and created a well-established buffalo trail, later used by European-American pioneers who moved west. During the Great Migration, black people who arrived in Indiana between 1910 and 1920, often settled in the central or northern states. There were new opportunities available due to industrialization and the war economy, and rumors of new opportunities were striking. Indiana has a long history of women's activism in social movements, including the women's suffrage movement.
In 1679, the French explorer René-Robert Cavelier, sieur (lord) de La Salle, traveled by boat from Michigan on the St. Joseph River to what is now northern Indiana. To the south, merchants from North Carolina, South Carolina and Pennsylvania settled on the banks of the Ohio and Wabash rivers. Settlements in the south threatened French merchants, for whom these rivers and regions were a channel to the Mississippi, a means of connection between Canada and Louisiana.
To protect their route to the Mississippi, the French built Fort-Miami (170), near present-day Fort Wayne; Fort-Ouiatanon (171), near what is now Lafayette; and Fort-Vincennes (173), one of the first permanent white settlements west of Appalachia, in Vincennes. After George Rogers Clark and his army captured lands west of the Appalachian Mountains, Virginia Governor Patrick Henry gave Clark and his men land in what is now Indiana. This land was colonized by Clark and his men and they built a small town they named Clarksville, the first American settlement in Indiana. Jeffersonville and New Albany, Indiana, were also founded around this same time.
Later, ownership of the claim was transferred to Indiana Land Company, the first recorded use of the word Indiana. Article XIII of the Indiana Constitution of 1851, which sought to exclude African Americans from settling in the state, was invalidated when the Supreme Court of Indiana ruled in 1866 that it violated the newly passed Thirteenth Amendment to the U. During this time, many migrants who arrived in Indiana encountered violence against blacks and were forced to relocate due to Indiana's numerous sunset towns. While Indiana has committed to increasing the use of renewable resources such as wind, hydro, biomass or solar energy, progress has been very slow, mainly due to the continued abundance of coal in southern Indiana.
Indiana was the first Western state to mobilize for the United States in the war, and Indiana's soldiers participated in every major clash of the war. In northwest Indiana there are several ridges and sand dunes, some of which reach nearly 200 feet in height; most of them are found in Indiana Dunes National Park. The largest educational institution is Indiana University, whose flagship campus was approved as an Indiana Seminary in 1820. The governor of Indiana serves as the executive director of the state and has the authority to administer government as set forth in the Indiana Constitution.
Slavery in Indiana was prohibited, however, this law did not apply to slaveholders who lived in Indiana before the constitution came into force. The formal use of the word Indiana dates back to 1768, when a commercial company based in Philadelphia gave its land claim in the present-day state of West Virginia the name Indiana after its previous owners, the Iroquois. With the founding in 1906 of the steel town of Gary, halfway between the iron ore deposits of the Mesabi Range of Minnesota, the coal deposits of central Appalachia and the limestone resources of southern Indiana and Illinois and the subsequent development of automobile manufacturing in South Bend, Indiana completed its change from an agricultural to an industrial base. The other three independent state universities are Vincennes University (founded in 1801 by the Indiana Territory), Ball State University (191) and Southern Indiana University (1965 as ISU — Evansville).
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