I was searching for something completely unrelated and came across a publication called the Indianian in Google Books and, in particular, an article on “the naming of Indiana” which was presented to the Wayne County Historical Society by Cyrus W. Hodgin on February 19, 1898.
The short version is that it does not actually tell us much about how our state got its name. However, it does go into some detail about a region that held the name for some years until about 1798 with the area which became our state taking the name in about 1800.
As to the prior region with the name, apparently there was a Philadelphia trading company bringing goods into the Ohio Valley in the 1760s. The Iroquois claimed the area and the Shawnee as tributes. Some Shawnee members raided the company’s traders. The company made a claim to the Iroquois who acknowledged the debt but decided to pay in land rather than in some other fashion. In 1768, the Iroquois deeded about 5,000 square miles in what is present day West Virginia. The company called the area “Indiana” because, you know, Indians. Unfortunately for them, the State of Virginia never recognized the claim and, after some unsuccessful petitions to Virginia and a suit before the Supreme Court that was snuffed out by passage of the Eleventh Amendment, the claim evaporated and freed up the name “Indiana.”
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