Vincennes, city, seat (1790) of Knox county, southwestern Indiana, U.S., on the Wabash River, 51 miles (82 km) north of Evansville. Indiana’s oldest city, Vincennes figured prominently in early American history from the time of its settlement (1702, or possibly earlier) by French traders on the site of an Indian village. A fort, one of a chain from Quebec to New Orleans, was erected by the French in 1732, and in 1736 the settlement around it was named for François-Marie Bissot, sieur de Vincennes, its commanding officer. Ceded to the British at the end of the French and Indian War (1763), the settlement was virtually self-governing until the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War and remained predominantly French in population and tradition for almost 100 years after that. A British force occupied the fort (renaming it Fort Sackville) for a brief period, but briefly in 1778 and finally in 1779 it was taken by American forces under George Rogers Clark. Clark’s victory at Vincennes, followed by the passage of the Northwest Ordinance (1787), brought an influx of settlers from Kentucky, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. From 1800 to 1813 Vincennes was the capital of Indiana Territory (commemorated by a state historic site). The Indiana Gazette, the first territorial newspaper, was published there in 1804 by Elihu Stout. At Vincennes, Governor (later President) William Henry Harrison negotiated several treaties with the Native Americans and launched the campaign that culminated in the Battle of Tippecanoe (November 1811). George Rogers Clark National Historical Park (1936, on the former site of the fort), Grouseland (1802–04; the Harrison mansion), and Vincennes University, a junior college founded in 1806, are among the many historic sites in the city. The Basilica of St. Francis Xavier (Old Cathedral), begun in 1826, is still in use. Fort Knox II, from which Harrison and his troops began the military excursion that ended at the Battle of Tippecanoe, is 3 miles (5 km) north of the city.
The city is a commercial centre for an agricultural region (grains, soybeans, melons) and has some light industries, including the manufacture of wire, wood and paper products, and glass. Inc. 1856. Pop. (2000) 18,701; (2010) 18,423.