Indiana
History Part 2
Indiana
Becomes a State (1780-1815)
After George
Rogers Clark and his army captured the lands west of the
Appalachian Mountains, the Governor of Virginia, Patrick Henry,
gave Clark and his men land in what is now Indiana.
This land was settled by Clark and his men and they built a
small town they called Clarksville, the first American
settlement in Indiana. Jeffersonville and New Albany,
Indiana were also founded around this same time.
At this time,
the land that would later become the state of Indiana was
located in a region referred to as the Northwest Territory,
which was enacted by the United States government in 1787.
The new federal government of the United States wanted to
make sure this new land in the Northwest Territory was sold
and settled in a peaceful and legal manner. New laws
(called ordinances) were passed to make this process of
settling easier and lawful. The Ordinance of 1785
specified how new land was to be surveyed, divided and sold.
The new land would be divided into townships 6 miles square.
To read a copy of the Northwest Ordinance that set up the
Northwest Territory visit www.statelib.lib.in.us/www/ihb/resources/docnword.html
Each township
would then be divided into 36 equal sections. Each
section would be 640 acres in size. The sections would
then be numbered from 1 to 36. The Ordinance of 1785
also had a stipulation that in every township, section
number 16 was to be set apart for the use of a public
school. The remaining sections of a township were then
to be sold. This method of land surveying and township
numbering is still in use today.
The Northwest
Ordinance also told how parts of the Northwest Territory
could become states. It was specified that an area of
land had to have 60,000 people in order to petition the
federal government for statehood. The Northwest
Ordinance also stated that no one living in the Northwest
Territory could own or keep slaves. The building of
public schools was also a part of the ordinance. The
rights of freedom of speech and religion given to states
within the United States would also extend to the Northwest
Territory.
Indian
Conflicts
Even though
laws and regulations were passed to regulate land ownership
within the Northwest Territory, a major problem still
existed. The Indians now claimed that the land was
theirs. Tribes in the Ohio Valley started to attack
settlers who moved into the Ohio Valley and the Northwest
Territory.
The English
after the American Revolution, some of whom had stayed in
forts around the Great Lakes to protect their fur trading
interest, encouraged the Indian tribes in the Northwest
Territory to form a confederation to drive out the new
American settlers. The Delaware, Shawnee, Miami and
Potawatomi joined together in this new confederation.
Their leader was the Miami chief Little Turtle.
Arthur St.
Clair, the governor of the Northwest Territory, led an army
of 3,000 men into the Ohio Valley to stop the Indian
attacks. As they camped overnight, Little Turtle and
his men silently hid very close to the camping soldiers to
prepare for a morning attack. Little Turtle's Indian
army attacked at dawn and killed one-third of St. Clair's
men. This was a horrible defeat for the Americans.
President
George Washington was upset at St. Clair's defeat and
assigned one of his best generals to lead the fight against
the Indians. Washington appointed General "Mad
Anthony" Wayne. He was nicknamed "Mad"
because he was a fierce fighting soldier.
Wayne
set out for the Northwest Territory in 1793.
Washington had given him an army of about 1,000 soldiers.
"Mad Anthony" Wayne traveled through the western
part of Ohio where he established a fort at what is now
Greenville, Ohio. He then spent the entire winter
drilling and preparing his army for battle. Meanwhile,
the English built a new fort at Toledo, Ohio and named it
Fort Miami, after a previous fort.
Little Turtle
spied on "Mad Anthony" Wayne's activities at Fort
Greenville. He gathered chiefs from the other tribes
within the confederation and encouraged them to make peace.
However, the other chiefs were excited that the English had
built the new Fort Miami and assumed they would help the
Indians defeat Wayne's army.
Battle
of Fallen Timbers
In the spring
of 1794, "Mad Anthony" Wayne and his army left
Fort Greenville, Ohio and traveled towards Fort Miami.
Wayne and his army moved very slowly, even stopping to set
up two new forts along the way. Meanwhile, several
thousand Indians prepared for battle around Fort Miami
around modern day Toledo, Ohio.
The Indians
had decided to engage Wayne's army at a place called Fallen
Timbers. Fallen Timbers was a place in the forest that
had experienced a recent tornado that had knocked down many
large trees. The Indians concluded that this would be
a very difficult place for a disciplined army to fight in an
orderly way.
General Wayne
let it be publicly known that he intended to attack the
Fallen Timbers area on August 17th. When
the day came, he waited. General Wayne knew that most
Indians did not eat on the day before a battle. He
continued waiting for three days. By that time, at
least, 500 Indian warriors had left Fallen Timbers to look
for food. Those that remained were weakened by the
lack of food. General Wayne then led his attack
against the remaining Indians at Fallen Timbers. In
two hours the battle was over.
The
retreating Indians ran to Fort Miami seeking protection and
shelter. However, the English refused to let them in
fearing a war with the Americans. General Wayne then
sent his army marching up the Maumee River destroying Indian
corn fields and villages as they went. At the Maumee
portage, where the French had once built a fort, Wayne's
army built Fort Wayne.
The Battle of
Fallen Timbers forever crushed the Indian confederation.
Little Turtle and the other chiefs of the confederation
signed the Treaty of Greenville. After signing the
treaty, Little Turtle was recorded as saying, "I have
been the last to sign it and I will be the last to break
it." The treaty allowed Americans to settle
peacefully into what is now Ohio and southeastern Indiana.
The treaty brought peace to the Northwest Territory for 15
years.
Indiana
as a Territory
By the year
1800 there were enough settlers in the Indiana Territory
to hold an election. William Henry
Harrison, a former Indian fighter and, later, the ninth
president, was appointed congressman. He went to Congress
pushing the policy that the Indiana Territory needed new
laws. A major concern for Harrison was that it was
expensive to buy land in the territory. Congress
agreed and lowered the price of land within the Indiana
Territory.
One section
of the new price lowering law said that settlers could buy
land on credit. They could live on the land and pay
for it later. This law started a mass migration to the
Indiana Territory. Congress also divided the
territory into two parts. One part became the Ohio
Territory and the other became the Indiana Territory.
The Indiana Territory stretched from Indiana's present
eastern border to the Mississippi River.
President
John Adams named William Henry Harrison as the first
governor of the Indiana Territory. The old French city
of Vincennes became the territory's capital. Harrison
built a very large, finely decorated house and called it Grouseland. You can visit Grouseland by visiting http://www.grouselandfoundation.org/
Once again,
the Indiana Territory was divided. In 1809 the western
part of the Indiana Territory became the Illinois Territory
with the same borders the modern state of Illinois has
today.
Most settlers
living in the Indiana Territory lived close to the Ohio
River in the southern part of the territory. The
remainder of the Indiana Territory belonged to the Indians.
Harrison took charge at buying the remaining land from the
Indians. He made many treaties with the Indians who
agreed to sell their lands to him. The Indians rarely
saw any money for the land they sold. By the end of
1806 the Indians had sold all their land in the southern
part of the Indiana Territory.
Tecumseh
and His Brother Prophet
Many Indians
in the Indiana Territory were upset that the land promised
them was now being sold on false promises. The leader
of the Shawnee, Tecumseh, had been a part of the Miami
confederation and fought at the Battle of Fallen Timbers.
He dreamed of a separate state for the Indians, an idea the
English had supported.
Tecumseh
traveled from tribe to tribe, village to village lecturing
about this separate Indian land. He encouraged tribes
from fighting among each other and unite to fight against
the encroaching American settlers.
Tecumseh's
brother was a Shawnee medicine man named the Prophet.
As a medicine man he knew the prayers and customs of the
Shawnee religion. The Shawnee had great respect for
him.
One incident
that occurred in the Prophet's life that made the Shawnee
people believe in his power happened one summer. The
Prophet made an announcement to the Shawnee people that he
would make the sun stop in the sky. Unknown to anyone,
the Prophet had talked to a Canadian trader who told him
when an eclipse was going to occur. When the eclipse
happened on the day the Prophet had said, the Shawnee
believed he had done it and believed he possessed powerful
magic.
The Prophet
lived in a place called Prophetstown that is located on the
Tippecanoe River where Lafayette is today.
In the Treaty
of Fort Wayne, that was signed in 1809, a group of Indian
tribes agreed to sell 3 million acres of land in the Indiana
Territory. Tecumseh visited Governor Harrison on this
matter. The land was the common property of many
different tribes of Indians, Tecumseh said. He went on
to inform Governor Harrison that the tribes that signed the
treaty had no rights to sell that land, it did not belong
exclusively to them. Tecumseh made it known to the
governor that the Indians would fight if any more of their
land was taken. Tecumseh's warriors were eager to
fight. The Prophet made the announcements that through
his magic he would make the Indian warriors invincible to
the white man's bullets.
Tecumseh left
Prophetstown in 1811 to speak with Indian tribes south of
the Ohio River. Before he left he told his brother the
Prophet to keep the peace until he returned.
William Henry
Harrison decided to attack Prophetstown while Tecumseh was
gone. Harrison's 1,000 soldiers traveled from
Vincennes north along the Wabash River towards Prophetstown.
When they reached the outskirts of Prophetstown they pitched
camp overnight. At dawn on November 7, 1811 the
Prophet, leading a group of Indian warriors, attacked
Harrison's army. The army fought back and forced the
Indian warriors to retreat. This battle has become
known as the Battle of Tippecanoe. Neither side won a true
victory. Harrison and his militia burned Prophetstown
to the ground
while some Indian warriors spread out through the Indiana
Territory attacking settlers. A majority of Indians
left with Tecumseh to settle in Canada.
You can visit
Battle Ground, Indiana and the Battle of Tippecanoe by
visiting www.tcha.mus.in.us/battlefield.htm
The
War of 1812
In America's
view, the English were to blame for the Indian attacks on
American settlers. They believed England was providing
guns, supplies and encouragement to the Indian tribes.
Settlers in the Ohio Valley thought the solution was simple:
attack Canada and drive the English out. At the
settlers request, the United States declared war on England
(again) in 1812. This became known as the War of 1812.
William Henry
Harrison gave up his position as governor to lead the
American military force against Canada and the English.
However, the Americans found it very difficult to war
against Canada. Most of the time the army was forced
to defend itself against attacks. From their fort in
Detroit, the English sent out troops to attack American
settlements, including Fort Wayne. Indian warriors,
led by Tecumseh, once again fought against the settlers on
the side of the English.
However, an
American commander named Oliver Hazard Perry led and attack
against the English on Lake Erie in 1813. The defeat
of the English by Perry's army led to a turning point in the
war. Perry's victory weakened English control of the
Great Lakes. This defeat made it possible for
Americans to cross Lake Erie by boat. William Henry
Harrison led his army across Lake Erie to attack the English
at Detroit.
When
Harrison's army arrived at Detroit the English were gone.
The American army discovered the English were headed
northeast on the Thames River. Harrison and his 3,000
men followed. A week later Harrison forced a battle
called the Battle of the Thames. In the battle, all of
the English were either killed or captured. The great
chief Tecumseh had also been killed.
The Battle of
Thames was the last war against Tecumseh's confederation and
ended the Indian attacks against American settlers in the
Indiana Territory. The War of 1812 ended with a peace
treaty in 1814. Neither side had actually won the war
and the boundary between the United States and Canada
remained the same.
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