Summary
In 1753, French forces began to build a series of Forts along the Allegheny
River in Ohio territory, impinging upon land claimed by Virginia in its charter
of 1609. Robert Dinwiddie, the Virginia's Lieutenant Governor, sent
George Washington, a 21-year-old major, to warn the French captain Legareur
de Saint-Pierre of his troops' trespass. On his way to deliver Dinwiddie's
message, Washington attempted to enlist the help of a large group of Ohio
Indians, with no success. Once he did arrive, the message was ignored; the
French refused to recognize the Virginia charter. Though he returned to
Virginia with nothing to show for his trip, Washington was nonetheless promoted
to Lieutenant Colonel and, in the spring of 1754, given the mission of removing
the French from the Ohio region.
Because of the powerful presence of the French, who had completed their string
of forts along the Allegheny, Washington was unsuccessful in is attempt to build
a fort near Pittsburgh. Then, at dawn on May 28, 1754, a Mingo Indian named
Tanaghrisson who had agreed to scout for Washington spotted a French patrol
stalking Washington's men. Tanaghrisson showed Washington how to surprise the
French; in the ensuing attack the French commander Jumonville was killed. That
the French would retaliate was obvious, and Washington's men retreated to Great
Meadows, PA, where, against the advice of their Indian guides, they hastily
threw up a stockade, nicknamed Necessity. The Indians, disgusted, abandoned
Washington and his small contingent of Virginia militiamen. Sure enough, the
French outnumbered him and took the fort easily on July 4, 1754.
This battle proved a catalyst in the deteriorating relationship between the
English and the French. In a famous affadivit, the French claimed that
Jumonville had been "assassinated." The English insisted that this word be
translated as Jumonville's "defeat." The battle thus precipitated a war of
propaganda right along with the physical battles that were to follow.
Washington returned to Virginia on July 17 and gave an account of the battle at
Great Meadows to the Virginia council. The council blamed him for most of the
failure. Humiliated, Washington resigned his position, though he later returned
to battle as a volunteer under General Edward Braddock.
In the years leading up to 1753, the English had far less territory than the
French. English settlements clustered between the Appalachian Mountains and the
Atlantic coast, though many colonies had charters granting them land west of the
mountains. French settlements, though more sparsely populated covered far more
land, originating out of fur-trading outposts, extended through the interior of
the continent, as far north as Quebec, as far south as New Orleans, and all the
way to St. Louis in the west. The French hoped to keep the British pinned
between the mountains and the ocean. The British, alternatively, desperately
wanted to expand westward, as a speculative outlet for their growing population
and because they wanted further access to the profitable fur trade. Competing
land claims and disputes over encroachment had been going on between the French
and the English for almost a hundred years and through three minor wars, by the
early 1750s, tensions had begun to swell once more.
Virginia was a particularly crowded territory and could not expand, since it was
hemmed in on all three sides by French territory and natural obstacles. Robert
Dinwiddie had no illusions about the circumstances his colony faced: he expected
his message to the French to meet with the failure that it did. He did not,
however, anticipate Washington's tremendous miscalculation the following spring.
