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The conflict known as the French and Indian War, fought between 1754 and 1763,
was incredibly important to the history of North America. It was that conflict, for example,
that decided that Canada and Florida would be dominated by the British, not the French and
the Spanish. During that war, the people that in the future would be the Patriots that drove the
American Revolution, met each other and formed the relationships that would allow that revolution to
occur. And of course it was the British trying to pay for the costs of the French and Indian War,
with the Stamp Act and the Townsend Duties, that would become the primary complaint that would
drive the American Revolution. But most Americans don't really understand the French and Indian War,
why we fought it or how it started, and that's too bad, because the story of how the French and
Indian War started involves a young inexperienced Virginia militia officer whose name would loom
large in the history of the Americas. And so, the story of how 21 year old George Washington started
what could be described as the first real, worldwide war, is a story worth remembering.
In the 1740s and 1750s traders for the French and British started running
into each other much more often in the area that was called the Ohio country,
that's a part of North America that's west of the Appalachian Mountains but south of
Lake Erie. And the trade there with the Native Americans was extremely lucrative,
and the land there was ripe for settlement. The French saw it as a critical connection between
French Canada and New Orleans, and the British saw it as a critical place to grow westward
from the American colonies, and so conflict over that region was darn near unavoidable.
The British colonial governor of Virginia, a man named Robert Dinwiddie, had a financial
interest in the Ohio territory and felt that it was important that Britain stake its claim to that
territory. And so he sent a group of Virginia militiamen to the ‘Forks of the Ohio River’,
which is now the modern-day city of Pittsburgh, to build a fortification
to defend British interests. And then he got a lieutenant colonel in the virgin militia,
George Washington, to gather all the militia he could to go help defend that fort.
But the French had anticipated the move and before Washington even got there they'd sent
a larger force downriver, and chased out the small Virginia force that was trying to build that fort,
and built their own fort they're called Fort Duquesne. And then the French sent a small group
of 35 men south to go see what the Virginians were up to. Now both sides are really itching
for war over the territory, but neither side wants to be the one responsible for starting that war.
Now when Washington got news that the French had taken the Forks of the Ohio River, he decided
to build his own fort at a place called Great Meadows, which was about 40 miles south of Fort
Duquesne, where he could muster militia forces and try to gather Indian allies. And on May 27th 1754,
he received word from some of his Indian allies that the small French force had entered his
area. And so he took 40 militiamen and some of his Indian allies to go confront the French.
There's a lot of controversy about what happened next, what we do know is that Washington and his
force found the French camp and surrounded it. That at some point the Virginians fired and
there was a fight in which 15 of the French were killed, and the rest were forced to surrender for
the loss of just one Virginia militiaman. Now the French claimed that they were fired upon without
provocation, but the Virginians claimed that it was a Frenchman who fired first. What we do
know though is that the officer in charge of the French fort, Ensign Joseph Coulon de Villiers de
Jumonville, was killed in the fight. And there's a second controversy because the French claim that
Jumonville was a diplomat who had been sent south with a message for the British to leave the area
while Washington insist that they were spies there to spy on the Virginia militia. But regardless,
one of the things we do know is that that small 15-minute skirmish, in the spot that we now call
Jumonville Glen, were the first shots in a war that would eventually inflame four continents.
Washington knew the French were likely to respond and so he returned back to the Great
Meadows to finish building his fortification, a small wooden stockade that he called, Fort
Necessity. Then he surrounded that with trenches and breastworks and that's where he would defend
himself if the French came. He waited there to gather troops and eventually they had about 300
Virginia militia and were reinforced with 100 British regular soldiers of the independent
company of South Carolina. But Washington was unable to bring substantial Indian allies.
Now in June of 1754, the commander of Fort Duquesne who happened to be
Ensign Jumonville brother, Captain Louie Coulon de Villiers, left Fort
Duquesne south with 600 french-canadian troops and about a hundred Indian allies.
Now Washington and his small force made a valiant defense of Fort Necessity but they were well
outnumbered, his Virginia militia were untrained and undisciplined. The terrible rain had turned
his trench works into mud, the French were able to fire from the forest and shoot without even
coming out from under cover, and the powder was wet, so the Virginians could barely even defend
themselves. But de Villiers realized that his situation was tenuous too, because at any time
more British reinforcements might arrive, and so he offered Washington very friendly surrender
terms. He was going to allow Washington to leave with his colors and arms, which meant
that they could simply march away and even keep their guns and fly their flags. And anxious to
get out of a terrible situation, Washington gratefully accepted the surrender terms.
When he got back to Virginia he thought it would be in disgrace, but in fact governor Dinwiddie
blamed the other colonies for not supporting them, and it actually ended up burnishing Washington's
reputation, even though this was the only military surrender of George Washington's military career.
When de Villiers wrote the surrender terms that Washington had to sign they were written in French
and Washington didn't speak French so they had to be translated to him. And in that surrender
term there was a line in which Washington took responsibility for the assassination of Ensign
Jumonville. Washington always insisted that that was mistranslated to him, that he was taking
responsibility for killing a spy, but the French made it look like he was taking responsibility for
assassinating an ambassador. And that line where an agent of the British crown took responsibility
for assassinating a French ambassador, would earn the French sympathy in Europe. And that would lead
to escalation, after escalation until the two empires, the British and the French, finally
went into all-out war. And while Washington's role can be a bit overstated, because the tensions were
really driving them to war anyway. It really was the shots that were fired by George Washington's
troops at Jumonville Glen and Fort Necessity that sparked that war, that was called the French and
Indian War, which had such a huge impact on North America and drove the American Revolution. But
even more, the French and Indian War was just the North American part of that war. The broader war,
which eventually was called the Seven Years War, would encompass not just the French and
the British, but all the major European powers and would lead to conflict in not just North America,
but Europe, Africa and the Indian subcontinent. It would redefine power structures, it would change
the colonial structures, and would so impact European politics, that the tensions caused
by the results of the Seven Year War, would still be impacting European politics in the Wars of the
20th century. And that was all started by George Washington. And that is a story worth remembering.
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