George Croghan - Pontiac's Rebellion

Pontiac's Rebellion

Interestingly, as Indian rebellion engulfed the Ohio Country, Croghan was nowhere to be seen. Instead of following the orders of his superior, Sir William Johnson, to tend to Indian matters along the frontier, Croghan resigned as Deputy Indian agent and packed his bags for London. Two officers recently besieged in Ft. Detroit and recalled to testify about the Indian rebellion were on the Britannia, the ship Croghan sailed to England aboard until wrecking off the Normandy coast in January, 1764. Traveling to Le Havre, Croghan visited the tomb of William the Conqueror. In London "he was the personification of wealth and power." If the Lords of Trade declined Croghan's request to transfer his Indian grant of 200,000 acres (810 km2) from the Ohio to the Mohawk River valley, repay the suffering traders from treasury funds, or permit an Illinois colony, the Board did free the Indian Department from military control and would consider moving the Proclamation Line of 1763 to the Ohio River.

Ordered by Johnson to accompany Col. Bouquet's expedition against the Ohio tribes, Croghan bought and lavishly furnished Monckton hall near Philadelphia instead, leaving the negotiations to his assistant, Alexander McKee. Col. Bouquet, returning victorious from his 1764 Ohio campaign, became alarmed when he crossed paths with Croghan's letter informing Alexander McKee in Pittsburgh that the Indian Department was now independent of local military control. Outraged upon learning that it was true, the usually reserved Bouquet called Croghan "illiterate, imprudent, and ill bred" in a letter to General Gage complaining of Croghan's "ridiculous display of his own importance.". Soon after Bouquet recanted, acknowledging that Croghan was the best person to pacify Illinois Country., but an uncritical acceptance of Bouquet's earlier disparaging remarks continues to distort Croghan scholarship, most notably by his biograher Nicholas Wainwright. From 1764 until 1777, when military control of Ohio Country Indian affairs resumed under Washington and Croghan was banished from the frontier, Croghan kept the peace, unofficially after 1771 and with the exception of the Shawnees during Dunmore's War.

Pontiac's Rebellion and earlier Indian raids were avenged by the Paxton Boys, who massacred the Conestogas and marched on Philadelphia to kill the friendly Indians taking refuge there in January, 1764, as Croghan's ship floundered in the English Channel. Upon his return, in a prelude to the Revolutionary War, Croghan's first shipment of Indian presents and trade goods to Pittsburgh provoked armed rebellion. Their justification: Pennsylvania had proscribed trade with the Ohio Indians before a peace was established and as a Crown Indian agent, Croghan was prohibited from engaging in Indian trade. Led by James Smith, a young captive at Fort Duquesne when captured Braddock soldiers were tortured to death within hearing distance, "the 'Black Boys' had attacked his convoy, burned most of his presents and threatened his life if he ever returned to Cumberland County." Unless "severeely punished," Croghan accurately predicted in a letter to Bouquet, the militant frontiersmen would bring "an End to Sivil & Military power."

Despite Black Boy opposition, Croghan accumulated enough goods to open up trade relations with the Ohio Indians in Pittsburgh and set off for Illinois Country. The party was attacked at the mouth of the Wabash River by eighty Kickapoo and Mascouten warriors. Two of Croghan's men and three Indians were killed, Croghan tomahawked, the camp plundered and the survivors hurriedly marched to Vincennes and eventually Ouiatenon. There in a conference on July 13, Croghan reconciled the Ottawa, Piankashaw, Miami, Ouiatenon, Mascouten, and Kickapoo Indians to British rule, a peace confirmed shortly afterward in a grand council that included Pontiac. The principals journeyed to Detroit where Croghan conducted an even larger conference that brought the Potawatomi, Ojibway, Wyandot, and Wea tribes into the British economic orbit, with Pontiac "playing an important part in the proceedings."

Croghan led a group of speculators, including Benjamin Franklin and his son William Franklin in land schemes in the Ohio Country, the Illinois Country and New York. On September 6, 1765, Croghan was awarded a grant of 10,000 acres (40 km2) in New York.

Spring, 1766 found Croghan resuming his mission to the Illinois tribes on the Mississippi. Seventeen bateaux left Pittsburgh on June 18, one carrying Croghan and his party, another carrying Captain Harry Gordon and Ensign Thomas Hutchins on a river mapping expedition, two carrying provisions for Fort Chartres, and thirteen carrying Baynton, Wharton, and Morgan trade goods. During his August conferences at Fort Chartres he successfully negotiated with 22 tribes, soon augmented by three Indian nations under French influence. Weak from malaria, Croghan accompanied Gordon and Hutchins to New Orleans, where he sailed for New York with stops at Mobile, Pensacola, Havana, and Charleston,