French and Indian War
Further information: Great Britain in the Seven Years WarDinwiddie's actions as lieutenant governor are commonly cited as precipitating the French and Indian War. He wanted to limit French expansion in Ohio Country, an area claimed by the Virginia Colony and in which the Ohio Company, of which he was a stockholder, had made preliminary surveys and some small settlements.
In 1753, Dinwiddie learned the French had built Fort Presque Isle near Lake Erie and Fort Le Boeuf, which he saw as threatening Virginia's interests in the Ohio Valley. He sent an eight-man expedition under George Washington to warn the French to withdraw. Washington, then only 21 years old, made the journey in midwinter of 1753-54. Washington arrived at Fort Le Boeuf on 11 December 1753. Jacques Legardeur de Saint-Pierre, commandant at Fort Le Boeuf, a tough veteran of the west, received Washington politely, but contemptuously rejected his blustering ultimatum.
Jacques sSaint-Pierre gave Washington three days hospitality at the fort, and then gave Washington a letter for him to deliver to Dinwiddie. The letter ordered the Governor of Virginia to deliver his demand to the Major General of New France in the capital, Quebec City.
In January 1754, even before learning of the French refusal, Dinwiddie sent a small force of Virginia militia to build a fort at the forks of the Ohio River, where the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers merge to form the Ohio (present-day Pittsburgh). The French quickly drove off the Virginians and built a larger fort on the site, calling it Fort Duquesne, in honour of the Marquis de Duquesne, who had recently become governor of New France.
In early spring 1754, Dinwiddie sent Washington to build a road to the Monongahela and to then help defend the British fort. Learning that the French had taken the fort, Washington pressed on and built a small stockade, Fort Necessity, at a spot then called "Great Meadows", by the Youghiogheny River, eleven miles southeast of present-day Uniontown. Here he encountered the French in a skirmish on 3 July 1754 and was forced to surrender. Dinwiddie was subsequently active in rallying other colonies in defense against France and ultimately prevailed upon the British to send General Edward Braddock to Virginia with two regiments of regular troops.
Dinwiddie's administration was marked by frequent disagreements with the Assembly over finances. In January 1758 he left Virginia and lived in England until his death at Clifton, Bristol.
Read more about this topic: Robert Dinwiddie
Famous quotes containing the words indian war, french, indian and/or war:
“This, it will be remembered, was the scene of Mrs. Rowlandson’s capture, and of other events in the Indian wars, but from this July afternoon, and under that mild exterior, those times seemed as remote as the irruption of the Goths. They were the dark age of New England.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The French are nice people. I allow them to sing and to write, and they allow me to do whatever I like.”
—Jules Mazarin (c. 1602–1661)
“We crossed a deep and wide bay which makes eastward north of Kineo, leaving an island on our left, and keeping to the eastern side of the lake. This way or that led to some Tomhegan or Socatarian stream, up which the Indian had hunted, and whither I longed to go. The last name, however, had a bogus sound, too much like sectarian for me, as if a missionary had tampered with it; but I knew that the Indians were very liberal. I think I should have inclined to the Tomhegan first.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“My curse on plays
That have to be set up in fifty ways,
On the day’s war with every knave and dolt,
Theater business, management of men.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)