And now, news from the 1750s
Today’s news sweeps gusher-like down the gutters of our lives. Each day’s news seems more astonishing than the day before. We sink or swim with the news. There is no getting away from it.
News from the 18th century is another matter. Of course, it was long ago, and the leading actors are 200 plus years dead. No wonder there are so few tidings from then. The newsmakers have all skedaddled, or at least vanished so that they are no longer available for hallway interviews, longish magazine profiles, television sit-downs, or tweets.
Except every once in a while some nugget of news does poke its withered head above the frayed layers of 18th century buzz. One such exception appears in the October edition of Smithsonian Magazine.
“George Washington Started A War” the Smithsonian cover roars. Inside, the article, the latest from the 18th century, is entitled “The Trigger.” Written by Citadel historian David Preston, it is expertly illustrated by Tim O’Brien and handsomely photographed by Allison Shelley.
And now to let the cat out of the bag: we’re talking Jumonville Glen-Ft. Necessity here. Yes, it’s local news! Kind of.
If this were a news dispatch written by a newshound for newshounds on May 29, 1754, here’s how it might go:
“A brief, bloody skirmish in the mountainous woods just east of Uniontown left nearly a dozen French soldiers dead yesterday. Under the command of a 22-year Virginian by the name of George Washington, British troops in league with Indian allies claimed the life, among others, of the commander of the small French contingent, Ensign Joseph Coulon de Villiers Jumonville.
“It was reported that Washington himself fired the first shot in the test of wills between the two sides. Further trouble, both diplomatic and military, is expected as the two empires vie for control of North America.”
Now that’s news. Not the skirmish itself. That’s been known practically from the moment it took place. A French soldier escaped the slaughter and made his way back to Ft. Duquesne to spread the alarm.
Naturally, if afterward Washington had exited the stage never to be heard from again, we in the 21st century likely would not care whose musket ball shattered the peace, led to the French and Indian War, and paved the way for the American Revolution.
But Washington did not disappear. And so we care. That fact that Preston quotes a long forgotten account squirreled away in British government archives naming names is of interest. It may not be new news. It may, in fact, be old news. But it is news.
“There is nothing new in the world except the history you do not know,” Harry Truman said.
The Washington first-shot angle is not the only bit of “news” Preston unwraps in the pages of the October Smithsonian. It appears, from a heretofore overlooked account credited to an Iroquois known to the British Colonial Office as a “Chief Warrior,” that Tanaghrisson, or the Half King, a British ally, was threatened by a Frenchman, by name Michel Pepin, but commonly referred to as La Force.
This La Force fellow told Tanaghrisson in the early spring of 1754 that in 20 days he and his English friends would be dead at French hands.
So, with Jumonville and soldiers bedded down several miles west of the British encampment at Great Meadows, Tanaghrisson, the Half King, might have naturally assumed that the French were there to get him.
According to the great warrior, La Force scurried to Washington’s side on the morning of May 28, 1754, for shelter against Tanaghrisson. The Colonial Office Papers contains this Half King quote, provided by the great warrior:
Tomahawk poised above La Force’s head, Tanaghrisson imparted, “Now I will let you see that the Six Nations [tribes] can kill as well as the French.”
According to National Park ranger Tom Markwardt, a 30-year Ft. Necessity veteran, Preston’s new research adds to the picture but doesn’t necessarily alter the larger narrative about Washington, Ft. Necessity, and the origins of the French and Indian War.
It’s long been assumed that as a callow young officer, Washington was out of his depth in 1754.
Neither has the Smithsonian cover story resulted in more park visitations, so far at least. Markwardt noted two things in this regard.
One, the article may pull in visitors for years to come. It’s hard to say.
Second, a number of visitors have already said, “I saw the article. Pretty good.”
Maybe we should all wait for the other shoe to drop. The news -even 18th century news – just keeps on coming.
Richard Robbins lives in Uniontown. He can be reached at dick.l.robbins@gmail.com.