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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.

I’m the History Guy. I hope you enjoyed this  edition of my series, five minutes of history,  

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