36 Native American history of Indiana

Angel Mounds State Historic Site, an expression of the Mississippian culture, is an archaeological site managed by the Indiana State Museum and Historic Sites that includes more than 600 acres of land about 8 miles (13 km) southeast of present-day Evansville, in Vanderburgh and Warrick County, Indiana. The large residential and agricultural community was constructed and inhabited from AD 1100 to AD 1450 and served as the political, cultural, and economic center of the Angel chiefdom. It extended within 120 miles (190 km) of the Ohio River valley to the Green River in present-day Kentucky. The town had as many as 1,000 inhabitants at its peak and included a complex of thirteen earthen mounds, hundreds of home sites, a palisade (stockade), and other structures. Designated a National Historic Landmark in 1964, the property also includes an interpretive center, recreations of Mississippian structures, a replica of a 1939 Works Projects Administration archaeology laboratory, and a 500-acre (200-hectare) area away from the archaeological site that is a nature preserve. The historic site continues to preserve and relate the story of pre-contact Middle Mississippian culture on the Ohio River.

The Ashworth Archaeological Site is a significant archaeological site in the extreme southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Indiana. Located near the confluence of the Ohio and Wabash Rivers, it lies near several similar archaeological sites. It was first examined by archaeologists in the middle of the twentieth century and found to be the site of a relatively recent Native American village, and it has been designated a historic site because of its archaeological value.

The Blackberry Campaign is the name given to a May 1791 expedition led by Charles Scott against Native Americans of the lower Wabash Valley, primarily Wea, Kickapoo, Miami, and Potawatomi. The intent of the campaign was to demonstrate the vulnerability of Native American villages in the Northwest Territory, to take captives who could be used for peace negotiations, and to keep the forces of the Western Confederacy off balance in preparation for a larger 1791 led by Arthur St. Clair. The name Blackberry Campaign was given because soldiers stopped to pick berries to supplement their food supplies.

Caborn-Welborn was a prehistoric North American culture defined by archaeologists as a Late Mississippian cultural manifestation that grew out of – or built upon the demise of – the Angel chiefdom located in the territory of southern present-day Indiana. Caborn-Welborn developed around 1400 and seems to have disappeared around 1700. The Caborn-Welborn culture was the last Native American occupation of southern Indiana before European contact. It remains unclear which historic-era native group, if any, are their descendants.

The Ellerbusch Site (12-W-56) is a small but significant archaeological site in the southwestern part of the U.S. state of Indiana. Unlike many sites created by people of the same culture, it occupies an upland site near a major river floodplain. Its existence appears to have been the result of the coincidence of periods of peace and growth in the related Angel Site, which led some townspeople to leave their homes for new villages that were more convenient for resource gathering. Researched partly because of its small size, Ellerbusch has produced information that greatly increases present awareness of other small sites and of its culture's overall patterns of settlement in the region. Because of its archaeological value, the site was declared a historic site in the late twentieth century.

The Fall Creek massacre refers to the slaughter of 9 Native Americans—two men, three women, two boys, and two girls—of uncertain tribal origin on March 22, 1824 by seven white settlers in Madison County, Indiana. The tribal band was living in an encampment along Deer Lick Creek, near the falls at Fall Creek, the site of present-day Pendleton, Indiana. The incident sparked national attention as details of the massacre and trial were reported in newspapers of the day. It was the first documented case in which white Americans were convicted, sentenced to capital punishment, and executed for the murder of Native Americans under U.S. law. Of the seven white men who participated in the crime, six were captured. The other white man, Thomas Harper, was never apprehended. Four of the men were charged with murder and the other two testified for the prosecution. The four accused men were convicted and sentenced to death by hanging. James Hudson was hanged on January 12, 1825, in Madison County, and Andrew Sawyer and John Bridge Sr. were hanged on June 3, 1825. James B. Ray, the governor of Indiana, pardoned John Bridge Jr., the eighteen-year-old son of John Bridge Sr., due to his age and the influence the others may have had on his involvement in the murders.

Fort Ancient is a name for a Native American culture that flourished from Ca. 1000-1750 CE and predominantly inhabited land near the Ohio River valley in the areas of modern-day southern Ohio, northern Kentucky, southeastern Indiana and western West Virginia. Although a contemporary of the Mississippian Culture, they are often considered a "sister culture" and distinguished from the Mississippian Culture. Although far from agreed upon, there is evidence to suggest that the Fort Ancient Culture were not the direct descendants of the Hopewellian Culture. It is suspected that the Fort Ancient Culture introduced maize agriculture to Ohio. The Fort Ancient Culture were most likely the builders of the Great Serpent Mound.

Grouseland, the William Henry Harrison Mansion and Museum, is a National Historic Landmark important for its Federal-style architecture and role in American history. The two-story, red brick home was built between 1802 and 1804 in Vincennes, Indiana, for William Henry Harrison (1773–1841) during his tenure from 1801 to 1812 as the first governor of the Indiana Territory. The residence was completed in 1804 and Harrison reportedly named it Grouseland due to the abundance of grouse in the area.

Hovey Lake-Klein Archeological Site is an archaeological site of the Caborn-Welborn variant of the Mississippian culture. Hovey Lake-Klein Archeological Site is located on the west bank of Hovey Lake, a backwater lake near the Ohio River close to its confluence with the Wabash River. The site was an extensive village occupation dating between 1400-1650 CE.

Indian removals in Indiana followed a series of the land cession treaties made between 1795 and 1846 that led to the removal of most of the native tribes from Indiana. Some of the removals occurred prior to 1830, but most took place between 1830 and 1846. The Lenape (Delaware), Piankashaw, Kickapoo, Wea, and Shawnee were removed in the 1820s and 1830s, but the Potawatomi and Miami removals in the 1830s and 1840s were more gradual and incomplete, and not all of Indiana's Native Americans voluntarily left the state. The most well-known resistance effort in Indiana was the forced removal of Chief Menominee and his Yellow River band of Potawatomi in what became known as the Potawatomi Trail of Death in 1838, in which 859 Potawatomi were removed to Kansas and at least forty died on the journey west. The Miami were the last to be removed from Indiana, but tribal leaders delayed the process until 1846. Many of the Miami were permitted to remain on land allotments guaranteed to them under the Treaty of St. Mary's (1818) and subsequent treaties.

The Kickapoo people are an Algonquian-speaking Native American and Indigenous Mexican tribe, originating in the region south of the Great Lakes. Today, there are three federally recognized Kickapoo tribes in the United States: Kickapoo Tribe of Indians of the Kickapoo Reservation in Kansas, the Kickapoo Tribe of Oklahoma, and the Kickapoo Traditional Tribe of Texas. The Oklahoma and Texas bands are politically associated with each other. The Kickapoo in Kansas came from a relocation from southern Missouri in 1832 as a land exchange from their reserve there. Around 3,000 people are enrolled tribal members. Another band, the Tribu Kikapú, resides in Múzquiz Municipality in the Mexican state of Coahuila. Smaller bands live in Sonora and Durango.

Kiilh-sooh-kwa was a member of the Myaamia Nation and granddaughter of Myaamia Chief Mihšihkinaahkwa. She was born in 1810 and died in 1915. She was one of the few Myaamia who was not removed from Indiana in 1846.

Lake James is a natural lake located in the northeast corner of the state of Indiana in the United States. It is popular as a place for boating and fishing, and has a wide variety of wildlife. As the state's fourth largest natural lake, it has over 1,200 acres (490 ha) of surface water, and consists of three basins. Its water quality is ranked among the best in Indiana lakes. The lake is the largest of a group of lakes known as the James Lake Chain. These lakes are located mostly in Steuben County, Indiana, but also extend into southern Michigan.

Lake Maxinkuckee is the second largest natural lake in the U.S. state of Indiana, covering 1,864 acres (8 km2). The Town of Culver, Indiana, in southwestern Marshall County is located on its northwestern edge. Lake Maxinkuckee has a maximum depth of 88 feet and an average depth of 24 feet. Local residents and visitors do many things including ice fishing on the lake.

Mounds State Park is a state park near Anderson, Madison County, Indiana featuring Native American heritage, and ten ceremonial mounds built by the prehistoric Adena culture indigenous peoples of eastern North America, and also used centuries later by Hopewell culture inhabitants. It is separate from the similarly named Mounds State Recreation Area.

Deed from the Five Nations to the King, of their Beaver Hunting Ground, more commonly known as the Nanfan Treaty, was an agreement made between the representatives of the Iroquois Confederacy with John Nanfan, the acting colonial governor of New York, on behalf of The Crown. The treaty was conducted in Albany, New York, on July 19, 1701, and amended by both parties on September 14, 1726.

Paradise Spring Treaty Grounds and Historical Park is located on the corner of Allen and Market streets in Wabash, Indiana. Erected 1992 Indiana Historical Bureau and Wabash County Tourism.

Pontiac's War, also known as Pontiac's Conspiracy or Pontiac's Rebellion, was launched in 1763 by a loose confederation of American Indian tribes, primarily from the Great Lakes region, the Illinois Country, and Ohio Country who were dissatisfied with British policies in the Great Lakes region following the French and Indian War (1754–1763). Warriors from numerous tribes joined the uprising in an effort to drive British soldiers and settlers out of the region. The war is named after Odawa leader Pontiac, the most prominent of many Indian leaders in the conflict.

The Potawatomi Trail of Death was the forced removal by militia in 1838 of some 859 members of the Potawatomi nation from Indiana to reservation lands in what is now eastern Kansas. The march began at Twin Lakes, Indiana on September 4, 1838, and ended on November 4, 1838, along the western bank of the Osage River, near present-day Osawatomie, Kansas. During the journey of approximately 660 miles (1,060 km) over 61 days, more than 40 persons died, most of them children. It marked the single largest Indian removal in Indiana history.

Frances Slocum was an adopted member of the Miami people. Slocum was born into a Quaker family that migrated from Warwick, Rhode Island, in 1777 to the Wyoming Valley in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania. On November 2, 1778, when Slocum was five years old, she was captured by three Delaware warriors at the Slocum family farm in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Slocum was raised among the Delaware in what is now Ohio and Indiana. With her marriage to Shepoconah, who later became a Miami chief, Slocum joined the Miami and took the name Maconaquah. She settled with her Miami family at Deaf Man's village along the Mississinewa River near Peru, Indiana.

St. Joseph's Indian Normal School is a former school for American Indians in Rensselaer, Indiana. The school building is now known as Drexell Hall and part of the St. Joseph College campus. Boarding schools were believed to be the best way to assimilate them into the white culture. The school lasted from 1888 to 1896 and was funded by the U.S. government and Catholic missionaries. It was believed that this was the best way to "civilize" Native Americans and the western territories. Established by the Catholic Indian Missions with funding from Katharine Drexel, the school taught 60 Indian children. The Society of Precious Blood operated the school during its years of operation. The students were all boys. When the Indian School was closed, the building was named Drexel Hall. It is one of the first structures of St. Joseph's College.

Tecumseh's Confederacy was a confederation of indigenous Americans in the Great Lakes region of the United States that began to form in the early 19th century around the teaching of Tenskwatawa. The confederation grew over several years and came to include several thousand warriors. Shawnee leader Tecumseh, the brother of The Prophet, developed into the leader of the group as early as 1808. Together, they worked to unite the various tribes against the European settlers coming across the Appalachian Mountains and onto their land. In November 1811, a white American military force under the leadership of William Henry Harrison engaged warriors associated with Tenskwatawa in the Battle of Tippecanoe. Under Tecumseh's leadership, the confederation then went to war with the United States during Tecumseh's War and the War of 1812. However, the confederation fell apart in 1813 following his death at the Battle of the Thames.

Tecumseh's War or Tecumseh's Rebellion was a conflict between the United States and Tecumseh's Confederacy, led by the Shawnee leader Tecumseh in the Indiana Territory. Although the war is often considered to have climaxed with William Henry Harrison's victory at the Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811, Tecumseh's War essentially continued into the War of 1812 and is frequently considered a part of that larger struggle. The war lasted for two more years, until 1813, when Tecumseh and his second-in-command, Roundhead, died fighting Harrison's Army of the Northwest at the Battle of the Thames in Upper Canada, near present-day Chatham, Ontario, and his confederacy disintegrated. Tecumseh's War is viewed by some academic historians as the final conflict of a longer-term military struggle for control of the Great Lakes region of North America, encompassing a number of wars over several generations, referred to as the Sixty Years' War.

Tenskwatawa was a Native American religious and political leader of the Shawnee, known as the Prophet or the Shawnee Prophet. He was a younger brother of Tecumseh, a leader of the Shawnee. In his early years Tenskwatawa was given the name Lalawithika by the Red Sticks, a faction of the Muscogee.

The Battle of Tippecanoe was fought on November 7, 1811, in Battle Ground, Indiana between American forces led by Governor William Henry Harrison of the Indiana Territory and Indian forces associated with Shawnee leader Tecumseh and his brother Tenskwatawa, leaders of a confederacy of various tribes who opposed European-American settlement of the American frontier. As tensions and violence increased, Governor Harrison marched with an army of about 1,000 men to attack the confederacy's headquarters at Prophetstown, near the confluence of the Tippecanoe River and the Wabash River.

The Treaty of Fort Wayne was a treaty between the United States and several groups of Native Americans. The treaty was signed on June 7, 1803 and proclaimed December 26, 1803. It more precisely defined the boundaries of the Vincennes tract ceded to the United States by the Treaty of Greenville, 1795.

The Treaty of Fort Wayne, sometimes called the Ten O'clock Line Treaty or the Twelve Mile Line Treaty, is an 1809 treaty that obtained 3,000,000 acres of Native American land for the white settlers of Illinois and Indiana. The negotiations primarily involved the Delaware tribe but included other tribes as well. However, the negotiations excluded the Shawnee, who were minor inhabitants of the area and had previously been asked to leave by Miami War Chief Little Turtle. Territorial Governor William Henry Harrison negotiated the treaty with the tribes. The treaty led to a war with the United States begun by Shawnee leader Tecumseh and other dissenting tribesmen in what came to be called "Tecumseh's War".

The Treaty of Grouseland was an agreement negotiated by Governor William Henry Harrison of the Indiana Territory on behalf of the government of the United States of America with Native American leaders, including Little Turtle and Buckongahelas, for lands in Southern Indiana, northeast Indiana, and northwestern Ohio. The treaty was negotiated and signed on Aug 21, 1805, at Harrison's home in Vincennes, Indiana, called Grouseland. Negotiated a year after the second Treaty of Vincennes, it was the second major land purchase in Indiana since the close of the Northwest Indian War and the signing of the 1795 Treaty of Greenville.

The Treaty of St. Mary's may refer to one of six treaties concluded in fall of 1818 between the United States and Indians of central Indiana regarding purchase of Indian land. The treaties wereTreaty with the Wyandot, etc. Treaty with the Wyandot Treaty with the Potawatomi Treaty with the Wea Treaty with the Delaware Treaty with the Miami

The Treaty of the Wabash was an agreement between the United States government and Native American Miami tribes in Indiana on November 28, 1840.

The Treaty of Tippecanoe was an agreement between the United States government and Native American Potawatomi tribes in Indiana on October 26, 1832.

The Treaty of Vincennes is the name of two separate treaties. One was an agreement between the United States of America and the Miami and their allies, the Wea tribes and the Shawnee, and was signed on June 6, 1803. The purpose of the treaty was to get the native tribes to formally recognize the American ownership of the Vincennes Tract, a parcel of land captured from Great Britain during the American Revolutionary War. The second occurred on August 27, 1804 and was to purchase land from the tribes.

The Upper Mississippian cultures were located in the Upper Mississippi basin and Great Lakes region of the American Midwest. They were in existence from approximately A.D. 1000 until the Protohistoric and early Historic periods.

The Wea were a Miami-Illinois-speaking Native American tribe originally located in western Indiana. Historically, they were described as either being closely related to the Miami Tribe or a sub-tribe of Miami.

Welborn Village Archeological Site, also known as the Murphy's Landing Site, is an archaeological site of the prehistoric Caborn-Welborn culture variant of the Mississippian culture of indigenous peoples of North America.

The Western Confederacy, or Western Indian Confederacy, was a loose confederacy of Native Americans in the Great Lakes region of the United States created following the American Revolutionary War. Formally, the confederacy referred to itself as the United Indian Nations, at their Confederate Council. It is also known as the Miami Confederacy, since many contemporaneous federal officials overestimated the influence and numerical strength of the Miami tribes based on the size of their principle city, Kekionga. The confederacy, which had its roots in pan-tribal movements dating to the 1740s, formed in an attempt to resist the expansion of the United States and the encroachment of American settlers into the Northwest Territory after Great Britain ceded the region to the U.S. in the 1783 Treaty of Paris. This resulted in the Northwest Indian War (1785–1795), in which the Confederacy won significant victories over the United States, but concluded with an U.S. victory at the Battle of Fallen Timbers. The Confederacy became fractured and agreed to peace with the United States, but the pan-tribal resistance was later rekindled by Tenskwatawa and his brother, Tecumseh.