We lived the same as Indians 'ceptin we took an interest in politics and religion,' Dennis Hanks, cousin of Abraham Lincoln, said of the Indiana of 1817, the year after the State was admitted to the Union. And Lincoln described his boyhood home as a 'wild region with bears and other wild animals still in the woods.' All about was unbroken forest where 'the clearing away of surplus wood was the great task ahead.'
In such a frontier region it was inevitable that the folk life would express itself in terms of the backwoods. Folklore and folkways were conditioned by the scenes and customs of the locality where they had originated or had taken root after having been transplanted. Most Indiana folkways were not indigenous but, in common with those of other Midwestern States, had survived migrations over trails such as the one made into the western country by Daniel Boone. Many migrants followed this trail into Indiana, where they became integral parts of a variegated backwoods pattern.
The pioneer necessarily was hard-working and practical. This new country offered a challenge to muscle rather than to mind, and the early settler contented himself with the limited culture he had brought with him. The family Bible and sometimes another book or two were the extent of his cultural tools.
With all these limitations, however, there has come down from the frontier a lore composed of beliefs, customs, crafts, anecdotes, both true and untrue, bearing in its content and terminology the unmistakable stamp of the backwoods. The daily round of living yielded its natural by-product of stories about eccentric members of the community; exaggerated tales of prowess in hunting, fishing, and working; tales of giant reptiles and beasts with more than ordinary intelligence; stories about freaks of the weather, floods and great droughts.
Good or bad luck to crops and to members of the family was indicated by certain infallible signs. Evil luck was presaged by the flight of a bird past the window, by the breath of a horse on a child's head, by a dog crossing the hunter's path. It was considered better to cut fence rails in the light of the moon and to plant crops that ripened above ground in the full moon and root crops in the dark of the moon. Soap should be made in the light of the moon and stirred one way by one person. Butchering had to be done before the full moon if the meat was not to 'fry hard and leave only lard.' A waning moon was good for shingling because it pulled the shingles flat. These and many more were sincere beliefs among almost all the early settlers. Some went further in their faith in signs and portents, and believed in ghosts and witches and in the efficacy of the silver bullet to exorcise the witch.
Today the imprint of the frontier is found on all the traditional tales, beginning with those about the Indians and continuing through the French settlement and the various waves of American migration into the Indiana wilderness. By the light of the fireplace in the pioneer cabin, in the crossroads store, in the wake of the circuit-riding preacher, there has grown up a wealth of stories and anecdotes telling of the early days of a people. For the most part they form no body of myth around supernatural beings. They probably do not offer a close parallel to European or Oriental folklores, but they do reflect the life, customs, and beliefs of the frontier. This body of material has been transmuted by some strange alchemy of soil, climate, and varied personalities into something that we can label Indiana folklore and that reflects in an infinite variety of ways that indefinable entity called Hoosierdom.
The first need of the pioneer was water, so cabins were usually built along creeks or rivers. Those who pushed farther inland commonly made use of the willow divining rod to locate underground springs. It was believed that since the willow was accustomed to wet ground it would dip, in seeking its favorite element. The earliest settlers were of necessity hunters, not farmers. After the ax, the rifle was the most essential tool. A little land, enough to provide some corn, wheat, and a few vegetables, was cleared. It was partly tended by the womenfolk while the men hunted and fished to provide meat. However, this promised land turned out to be a land of plenty and, as George Ade once said, 'The pioneer had gumption enough to unpack once he had arrived.'
The social life of these first comers also drew its inspiration from their environment and was expressed in log-rolling, house-raising, and other tasks that could best be accomplished and celebrated co-operatively. During these affairs the women of the family, with the wives and sweethearts of the visiting helpers, quilted, sewed, and talked. Recipes and zodiacal signs for weaning babies, planting seeds, and curing meat were freely exchanged. Children should never be weaned when the sign was in the stomach, but when the sign was in the feet. A good way to remove freckles was to wash in dew or stump water before sunrise the first of May. A girl should never marry until she could pick clothes out of boiling water with her fingers. If she sat on a table, she would never marry.
If a person killed a toad, his cow would give bloody milk. One must never move a broom or a cat from one home to another. Children were measured by 'string doctors' for short growth; the string was buried and when it began to rot the child began to grow. The rite was most effective if performed by the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter. Incantations were said for rickets and fits. When Venus went into ascendancy as the evening star, it was 'Mary going over the mountain.' If it rained on that day, it would rain for six weeks; if it was fair, the weather would be fair for six weeks.
The time to plant corn was when elm tree leaves were the size of a squirrel's ear. When the corn reached the roasting-ear stage, the ears were cooked in hot ashes. Some of the kernels were grated and water added; the liquid was then strained and allowed to stand overnight. The result was a supply of starch for laundering the men's 'biled' shirts.
Whisky was a cure-all, and it was a poor occasion that did not call for it. It was used to keep off heat strokes in the summer and to keep one warm in the winter; for chills, fever, ague, snake bites, and toothache; and as a partial anesthetic during the performance of the crude surgery of the day. Bleeding was freely practiced, and many varieties of 'yarb tea' were much used.
Tongues wagged as fingers flew and turned scraps of calico into beautiful quilts. Elaborate quilt patterns were the Prairie Rose, Log Cabin, Lone Star, Irish Chain, and Flower Garden. Four Patch and Nine Patch were simpler designs for everyday use.
Cooking for these gatherings taxed the housewives' cupboards to the utmost. Corn bread was baked in a spider over a pile of coals or on a hoe. (From this comes the present word 'hoecake.') Wild berries, plums, and apples, dried or preserved, were the fruits. Turnips, potatoes, dried corn, all sorts of wild game and fish, and sometimes chicken and dumplings filled the table. Spreads were maple syrup, pumpkin butter, and wild plum preserves.
Children stood around the table to 'strengthen their legs.' After supper they went to bed in the loft to sleep on straw ticks exposed to winter snows that came through chinks in the logs.
The by-products of the pioneer's recreation were almost as useful as the products of his regular work. Sugar making, bee hunting, husking bees, and apple cuttings were standard amusements. Shooting matches, cockfighting, 'rassling,' and foot racing were the main sporting events.
Shooting matches were always an accompaniment of Thanksgiving and Christmas. The match began early in the day and lasted until darkness made the target -- a live chicken or turkey -- invisible. There were rules, of course. Should the target be struck above the knee by a bullet, it became the property of the marksman who had hit it. If the ball struck below the knee, the wounded fowl was left tied and the firing continued.
Cockfighting usually took place on a Sunday when the settlers would gather with their favorite birds. A ring was cleared, and the owners of two cocks, matched evenly for fighting weight, would bind steel spurs or gaffs upon each bird's leg over its sawed-off natural spurs. The cocks would then be held close and allowed to pick at each other. Then they were taken to opposite sides of the ring and released. They would meet high above the center of the ring in a whirring kaleidoscope of brilliant feathers and flashing steel. Feinting, leaping, slashing, they fought until one was dead or ran away -- which seldom happened. They were blooded birds whose ancestors had been brought from England or Ireland and purity of strain was jealously guarded.
Agriculture were the backbone of Indiana economy
From the earliest days of settlement, agriculture has been basic to the economic development and cultural progress of Indiana. In the wake of trappers and solitary riflemen came land-hungry settlers to establish relatively small family-sized farms, which for 50 years were the backbone of Indiana economy. During that time the industries of the State were in the main mere offshoots of agriculture; and even today, when manufacturing, quarrying, and mining have far outstripped farming in the number of workers they engage, Indiana is still one of the leading agricultural States.
The first settlers to enter Indiana Territory around 1800 came from Kentucky, Virginia, and the Carolinas, and made their homes in southern Indiana, along the Ohio River. Soon thereafter immigrants from the North and East bought Government land along the Wabash and Whitewater Rivers and their tributaries. A little later this dependence upon waterways was broken somewhat by the building of the National Road and the Michigan Road, paid for by the sale of near-by lands. Before long a great belt of farms extended north and south, and another east and west across the State, and by 1830 the population of Indiana was 348,000.
Because of the natural fertility of the deep glacial soil in the northern two-thirds of the State, it was possible to make a good living on a small holding. The soil on the southern hills, being thinner and subjected to heavy water runoff, was more rapidly depleted. In the early days, however, before forests had been cut off and soil erosion had occurred on a large scale, this land also was generally fairly productive.
Most of the early settlers lived in log cabins and produced most of their necessities. Pioneer farm implements were few and crude, and efforts to raise crops unsuited to the region resulted in many costly failures. Some of the farmers wasted much time and energy trying to raise cotton and tobacco; they tried to introduce grape culture on a large scale, in imitation of the Swiss settlers at Vevay. The culture of hemp, flax, and hops was also widespread in the first quarter of the century, but by 1850 all these attempts had been abandoned in favor of more adaptable crops.
One of the chief obstacles to agricultural expansion in those early days was the presence throughout most of the State of large areas of marshy land. In the north especially the marshes covered a wide area, and fevers and ague were common. Proper drainage later brought better farms and better health.
The most unfortunate feature of pioneer agriculture was the utter disregard for maintenance of soil fertility. The soil seemed infinitely rich, and after clearing a field farmers often planted 12 to 20 corn crops in succession. Especially on the southern uplands this practice was ruinous, and when part of the land eventually was turned back to pasture there was a struggle with briars, sassafras, weeds, and erosion.
In spite of these adverse conditions the farms of Indiana multiplied and the farmers prospered. Gradually they learned that hogs, corn, and wheat could be raised profitably and a swelling stream of grain and pork began pouring southward to the New Orleans market. By 1830 the most populous town in Indiana, Madison, with 2,000 inhabitants, was noted for the quantity of pork barreled there. Richmond, Indianapolis, Logansport, Terre Haute, Crawfordsville, LaFayette, and New Harmony also were stable communities rising along the principal waterways. Everywhere this general quickening of life and trade rested on the foundation of improved farming.
For the farmers of the Middle West, the period from 1825 to 1860 was one of political ascendancy and economic growth. Aided by the mechanics and factory workers of the Atlantic seaboard, they held the balance of power in the struggle between the industrial Northeast and the agricultural West and South. As a debtor class they benefited from 'cheaper money,' low-priced commodities, and the continued power of the Democratic party.
In this prosperity the railroads became an increasingly important factor in Hoosier life. The canals that linked northern Indiana to the Gulf of Mexico by way of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers had done much to enable farmers to transport their products to market cheaply. But the railroads were faster and less dependent upon the weather, and by the 1850's this new form of transportation was welding the East and the West together. 'The stream of migration westward,' in the words of Dr. Charles A. Beard, 'became a torrent; in return the stream of wheat, corn, and bacon from the farms became an avalanche.'
The first settlers to enter Indiana Territory around 1800 came from Kentucky, Virginia, and the Carolinas, and made their homes in southern Indiana, along the Ohio River. Soon thereafter immigrants from the North and East bought Government land along the Wabash and Whitewater Rivers and their tributaries. A little later this dependence upon waterways was broken somewhat by the building of the National Road and the Michigan Road, paid for by the sale of near-by lands. Before long a great belt of farms extended north and south, and another east and west across the State, and by 1830 the population of Indiana was 348,000.
Because of the natural fertility of the deep glacial soil in the northern two-thirds of the State, it was possible to make a good living on a small holding. The soil on the southern hills, being thinner and subjected to heavy water runoff, was more rapidly depleted. In the early days, however, before forests had been cut off and soil erosion had occurred on a large scale, this land also was generally fairly productive.
Most of the early settlers lived in log cabins and produced most of their necessities. Pioneer farm implements were few and crude, and efforts to raise crops unsuited to the region resulted in many costly failures. Some of the farmers wasted much time and energy trying to raise cotton and tobacco; they tried to introduce grape culture on a large scale, in imitation of the Swiss settlers at Vevay. The culture of hemp, flax, and hops was also widespread in the first quarter of the century, but by 1850 all these attempts had been abandoned in favor of more adaptable crops.
One of the chief obstacles to agricultural expansion in those early days was the presence throughout most of the State of large areas of marshy land. In the north especially the marshes covered a wide area, and fevers and ague were common. Proper drainage later brought better farms and better health.
The most unfortunate feature of pioneer agriculture was the utter disregard for maintenance of soil fertility. The soil seemed infinitely rich, and after clearing a field farmers often planted 12 to 20 corn crops in succession. Especially on the southern uplands this practice was ruinous, and when part of the land eventually was turned back to pasture there was a struggle with briars, sassafras, weeds, and erosion.
In spite of these adverse conditions the farms of Indiana multiplied and the farmers prospered. Gradually they learned that hogs, corn, and wheat could be raised profitably and a swelling stream of grain and pork began pouring southward to the New Orleans market. By 1830 the most populous town in Indiana, Madison, with 2,000 inhabitants, was noted for the quantity of pork barreled there. Richmond, Indianapolis, Logansport, Terre Haute, Crawfordsville, LaFayette, and New Harmony also were stable communities rising along the principal waterways. Everywhere this general quickening of life and trade rested on the foundation of improved farming.
For the farmers of the Middle West, the period from 1825 to 1860 was one of political ascendancy and economic growth. Aided by the mechanics and factory workers of the Atlantic seaboard, they held the balance of power in the struggle between the industrial Northeast and the agricultural West and South. As a debtor class they benefited from 'cheaper money,' low-priced commodities, and the continued power of the Democratic party.
In this prosperity the railroads became an increasingly important factor in Hoosier life. The canals that linked northern Indiana to the Gulf of Mexico by way of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers had done much to enable farmers to transport their products to market cheaply. But the railroads were faster and less dependent upon the weather, and by the 1850's this new form of transportation was welding the East and the West together. 'The stream of migration westward,' in the words of Dr. Charles A. Beard, 'became a torrent; in return the stream of wheat, corn, and bacon from the farms became an avalanche.'
Indians, Indiana's early population
IN all parts of this continent except the Ohio Valley region, early explorers, fur traders, or settlers encountered Indian tribes who lived in or claimed as hunting territories the lands under exploration. In Indiana, Kentucky, and Ohio, this was not the case. In the early eighteenth century, when the whites first began to penetrate the wilderness country west of the Alleghenies, they encountered practically no Indian groups within the Ohio Valley region who could lay certain claim to this vast territory by virtue of long and continuous occupation or use of it.
Yet Indiana, like its sister States on the east and south, is extremely rich in archeological remains that attest the fact that in prehistoric times the region supported a large or fairly large native population. What happened virtually to clear the Ohio Valley of this population prior to the advent of the whites? One explanation is that the confederated Iroquois tribes of central New York gained power after their early acquisition of guns from white traders, and sent out war parties westward. It has been suggested that they swept Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky clear of their native population during the seventeenth century. This is a possible explanation, although recent studies of the Iroquois render dubious the extent to which the Five Nations dominated the native tribes in regions as far distant from New York State as the valleys of the White and Wabash Rivers.
Many archeological, linguistic, and ethnological problems of the Great Lakes-Gulf area, which includes Indiana, are not yet solved. Only the most tenuous clues are available on what tribal or linguistic groups constituted the early historic inhabitants of the present State. One of the most positive statements concerning Indiana's early population is that made by Father Gravier who, in his description of a trip down the Mississippi River in 1700, remarked that the Wabash and lower Ohio Rivers were called the river of the Akansea (Quapaw), 'because the Akansea formerly dwelt on its banks.' If this is actually so, the Quapaw, a Siouan-speaking tribe, would be the earliest recorded group in Indiana. However, their reported occupation on the Wabash and lower Ohio had terminated before Indiana itself was explored; when Marquette and Joliet descended the Mississippi in 1673 they encountered the Quapaw on its banks, near the mouth of the Arkansas River, and in 1682 La Salle and members of his party 'established a peace' and took possession of the Quapaw villages on the Mississippi River for the French.
Beside the Quapaw, two other tribes, the Algonquian-speaking Shawnee and Miami, are often mentioned as early inhabitants of Indiana. Some scholars have suggested that southern Indiana and Kentucky was the aboriginal home of at least a part of the Shawnee tribe. The most explicit reference to the Shawnee being located on the Ohio River in the late seventeenth century is by Abbé Gallinée, in the Jesuit Relations. Galliée states that, in 1668, some Seneca told La Salle 'many marvelous things concerning the Ohio River, which they claimed to be perfectly acquainted with . . . They told him that this river had its source at three days' journey from Sonnontouan [near Naples, Ontario County, western New York] and that after a month's travel he would reach the Honniasontkeronons [Andaste?] and the Chiouanons [Shawnee], and that after having passed these and a great waterfall which there was in the river [the Falls of the Ohio?] he would find the Outagame and the country of the Iskousogos . . .' In 1669 Gallinée and La Salle embarked from Montreal to explore the Ohio under the guidance of their Seneca informants, but the expedition ended disastrously and they did not even succeed in reaching the headwaters of the Ohio River.
Marquette also mentions the 'Chaouanons' or Shawnee; in his account of his trip down the Mississippi with Joliet he remarks that the Waboukigou, which was the name some of the Indian tribes gave to the Ohio below its confluence with the Wabash, 'flows from the lands of the East, where dwell the people called Chaouanons in so great numbers that in one district there are as many as twenty-three villages, and fifteen in another, quite near one another.' On Joliet's sketch maps the Shawnee are located variously, near the eastern bank of the Mississippi and south of the Wabash-Ohio.
The evidence presented by Gallinée and Marquette on the late seventeenth-century location of the Shawnee is based on hearsay, and not on any direct contacts between these explorers and the tribe in question. None of the early French explorers, as far as is known, encountered the Shawnee in their travels through the Mississippi Valley. On the other hand, definite contacts were made east of the Allegheny region with various Shawnee groups before the close of the seventeenth century by English traders and settlers, and numerous late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century sources would seem to indicate that the Shawnee were probably situated much farther east and south than Gallinée and Marquette put them. The suggestion that the Shawnee, as a large and united tribe, were one of the early historic groups of southern Indiana is therefore questionable.
The claims of the Miami to aboriginal occupancy of Indiana were most clearly set forth by a famous leader of this tribe, Little Turtle, in a speech delivered in 1795. Little Turtle stated: 'My fathers kindled the first fire at Detroit; thence they extended their lines to the headwaters of the Scioto; thence to its mouth; thence down the Ohio to the mouth of the Wabash, and thence to Chicago over Lake Michigan.' This claim, coupled with the fact that in 1680 French explorers found Miami groups actually living on the St. Joseph River in extreme northern Indiana, gives some grounds for the assumption that the Miami were the aboriginal occupants of at least the northern half of the State.
For two reasons, however, their title is by no means clear. It has been generally believed that Little Turtle was either a fullblood Miami, or half Miami and half Mahican. But in a recently published manuscript, which was compiled and written at Fort Wayne by C. C. Trowbridge 13 years after Little Turtle's death, it is stated on the authority of Miami informants that 'The Little Turtle is not considered a Miami.' He was, it seems, the offspring of a Mahican man and an Ioway girl who 'settled among the Miamies and had a great many children, of whom the eldest was Little Turtle.' There is no doubt that Little Turtle spent his life among the Miami and rose to eminence as their most astute war leader, but whether he was qualified to speak on the past history of this tribe, or whether his reference to his 'fathers' applied particularly to the Miami, is open to question.
The second and more serious reason for not accepting the Miami as the original proprietors of Indiana lies in the fact that in 1658 some of this tribe, at least, were reported by Gabriel Druillettes as living at the mouth of Green Bay, Wisconsin. In 1670 Nicolas Perrot, a French explorer, actually visited a Miami village at the headwaters of the Fox River, in Wisconsin. Within a decade, however, these Miami had moved south from Fox River and formed settlements at Chicago and on the St. Joseph River in extreme northern Indiana. It is here, in 1680, that their history as Indiana Indians appears to begin, although it is not impossible that a few of the Miami, representing the southernmost members of the tribe, may have been living in Indiana prior to 1680.
Despite the cloud of uncertainty that shrouds the identity of the early peoples of Indiana, this region was by no means devoid of an Indian population during the early period of white penetration. In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries both Indiana and Ohio were refuge areas for a large number of Indian tribes, and at least a dozen different groups spent some time in Indiana. Some of these, such as the Mahican, Nanticoke, Wappinger, Delaware, Munsee, and Shawnee, were originally from the eastern seaboard region and had been pushed out of their home territories by the press of white settlement. Others, such as the Kickapoo, Potawatomi, Miami, Piankeshaw, Wea, and Huron, were from the Great Lakes area to the north. With one exception all of the groups who migrated to Indiana spoke Algonquian languages; the exception was the Huron, whose speech belonged to the Iroquois family.
Yet Indiana, like its sister States on the east and south, is extremely rich in archeological remains that attest the fact that in prehistoric times the region supported a large or fairly large native population. What happened virtually to clear the Ohio Valley of this population prior to the advent of the whites? One explanation is that the confederated Iroquois tribes of central New York gained power after their early acquisition of guns from white traders, and sent out war parties westward. It has been suggested that they swept Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky clear of their native population during the seventeenth century. This is a possible explanation, although recent studies of the Iroquois render dubious the extent to which the Five Nations dominated the native tribes in regions as far distant from New York State as the valleys of the White and Wabash Rivers.
Many archeological, linguistic, and ethnological problems of the Great Lakes-Gulf area, which includes Indiana, are not yet solved. Only the most tenuous clues are available on what tribal or linguistic groups constituted the early historic inhabitants of the present State. One of the most positive statements concerning Indiana's early population is that made by Father Gravier who, in his description of a trip down the Mississippi River in 1700, remarked that the Wabash and lower Ohio Rivers were called the river of the Akansea (Quapaw), 'because the Akansea formerly dwelt on its banks.' If this is actually so, the Quapaw, a Siouan-speaking tribe, would be the earliest recorded group in Indiana. However, their reported occupation on the Wabash and lower Ohio had terminated before Indiana itself was explored; when Marquette and Joliet descended the Mississippi in 1673 they encountered the Quapaw on its banks, near the mouth of the Arkansas River, and in 1682 La Salle and members of his party 'established a peace' and took possession of the Quapaw villages on the Mississippi River for the French.
Beside the Quapaw, two other tribes, the Algonquian-speaking Shawnee and Miami, are often mentioned as early inhabitants of Indiana. Some scholars have suggested that southern Indiana and Kentucky was the aboriginal home of at least a part of the Shawnee tribe. The most explicit reference to the Shawnee being located on the Ohio River in the late seventeenth century is by Abbé Gallinée, in the Jesuit Relations. Galliée states that, in 1668, some Seneca told La Salle 'many marvelous things concerning the Ohio River, which they claimed to be perfectly acquainted with . . . They told him that this river had its source at three days' journey from Sonnontouan [near Naples, Ontario County, western New York] and that after a month's travel he would reach the Honniasontkeronons [Andaste?] and the Chiouanons [Shawnee], and that after having passed these and a great waterfall which there was in the river [the Falls of the Ohio?] he would find the Outagame and the country of the Iskousogos . . .' In 1669 Gallinée and La Salle embarked from Montreal to explore the Ohio under the guidance of their Seneca informants, but the expedition ended disastrously and they did not even succeed in reaching the headwaters of the Ohio River.
Marquette also mentions the 'Chaouanons' or Shawnee; in his account of his trip down the Mississippi with Joliet he remarks that the Waboukigou, which was the name some of the Indian tribes gave to the Ohio below its confluence with the Wabash, 'flows from the lands of the East, where dwell the people called Chaouanons in so great numbers that in one district there are as many as twenty-three villages, and fifteen in another, quite near one another.' On Joliet's sketch maps the Shawnee are located variously, near the eastern bank of the Mississippi and south of the Wabash-Ohio.
The evidence presented by Gallinée and Marquette on the late seventeenth-century location of the Shawnee is based on hearsay, and not on any direct contacts between these explorers and the tribe in question. None of the early French explorers, as far as is known, encountered the Shawnee in their travels through the Mississippi Valley. On the other hand, definite contacts were made east of the Allegheny region with various Shawnee groups before the close of the seventeenth century by English traders and settlers, and numerous late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century sources would seem to indicate that the Shawnee were probably situated much farther east and south than Gallinée and Marquette put them. The suggestion that the Shawnee, as a large and united tribe, were one of the early historic groups of southern Indiana is therefore questionable.
The claims of the Miami to aboriginal occupancy of Indiana were most clearly set forth by a famous leader of this tribe, Little Turtle, in a speech delivered in 1795. Little Turtle stated: 'My fathers kindled the first fire at Detroit; thence they extended their lines to the headwaters of the Scioto; thence to its mouth; thence down the Ohio to the mouth of the Wabash, and thence to Chicago over Lake Michigan.' This claim, coupled with the fact that in 1680 French explorers found Miami groups actually living on the St. Joseph River in extreme northern Indiana, gives some grounds for the assumption that the Miami were the aboriginal occupants of at least the northern half of the State.
For two reasons, however, their title is by no means clear. It has been generally believed that Little Turtle was either a fullblood Miami, or half Miami and half Mahican. But in a recently published manuscript, which was compiled and written at Fort Wayne by C. C. Trowbridge 13 years after Little Turtle's death, it is stated on the authority of Miami informants that 'The Little Turtle is not considered a Miami.' He was, it seems, the offspring of a Mahican man and an Ioway girl who 'settled among the Miamies and had a great many children, of whom the eldest was Little Turtle.' There is no doubt that Little Turtle spent his life among the Miami and rose to eminence as their most astute war leader, but whether he was qualified to speak on the past history of this tribe, or whether his reference to his 'fathers' applied particularly to the Miami, is open to question.
The second and more serious reason for not accepting the Miami as the original proprietors of Indiana lies in the fact that in 1658 some of this tribe, at least, were reported by Gabriel Druillettes as living at the mouth of Green Bay, Wisconsin. In 1670 Nicolas Perrot, a French explorer, actually visited a Miami village at the headwaters of the Fox River, in Wisconsin. Within a decade, however, these Miami had moved south from Fox River and formed settlements at Chicago and on the St. Joseph River in extreme northern Indiana. It is here, in 1680, that their history as Indiana Indians appears to begin, although it is not impossible that a few of the Miami, representing the southernmost members of the tribe, may have been living in Indiana prior to 1680.
Despite the cloud of uncertainty that shrouds the identity of the early peoples of Indiana, this region was by no means devoid of an Indian population during the early period of white penetration. In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries both Indiana and Ohio were refuge areas for a large number of Indian tribes, and at least a dozen different groups spent some time in Indiana. Some of these, such as the Mahican, Nanticoke, Wappinger, Delaware, Munsee, and Shawnee, were originally from the eastern seaboard region and had been pushed out of their home territories by the press of white settlement. Others, such as the Kickapoo, Potawatomi, Miami, Piankeshaw, Wea, and Huron, were from the Great Lakes area to the north. With one exception all of the groups who migrated to Indiana spoke Algonquian languages; the exception was the Huron, whose speech belonged to the Iroquois family.
Mound Builders Indiana
In the valleys of the Ohio and the Mississippi once lived a prehistoric people, popularly called the Mound Builders, who left throughout the Middle West abundant traces of their material culture. They left earthen forts and embankments, the enigmatic mounds so long the subject of many theories, and the village sites which are now being discovered in connection with these mounds. Indiana is one of the regions richest in these archeological treasures.
Mounds are found throughout the Middle West, particularly in the river valleys, and they increase in number as the confluence of the Ohio and the Mississippi is approached. They are generally simple cones of earth, varying from 4 to 70 feet in height; but many are truncated and sometimes terraced. Occasionally stone mounds are also found. Enclosures and fortifications made of earthen walls of many shapes (circles, parallelograms, and other geometric forms indicating a knowledge of measurement) surround areas of from 1 to 30 acres. Mounds and the pits that may mark the former sites of dwellings are usually found within these enclosures.
Roughly about a third of Indiana's counties contain mounds or enclosures of one type or another. Most of them are found in the south, perhaps because of the Ohio and its tributaries; but there are several in La Porte County, at the northern border of the State. In the north central part of Indiana, in Howard, Tipton, and Hamilton Counties, there are numerous sites of interest; and in Madison County, four miles from Anderson, is the famous Mounds Park, presented to the State by the people of Madison County. The Fudge Mound, which has been thoroughly excavated and leveled, was in Randolph County near Winchester. The southeastern corner of the State ( Franklin, Bartholomew, Ripley, Dearborn, Ohio, Switzerland, Jefferson, Scott, Clark, and Floyd Counties) is dense with mounds and fortifications of great interest. There are mounds in Fountain, Vermillion, Morgan, Owen, Greene, Vigo, and Sullivan Counties; and in the southwestern part of the State, Knox, Posey, Vanderburgh, and Warrick Counties are known to contain many mounds.
At one time a veil of mystery hung over the Mound Builders. What was their origin? What became of them? Was theirs a civilization comparable to that of the Aztecs of Mexico, or were they primitive savages? Were the mounds built for altars of human sacrifice, for burial of the dead, for temples to the sun, or for palaces of kings? Theories were spun about a vast slave empire, with kings and priests, temples and cities, and a culture no less impressive than that of ancient Egypt. But for a century little concrete archeological knowledge was acquired in Indiana, in spite of the excavations of Charles A. LeSueur near New Harmony, and the enthusiastic work of E. T. Cox and John Collett, State geologists during the 1870's and 1880's.
Largely on the basis of research done in Ohio, which completed such a task long ago, Indiana archeologists are able to allocate to one culture or another the pottery, ornaments, and stone blades found so frequently in Indiana mounds. Moreover, Indiana scientists have added new material to the existing store of knowledge. Their recent work has accumulated a modest but solid store of facts to serve as a basis for further investigation.
The Mound Builders possessed a fairly well-developed culture -either early Neolithic (New Stone) or possibly late Paleolithic. The Neolithic age was that culture period in which men made tools of polished stone; developed pottery, the bow, textiles, and basketry; domesticated a few plants and animals; and began to use copper. Prehistoric traces in America, however, show that not all the people had attained this level of culture.
Mounds are found throughout the Middle West, particularly in the river valleys, and they increase in number as the confluence of the Ohio and the Mississippi is approached. They are generally simple cones of earth, varying from 4 to 70 feet in height; but many are truncated and sometimes terraced. Occasionally stone mounds are also found. Enclosures and fortifications made of earthen walls of many shapes (circles, parallelograms, and other geometric forms indicating a knowledge of measurement) surround areas of from 1 to 30 acres. Mounds and the pits that may mark the former sites of dwellings are usually found within these enclosures.
Roughly about a third of Indiana's counties contain mounds or enclosures of one type or another. Most of them are found in the south, perhaps because of the Ohio and its tributaries; but there are several in La Porte County, at the northern border of the State. In the north central part of Indiana, in Howard, Tipton, and Hamilton Counties, there are numerous sites of interest; and in Madison County, four miles from Anderson, is the famous Mounds Park, presented to the State by the people of Madison County. The Fudge Mound, which has been thoroughly excavated and leveled, was in Randolph County near Winchester. The southeastern corner of the State ( Franklin, Bartholomew, Ripley, Dearborn, Ohio, Switzerland, Jefferson, Scott, Clark, and Floyd Counties) is dense with mounds and fortifications of great interest. There are mounds in Fountain, Vermillion, Morgan, Owen, Greene, Vigo, and Sullivan Counties; and in the southwestern part of the State, Knox, Posey, Vanderburgh, and Warrick Counties are known to contain many mounds.
At one time a veil of mystery hung over the Mound Builders. What was their origin? What became of them? Was theirs a civilization comparable to that of the Aztecs of Mexico, or were they primitive savages? Were the mounds built for altars of human sacrifice, for burial of the dead, for temples to the sun, or for palaces of kings? Theories were spun about a vast slave empire, with kings and priests, temples and cities, and a culture no less impressive than that of ancient Egypt. But for a century little concrete archeological knowledge was acquired in Indiana, in spite of the excavations of Charles A. LeSueur near New Harmony, and the enthusiastic work of E. T. Cox and John Collett, State geologists during the 1870's and 1880's.
Largely on the basis of research done in Ohio, which completed such a task long ago, Indiana archeologists are able to allocate to one culture or another the pottery, ornaments, and stone blades found so frequently in Indiana mounds. Moreover, Indiana scientists have added new material to the existing store of knowledge. Their recent work has accumulated a modest but solid store of facts to serve as a basis for further investigation.
The Mound Builders possessed a fairly well-developed culture -either early Neolithic (New Stone) or possibly late Paleolithic. The Neolithic age was that culture period in which men made tools of polished stone; developed pottery, the bow, textiles, and basketry; domesticated a few plants and animals; and began to use copper. Prehistoric traces in America, however, show that not all the people had attained this level of culture.
Indiana has great wealth in its mines and quarries
Indiana has great wealth in its mines and quarries, its water supply, and, in spite of waste and misuse, its soil and timber. The mineral wealth is derived largely from the sedimentary rocks consisting of limestone, sandstone, shale, and coal, with large deposits of clay and kaolin in certain parts of the State. Sand and gravel are also plentiful.
The State's best-known mineral resource is an almost unlimited supply of building stone, chiefly obtained from limestone deposits. The most dependable Indiana stone, of which there are several varieties, is quarried from the Mississippian system of rocks. All the varieties are used widely for the manufacture of lime and cement, and locally for building. The Indiana oölitic limestone (so called because of its granular structure, which suggests a mass of fish eggs) is one of the finest building stones quarried in the United States. A medium- to finegrained stone with even texture, it is soft and easily carved when first quarried, but under the action of atmospheric agents becomes hard and durable. From the chief quarries in Monroe and Lawrence Counties, this stone is shipped all over the United States and to foreign countries.
In the area of the Pennsylvanian rocks there are extensive deposits of bituminous coal. Third in value among mineral resources is clay, found largely in the Pennsylvanian rocks, especially in the coal-bearing areas. Thirty years ago the clays were regarded as a detriment to coal mining; today, although not yet fully utilized, they rank in value next to coal and stone.
Because of its fine clay deposits and immense supply of limestone, Indiana ranks high in the manufacture of Portland cement. There are extensive deposits of stone in southern Indiana, at present unused, that are also suitable for cement manufacture. Huge quantities of sand and gravel are extracted from gravel pits every year and used in the manufacture of cement, plaster, and glass, and in the surfacing of roads.
In earlier periods several minerals were more important to Indiana industry than they are today. Iron ore was formerly mined, but in recent years iron of much better quality is imported. Marl, a clay-like substance found at the bottom of some lakes, was formerly an important mineral used in making cement. Immense wells of natural gas were wasted between 1890 and 1910; a little later, in the same area, oil production boomed but declined after a few years. Today another oil boom is developing in many Indiana counties.
Indiana has a great area of rich soil suitable for agriculture. Over most of the northern two-thirds of the State lie deep, silty, light-brown loams, weathered by glaciers from limestone and sandstone. In the 'driftless' area the soils are thinner and less fertile -- heavy clay soils, brown silt loams, or yellowish soils of a silty to sandy character, weathered largely from limestone. Their fertility was depleted by an unvaried succession of corn crops during pioneer times.
Two hundred years ago fully seven-eighths of the State was covered with forests. The only treeless area was the prairie land in the northwest. A century's waste of these forests, however, has meant devastation of many kinds. The trees had stored moisture in the earth, and this served the thirsty plants in time of drought. After the trees were gone, when heavy rains fell, the water (no longer held back by roots and mold) drained swiftly toward the streams and washed the soil off the hillsides. Swollen tributaries rushed into main streams, overflowing their banks and sometimes creating serious floods. In a long dry period, on the other hand, the soil dried quickly to a great depth, since water could no longer be easily retained. Streams ran dry, and moistureless winds blew away the topsoil in clouds of dust. Thus the destruction of the forests brought in its wake floods, drought, and soil erosion.
Despite these tragic losses, the supply of hardwood timber still constitutes a valuable natural resource. Although much of it is of young trees, the remaining first-growth timber is of high quality, including such species as walnut, ash, poplar, elm, hickory, maple, and many kinds of oak, some reaching an exceptionally large size. Throughout southern Indiana and in several northern counties are vast areas that could easily be devoted principally to forests.
In the southern hills the problems of drought, flood, and soil erosion are extremely acute. A suggested solution is the retirement of most of the region from agriculture and the reforestation of the hills. Good drainage and limestone soils in certain areas would make the cultivation of fruit trees profitable, and a gigantic State forest stocked with game is contemplated in the 'driftless' area. Throughout the reforested section, tree roots would nail the soil to the slopes; water would be adequately stored; and streams would not swell toward flood proportions in rainy weather.
Northern Indiana is so low that bogs are common and storage is more than adequate. Hence there is no danger of flood, drought, and soil erosion. But even here natural resources have been misused in the clearing and drainage of submarginal land. Again a suggested solution is to retire this poor land from agriculture and plant extensive forests.
In central Indiana, agriculture is sometimes menaced by drought and flood, since rainfall, although fairly adequate, is irregular. Because of the deep, level soil, however, there is less damage from erosion here than in the south. Since the region is too valuable agriculturally for extensive reforestation, experts particularly recommend the planting of 'riverside forests'; the development of irrigation; and the increased use of the self-controlling dam, allowing an ordinary flow of water to escape but retaining the excess amount in storage ponds. Thus the water table would be lifted and maintained as a precaution against drought. During rainy weather the dams would take the crest off the floods, preventing torrents.
The State's best-known mineral resource is an almost unlimited supply of building stone, chiefly obtained from limestone deposits. The most dependable Indiana stone, of which there are several varieties, is quarried from the Mississippian system of rocks. All the varieties are used widely for the manufacture of lime and cement, and locally for building. The Indiana oölitic limestone (so called because of its granular structure, which suggests a mass of fish eggs) is one of the finest building stones quarried in the United States. A medium- to finegrained stone with even texture, it is soft and easily carved when first quarried, but under the action of atmospheric agents becomes hard and durable. From the chief quarries in Monroe and Lawrence Counties, this stone is shipped all over the United States and to foreign countries.
In the area of the Pennsylvanian rocks there are extensive deposits of bituminous coal. Third in value among mineral resources is clay, found largely in the Pennsylvanian rocks, especially in the coal-bearing areas. Thirty years ago the clays were regarded as a detriment to coal mining; today, although not yet fully utilized, they rank in value next to coal and stone.
Because of its fine clay deposits and immense supply of limestone, Indiana ranks high in the manufacture of Portland cement. There are extensive deposits of stone in southern Indiana, at present unused, that are also suitable for cement manufacture. Huge quantities of sand and gravel are extracted from gravel pits every year and used in the manufacture of cement, plaster, and glass, and in the surfacing of roads.
In earlier periods several minerals were more important to Indiana industry than they are today. Iron ore was formerly mined, but in recent years iron of much better quality is imported. Marl, a clay-like substance found at the bottom of some lakes, was formerly an important mineral used in making cement. Immense wells of natural gas were wasted between 1890 and 1910; a little later, in the same area, oil production boomed but declined after a few years. Today another oil boom is developing in many Indiana counties.
Indiana has a great area of rich soil suitable for agriculture. Over most of the northern two-thirds of the State lie deep, silty, light-brown loams, weathered by glaciers from limestone and sandstone. In the 'driftless' area the soils are thinner and less fertile -- heavy clay soils, brown silt loams, or yellowish soils of a silty to sandy character, weathered largely from limestone. Their fertility was depleted by an unvaried succession of corn crops during pioneer times.
Two hundred years ago fully seven-eighths of the State was covered with forests. The only treeless area was the prairie land in the northwest. A century's waste of these forests, however, has meant devastation of many kinds. The trees had stored moisture in the earth, and this served the thirsty plants in time of drought. After the trees were gone, when heavy rains fell, the water (no longer held back by roots and mold) drained swiftly toward the streams and washed the soil off the hillsides. Swollen tributaries rushed into main streams, overflowing their banks and sometimes creating serious floods. In a long dry period, on the other hand, the soil dried quickly to a great depth, since water could no longer be easily retained. Streams ran dry, and moistureless winds blew away the topsoil in clouds of dust. Thus the destruction of the forests brought in its wake floods, drought, and soil erosion.
Despite these tragic losses, the supply of hardwood timber still constitutes a valuable natural resource. Although much of it is of young trees, the remaining first-growth timber is of high quality, including such species as walnut, ash, poplar, elm, hickory, maple, and many kinds of oak, some reaching an exceptionally large size. Throughout southern Indiana and in several northern counties are vast areas that could easily be devoted principally to forests.
In the southern hills the problems of drought, flood, and soil erosion are extremely acute. A suggested solution is the retirement of most of the region from agriculture and the reforestation of the hills. Good drainage and limestone soils in certain areas would make the cultivation of fruit trees profitable, and a gigantic State forest stocked with game is contemplated in the 'driftless' area. Throughout the reforested section, tree roots would nail the soil to the slopes; water would be adequately stored; and streams would not swell toward flood proportions in rainy weather.
Northern Indiana is so low that bogs are common and storage is more than adequate. Hence there is no danger of flood, drought, and soil erosion. But even here natural resources have been misused in the clearing and drainage of submarginal land. Again a suggested solution is to retire this poor land from agriculture and plant extensive forests.
In central Indiana, agriculture is sometimes menaced by drought and flood, since rainfall, although fairly adequate, is irregular. Because of the deep, level soil, however, there is less damage from erosion here than in the south. Since the region is too valuable agriculturally for extensive reforestation, experts particularly recommend the planting of 'riverside forests'; the development of irrigation; and the increased use of the self-controlling dam, allowing an ordinary flow of water to escape but retaining the excess amount in storage ponds. Thus the water table would be lifted and maintained as a precaution against drought. During rainy weather the dams would take the crest off the floods, preventing torrents.
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