The Indian World of George Washington

by Colin G. Calloway

  dinwiddie did not wait for Washington’s return with the French response before pressing his claim to the Ohio country. As Washington made his way to Wills Creek, he encountered a pack train of seventeen horses loaded with supplies and materials for building a fort at the Forks of Ohio and, the following day, some families going out to settle.42 Occupying the Forks region would protect British interests against the French and bolster Ohio Company claims against Pennsylvania and rival land speculators in Virginia.43

  Washington reached Wills Creek “after as fatiguing a Journey as it is possible to conceive, rendered so by excessive bad weather.” He was back at Belvoir, the home of George William Fairfax and, of more interest, his wife, Sally, by January 11. After a day’s rest, he set out for Williamsburg and delivered Saint-Pierre’s letter to Dinwiddie. It would have been better, Saint-Pierre wrote, if Washington had been ordered to proceed to Canada to see the governor, the marquis Duquesne, who was the more appropriate person “to set forth the Evidence and Reality of the Rights of the King, my Master, upon the Lands situated along the River Ohio, and to contest the Pretensions of the King of Great-Britain thereto.” He would forward Dinwiddie’s letter to Duquesne, and “his Answer will be a Law to me.” As for Dinwiddie’s summons to retreat, Saint-Pierre did not think himself obliged to obey it; he had his orders to be there, and Dinwiddie should not doubt for a moment that he was determined to carry them out. “I made it my particular Care,” ended Saint-Pierre, “to receive Mr. Washington, with a Distinction suitable to your Dignity, and his Quality and great Merit.” Dinwiddie communicated the letter to the Virginia Council.44

  Dinwiddie was surely not surprised by Saint-Pierre’s response. He had dispatched Washington to satisfy diplomatic protocol and gather information rather than with any realistic expectation that the French would tamely abandon the Ohio country. Dinwiddie immediately ordered Washington to write up the notes in his diary as a report he could present as evidence of the growing French and Indian threat. Washington completed the task overnight, and the governor had the report printed, together with Washington’s map of the Ohio country (see figure 2). He used it to impress upon the House of Burgesses the need for urgent action and to leverage money.45 The Assembly had hitherto proved reluctant to finance the schemes of a governor so clearly tied to the Ohio Company; “it was yet thought a Fiction; and Scheme to promote the Interest of a private Company,” noted Washington.46 Now it duly expressed its outrage at the encroachments of the French and their Indian allies and awarded Washington £50 as testimony of its approval of his service.47

  Figure 2 Washington drew this map after his journey to the Ohio in 1753. In addition to charting the geography, he provided notes regarding French plans to occupy the strategically crucial Forks of the Ohio, where the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers meet. The map, published first in Williamsburg and then in London, helped galvanize the British into action.

  Lawrence Martin, The George Washington Atlas (Washington, DC: United States George Washington Bicentennial Commission, 1932), plate 11. Library of Congress.

  As confirmation of the French threat, Dinwiddie forwarded Washington’s instructions, his journal, and the letters exchanged to the Lords of Trade.48 He also ordered Captain William Trent to raise up to one hundred men and build a fort at the confluence of the three rivers. With assistance from “our good and faithful friends and Allies the Indians of the six Nations and such others as are in Amity with them,” the garrison would defend the king’s lands in the Ohio Valley against the illegal invasion by “persons pretending to be the Subjects of his most Christian Majesty the King of France.”49

  Dinwiddie ordered Washington to raise one hundred militia from Augusta and Frederick Counties, but no one showed up to respond to his summons. In February the House of Burgesses voted £10,000 for frontier defense, and in place of the ineffective militia system Dinwiddie raised a new Virginia Regiment of three hundred volunteers in six companies of fifty each. The provincial troops, as the men of the Virginia Regiment were called, stood somewhere between British regulars and colonial militia in terms of employment, organization, and service.50 Colonel Joshua Fry was to command the regiment and lead an expedition to secure the Forks of the Ohio. Fry had drafted a map of Virginia’s western territories with Peter Jefferson, attended the Treaty of Logstown, and commanded militia, but he had never seen combat. Washington, not yet twenty-two but suddenly famous, requested and was appointed second-in-command, at the rank of lieutenant colonel. As added incentive for raising troops who received meager pay, Dinwiddie promised that after the war a grant of 200,000 acres on the Ohio River would be divided, according to rank, among the veterans. The expedition seemed tailor-made for a young man intent on making his reputation in the military and his fortune in Indian land.51

  Many Virginians, however, saw no need to fight a war to further the schemes of the Ohio Company in distant lands, and Washington had a hard time filling his ranks. Militiamen with homes and livelihoods to protect preferred to stay home, leaving the defense of Virginia’s frontier to the “lesser sort,” men from the lower ranks of society, who signed up in expectation of being paid for their service.52 Washington complained about his own pay and about the “loose, Idle,” and “ungovernable” men who volunteered. Writing to Dinwiddie from the comfort of Belvoir in early March 1754, to request smart red uniforms for his troops, he supported his request with a description of Indian temperament. “It is the Nature of Indians to be struck with, and taken by show and this will give them a much higher Conception of our Power and greatness and I verily believe fix in our Interest many that are now wavering and undetermin’d whose Cause to Espouse.” Even a red coat of the coarsest cloth would answer the purpose, because red was the color of blood and viewed “as the distinguishing marks of Warriours and great Men.” By contrast, “the shabby and ragged appearance the French common Soldiers make affords great matter for ridicule amongst the Indians and I really believe is the chief motive why they hate and despise them as they do. If these are the Effects, the Cause may be easily, and timely remedied.” Washington hoped the governor would forgive his taking the liberty to impart the information; he did so with good intentions. “It is,” he added, “my acquaintance with these Indians, and a Study of their Tempers that has in some measure let me into their Customs and dispositions.” Dinwiddie replied that he had no objections to Washington’s troops being in uniform dress but suggested that the young officer had more pressing matters to attend to than waiting for uniforms to be made.53 Washington evidently thought himself something of an expert in Indian affairs already. The next year would reveal how much he had to learn.

  Chapter 4

  Tanaghrisson’s War

  Tanaghrisson and Scarouady had asked Virginia to build a strong house at the Forks of the Ohio, and Pennsylvania another elsewhere on the river, or at least they had agreed to permit it.1 Now, early in 1754, with a delegation of Ohio Indians, they were at the Forks to meet the Virginians. Tanaghrisson was given the honor of laying the first log. As he did so he announced that the fort “belonged to the English and them and whoever offered to prevent the building of it they the Indians would make war against them.” But the Seneca half king was embracing an English alliance and defying the French with a level of commitment many other Ohio Indians did not share. Some were suspicious of British intentions in building an outpost in the heart of their country; others were concerned that the action might precipitate a war with the French that would be fought in their country. The local Delawares refused to provide the construction crew with meat.2 George Croghan, who knew the Ohio country as well as any European, explained the situation to the governor of Pennsylvania: “The whole of ye Ohio Indians Dose Nott No what to think, they Imagine by this Government Doing Nothing towards the Expedition that the Verginians and the French Intend to Divide the Land of Ohio between them.” It was clear the Six Nations were not about to risk attacking the French, which left them, and Tanaghrisson, with little leverage over the Sha
wnees and Delawares. The Ohio Indians, Croghan assured the governor, “will act for themselves att this time without Consulting ye Onondago Councel.”3

  Tanaghrisson’s bluff was quickly called. The French had targeted the Forks of the Ohio as the site for the last fort in their chain, and despite delays it was scheduled for construction in 1754.4 William Trent and his second-in-command, Edward Ward, began building their fort on February 17. No sooner was it completed than on April 17 Captain Claude-Pierre Pécaudy de Contrecoeur, who had replaced Saint-Pierre as commandant of the Ohio country, arrived with five hundred French troops and eighteen cannon. He demanded that Ward surrender the fort and return to Virginia. Trent was away gathering provisions, and Ward had little choice. As the Virginians departed, Tanaghrisson shouted in defiance and frustration to the French that it was he who had ordered the fort to be built and laid the first log. The expulsion was a blow to Tanaghrisson’s standing in Indian country as well as to Virginia’s ambitions on the Ohio. The French dismantled Virginia’s little outpost and built their own. Fort Duquesne was a formidable structure, with four bastions, two ravelins or outworks, a dry moat, log and earth walls, officers’ quarters, powder magazines and storehouses, a blacksmith shop, a bakery, and a hospital. It became France’s center of operations and Indian relations in the region.5

  As Ward and his crew slogged back to Wills Creek, they met George Washington and 186 men on their way to garrison the fort they had just surrendered. Dinwiddie had sent Washington ahead as an advance force; Colonel Joshua Fry was to follow with the rest of the Virginia Regiment, and additional troops from Virginia, North and South Carolina, Maryland, and New York were to reinforce them and expel the French from Virginia’s Ohio country. Three Scots who would feature prominently in Washington’s life accompanied him: Captains Peter Hoag and Adam Stephen and the expedition surgeon, James Craik.6

  Rather than continue to the Forks with so small a force, Washington marched to Redstone Creek, about thirty-seven miles from the fort, to await Fry and the main body of the regiment. Tanaghrisson sent two young runners to ascertain that the Virginians were on the march, along with a speech, accompanied by a wampum string, which Washington noted in his journal was “addressed … to me personally.” The Indians had been expecting a French attack, and now it was coming, Tanaghrisson said. “We are now ready to attack them, and are waiting only for your aid. Take courage and come as soon as possible, and you will find us as ready to fight them as you are yourselves. … If you do not come to our aid soon, it is all over with us, and I think that we shall never be able to meet together again. I say this with the greatest sorrow in my heart.”7 Washington was quick to reassure Tanaghrisson that he was on his way with “a small part of our army, … clearing the roads for a large number of our warriors, who are ready to follow us, with our large artillery, our munitions, and our supplies.” He used his Indian name, Conotocarious.8 The Seneca half king and the Virginian colonel both spoke with a bombast and confidence of power behind them that the realities of their respective situations scarcely merited. A week later Washington wrote Dinwiddie, requesting the artillery of which he had boasted. He also suggested enlisting the assistance of the Cherokees, Catawbas, and Chickasaws, since he had heard that six hundred Ojibwas and Ottawas were heading down the Scioto River to join the French. If the southern Indians did come, peace would first have to be mediated between them and the Six Nations because, as Washington was told, there was “no good harmony subsisting betwixt them.”9 Dinwiddie was already working on it.10

  Back in Williamsburg, Ward appeared in the Council Chamber on May 4, accompanied by an Indian and an interpreter. He produced the French summons to surrender, along with a speech from Tanaghrisson to Dinwiddie “desiring to know where we were, what was our Strength, and the Time they might Expect our Forces to join them.” With the council’s approval, Dinwiddie sent word assuring Tanaghrisson that help was on the way.11

  Washington kept in communication with Tanaghrisson as he advanced toward the Monongahela River. Traders brought Washington daily news: one reported that Tanaghrisson had sent fifty warriors to meet Washington.12 Washington sent Tanaghrisson updates on his progress; Tanaghrisson sent news about the French. On May 19 Washington sent Tanaghrisson a note urging his Indian brothers to have courage and “march quickly toward your brother the English; for new forces are joining him which will protect you against your perfidious enemy the French.”13 Five days later a messenger arrived from Tanaghrisson with word that a French army was on the move against Washington “resolved to strike the first English they meet.”14

  Washington was also communicating developments to Dinwiddie and Fry, asking Dinwiddie for ample supplies of wampum and treaty goods to compete with the French and urging Fry to request treaty goods “in the strongest possible terms.” “Nothing can be done without them,” he said. “All the Indians that come expect presents.” Indians were a mercenary bunch, Washington declared in what would become a recurrent refrain; if you wanted them to scout, hunt, or carry out any other service, you had to pay for it, “and that, I believe, every person, who is acquainted with the nature of Indians, knows.”15 Washington evidently saw no irony in his own complaints that he was not paid enough, complaints that Dinwiddie advised him were ill timed.16

  At Fort Duquesne, Contrecoeur was getting his own Indian reports of the advancing Virginian force. On May 23 he dispatched Ensign Joseph Coulon de Villiers, sieur de Jumonville, and thirty-five soldiers to see what the Virginians were up to and to demand they withdraw from King Louis’s territory, much as Dinwiddie had dispatched Washington to demand the French do in the fall. On May 24 Washington reached a place known as Great Meadows and halted to establish a base camp before pushing on against Fort Duquesne. He then dispatched runners asking Scarouady and Tanaghrisson to meet him.17 On the twenty-seventh Christopher Gist arrived in camp, reporting that the French had been making inquiries about Tanaghrisson. Washington shared the information with the young Indians in the camp and distorted it. “I wanted them to understand,” he emphasized in his journal, “that the French intended to kill the Half King.” It had the desired effect: the Indians “offered to accompany our People and go after the French,” and said that if Tanaghrisson had been killed or even insulted they would send word to the Mingoes “to incite their Warriors to fall upon them.” Edward Lengel, former editor in chief of the George Washington Papers, says quite simply that it was a lie and “Washington wanted a fight.”18

  That evening, a Seneca runner named Silver Heels, also known as Aroas, arrived from Tanaghrisson with a message. Washington would encounter the runner many times in his life. Translated and badly written by his interpreter John Davison, the message warned that a party of fifty French soldiers was in the area and Washington should come quickly. Washington selected forty men and, following Silver Heels, hurried off in “a heavy rain, with the night as black as pitch and by a path scarcely wide enough for a man.” They reached Tanaghrisson’s camp just about dawn and immediately conferred on what to do next. “We decided to strike jointly,” wrote Washington, and set off “in Indian fashion, one after the other.” Each was likely disappointed by the other’s force. Instead of a contingent of Ohio tribes ready to fight with Washington’s soldiers, Tanaghrisson had fewer than a dozen warriors. Tanaghrisson knew Washington was young and untested. James Smith, who spent several years as an Indian captive, said Indians would think it “a most ridiculous thing to see a man lead off a company of warriors, as an officer, who had never been in a battle in his life: even in case of merit, they are slow in advancing any one, until they arrive at or near middle-age.”19 Tanaghrisson clearly “outranked” Washington. He knew the location of the French and said it would be easy to surround and surprise them. The French had made clear their determination to defend the Ohio country against British invasions or assault, and there were other reports of French activity in the area, but the only information Washington had that the French soldiers were actually coming to attack him came
from Tanaghrisson.20

  Pushing on through the woods and through the night, Washington and Tanaghrisson found the French camp at dawn in a ravine at the base of a rocky cliff. It was Jumonville’s detachment. What happened next has always been a matter of dispute. Washington, who often wrote detailed and meticulous entries in his diaries, kept this journal entry and his report to Dinwiddie deliberately brief. When the French discovered them he ordered his men to open fire. “We killed M. de Jumonville, commanding this party, with nine others; we wounded one and made 21 prisoners,” he wrote. “The Indians scalped the dead, and took most of their arms.” The entire skirmish was over in fifteen minutes.21 Thirty-three years later, preparing remarks for his would-be biographer David Humphreys, his usual memory for detail failed him and he glossed over the event in a single sentence.22

  An Ohio Iroquois who participated in the ambush said Tanaghrisson and Scarouady and their warriors circled left and right to cut off escape and “directed Col Washington with his men to go up to the Hill,” and Washington himself fired the first shot.23 It seems that the French soldiers, surprised by the Virginians firing down on them, broke and ran. Tanaghrisson’s warriors cut off their escape. A French survivor said the Indians did not fire and the English did all the killing, but Davison, who was at the fight, said that although there were only eight Indians they did most of the execution. When the English fired, “which they did in great Confusion, the Indians came out of their Cover and closed with the French and killed them with their Tomahawks, on which the French surrendered.” The Ohio Iroquois informant said eight of the French soldiers “met with their Destiny by the Indian Tomayhawks.” Scarouady also said that the Indians did most of the fighting and most of the damage. They killed ten Frenchmen and delivered twenty-one prisoners to Washington, “telling him we had blooded the Edge of his Hatchet a little.” The Pennsylvania Gazette also reported that the French “took to their Heels,” but Half King and his warriors lay in ambush and fell on them. Given the confusion of combat and the inaccuracy of eighteenth-century firearms, it is unlikely that the Virginians killed ten French soldiers while wounding only one; the casualty ratio is more indicative of Indian tomahawks wielded at close range than muskets fired downhill.24