Everything about Robert Dinwiddie totally explained
Robert Dinwiddie (
1693 –
July 27,
1770) was a
British colonial administrator who served as lieutenant governor of
colonial Virginia from
1751 to
1758, first under Governor
Willem Anne van Keppel, 2nd Earl of Albemarle, and then, from July
1756 to January
1758, as deputy for
John Campbell, 4th Earl of Loudoun. Since the governors at that time were largely absentee, he was the de-facto head of the colony for much of the time.
Dinwiddie's actions as lieutenant governor are commonly cited as precipitating the
French and Indian War. He wanted to limit
French expansion in
Ohio Country, an area claimed by the Virginia Colony and in which the
Ohio Company, of which he was a stockholder, had made preliminary surveys and some small settlements.
In
1753, Dinwiddie learned the French had built
Fort Presque Isle near
Lake Erie and
Fort Le Boeuf, which he saw a threatening Virginia's interests in the Ohio Country. He sent an eight-man expedition under
George Washington to warn the French to withdraw. Washington, then only 21 years old, made the journey in midwinter of 1753-54. The French refusal to withdraw set the stage for the events that took place at
Fort Necessity.
In January
1754, even before learning of the French refusal, Dinwiddie sent a small force of Virginia militia to build a fort at the forks of the
Ohio River, where the
Allegheny and
Monongahela Rivers merge to form the Ohio (present-day
Pittsburgh). The French quickly drove off the Virginians and built a larger fort on the site, calling it
Fort Duquesne, in honor of the
Marquis de Duquesne, who had recently become governor of
New France.
In early spring 1754, Dinwiddie sent Washington to build a road to the Monangahela and to then help defend the British fort. Learning that the French had taken the fort, Washington pressed on and built a small stockade,
Fort Necessity, at a spot then called "Great Meadows", by the
Youghiogheny River, eleven miles southeast of present-day
Uniontown. Here he encountered the French in a skirmish on
July 3,
1754 and was
forced to surrender. Dinwiddie was subsequently active in rallying other colonies in defense against the French and ultimately prevailed upon the British to send General
Edward Braddock to Virginia with two regiments of regular troops.
Dinwiddie's administration was marked by frequent disagreements with the Assembly over finances. In January 1758 he left Virginia and lived in England until his death at Clifton, Bristol.
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