The American piece played out under General John Forbes, who was assigned the retaking of Fort Duquesne. The English fleet swept the French from the seas and destroyed France’s colonial power in America, Africa and India. Pitt assumed full power in 1757 and declared: “I can save this country and nobody else can.” He was true to his word. It pitted England and Prussia and their indomitable leaders William Pitt the Elder and Frederick the Great against the rest of Europe. Things were not looking good.įortunately for the American colonists, the conflict in the Ohio Valley-our French and Indian War-was a small part of the global struggle between France and England, known as the Seven Years War (1756–1763). The loss was staggering-456 dead and 421 wounded. He assembled a force of 2,200 regulars and colonials and on July 9, 1755, marched them to a stunning defeat against an inferior force of French and Indians on the site of today’s Edgar Thomson Works, 10 miles east of the Point. General Edward Braddock was the first of a long line of unfortunate choices as British commanders in America. It became obvious that the Ohio Company, even with the help of Virginia and Pennsylvania, was not going to drive the French Empire from the Ohio Valley. After a fateful skirmish at Fort Necessity, Washington surrendered in July. Round two to the French.ĭinwiddie raised new forces, and an advance party under George Washington pushed through to Great Meadows, 50 miles southeast of the fort. The French renamed it Fort Duquesne over which the fleur-de-lis was to fly for the next three years. ![]() That April, a French army of 500 confronted the handful of men at the fort they promptly surrendered. Round one to the French.Įarly the next year, Dinwiddie sent an Ohio Company party to the forks of the three rivers to build Fort Prince George, the first English fort west of the Alleghenies. Out-manned and outgunned, Washington protested and left in December 1753. ![]() Governor Dinwiddie of Virginia (an Ohio Company investor) sent young George Washington to LeBoeuf to protest. ![]() The French, under the firm hand of the Marquis du Quesne in Montreal, responded, establishing Fort LeBoeuf on French Creek, within striking distance of the three rivers. Soon after receiving the grant, the Ohio Company began exploiting their new lands. They applied to the English king for a grant of 200,000 acres. In 1747, a group of prominent Virginians, including Lawrence Washington, half-brother of George, founded the Ohio Company. It was Virginia’s soldier aristocrats rather than William Penn’s Quakers who first breathed life into southwestern Pennsylvania. Lucrative trade and rich soil were an irresistible draw for the expanding English colonies. The best passage through the Alleghenies was up the Potomac to the Monongahela, and then down the Ohio. They were weaker but still dominant in the Ohio valley. They controlled two great waterways that drained the North American continent: the St. Geographically the French were in the strongest position. Before the canals and railroads, the Ohio and Mississippi river systems were the interstate highways of their day.īy the mid-eighteenth century (1751) there were three claimants to southwestern Pennsylvania: the French, the English and the Indians. Pittsburgh not only faces but opens the great heartland of America. From there, it’s a straight 1,500-mile shot to the Rockies. ![]() The western slope of the Alleghenies lies some 40 miles from the Point. A fourth river, the Potomac, comes into play by bringing the coast of Virginia close to the Monongahela and allowing for some tough navigation to connect Pittsburgh with the Atlantic Ocean.
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