Assassin
George Washington was accused of being one. He signed a surrender document admitting to being an assassin. So did South Carolina Independent Company Captain James MacKay.
Both knew the word assassin. No translation needed. It was a french word from arabic origins also used in english. They just didn't catch seeing the word in the document. And their interpreter Van Braam didn't catch it either.
Why?
Bad handwriting.
Dark Rainy night.
Poor Interpreter.
Relief they can get out of their alive.
But . . . Was GW an assassin?
David Preston in a JAR (Journal American Rev) article finds a witness that GW may have fired first. Excerpt from David Preston's article:
"One line from the chief warrior’s speech struck me above all others: “Col. Washington begun himself and fired and then his people.” Washington himself always took responsibility for ordering his company to open fire, but the chief warrior’s report takes this even further, claiming that Washington literally fired the first shot. Perhaps it was a signal to his soldiers and his Indian allies to commence the attack, or perhaps he was taking aim at a French adversary. Either way, if true, it heightens Washington’s moral responsibility in the whole affair."
GW was accused of assassinating Jumonville and his company at a place since called Jumonville Glen 28 May 1754. A revenge French and Indian force caught up with GW at Fort Necessity in Great Meadows. GW signed the surrender document accusing him of assassination at Fort Necessity 3 July 1754.
The French claimed this company Washington and his men fired upon was a diplomatic mission, much like the diplomatic mission GW undertook to Fort La Boeuf.
.
Compiled 7/14/2024, but researched in 2019
Published on wix website the day after the attempted Trump assassination in Butler PA.
Sources:
Picture by Kevin O'Malley
.
When was the true start of the war? The war was going to happen anyway with 2 Euro powers fighting for the same land. But if you want to pick another incident? How about 1752 when the Indian allies of the French "boiled and ate" poor ole "Briton" ? . . .
"The French decided to punish Miami chief Memeskia (also known as La Demoiselle or Old Briton), for rejecting the French alliance and dealing with the English traders, which threatened what had previously been a French monopoly over local commerce. On 21 June 1752, the village and trading post were destroyed in the raid on Pickawillany, also known as the Battle of Pickawillany, when French-allied Indians attacked the village, killing Memeskia and at least one English trader and burning the English stockade and the trading post. Following the attack, the village of Pickawillany was relocated about a mile to the southeast. The city of Piqua, Ohio, was established later near this site.
Pickawillany's destruction directly encouraged greater British fortification and military presence at other outposts in the Ohio Valley, and has been seen as a precursor to the wider British-French conflict that would become the French and Indian War."
Rival tribes, loyal to France and under métis chieftain Charles Langlade, attacked Pickawillany in June 1752, with a force consisting of around 240 Ottawa and Ojibwa. They eventually captured three of the British traders and killed several tribesmen. Memeskia, to symbolize the victors' extreme distaste for his friendship with the English, was boiled and ritually cannibalized. Langlade's raid on Pickawillany, which drove British traders out of the Ohio Country, was one of the events leading up to the French and Indian War. The Tewightewee fled the region, paving the way for settlement by the neighboring Shawnee. Memeskia was a Miami Indian.
.
Comments