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During his years as a gentleman farmer, Washington matured from an ambitious youth into the patriarch of the Washington clan and a solid member of Virginia society. He remained somewhat shy and reserved throughout his life. He was sensitive and emotional, with a violent temper that he usually held firmly in check. But most of all he was a man of great personal dignity. His connection with the wealthy and powerful Fairfax family, through his half-brother Lawrence’s marriage, perhaps as much as his own energies, made him a wealthy landowner and, from 1759 to 1774, a member of the House of Burgesses, the lower chamber of the Virginia legislature. In all, as Washington prospered and his responsibilities grew, his character was enriched and grew to keep pace.
Washington’s perspective broadened, and he became involved in the protests of Virginians against the restrictions of British rule. He became yearly more convinced that the king’s ministers and British merchants and financiers regarded Americans as inferior and sought to control “our whole substance.” His wartime experience had given him ample evidence of the contempt felt by British military men for colonial officers. Now he began to see the deepening division between the true interests of the American people and the view held of those interests in Britain. As a member of the House of Burgesses he opposed such measures as the 1765 Stamp Act, which imposed a tax on the colonies without consulting them, and he foresaw that British policy was moving toward doing away with self-government in America altogether.
Washington’s anti-British feelings were strengthened by the introduction of the Townshend Acts in 1767. These acts imposed more unpopular taxes. His voice joined in Virginia’s decision in 1770 to retaliate by banning taxable British goods from the colony. His belief in the colonies’ right of free action resounds in his words written to Virginia statesman George Mason: “... as a last resource ...Americans should be prepared to take up arms to defend their ancestral liberties from the inroads of our lordly Masters in Great Britain.”
Before he had advanced very far, Washington received news that the French had driven Trent’s men back from the Ohio forks. He did not turn back, but pushed on to establish an advanced position from which, when reinforced, he hoped to turn the tables. He set part of his men to work building a log stockade, which he named Fort Necessity. On May 27, 1754, he surprised a French force in the woods and routed it after a short battle. The French commander, Ensign Joseph Coulon, Sieur de Jumonville, was killed in the clash, and Washington took prisoners back to Fort Necessity. He had won his first victory.
The French, on hearing of Jumonville’s death, sent out a larger force. Unfortunately for Washington, these troops reached Fort Necessity before he had received either the men or the supplies he expected from Virginia. On July 3 the fort was attacked by the French and some Iroquois who had allied with them, beginning what would be called the French and Indian War (1754-1763). The fort did not have the soldiers or arms to hold out. However, the French offered surrender terms that were not humiliating: The Virginians were to abandon the fort and withdraw to their own settlements, leaving two hostages for good faith. Washington’s papers and journal were taken, and he was to sign a surrender document. Washington accepted the terms on July 4 after the surrender document was translated for him and did not appear to contain any offensive statements.
Back in Williamsburg, Washington had become famous. The victory over Jumonville was applauded, and he was not blamed for surrendering his fort to superior forces. The expedition was written up in a British magazine and thereby came to the attention of the king, George II. The magazine quoted Washington as saying that he found “something charming” in the sound of the bullets whizzing past his head at the Jumonville skirmish. At this the king remarked, “He would not say so if he had been used to hear many.”
There were two repercussions that caused Washington some regrets. First, he found that his translator had been mistaken. An accurate translation of the surrender document showed it to contain the phrase “assassination of Sieur de Jumonville,” implying that Washington had killed the French commander dishonorably. Secondly, the French published a translation of Washington’s journal. But it was heavily edited and the emphasis changed to make it appear that the French soldiers were merely on a diplomatic mission. Representatives of King George inquired into the matter but were satisfied that Washington had acted correctly. He was not held to account for the mistake of his translator.
During the following summer, Virginia was alarmed by reports that a French expedition from Canada was establishing posts on the headwaters of the Ohio River and seeking to make treaties with the Native American peoples. Governor Dinwiddie received orders from Britain to demand an immediate French withdrawal, and Major Washington promptly volunteered to carry the governor’s message to the French commander. His ambition at this time was to secure royal preference for a commission in the regular British army, and this expedition promised to bring him to the king’s attention.
Washington took with him a skillful and experienced frontiersman, Christopher Gist, together with an interpreter and four other men. Reaching the forks of the Ohio, he found that the French had withdrawn northward for the winter. After inconclusive negotiations with the Native Americans living there, who were members of the Iroquois Confederacy, he pressed on and finally delivered Dinwiddie’s message to the French commander at Fort Le Boeuf, not far from Lake Erie. The answer was polite but firm: The French were there to stay. Returning, Washington reached Williamsburg, the capital of Virginia, to deliver this word to the governor in mid-January 1754, having made a hard wilderness journey of more than 1600 km (1000 mi) in less than three months. With his report he submitted a map of his route and a strong recommendation that an English fort be erected at the forks of the Ohio as quickly as possible, before the French returned to that strategic position in the spring.
Dinwiddie, who was himself a large stockholder in companies exploiting western lands, acted promptly on this suggestion. He sent William Trent with a small force to start building the fort. Major Washington was to raise a column of 200 men to follow and reinforce the advance party.
Lawrence died in 1752. Under the terms of his will, George soon acquired the beautiful estate of Mount Vernon, in Fairfax County, one of six farms then held by the Washington family interests. Also, the death of his beloved half-brother opened another door to the future. Lawrence had held the post of adjutant in the colonial militia. This was a full-time salaried appointment, carrying the rank of major, and involved the inspection, mustering, and regulation of various militia companies. Washington seems to have been confident he could make an efficient adjutant at the age of 20, though he was then without military experience. In November 1752 he was appointed adjutant of the southern district of Virginia by Governor Robert Dinwiddie.
George Washington was born on his father’s estate in Westmoreland County, Virginia, on February 22, 1732. He was the eldest son of a well-to-do Virginia farmer, Augustine Washington, by his second wife, Mary Ball. The Washington family was descended from two brothers, John and Lawrence Washington, who emigrated from England to Virginia in 1657. The family’s rise to modest wealth in three generations was the result of steady application to farming, land buying, and development of local industries.
Young George seems to have received most of his schooling from his father and, after the father’s death in 1743, from his elder half-brother Lawrence. The boy had a liking for mathematics, and he applied it to acquiring a knowledge of surveying, which was a skill greatly in demand in a country where people were seeking new lands in the West. For the Virginians of that time the West meant chiefly the upper Ohio River valley. Throughout his life, George Washington maintained a keen interest in the development of these western lands, and from time to time he acquired properties there
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George Washington (1732-1799), first president of the United States (1789-1797) and one of the most important leaders in United States history. His role in gaining independence for the American colonies and later in unifying them under the new U.S. federal government cannot be overestimated. Laboring against great difficulties, he created the Continental Army, which fought and won the American Revolution (1775-1783), out of what was little more than an armed mob. After an eight-year struggle, his design for victory brought final defeat to the British at Yorktown, Virginia, and forced Great Britain to grant independence to its overseas possession.
With victory won, Washington was the most revered man in the United States. A lesser person might have used this power to establish a military dictatorship or to become king. Washington sternly suppressed all such attempts on his behalf by his officers and continued to obey the weak and divided Continental Congress. However, he never ceased to work for the union of the states under a strong central government. He was a leading influence in persuading the states to participate in the Constitutional Convention, over which he presided, and he used his immense prestige to help gain ratification of its product, the Constitution of the United States
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