For centuries, Native Americans lived on the land that would become Indiana.
The state, its capital and even a baseball team were named after them, although indirectly, after the long defunct Indiana Land Company.
Other names remain throughout the state. Cities like Shipshewana and Kewanna are named after Potawatomi chiefs. In Indianapolis, the White River’s name comes from a translation of the Miami word “waapikaminki,” which means “on the white water.” The Monon Trail is named after the Monon Railroad, which derived its name from the Potawatomi word meaning “swift running.”
But for Miami tribal historic preservation officer George Strack, naming places for Native Americans isn’t the same as respecting them.
Strack is a member of the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma, descendents of the Native Americans that were forced out of the state. The Miami Tribe owns 45 acres of land outside Fort Wayne where members can reconnect with their history, language and culture.
“It was really hard to grow up with that identity. There were times that people would make fun of that and do the ‘woo woo woo’ sound with their hand over their mouths. It really affected me, you know. And I think it affected all of us from a Native background.”
As we mark the United States’ 250th anniversary, very few Native Americans live in Indiana, which actually translates to “Land of the Indians.”
Through treaty, force and often a combination of the two, most of the Native American groups that lived here were moved off their ancestral homelands.
“That loss of community is really important. Families got broken apart, and this community is living in diaspora,” Strack said.
Here’s their story.
Life before colonists arrived
Many groups of Native Americans lived in what would become Indiana for centuries before Europeans arrived.
Many Native Americans passed their cultures on orally and much of it is lost. Most of what we know about their history comes from often biased accounts from European observers.
Among the largest groups that lived here were the Potawatomi in northern Indiana, the Miami from Fort Wayne to Terre Haute, the Kickapoo/Mascouten in west central Indiana, the Piankashaw in the area around Vincennes, and the Shawnee in south central Indiana.
Other groups, including the Lenape, also known as the Delaware, Nanticoke and Mahican, lived in the state briefly.
The groups lived in villages and would grow crops such as maize, beans and squash. They also would also hunt game and fish.
To hunt buffalo, the Miami would set fire to a field where buffalo grazed and leave some lanes open for escape, according to the first Europeans who encountered Native Americans in Indiana.
The groups would move to other villages within their territories when the seasons changed or their fields became less fertile. They were self-sufficient and could make their homes, tools, weapons and clothing with the resources they had, like stone, wood, animal hides and fur.
Life for Native Americans changed dramatically, though, when they encountered settlers. The first recorded European expedition into Indiana happened in 1679, when explorer and fur trader Rene La Salle led an expedition of 30 men down the St. Joseph River.
Life after the American Revolution
As the French and British settled in Indiana, many Native American tribes were caught up in their conflicts, and, ultimately, forced out of the state. Several battles happened in Indiana, including the capture of Fort Miamis in Fort Wayne and Fort Ouiatenon in West Lafayette, the Battle of the Forks of the White River at Washington, Lochry’s Defeat in Dearborn County and the Battle of Petit Fort at the Indiana Dunes.
And, later, the American Revolution would free the 13 colonies from British rule, but it would also lead to more Native Americans being forced from Indiana.
In 1787, the U.S. established the lands that would become Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin and the eastern portion of Minnesota into the Northwest Territory.
The U.S. was heavily in debt after the American Revolution and planned to raise money by selling off land in the Northwest Territory.
In 1790, President George Washington sent about 1,450 troops to attack them and take over the territory. American troops destroyed some villages and crops, but Native American forces led by Miami Chief Little Turtle and Shawnee Chief Blue Jacket fought back.
A second group of troops was sent the following year but again the Native Americans successfully defended their land.
In 1792, the U.S. chose Revolutionary War soldier Maj. Gen. “Mad” Anthony Wayne to lead a new, larger force to send against the groups.
The U.S. forces won battles and destroyed Native American villages down the Maumee River in Ohio and Indiana. Wayne’s army captured the Miami capital, called Kekionga, and built Fort Wayne.
In 1795, a dozen major groups signed the Treaty of Greenville with the U.S., which ended the war, freed prisoners on both sides and opened land to U.S. settlers.
In Indiana, the treaty forced Native Americans to give up land around U.S. forts, like Fort Wayne, Fort Ouiatenon in West Lafayette and Fort Vincennes.
Chipping away at Native American land
After the War of 1812, the U.S. government had a new strategy for acquiring Native American lands —- using debt as a weapon.
The U.S. encouraged fur traders to set high prices for goods and extend credit to their clients. The main economic enterprise in northern Indiana between 1818 and 1840 was trading with Native Americans.
William Conner, the namesake of Conner Prairie in Fishers, is believed to be the first settler in Hamilton County because he established a trading post in 1802.
As the debts piled up, the U.S. offered treaties that gave tribal leaders large individual monetary allotments and pay off the individual debts of a tribe in exchange for land. Many treaties would include yearly payments, called annuities, that would usually end up being used to pay traders.
Indiana became the 19th U.S. state in 1816, but the Delaware, Miami and Potawatomi still legally owned about ⅔ of the state’s land.
U.S. Department of War officials and settlers convinced the groups to sign six treaties, called the Treaties of St. Mary’s, that gave up millions of acres of land in Indiana and Ohio in exchange for cash, annuities and plots of land for important people in the groups.
One treaty, signed by the Delaware, directed their removal from the state. Conner served as interpreter for that treaty. His Delaware wife, Mekinges, and their children were also removed with their people and Conner remarried. Their story is told at the Conner Prairie museum through exhibits. Conner’s white children with his new wife eventually inherited the property.
When U.S. officials couldn’t convince the larger group leaders to sign away their land, the government found willing leaders of smaller, semi-independent regional bands to sign.
The land that is now central Indiana was taken from the Miami in 1818.
In exchange, they received six reservations in Indiana, plots of land for chiefs and other higher ranking people, a perpetual annuity of $15,000, worth about $395,646 in today’s dollars, a gristmill, a sawmill, a blacksmith, a gunsmith and 160 bushels of salt a year.
The last groups removed from Indiana
In 1830, President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act into law, which gave him the power to grant federal lands west of the Mississippi River to Native American groups that gave up their homelands. It essentially gave Jackson and other anti-Native American officials freedom to persuade, bribe and threaten groups into leaving their lands.
By then, most of the Native American groups in Indiana were already removed via treaty. The Miami still lived in reservations in northeast Indiana they negotiated for in 1818, and the Potawatomi lived in reservations in Whitley and Kosciusko Counties.
Most of the Potawatomi were pushed to give up their land in the 1830s and were forced to leave the state in 1838.
During what’s known as the Potawatomi Trail of Death, a band of 859 Potawatomi were forced to walk 660 miles to a reservation in Kansas. The extreme heat and the rough terrain caused 40 people, mainly children, to die during the move.
In 1840, the Miami agreed to give up their lands and move to Kansas within five years after the treaty was ratified. The 300 Miami remaining in Indiana in 1846 were forcibly removed, with several dying along the way.
Native Americans in Indiana today
Today, only two federally recognized groups of Native Americans have land in Indiana — the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi and the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma.
The Pokagon Band was named after its leader, Chief Leopold Pokagon. Pokagon convinced the U.S. to allow them to stay in southwestern Michigan, a portion of their homeland. According to the band, they earned the right to remain there in part because they had demonstrated a strong attachment to Catholicism.
After decades of trying to get their federal recognition restored by the Congress, they finally succeeded in 1994. In 2016, the band received 166 acres of their land in South Bend back, which they used to create 44 homes for their members and a casino.
The Miami Tribe are the descendants of the Miami that were removed to Kansas. After a few decades there, the Miami were moved to Oklahoma in the 1870s.
In 2015, the Miami Tribe bought a 10-acre property in Fort Wayne to set up its Cultural Resources Extension Office to provide tribal members living in the lower Great Lakes region an opportunity to reconnect with their history, language, and culture. The tribe moved to a larger 45-acre property northwest of Fort Wayne in 2021.
Another group of Native Americans, the Miami Nation of Indiana, are active in the state and headquartered in Peru, Indiana. They are made up of Miami who legally remained in Indiana after removal but are not federally recognized.
Learn more
Strack believes most Hoosiers don’t get taught enough about the many groups of Native Americans that were forced off their land. What was taught was often disparaging.
He lives in Chicago and spends time in Indiana.
“I learned the same history that everybody else learned. It was very minimal and it made people look like ignorant savages and those kinds of things,” he said.
A couple places in the Indianapolis area can help you learn more about Native Americans.
The Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art in downtown Indianapolis helps share the stories of Native Americans through the display of Native American art and art inspired by them.
Conner Prairie in Fishers is a museum where visitors can see what life was like in pioneer days. It was built on land originally settled by William Conner. It contains a Lenape (Delaware) camp for people to experience and features exhibits about Native American life and history.
This story, and ArcFest 2026 – a festival centered around democracy, justice and freedom of expression, are presented as part of a national effort by local newsrooms to reflect on the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
Read USA@250 coverage from other newsrooms : https://theajp.org/us250-local-journalism-series/
Mirror Indy, a nonprofit newsroom, is funded through grants and donations from individuals, foundations and organizations.
Mirror Indy reporter Enrique Saenz covers west Indianapolis. Contact him at 317-983-4203 or enrique.saenz@mirrorindy.org. Follow him on Bluesky at @enriquesaenz.bsky.social.
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