George Washington: The First American Hero
Today, George Washington is an American icon, a symbol of patriotism, strength, and humility. His honesty has become the source of legend, to the point that it is easy to forget that he was a real human being with significant political and military accomplishments. Perhaps what is equally surprising about Washington as the durability of his image is the fact that he was just as beloved in his own era. Death sometimes erases some of the more unflattering aspects of a historical figure's legacy from the collective memory but Washington was always revered, even in life. In fact, many of his contemporaries wished to make him a king after he helped secure American independence, an honor which he refused. Instead, he went on to become the nation's first Chief Executive.
George Washington first came to political prominence in colonial America due to his military leadership during the French and Indian Wars. He was born to a land-owning Virginian family but the Washington family came upon hard times after the untimely death of his father. Young George never had a gentleman's education due to his widowed mother's financial struggles but he did find work as a surveyor (Knott). After his brother passed away from tuberculosis, Washington lobbied for his brother's military position and received it, despite his youth and inexperience (Knot).
The initial conflict the young Washington presided over involved a dispute over the Ohio Valley between the British and the French. At the time, acting as an envoy for the British, Washington built a fort in the disputed area to prevent further French encroachment (Knott). While reinforcing the fort, Fort Necessity, Washington...
George Washington took the oath of office to become the first President of the United States of America on April 30, 1789. Yet his influence on the history and development of the United States and on its office of President started some 35 years earlier, when, as a young man, he led a small force of militia men into a battle later called a massacre. Had one only this beginning
George Washington There have been many people in American history who have dedicated their lives to the people and progress of the nation, and perhaps none are more notable than our very own one dollar bill - George Washington, who not only conjures up images of freedom and democracy, but of also the birth of America; a founding-father who was the first to govern the people under their own flag. George Washington
He also ordered that the "Negros...are...to be taught to read and write; and to be brought up to some useful occupation..." And they are to be "comfortably clothed and fed by my heirs while they live..." Washington also wrote in his will that he "...expressly forbid the Sale, or transportation out of the said Commonwealth, of any Slave I may die possessed of." He did order the immediate freedom of
George Washington's Marriage George Washington was above common and ordinary, marked by birth and breeding directly descended from the great kings of the Scots, Malcolm II and III, through the thane Gospatrick, with lineage including a Plantagenet connection and ties to the Anglican Church (http://www.sar.org/sarmag/GW.htm).The majority of the Washingtons' prosperity came through marriages in the male line to wealthy widows, bringing increased landholdings and greater status (http://www.sar.org/sarmag/GW.htm).John Washington was the first
On page 124 of his book, Hirschfeld published a post-war letter from Washington to Marquis de Lafayette, a Frenchman of African ethnicity, who had served the general very well in the Revolutionary War (the French were allies of the Americans against the British). Lafayette had written to Washington on February 5, 1783, congratulating the general on winning the war. Lafayette referred to Washington as "…my dear General, my father, my
Not only did King George remove the self-government rights of the American colonists, but he also reduced those colonists to a status that was even lower than his loyal British subjects (Harvey & O'Brien, 2004). They did not even have the same rights has the average and common British citizen. Some of these rights that the Americans suddenly found themselves lacking were rights to appropriate taxation, trial by jury, and
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