General Samuel Hopkins Chapter
of
Henderson County, Kentucky

GEORGE WASHINGTON BICENTENNIAL INFOLINE
MARCH 1999 
 

 TRANSFORMATION

 The desire of the American colonists for independency from Great Britain did not occur in one precipitous moment "by the rude bridge" in Concord, Massachusetts.  No, this movement arose gradually over the approximately 155 years in which immigrants came to American shores and worked to create sustainable communities along the coast and into the interior of this vast country.  While settlers could bring with them their past knowledge and customs, their concerns and lifestyles were very different from those they had known before.  Over time, these differences became more pronounced and the colonists began to feel that Great Britain not only was not supporting them, she was actually repressing them.

 Just as the alienation between Great Britain and her colonies developed over time, so too, a series of events over time drove George Washington from allegiance to the Crown to Commander in Chief of the Revolutionary Army.  As a young man, George Washington looked up to his older brother Lawrence who had served as a Captain of colonial troops.  Washington wanted to follow in his brother's footsteps.  In 1754, when the royal governor of Virginia was seeking someone with frontier experience to lead an expedition to the Forks of the Ohio to build a fort meant to deter French aggression, Washington volunteered.  He felt this would be a golden opportunity to gain recognition and hopefully, a position with the British military.  Unfortunately, this mission was plagued with too little support and too few men.  Ultimately, Washington's brave men were soundly defeated. While this was disappointing, the bravery with which the men had fought and Washington's leadership were roundly applauded by the colonials.  These actions were condemned by the British who looked down on the colonial militia.  In his naivete, Washington expected he would be promoted to a higher rank in the British colonial army; but no such commission came.  Such positions were rarely given to one so young, especially if he were not a British citizen.  Washington was very dejected.

  Convinced that he would never be able to achieve a rank in the British army, Washington retired from military service and began managing his lands at Mt Vernon.  Like other American planters, Washington raised mostly tobacco which was exported for sale in Great Britain.  Colonials used "factors" in Great Britain who bought their tobacco and then sent back whatever manufactured goods the planter requested.  Such a  system did not allow any room for bargaining.  The planter had to accept whatever price the factor was willing to pay for the crop and likewise, whatever quality of goods the factor exported to him.  Washington did not like this one-sided arrangement and took steps to improve his own situation.  He stopped growing tobacco and began trading his new crops, wheat and corn, with local merchants.  In this way he could strike his own bargains and hold the merchants accountable for the finished goods he bought.  Of this move towards independency, his biographer James Thomas Flexner writes, "Again, as when he had abandoned his ambition to join the regular British army, Washington moved psychologically away from the England that as a youth he had unquestionably considered the center and capital of his world". (Flexner 50).

 The decision by Parliament to tax the colonies to help pay for the successful conclusion of the French and Indian War was the final event that drove Washington as well as many other colonists to desire independency from England.  Colonists, who had no representation in parliament felt such a tax was unfair and they refused to pay it.  This opposition led Great Britain to pass even more repressive acts and to increase the number of British troops on colonial soil.  Of this action, George Washington wrote,  "At a time when our lordly Masters in Great Britain will be satisfied with nothing less than the deprivation of American freedom, it seems highly necessary that some thing should be done to avert the stroke and maintain the liberty which we have derived from our ancestors; but the manner of doing it to answer the purpose effectively is the point in question." (Borden 18).  When great Britain imposed the Intolerable Acts which closed the port of Boston and abrogated the Charter of Massachusetts, Washington was moved to declare this was "an unexampled testimony of the most despotic system of tyranny that was ever practiced in a free government." (Flexner 58).

 The time had come for a unified action.  When representatives from throughout the colonies met in 1774 at the first Continental Congress, George Washington attended as a delegate from Virginia.  By May, 1775, when the second Continental Congress convened, the fighting at Lexington and Concord had already taken place.  In June, Washington was appointed Commander in Chief of the Continental Army.  Thus did the colonists and George Washington move inexorably by degrees from citizens of the Crown to patriotic insurgents. 

Morton Borden, ed., George Washington, (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall Inc, 1969).

James Thomas Flexner, George Washington, 4-vols. (Boston: Little, Brown, 1965-72; 1-vol abridgement, 1974).

Douglas Southall Freeman, George Washington, 7 vols, (New York:  Charles Scribner's Sons, 1949-1957; vol 7 completed by John A. Carroll and Mary Wells Ashworth; 1-vol. abridgement by Richard Harwell, 1968).