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George Croghan (c. 1718 – August 31, 1782) was an Irish-born fur trader in the Ohio Country of North America (current United States) who became the region's key figure earlier than his 1746 appointment to the Iroquois' Onondaga Council and remained so until his banishment from the frontier in 1777.〔Greenwood, 46.〕 Emigrating to Pennsylvania in 1741, he became an important trader by going to the villages of Native Americans, learning their languages and customs, and working on the frontier where previously mostly French had been trading. During and after King George's War of the 1740s, he helped negotiate new treaties and alliances with Native Americans. Croghan was appointed in 1756 as Deputy Indian Agent with chief responsibility for the Ohio region tribes, assisting Sir William Johnson, British Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the Northern District, who was based in New York and had strong alliances with the Iroquois. Beginning in the 1740s and following this appointment, Croghan amassed hundreds of thousands of acres of land in today's western Pennsylvania and New York by grants from Native Americans and purchases. Beginning in 1754, he was a rival of George Washington for influence in Ohio Country and remained far more powerful there for more than 20 additional years, until 1777 during the American Revolutionary War when he was falsely accused of treason. He was acquitted the following year but patriot authorities did not allow him back in the Ohio territory. Croghan's central role in Ohio Country events finds ample evidence in his two main biographers, yet they understate it. He is irrelevant when not missing in recent George Washington biographies and the necessity of Croghan's as the through story is not yet seen in histories of the region or books on the French and Indian War, the North American front of the Seven Years' War between Britain and France. Ohio's recorded history begins with Croghan's actions in the mid-1740s as fur trader, Iroquois sachem, and go-between for Pennsylvania, according to historian Alfred A. Cave. Cave concludes that the treason charge that ended Croghan's career was trumped up by his enemies.〔Cave, 12〕 Western Pennsylvania became the focal point of events in August 1749 when Croghan purchased 200,000 acres from the Seneca, exclusive of two square miles at the Forks of the Ohio for a British fort.〔Wainwright, 41〕 Croghan soon learned that his three deeds would be invalidated if part of Pennsylvania, sabotaged that colony's effort to erect the fort, and led the Ohio Confederation to permit Virginia's Ohio Company to build it and settle the region.〔Greenwood, 5-7〕 In 1754 Virginia sent George Washington to the Ohio Country, who would eventually supplant Croghan there. French control of Ohio Country, which they called the Illinois Country, indicating the area of their greater settlement, after Braddock's Defeat in 1755 found Croghan building forts on the Pennsylvania frontier. Following which he manned the farthest frontier post in present-day New York as Deputy Indian agent under Sir William Johnson, called the "Mohawk Baron" for his extensive landholdings and strong relations with the Mohawk and other Iroquois. Croghan briefly lived until 1770 on a quarter of a million New York acres. He resigned as Indian agent in 1771 to work on establishing Vandalia, a proposed fourteenth British colony to include parts of present-day West Virginia, southwestern Pennsylvania and eastern Kentucky, but continued to serve as a borderland negotiator for Johnson, who died a British loyalist in 1774. While working to keep the Ohio Indians neutral during the Revolutionary War, Croghan served as Pittsburgh's president judge and chairman of the Committee of Safety, aligning with the patriots. General Edward Hand of this city accused him in 1777 of treason and Croghan was banished from the frontier. Although he was acquitted in a November 1778 trial, Croghan was not allowed to return to the frontier.〔Wainwright, 307〕 He died little acknowledged in 1782, shortly after the end of the Revolutionary War. Croghan's 30 years as the pivotal figure in Ohio Country history has attracted relatively little academic interest. ==Early life and career== Not much is known of Croghan's early life, including the names of his parents.〔Wainwright, 3.〕 He was born in Ireland, around 1718. The best evidence for Croghan's age is found in the treasonous ''Filius Gallicae'' letters, written early in 1756 by an otherwise anonymous author. "France's friend" claimed to be nearly 38 years old, among other self-descriptions that pointed to Croghan, but a secret British investigation exposed the fraud.〔Wainwright, 107.〕 Croghan testified to his Irish origins in meetings in London in the 1760s. Apparently Croghan's father died young and his widowed mother married again, to Thomas Ward. He was likely of English or Scots ancestry, people who had been planted in Ireland by the English. Croghan emigrated as a young man from Dublin, Ireland to the province of Pennsylvania in 1741. His half-brother Edward Ward and cousin Thomas Smallman also emigrated, working for him in America. Relatives remaining in Dublin included a merchant Nicholas Croghan (likely a brother of George);〔Wainwright, 260〕 his aunt Mrs. Smallman; and George's grandfather Edmund Croghan, if still living.〔Wainwright, 207.〕 Within a few years after reaching America, Croghan became one of Pennsylvania's leading fur traders. A key to his success was establishing trading posts in Native American villages, as the French traders did, and learning their languages and customs. At the time, the usual British practice was to set up a post at a site for their own convenience, generally at a major crossroads, and wait for Native Americans to come to them.〔Michael J. Mullin, "Croghan, George", ''American National Biography Online'', February 2000.〕 Croghan learned at least two Native languages, Delaware (an Algonquian language common to the Lenape of the mid-Atlantic region) and probably Seneca (an Iroquoian language spoken by the westernmost Seneca nation of the Iroquois, whose territory extended into what colonists called Pennsylvania. They also had hunting grounds in the Ohio Valley. These were the languages of the two major nations of Native Americans in the region.〔 Croghan also learned Native American customs, rapidly adopting the practice of exchanging gifts when he met with the people. He established his first trading base and wintered in a mostly Seneca village at the mouth of the Cuyahoga River on Lake Erie. (This area later developed as Cleveland, Ohio.) During the early years, Croghan's primary business partner was his brother-in-law William Trent, also a trader. The son of the founder of Trenton, New Jersey, Trent likely supplied capital to acquire trade goods and set up their business. Croghan created such strong relations with the Iroquois that by 1746 he was, according to him, given a place as an honorary sachem among a total of 50 chiefs on the Six Nations' Onondaga Council.〔Hanna, 30.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「George Croghan」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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