Page 3 - Demo

Indiana means %u201cLand of Indians,%u201d and it truly was for thousands of years. But this began to change when the French came to North America, beginning with Jacques Cartier in 1534. Eventually, these white European newcomers claimed a large portion of the North American continent%u2014including today%u2019s Canada, and a sizable part of the future Midwestern United States. This vast territory became known as New France, but France had to cede most of it to Great Britain as a consequence of losing the French and Indian War.With the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1783%u2014which concluded the American Revolution%u2014a vast tract of land west of the Appalachian mountains and northwest of the Ohio River was ceded from Great Britain to the new United States. This was a large chunk of the land the British had acquired from France just two decades earlier.In 1787, the U.S. Congress passed the Northwest Ordinance, which converted their new holdings into the Northwest Territory of the United States. Arthur St. Clair was appointed the Territory%u2019s first governor and a seat government was established at Marietta, Ohio in 1788. At that time, the land was a 260,000 square-mile wilderness, and was sparsely populated by Delaware, Miami, Potawatomi, Shawnee, and other Native American tribes. There were few white inhabitants, and they resided in only a handful of settlements. Importantly, the Ordinance stipulated that once any portion of the area reached a population of 60,000, it could apply for statehood.