Indigenous inhabitants was one of the northernmost
Mississippian culture settlements, occupied from 1100 to 1450. The first inhabitants in what is now Indiana were the
Paleo-Indians, who arrived about 8000 BC after the melting of the glaciers at the end of the
Ice Age. Divided into small groups, the Paleo-Indians were
nomads who hunted large
game such as
mastodons. They created stone tools made out of
chert by chipping,
knapping and
flaking. The
Archaic period between 5000 and 4000 BC saw the development of new ground-stone tools the building of earthwork
mounds and
middens, suggesting that settlements were becoming more permanent. He was followed by French-Canadian
fur traders exchanging blankets, jewelry, tools, whiskey and weapons with the Native Americans for skins. By 1702,
Sieur Juchereau established the first trading post near
Vincennes. In 1715,
Sieur de Vincennes built
Fort Miami at
Kekionga, now
Fort Wayne. In 1717, another Canadian,
Picote de Beletre, built
Fort Ouiatenon on the
Wabash River, to try to control Native American trade routes from
Lake Erie to the
Mississippi River. In 1732, Sieur de Vincennes built a second fur trading post at Vincennes. In a period of a few years, British colonists arrived from the East and contended with the Canadians for control of the lucrative fur trade. Fighting between the French and British colonists occurred throughout the 1750s. The Native American tribes of Indiana sided with the French Canadians during the
French and Indian War (an episode of the
Seven Years' War between the European
great powers). With British victory in 1763, the French were forced to cede to the British crown all their lands in North America east of the Mississippi River and north and west of the
colonies. Tribal resistance continued with
Pontiac's Rebellion and the capture of forts
Ouiatenon and
Miami. The
Royal Proclamation of 1763 designated the land west of the
Appalachians as an
Indian Reserve, and excluded British colonists from the area, which the Crown called "Indian Territory". The measure was one of the first significant areas of dispute between Britain and the
colonies and would become a contributing factor leading to the
American Revolution. In 1775, the
American Revolutionary War began as the colonists sought self-government and independence from the British. The majority of the fighting took place near the East Coast, but the Patriot military officer
George Rogers Clark called for an army to help fight the British in the west. Clark's army won significant battles and took over
Vincennes and
Fort Sackville on February 25, 1779. During the war, Clark managed to cut off British troops, who were attacking the eastern colonists from the west. His success is often credited for changing the course of the American Revolutionary War. At the end of the war, through the
Treaty of Paris, the British crown ceded their claims to the land south of the Great Lakes to the newly formed United States, including Native American lands.
The frontier In 1787, the U.S. defined the
Northwest Territory which included the area of present-day Indiana. In 1800, Congress separated
Ohio from the Northwest Territory, designating the rest of the land as the
Indiana Territory. After the
Michigan Territory was separated and the
Illinois Territory was formed, Indiana was reduced to its current size and geography. Starting with the
Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794 and the
Treaty of Greenville in 1795,
Native American titles to Indiana lands were extinguished by usurpation, purchase, or war and treaty. About half the state was acquired in the
Treaty of St. Mary's from the
Miami in 1818. Purchases were not complete until the
Treaty of Mississinewas again with the Miami in 1826 acquired the last of the reserved Native American lands in the northeast. By 1810, only two counties in the extreme southeast,
Clark and
Dearborn, had been organized by European settlers. Land titles issued out of Cincinnati were sparse. Settler migration was chiefly via flatboat on the Ohio River westerly, and by wagon trails up the Wabash/White River Valleys (west) and
Whitewater River Valleys (east). After working to maintain peaceful coexistence with the United States, the
Shawnee tribal chief
Tecumseh and his brother
Tenskwatawa, "the Shawnee Prophet", encouraged other indigenous tribes in the territory to reject European influences, stop drinking alcohol, and resist further encroachment. Tensions rose and the U.S. authorized Harrison to launch a preemptive expedition against
Tecumseh's Confederacy; the U.S. gained victory at the
Battle of Tippecanoe on November 7, 1811. In the
War of 1812, the British, who had been assisted by Tecumseh in the
capture of Detroit, proposed creating of an
Indian barrier state to ensure the security of
Upper Canada. But after Tecumseh was killed in 1813 at the
Battle of the Thames, resistance to United States control ended in the region. Most Native American tribes in the state were later
removed to west of the
Mississippi River in the 1820s and 1830s after being forced to accept the "purchase" of their lands.
Statehood and settlement Corydon, a town in the far southern part of Indiana, was named the second capital of the Indiana Territory in May 1813 in order to decrease the threat of Native American raids following the Battle of Tippecanoe. as well as many immigrants from
Ireland and
England. Americans who were primarily
ethnically English migrated from the Northern Tier of
New York and
New England, as well as from the mid-Atlantic state of
Pennsylvania. The arrival of steamboats on the Ohio River in 1811, and the
National Road at Richmond in 1829, greatly facilitated settlement of northern and western Indiana. Following statehood, the new government worked to transform Indiana from a
frontier into a developed, well-populated, and thriving state, beginning significant demographic and economic changes. In 1836, the state's founders initiated a program, the
Indiana Mammoth Internal Improvement Act, that led to the construction of roads,
canals, railroads and state-funded public schools. The plans bankrupted the state and were a financial disaster, but increased land and produce value more than fourfold. In response to the crisis and in order to avert another, in 1851, a second
constitution was adopted, which prohibited public debt. At the same time, however, it included a mandate for a "uniform system of common schools, equally open to all and free of tuition." In a reaction against an influx of
free people of color and emancipated slaves who had been expelled from slave states, Article 13 of the new constitution sought to bar their further immigration into Indiana and proposed their resettlement in
Liberia. Citing the newly passed
Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the Indiana Supreme Court struck down the article in 1866, and it was removed by amendment in 1881. Nevertheless, numerous communities and counties implemented practices to exclude
African Americans. These jurisdictions, known as "
sundown towns", were prevalent during the 1890s.
Civil War and late 19th-century industry Indiana was the first western state to mobilize for the United States in the
American Civil War, and soldiers from Indiana participated in all the war's major engagements. In 1861, Indiana was assigned a
quota of 7,500 soldiers to join the
Union Army. So many volunteered in the first call that thousands had to be turned away. Before the war ended, Indiana had contributed 208,367 organized in 126 infantry regiments, 26 batteries of artillery and 13 regiments of cavalry to the
Union. Casualties were over 35% of the enlisted: 24,416 men lost their lives and over 50,000 more were wounded. The only Civil War conflicts fought in Indiana were the
Newburgh Raid, a bloodless capture of the city; and the
Battle of Corydon, which occurred during
Morgan's Raid leaving 15 dead, 40 wounded, and 355 captured. After the war, Indiana remained a largely agricultural state. Post-war industries included mining, including limestone extraction; meatpacking; food processing, such as milling grain, distilling it into alcohol; and the building of
wagons,
buggies, farm machinery, and hardware. However, the
discovery of natural gas in the 1880s in northern Indiana led to an economic boom: the abundant and cheap fuel attracted
heavy industry; the availability of jobs, in turn, attracted new settlers from other parts of the country as well as from Europe. This led to the rapid expansion of cities such as
South Bend, Indianapolis, and
Fort Wayne. and a
Socialist Party. Railroader
Eugene Debs of
Terre Haute, the Socialist candidate received 901,551 votes (6.0% of the national vote) in the 1912 presidential election. Suffrage movements also arose to enfranchise women. The importance of vehicle and parts manufacture to the state was symbolized by the construction in 1909 of the
Indianapolis Motor Speedway. In the 1920s, state politics was heavily influenced by the rise of the
Indiana Klan. First organized in 1915 as a branch of the
Ku Klux Klan, it appealed to white Protestants alarmed by social and economic trends, including changes induced by immigration from southern and central Europe. In the name of defending "hundred-per-cent Americanism", the Klan sought to exclude from public life "
Bolsheviks,
Catholics,
Jews,
Negroes,
bootleggers,
pacifists,
evolutionists, foreigners, and all persons it considered immoral". By 1925 the Klan had 250,000 members, an estimated 30% of native-born white men. By 1925 over half the elected members of the
Indiana General Assembly, the
governor of Indiana, and many other high-ranking officials in local and state government were members of the Klan. Politicians had also learned they needed Klan endorsement to win office. That year, "Grand Dragon"
D.C. Stephenson, who had begun to brag "I am the law in Indiana", was charged and convicted for the rape and murder of
Madge Oberholtzer, a young school teacher. Denied pardon, in 1927 Stephenson gave the
Indianapolis Times lists of people the Klan had paid. Partly as a result of compounded scandal, membership collapsed. Throughout the 1930s,
New Deal Democrats topped the polls and "the Klan was political poison". During those years, Indiana, like the rest of the nation, was affected by the
Great Depression: businesses were shuttered and farm income collapsed. The numbers seeking employment, shelter and relief were augmented by out-of-state
Dust Bowl migrants. Swept into office in the nationwide landslide for
Franklin Roosevelt in 1932, Democratic governor
Paul V. McNutt, called on Hoosiers to "prove that government may be a great instrument of human progress",
World War II helped lift Indiana's economy, as the war required steel, food and other goods the state produced. Roughly 10% of Indiana's population joined the armed forces, while hundreds of industries earned war production contracts and began making war material. Indiana manufactured 4.5% of total U.S. military armaments during World WarII, ranking eighth among the 48 states. The expansion of industry to meet war demands helped end the Great Depression.
Post World War II With economic recovery, the Republican supremacy in the state was restored. Manufacturers became the primary employers, a trend that continued into the 1960s.
Urbanization during the 1950s and 1960s led to substantial growth in the state's cities. The auto, steel and pharmaceutical industries topped Indiana's major businesses. Indiana's population continued to grow after the war, exceeding five million by the 1970 census. In the early 1960s, Democrats briefly returned to state office, and under the administration of
Matthew E. Welsh the state adopted its first sales tax of 2%. Indiana schools were
desegregated in 1949. In 1950, the
U.S. Census Bureau reported Indiana's population as 95.5% white and 4.4% black. Governor Welsh also worked with the General Assembly to pass the Indiana
Civil Rights Bill, granting equal protection to minorities in seeking employment. The
1973 oil crisis created a recession that hurt the automotive industry in Indiana. Companies began a long series of downsizing that contributed to high unemployment rates in long-established manufacturing centers like
Anderson,
Muncie, and
Kokomo. The trend continued until the 1980s when the national and state economy began to diversify from heavy industry toward services and high-tech manufacturing, and to recover. Meanwhile, the
farm crisis of the 1980s accelerated
rural flight and farm consolidation, a trend that has resumed in the 21st century.
21st century On March 6, 2020, following the first confirmed case of
COVID-19 in the state, Governor
Eric Holcomb and state health officials declared a public health emergency. After a period in which there were a number of
pandemic-related restrictions and advisories, and sharp job cuts, Holcomb signed a bill to end the emergency on March 3, 2022. At that point, employment had already recovered, but in comparative terms state appeared, post-COVID, to face greater challenges. In 2025 Indiana's economy (the state's business environment, labor market and overall economic growth) ranked 40th in the first
U.S. News & World Report's annual report on how well all 50 states in the United States serve citizens, down from 25th in 2018. Indiana's highest ranking on the 2025 “scorecard” was 16th in the opportunity category. It was 30th in economic opportunity, and 39th in equality, but benefitted from being 18th in affordability (by comparison New Hampshire, which was 1st in economic opportunity and 3rd in equality, was 42nd in affordability). ==Geography==