Robert Dinwiddie (1693 – July 27, 1770) was a
BritishThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
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 LoudounJohn Campbell, 4th Earl of Loudoun was a British nobleman and army officer.-Early career:Campbell inherited the peerage on the death of his father in 1731, becoming Lord Loudoun. The earl raised a regiment of infantry that took part in the Jacobite Rising of 1745 on the side of the Hanoverian...
. 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 WarThe French and Indian War, also known as the War of the Conquest or referred as part of the larger conflict known as the Seven Years' War, was a war fought in North America between 1754 and 1763...
.
Robert Dinwiddie (1693 – July 27, 1770) was a
BritishThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
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 LoudounJohn Campbell, 4th Earl of Loudoun was a British nobleman and army officer.-Early career:Campbell inherited the peerage on the death of his father in 1731, becoming Lord Loudoun. The earl raised a regiment of infantry that took part in the Jacobite Rising of 1745 on the side of the Hanoverian...
. 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 WarThe French and Indian War, also known as the War of the Conquest or referred as part of the larger conflict known as the Seven Years' War, was a war fought in North America between 1754 and 1763...
. He wanted to limit
FrenchThe French colonization of the Americas began in the 16th century, and continued in the following centuries as France established a colonial empire in the Western Hemisphere. France founded colonies in much of eastern North America, on a number of Caribbean islands, and in South America...
expansion in
Ohio CountryThe Ohio Country was the name used in the 18th century for the regions of North America west of the Appalachian Mountains and in the region of the upper Ohio River south of Lake Erie...
, an area claimed by the Virginia Colony and in which the
Ohio CompanyThe Ohio Company, formally known as the Ohio Company of Virginia, was a land speculation company organized for the colonization of the Ohio Country...
, of which he was a stockholder , had made preliminary surveys and some small settlements.
In 1753, Dinwiddie learned the French had built
Fort Presque IsleFort Presque Isle was a fort built by French soldiers in 1753 along Presque Isle Bay at present-day Erie, Pennsylvania...
near
Lake ErieLake Erie is the fourth largest lake of the five Great Lakes in North America, and the thirteenth largest globally. It is the southernmost, shallowest, and smallest by volume of the Great Lakes and therefore also has the shortest average water residence time. It is bounded on the north by the...
and
Fort Le BoeufFort Le Boeuf, , was a fort established by the French in 1753 on a fork of French Creek, near present-day Waterford, in northwest Pennsylvania...
, which he saw as threatening Virginia's interests in the Ohio Country. He sent an eight-man expedition under
George WashingtonGeorge Washington was the commander of the Continental Army in the American Revolutionary War and served as the first President of the United States of America...
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 RiverThe Ohio River is the largest tributary, by volume, of the Mississippi River. It is approximately 981 miles long and is located in the eastern United States....
, where the
AlleghenyThe Allegheny River is a principal tributary of the Ohio River; it is located in the Eastern United States. The Allegheny River joins with the Monongahela River to form the Ohio River at the "Point" of Point State Park in Downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania....
and
MonongahelaThe Monongahela River is a river on the Allegheny Plateau in North-Central West Virginia and southwestern Pennsylvania in the United States...
Rivers merge to form the Ohio (present-day
PittsburghPittsburgh is a city in and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, and the second largest city in the state. Its population was 334,563 at the 2000 census; by 2006, it was estimated to have fallen to 312,819. The population of the seven-county metropolitan area is...
). The French quickly drove off the Virginians and built a larger fort on the site, calling it
Fort DuquesneFort Duquesne was a fort established by the French in 1754, at the junction of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers in what is now downtown Pittsburgh in the state of Pennsylvania....
, in honor of the Marquis de Duquesne, who had recently become governor of
New FranceNew France was the area colonized by France in North America during a period extending from the exploration of the Saint Lawrence River, by Jacques Cartier in 1534, to the cession of New France to Spain and Britain in 1763...
.
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 RiverThe Youghiogheny River , or the Yough for short, is a tributary of the Monongahela River, approximately 122 mi long, in the U.S. states of West Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania...
, eleven miles southeast of present-day
UniontownUniontown is a city in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, 50 miles southeast of Pittsburgh and part of the Pittsburgh Metro Area. Population in 1900, 7,344; in 1910, 13,344; in 1920, 15,692; and in 1940, 21,819. The population was 12,422 at the 2000 census...
. Here he encountered the French in a skirmish on July 3, 1754 and was
forced to surrenderThe Battle of Fort Necessity, or the Battle of the Great Meadows took place on July 3, 1754 in what is now the mountaintop hamlet of Farmington in Fayette County, Pennsylvania. The engagement was one of the first battles of the French and Indian War and George Washington's only military surrender...
. Dinwiddie was subsequently active in rallying other colonies in defense against the French and ultimately prevailed upon the British to send General
Edward BraddockGeneral Edward Braddock was a British soldier and commander-in-chief for North America during the actions at the start of the French and Indian War...
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.