Charles Coleman, age 12s of Gary, Indiana, for his question:

What white men discovered Indiana?

So far as we know, the first white man to set foot in what is now Indiana was the French explorer La Salle, He journeyed across the northwest part of the state in 1679 and claimed this and the neighboring territory for France. The first permanent white settlement was Fort Vincennes built by the French in 1732.

At the close of the French and Indian Wary in 1763, this entire region was taken from the French by England, though at the outbreak of the War of Independence the British had established no settlement in what is now the state of Indiana, The true history of the state began in 1800 when it was established as the Indiana Territory with William Henry Harrison as its first governor. Harrison put down the Indians and did much to open up the country to white settlers.