84 A HISTORY OF AMERICA IN 100 MAPSHaving established control over the Great Lakes in
the early eighteenth century, the French began to
push south into the headwaters of the Ohio and
Mississippi rivers. Their ambition was to create
a north–south axis of forts that would act as a
continuous line of communication from Canada
to Louisiana while also preventing the westward
expansion of the British across the mountains of
Virginia. Both European powers believed that they
had a rightful claim to the region. The British argued
that their alliance with the Six Nations gave them
territorial control over the Ohio Valley, while the
French countered that the discoveries of La Salle
and Marquette gave them rights to the Upper
Mississippi Valley.
In response to the French movement into the
Ohio Valley, Virginia’s lieutenant governor, Robert
Dinwiddie, sent George Washington—just twenty-
one at the time—with a forceful message for the
French commander, who had erected a fort near
Lake Erie, at the upper right of the map. Dinwiddie
explained to Washington that “The Lands upon
the River Ohio” were the property of the British
Crown, and that the construction of French forts in
this region would be considered acts of hostility.
On October 31, 1753, Washington set off from
Williamsburg to deliver the message across hundreds
of miles. His route is recorded on this manuscript
map, which was likely drawn by Washington himself,
or copied from his original.
Facing difficult and unknown terrain, Washington
pressed through mountains and forests to the
headwaters of the Allegheny River. Beyond the Forks
of the Ohio, he met with Indian chiefs at Logstown
to shore up alliances and gain information about
French activity. Soon thereafter he spent an evening
at the Indian village of Venango with French soldiers.
Having had a bit too much to drink, Washington
explained, the French soldiers “gave license to their
Tongues to reveal their sentiments more freely. They
told me, That it was their absolute Design to takeA YOUNG GEORGE WASHINGTON MAPS THE CLASH OF EMPIRES
“A map of the country between Will’s
Creek and Lake Erie, shewing the
designs of the French for erecting
forts southward of the lake; drawn ...
before the erection of Fort Duquesne,”
circa 1754
Possession of the Ohio, and by G— they would do it.”
The French calculated that, though they were far
outnumbered by the British, the latter were “too slow
and dilatory” to prevent them from taking what was
rightfully theirs. When Washington finally conveyed
Dinwiddie’s warning to the French commander at the
newly erected Fort Le Boeuf along French Creek (at
the upper right corner of the map), he was politely
rebuffed. Given the expanding French presence near
the Ohio River, the British were not really in a position
to demand anything. When Washington insisted that
the French stop taking British prisoners in the region,
he was told that “no Englishman had a Right to trade
upon those Waters; and that he had Orders to make
every Person Prisoner who attempted it on the Ohio,
or the Waters of it.”
Washington returned to Williamsburg in the
middle of January 1754. He may have failed to limit
French expansion, but he produced a map and
detailed notes that showed the British exactly what
they were up against. Moreover, as a result of his
mission Washington knew more about the Ohio
Country than anyone else in the colonies. On the
map he warned that “The French are now coming
down ... to prevent our Settlements.” He urged
the British to respond by constructing “a fort near
Shanapins Town” at the Forks of the Ohio (at the
center of the map). He also confidently asserted that
the French presence was insufficient to defend the
forts they had built near Lake Erie. While at Fort Le
Boeuf, he had surreptitiously counted the men and
canoes he saw passing by on French Creek, and from
that number extrapolated the general number of
French soldiers in the region.
Dinwiddie promptly published Washington’s map
and journal. He then enlisted 200 men to march
into the valley to erect a fort at the confluence of the
Monongahela and Allegheny rivers, for Washington
recommended this site as giving “absolute Command
of both Rivers.” Soon the French seized the site
and renamed it Fort Duquesne, using it as
a strategic outpost during the nine-year fight
against the British known as the French and Indian
War. Britain’s ultimate victory in the war led to the
nearby construction of Fort Pitt, which eventually
became Pittsburgh.
Washington’s unassuming sketch map outlines
a remote region that drew the two most powerful
empires in the world into war, even though both had
questionable claims to the territory. The result was
extraordinary: the war, which lasted until 1763, ended
French claims in North America. Within a decade, the
British colonists were again led into war by George
Washington, this time against their own country.