_History._--Of the prehistoric inhabitants of Indiana little is known, but extensive remains in the form of mounds and fortifications abound in every part of the state, being particularly numerous in Knox and Sullivan counties. Along the Ohio river are remnants of several interesting stone forts. Upon the earliest arrival of Europeans the state was inhabited chiefly by the various tribes of the Miami Confederacy, a league of Algonquian Indians formed to oppose the advance of the Iroquois. The first Europeans to visit the state were probably French _coureurs des bois_ or Jesuit missionaries. La Salle, the explorer, it is contended, must have passed through parts of Indiana during his journeys of 1669 and the succeeding years. Apparently a French trading post was in existence on the St Joseph river of Michigan about 1672, but it was in no sense a permanent settlement and seems soon to have been abandoned. It seems probable that the Wabash-Maumee portage was known to Father Claude Jean Allouez as early as 1680. When, a few years later, this portage came to be generally used by traders, the necessity of establishing a base on the upper Wabash as a defence against the Carolina and Pennsylvania traders, who had already reached the lower Wabash and incited the Indians to hostility against the French, became evident; but it was not, apparently, until the second decade of the 18th century that any permanent settlement was made. About 1720 a French post was probably established at Ouiatenon (about 5 m. S.W. of the present city of Lafayette), the headquarters of the Wea branch of the Miami, on the upper Wabash. The military post at Vincennes was founded about 1731 by François Margane, Sieur de Vincennes (or Vincent), but it was not until about 1735 that eight French families were settled there. Vincennes, which thus became the first actual white settlement in Indiana, remained the only one until after the War of Independence, although military posts were maintained at Ouiatenon and at the head of the Maumee, the site of the present Fort Wayne, where there was a French trading post (1680) and later Fort Miami. After the fall of Quebec the British took possession of the other forts, but not at once of Vincennes, which remained for several years under the jurisdiction of New Orleans, both under French and Spanish rule. The British garrisons at Ouiatenon and Fort Miami (near the site of the later Fort Wayne) on the Maumee were captured by the Indians as a result of the Pontiac conspiracy. All Indiana was united with Canada by the Quebec Act (1774), but it was not until three years later that the forts and Vincennes were occupied by the British, who then realized the necessity of ensuring possession of the Mississippi Valley to prevent its falling into the hands of the rebellious colonies. Nevertheless, in 1778 Vincennes fell an easy prey to agents sent to occupy it by George Rogers Clark, and although again occupied a few months later by General