Fort Necessity
Fort Necessity was a small stockade in western Pennsylvania built by Virginia Militia led by George Washington in 1754.
Beginning in the 1740s both England and France had merchants engaged in the fur trade with the Native Americans in the Ohio Country. By the 1750s, English colonists, especially the investors in the Ohio Company, also hoped to convert the wilderness into viable farms.
Each side moved in the 1750s to deny the other access to the Ohio Country. In the early 1750s, French soldiers captured several English trading posts. They also built Fort Duquesne (modern-day Pittsburgh), so that they could defend their territory from English incursions. In 1754, George Washington and a small force of Virginia militiamen marched to the Ohio Country to drive the French from the region. Hoping to capture Fort Duquesne, Washington quickly realized that the fort was too strong. Washington retreated from the fort and constructed Fort Necessity. If he could not drive the French from the area, he would at least contest their presence with his own fortification. He also hoped to convince Native Americans of England's military dominance of the region, and to persuade the Indians to ally themselves with the British rather than the French. A force of French soldiers and their native allies overwhelmed Fort Necessity on July 3, 1754. This engagement is considered by many historians to be the start of the French and Indian War in the New World. The French permitted Washington and his men to return to Virginia safely. They, however, had to promise that the English would not build another fort west of the Appalachian Mountains for at least one year. England did not officially declare war until 1756.
References and Suggested Reading
- Anderson, Fred. Crucible of War: The Seven Years' War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766. New York: Alfred A. Knopf: Random House, 2000. - Available from Amazon.com
- Barr, Daniel P., ed. The Boundaries Between Us: Natives and Newcomers Along the Frontiers of the Old Northwest Territory, 1750-1850. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2006. - Available from Amazon.com
- Bond, Beverley W., Jr. The Foundations of Ohio. Columbus, OH: Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society, 1941.
- Dixon, David. Never Come to Peace Again: Pontiac's Uprising and the Fate of the British Empire in North America. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2005. - Available from Amazon.com
- Dowd, Gregory Evans. War Under Heaven: Pontiac, the Indian Nations & the British Empire. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002. - Available from Amazon.com
- Flavell, Julie, and Stephen Conway, eds. Britain and America go to War: The Impact of War and Warfare in Anglo-America, 1754-1815. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2004. - Available from Amazon.com
- Fowler, William M., Jr. Empires at War: The French and Indian War and the Struggle for North America, 1754-1763. New York: Walker & Company, 2005. - Available from Amazon.com
- Harrington, Jean Carl. New Light on Washington's Fort Necessity: A Report on the Archeological Explorations at Fort Necessity. Richmond, VA: Eastern National Park and Monument Association, 1957.
- Hurt, R. Douglas. The Ohio Frontier: Crucible of the Old Northwest, 1720-1830. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1996. - Available from Amazon.com
- Knepper, George. Ohio and Its People. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2003. - Available from Amazon.com
- Kopperman, Paul E. Braddock at the Monongahela. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1977. - Available from Amazon.com
- Nester, William R. The Great Frontier War: Britain, France, and the Imperial Struggle for North America, 1607-1755. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2000. - Available from Amazon.com
- O'Donnell, James H., III. Ohio's First Peoples. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2004. - Available from Amazon.com
- Ward, Matthew C. Breaking the Backcountry: The Seven Years' War in Virginia and Pennsylvania, 1754-1765. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2003. - Available from Amazon.com
Time Periods
Citation
"Fort Necessity", Ohio History Central, July 1, 2005, http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/entry.php?rec=714
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