During the 18th century, the French set up a system of trading posts to control the fur trade in the region. Christopher Gist was one of the first English-speaking explorers to travel through and write about the Ohio Country. When British traders such as George Croghan started to do business in the Ohio Country, the French and their northern Indian allies drove them out. They began in 1752 with a raid on Miami Indian town of Pickawillany (modern Piqua, Ohio). The French began the military occupation of the Ohio valley i...
During the 18th century, the French set up a system of trading posts to control the fur trade in the region. Christopher Gist was one of the first English-speaking explorers to travel through and write about the Ohio Country. When British traders such as George Croghan started to do business in the Ohio Country, the French and their northern Indian allies drove them out. They began in 1752 with a raid on Miami Indian town of Pickawillany (modern Piqua, Ohio). The French began the military occupation of the Ohio valley in 1753.
An attempt by the Virginian George Washington to drive them out in 1754 contributed to the war known in the colonies as the French and Indian War. It was part of a much larger conflict between Great Britain and France that took place in Europe and their colonies across the world. The Seven Years' War, as it was known in Europe, concluded with Great Britain's triumph. By the Treaty of Paris, the French ceded control of Ohio and the old Northwest.
[edit] American Revolution
British military occupation in the region contributed to the outbreak of Pontiac's Rebellion in 1763. Ohio Indians participated in that war, until an armed expedition in Ohio led by Colonel Henry Bouquet brought about a truce. Another military expedition into the Ohio Country in 1774 brought Lord Dunmore's War to a conclusion.
During the American Revolutionary War, Native Americans in the Ohio Country were divided over which side to support. For example, the Shawnee leader Blue Jacket and the Delaware leader Buckongahelas sided with the British, while Cornstalk (Shawnee) and White Eyes (Delaware) sought to remain friendly with the rebellious colonists. American frontiersmen often did not differentiate between friendly and hostile Indians, however. Cornstalk was killed by American militiamen, and White Eyes may have been. Perhaps the most tragic incident of the war — the Gnadenhutten massacre of 1782 — took place in Ohio.
With the American victory in the Revolutionary War, the British ceded claims to Ohio and the territory in the West to the Mississippi River to the United States.
After the Northwest Ordinance was passed, settlement of Ohio began with the founding of Marietta by the Ohio Company of Associates. It was formed by a group of American Revolutionary War veterans. The Miami Company (also referred to as the "Symmes Purchase") settled land in the southwestern section and the Connecticut Land Company settled in the Connecticut Western Reserve in present-day Northeast Ohio.
[edit] Northwest Ordinance and Territory
Plaque commemorating the Northwest Ordinance outside Federal Hall in lower ManhattanAmerican settlement of the Northwest Territory was resisted by Native Americans in the Northwest Indian War. The natives were eventually conquered by General Anthony Wayne at the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794 and much of present-day Ohio was ceded to the United States in the Treaty of Greenville the next year.
The United States created the Northwest Territory in 1787 under the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. The territory was not allowed to legalize slavery (although once it achieved statehood it was allowed to do so, and did not.) The states of the Midwest would be known as free states, in contrast to those states south of the Ohio River known as slave states. As Northeastern states abolished slavery in the coming two generations, the free states would be known as Northern States. The Northwest Territory originally included areas that had previously been known as Ohio Country and Illinois Country. As Ohio prepared for statehood, Indiana Territory was carved out, reducing the Northwest Territory to approximately the size of present-day Ohio plus the eastern half of Michigan's lower peninsula.
[edit] Statehood
As Ohio's population numbered 45,000 in December 1801, Congress determined that the population was growing rapidly and Ohio could begin the path to statehood. The assumption was the territory would have in excess of 60,000 residents by the time it would become a state. In 1802, Congress passed the Enabling Act of 1802 that outlined the process for Ohio to seek statehood. The residents convened a constitutional convention. They used numerous provisions from other states and rejected slavery.
On February 19, 1803, President Jefferson signed an act of Congress that approved Ohio's boundaries and constitution. Congress did not pass a specific resolution formally admitting Ohio as the 17th state. The current custom of Congress' declaring an official date of statehood did not begin until 1812, with Louisiana's admission as the 18th state.
Although no formal resolution of admission was required[attribution needed], when the oversight was discovered in 1953, Ohio congressman George H. Bender introduced a bill in Congress to admit Ohio to the Union retroactive to March 1, 1803. At a special session at the old state capital in Chillicothe, the Ohio state legislature approved a new petition for statehood that was delivered to Washington, D.C. on horseback. On August 7, 1953 (the year of Ohio's 150th anniversary), President Eisenhower signed an act that officially declared March 1, 1803 the date of Ohio's admittance into the Union.
[edit] War of 1812
Ohio was on the front lines of the War of 1812. Frontiersmen believed that British agents in Canada had provided weapons, especially rifles and gunpowder, to hostile Indian tribes. Tecumseh's War arose at the same time, the conflict in the Old Northwest between the U.S. and an Indian confederacy led by the Shawnee chief Tecumseh. He became an official ally of the British in 1812. William Henry Harrison's victory at the Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811, coupled with the defeat and death of Tecumseh in 1813, broke the power of the Indians. After 1815 the British no longer traded with the Indians of Ohio nor provided them military supplies.
In 1835, Ohio contested with Michigan over the Toledo Strip. Congress gave the land, which included the city of Toledo, to Ohio. In exchange, Michigan was given more of the Upper Peninsula.
[edit] Civil War
Main article: Ohio in the American Civil War
Ohio's central position and its population gave it an important place during the Civil War. The Ohio River was a vital artery for troop and supply movements, as were Ohio's railroads. Ohio provided numerous senior commanders to the United States Army during the war. Five Buckeye veterans would later become President of the United States.
[edit] Industrialization
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Throughout much of the 18th and 19th century heavy industry was rapidly introduced. It was introduced in particular to combat for the appalling unemployment in the 19th century, by 1856 unemployment had reached 3.45 million. However, with the rapidly advancing industrial techniques these jobs became more appealing and as a result unemployment steadily declined.
