The Mystery of George Washington: Land-Grabber, Warmonger, then Statesman

By John Zmirak Published on February 20, 2018

Today falls into one of those special historical gaps. It’s in the three-day waiting period between when we celebrate Washington’s Birthday, and the day when it actually happened (February 22). Much as I love America, I don’t treat these days as quite sacred. I don’t think the Father of Our Country spent time in the underworld harrowing Hell. He may have cheated death in battle after battle. One of the things that made soldiers both love Washington and hold him in a kind of awe was how he’d walk around unflappable as musket balls whizzed past him. But he didn’t himself defeat death, as Our Lord did.

Still, the man George Washington did have to conquer a number of things to win the good name we give him. The chief one was: himself.

Building a Real Estate Empire

George Washington started out life as a reckless, even ruthless young man on the make. He lived on a wild frontier, where opportunities for vast wealth, respect, and a life of elite leisure seemed just one war against the French and the Indians away. In the quest for such a life, young George helped ignite just such a war. He almost brought on disaster for the colony of Virginia. But he also helped turn that catastrophe into a huge opportunity, and emerged from the war a hero. He rode his good name into politics, and the rest is history.

How do I know this? I did extensive research on the man, as I worked with a Hollywood director on a script about young George. More than a decade has passed, and the director still looking for funding to get it filmed. So I’m not out shopping for homes in Hollywood Hills. But all that reading about young Washington’s life, all those hours spent chewing over his words in letters and speeches … it made an impression.

Warts and All

In writing any story you have to find the “character arc.” In what ways does the character grow and change? What flaws in him lead to trouble, and how does he overcome them? Or does he? Do they destroy him, as in classic tragedies and the tales of anti-heroes? (See Macbeth and Scarface, and the life of Benedict Arnold.) The task of identifying these perennial elements of drama proves more complicated when you’re dealing with history. You don’t want to distort or falsify the man’s genuine character. But story-telling requires that you select and emphasize the incidents that keep a viewer or reader’s interest. What entertains us is trouble. What moves us is the drama of human character under trial. And what inspires us is the battle between good and evil inside the human heart.

Happily, the life of the young George Washington offered all these elements. Born the second son of a Virginia planter, Washington was heartbroken when his father died prematurely. He bonded with his older half-brother, Lawrence, a British army officer. But Washington found his calling as a surveyor of frontier land. It was his job to wander uncharted hills not far from French forts or Indian camps, and draw up maps for future claimants. And ambitious young George wanted a piece of that “virgin” land for himself.

Please Support The Stream: Equipping Christians to Think Clearly About the Political, Economic, and Moral Issues of Our Day.

Virginians Were Hungry for Land

George went to work for the Ohio Company, a technically private outfit with deep ties to cronies inside the Virginia colonial government. At the time, the faraway king was seeking to keep the peace. The Crown wanted to guard its claims, without provoking war with the powerful French who occupied the Ohio Valley, or the Indian tribes whom they’d befriended. While the British sent thousands of land-hungry farmers to America, the French sent mostly trappers, traders, and missionaries. So French lands were thinly peopled with white men, and dotted with Catholic chapels that mostly Indians attended. The Ohio Company’s charter provided for driving out the Frenchmen, and destroying all “papist” chapels. Then claiming the land for those who’d invested in the company — many of them well-placed in politics.

Please Support The Stream: Equipping Christians to Think Clearly About the Political, Economic, and Moral Issues of Our Day.

So Washington started his career working for what we might see today as an expansionist, land-grabbing colonialist outfit that was religiously intolerant. The colonial governor of Virginia, Robert Dinwiddie, was a large-scale investor in the Ohio Company. Keeping the peace wasn’t exactly in his interests — or those of young men like Washington, who’d been patiently, even hungrily surveying all that land.

Starting a World War

Washington went to serve in the colonial militia, executing Dinwiddie’s orders to safeguard British claims. But both Dinwiddie and his appointees were strongly motivated to push those claims aggressively. Sent on a mission to issue an ultimatum to French soldiers building a fort, Washington and his troop of colonial and Indian soldiers encountered a French patrol. Without taking time to determine the nature of the French mission, Washington attacked it. His Indian levies went into a frenzy and butchered a number of officers, including the French commander Joseph de Jumonville.

The French pursued Washington’s band as if they were criminals. The inexperienced Washington built a bad fort in a terrible location, and found himself besieged. After hours of hopeless fighting he surrendered. Part of the deal for his freedom was signing a confession. Perhaps because the English-French translators on hand advised him wrongly, Washington put his name to a document admitting that he’d “assassinated” a diplomatic mission. The confession sparked fury in France. Within two years, new French troops arrived and the Seven Years’ War began. It raged from Quebec to India, and young George Washington was widely seen as having started it.

Washington almost brought on disaster for the colony of Virginia.

That made him even more popular in Virginia, where colonists had long seethed at London’s restraint on their expansion to the west. Washington took service as an aide to the British commander Edward Braddock, who led a detachment of redcoats and colonial troops to attack the French fort Duquesne, and claim the whole Ohio River Valley for Virginia. But British conventional tactics proved disastrous in the wilderness, and the troops blundered into a massacre. Braddock was killed, and his soldiers fled in a rout. It was here, in the midst of defeat and potential disaster, that Washington’s mettle emerged.

In Valley of the Shadow of Death

Washington kept his head, and galloped all over the battlefield reorganizing the soldiers. Two horses got shot out from under him, and his uniform charred by bullets that had whizzed past him. Something inside the man, we don’t really know what, drove him despite the danger. He collected the troops and managed an orderly retreat — saving hundreds from death or capture. Marching home at the head of this beaten, battered army, Washington returned to a hero’s welcome. He earned promotion in the militia, and when the war ended in victory, went on to serve in Virginia’s parliament. He’d made his name and was on his way.

Washington kept his head, and galloped all over the battlefield reorganizing the soldiers. Two horses were shot out from under him, and his uniform was charred by bullets that had whizzed past him.

How curious are the ways of God’s providence to us. A young, land-hungry hothead who’d triggered a global war showed immense courage and prudence in the midst of a disaster. It was one for which he bore some share of responsibility. But his selfless concern for his men, and his love for the people he fought for, shone through his youthful defects. That mixture of native flaws and virtues would mark the young America, too, as it conquered the rest of a continent.

A Man Who Embodied a Country

By the time he commanded the quixotic enterprise that was the Continental Army, Washington had learned much more caution, and tolerance. He protected the rights of the tiny Catholic minority, and avoided needless bloodshed. As president, he’d reject the offer of absolute, royal power, and fought for free institutions. His standing with soldiers was such that he quelled an attempted military coup by disgruntled, unpaid Continental veterans — with a quiet, humble speech.

I don’t think that this side of the grave we will ever know quite how George Washington grew into greatness. But he carried the seeds of all that is risky, hopeful, and loveable about America. And we should be grateful for him.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Like the article? Share it with your friends! And use our social media pages to join or start the conversation! Find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, MeWe and Gab.

Inspiration
The Scarcity Mindset
Robert Morris
More from The Stream
Connect with Us