Lord Dunmore's War: The Final Colonial Conflict or the Beginnings of a Revolution?
Lord Dunmore's War:The Final Colonial Conflict or the Beginnings of a Revolution?
Tu-Endie-Wei State Park, lying at the confluence of the Ohio and Kanawha Rivers, is today a tranquil location, a site of reflection, belying its violent past and strategic importance during the imperial wars of the eighteenth century. The Battle of Point Pleasant, fought at the site, was the climax of Lord Dunmore's War of 1774, the last of a series of frontier conflicts that accompanied British expansion into the Ohio Valley. The timing of the battle, falling between the Boston Tea Party and the Battles of Lexington and Concord, and the involvement of figures who would later play key roles in the opening stages of the American Revolution in Virginia, including Lord Dunmore and Andrew Lewis, have influenced how subsequent generations have remembered and memorialized the battle. Almost immediately following the Revolution, the Battle of Point Pleasant was refashioned to suit the mythologies of the new nation by historian John Stuart, whose memoirs promoted the falsehood that Dunmore had collaborated with the Shawnee, thus making Point Pleasant the first battle of the American Revolution.1 Late nineteenth- and twentieth-century historians and editorialists used this theory to great effect in order to buttress West Virginia's claim to a revolutionary past. It served the interests of the young state and therefore reflected popular anxieties of its residents as they sought to establish an identity distinct from Virginia.
The "first battle" historiography resurfaced during coverage of West Virginia's teacher strike, mentioned alongside the creation of the state and the Mine Wars as revolutionary moments in West Virginia history.2 With an eye on the 250th anniversary of the conflict, this essay explores how the historical memory of Dunmore's War and the memorialization of the Battle of Point Pleasant have changed over time and considers how a battle for land and dominion over the Ohio Valley has become foundational to the story of revolutionary Virginia, the evolution of West Virginia exceptionalism after [End Page 107] the Civil War, and, recently, a reckoning with the history of white settler colonialism in Appalachia. The Battle of Point Pleasant was a defining moment in the westward expansion of the American colonies and the fledgling United States, and while significantly important to the revolutionary era, it cannot be considered the first battle of the American Revolution, as later nineteenth-century historiography attempted, due to clear differences in the root factors driving leaders on both sides of Lord Dunmore's War.
A War for Land
To understand the later historiography and memorialization of the battle, the causes and events of Lord Dunmore's War must first be explored. The struggle for control of the Ohio Valley began in the mid-seventeenth century, a time when both Britain and France sought dominance over the trans-Allegheny west. At that time, neither imperial power possessed the resources able to assert supremacy over the region. This situation changed in the middle of the eighteenth century and in the thirty years prior to Lord Dunmore's War. By 1750, British settlement west of the Appalachian Mountains intensified the Anglo/French rivalry in the Ohio Country. The two primary French colonies in North America were Canada and Louisiana, and as these colonies grew, the Ohio Valley became an important passage between the two.3 To defend this route, the French built a series of forts and formed strong alliances with the Iroquois Confederacy, Shawnee, Mingo, and Delaware, Native American groups that had lost ancestral land to the British. As such, they were far more likely to ally with the less populated French, who posed little threat to their sovereignty. The only advantage held by the British was their ability to trade higher quality, cheaper goods.4
Following the end of the Seven Years' War, the British absorbed New France into their empire and began to fortify the region. Native Americans of the Ohio Valley, particularly the Shawnee and Mingo, viewed this as a provocation and further encroachment, and they responded with force. Over the next two years, a Native American confederacy led by Pontiac, an Ottawa chieftain, attacked numerous frontier forts...
