Mapping Indiana Territories

As part of the Indiana University 2017 Themester, “Diversity • Difference • Otherness,” the Glenn A. Black Laboratory of Archaeology is proud to open two new exhibits featuring historic 19th century maps of Indiana and the greater Ohio River Valley. The GBL’s James H. Kellar Library contains the Great Lakes and Ohio Valley Ethnohistory (GLOVE) Collection, an assemblage of documents collected for the Indian Claims Commission, including 19th century maps depicting Native American and EuroAmerican settlement in the midcontinent.  An interactive online exhibit titled “Historic Maps of the Indians of Indiana” will showcase the newly digitized maps and illustrate changes in the boundaries, labels, and the ways in which the Native American occupations of the regions were depicted throughout the 19th century. A second museum exhibit in the lobby of the GBL entitled, “Mapping Indiana Territory: Exploring Indigenous and Western Representations” is a collaboration with Native historians, scholars, and descendants of Native American peoples that once lived in Indiana. The exhibit will juxtapose images of examples of EuroAmerican made maps and images of Indigenous representations of the Indiana and Ohio Valley landscapes and problematize favoring western world views and ways of knowing.