According to babyinger, Native Americans lived in the region where the state of Ohio is located today for about two millennia before the arrival of the first European explorers. The first Native Americans to settle in the region were a prehistoric tribe, called the Mound Builders— “mountain builders” – because they built small mounds of earth for their cultural ceremonies. The mound builders would have settled in the region around 600 BC. C., and would migrate, around 900 d. C., towards the south of the present United States. There are currently about six thousand archaeological remains, including tombs, cemeteries and ritual houses, of the mound builders in Ohio.

The region would later be occupied by other Native American peoples and tribes, such as the Hurons, the Delaware, the Ottawa, the Shawnee, and especially the Iroquois tribes. The Iroquois ruled most of present-day Ohio during the years preceding the arrival of the first Europeans to the region. The first European explorer to reach the region that currently constitutes the state of Ohio was the Frenchman René Robert Cavelier de La Salle, in 1669. [11] Cavelier annexed the entire region to the French crown, and the Ohio region became part of the colony of New France. The French, however, had little interest in colonizing the region, and only a few commercial establishments were established by various French merchants, to trade with the local natives.

During the first decades of the 18th century, the United Kingdom came to claim the region, as well as all those located south of the Great Lakes. In 1747, a group of British merchants and Virginia settlers created a company, the Virginia Ohio Company, with the goal of colonizing the Ohio River Valley region and the areas located southwest of Lake Erie – regions that now make up the state. from Ohio. This company sent a group of settlers led by Christopher Gist to explore the Ohio River Valley region, having departed from Virginia, and explored Ohio for about two months.

The French went on to build forts in the Ohio region beginning in the early 1750s. Gist himself, in 1753, on the orders of the Governor of Virginia, returned to Ohio, accompanied by George Washington, to send a message to the French, to leave the region. The French ignored the message from Gist and Washington. Disputes between the French and the British over not only the Ohio region, but also the entire region around the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River, led to the start of the Franco-Indian War in 1754. The war had It began in Ohio, when a militia commanded by Gist and Washington tried to force the French out of the region, having been defeated by French forces.

The Franco-Indigenous War would last until 1763, and ended in British victory. By the terms of the Treaty of Paris, the French ceded all regions east of the Mississippi River to the British, and all regions west of the river to the Spanish. The Ohio region came under the control of the British. After the end of the war, an Ottawa Indian chief, Pontiac, who had good relations with the French, rebelled against the British. Pontiac would lead numerous attacks on British forts in 1763 and 1764, and an attack on Detroit, Michigan, in 1764. The attack had little success, and Chief Pontiac fled in the direction of the Illinois region.

During the American War of Independence, Ohio’s different Native American groups were divided on the question of which side to be on: the American rebels or the British. For example, Shawnee leader Blue Jacket and Delaware leader Buckongahelas allied with the British, while Cornstalk, [16] a Shawnee, and White Eyes, a Delaware, agreed to establish friendly relations with the Americans. The latter, however, often did not differentiate between friendly and hostile Native Americans. What’s more, Cornstalk was killed by an American militia, the same thing that probably would have happened to White Eyes.

In 1780, the American George Rogers Clark defeated the Shawnee forces, allied with the British. One of the most tragic incidents of the War of Independence, the Gnadenhütten Massacre of 1782, occurred in Ohio. After the end of the war, under the terms of the Treaty of Paris, the United States assumed control of all the British colonies east of the Mississippi River, south of the Great Lakes. The United States government created the Northwest Territory in 1787, of which Ohio was a part. That same year, a mercantile company purchased several lands located in present-day Ohio from the government, having founded on April 7, 1788, Ohio’s first permanent settlement, Marietta. It immediately became the capital of the Northwest Territory in July of the same year. Quickly, Native Americans who had allied with the British during the Revolutionary War continued to attack American communities after the end of the war, in 1783. In 1794, General Anthony Wayne defeated a Native American force in a nearby region. to the current city of Toledo. In 1795, the Native Americans accepted and ratified the Treaty of Greenville, where they agreed to cede about 70% of all of present-day Ohio to the United States government. Native Americans did so thanks to pressure from Chief Tarhe, a Wyandot chief. Thanks to the treaty, peace was restored in the region, and more Americans began to settle in the region. In 1800, the government created the Indiana Territory, out of the western portion of the Northwest Territory.

Ohio continued to form part of the Northwest Territory, and changing the Territory’s capital to Chillicothe, located in present-day Ohio. [20] According to the Northwest Ordinance, any particular territory formed from disaggregated areas of the Northwest Territory would automatically be admitted as a state when its population exceeded 60,000. [21] Although Ohio’s population was only 45,000 in December 1801, Congress determined that the region’s population was growing rapidly, and that Ohio could begin the process of upgrading to statehood, assuming its population it would exceed 60,000 residents when it was officially elevated to state status.

In November, preparations began for the secession of the Ohio region from the rest of the Northwest Territory, and for the creation of the state of Ohio. That same month, a constitutional convention created Ohio’s first Constitution. The 19 of February of 1803, President Thomas Jefferson signed an act in Congress that recognized Ohio as the 17th United States. At that time, the official declaration of state statute was not yet a congressional custom, a custom that would become common with the elevation of Louisiana to state status. The 7 as August as 1953 In the year of Ohio’s 150th anniversary as a state, then-President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed an act that officially declared March 1 as the date on which Ohio was officially elevated to state status, becoming part of the Union.