Indiana, meaning the "Land of the Indians," is a state of
the United States of America. A resident of Indiana is called
a Hoosier, which is also the name used for a student of
Indiana University in Bloomington.
The area of Indiana has been settled since before the
development of the Hopewell culture as part of the
Mississippian culture from roughly 1000AD up to the
conventional end of the Mississippian having contact with
Europeans. The specific Native American tribes that inhabited
this territory at that time were primarily the Miami and the
Shawnee. The area was claimed for New France in the 17th
century, handed over to the Kingdom of Great Britain as part
of the settlement at the end of the French and Indian War,
given to the United States after the American Revolution, soon
after which it became part of the Northwest Territory, then
the Indiana Territory, and joined the Union in 1816 as the
19th state.
