Conotocarious was a nickname given to George Washington by Iroquois people in 1753 while travelling west as an officer for the Virginia militia representing the British. While this signifier meaning “town destroyer” has various legacies such as the ordered destruction of Iroquois crops and property during the Sullivan Campaign in 1779, its origin lies over two decades earlier during the Allegheny Expedition in reference to his great-grandfather.1
In the fall of 1753, as French forces moved into the Ohio Valley to build a series of forts, George Washington offered his services to the Governor of Virginia as an envoy to carry a message to the French commander Jacques Le Gardeur. Washington received his commission on October 31, 1753 and set out immediately. Washington was accompanied by a small group to assist him on his journey. Jacob Van Braam, a Dutch immigrant, served as a French interpreter. Prominent frontiersman Christopher Gist was also part of the convoy west. As a part of his mission, Washington was required to meet with several Native American leaders to forge diplomatic relationships in the region. As a result, Barnaby Currin and John McGuire, traders with familiarity of the local Native populations, were also involved in the group, as well as two additional men, Henry Steward and William Jenkins. Nearly one month after leaving Williamsburg, Virginia, Washington arrived at Logstown (near present-day Ambridge, Pennsylvania), a principal trading town in the Ohio River region.
Washington met with Monacatoocha of the Oneida branch of the Iroquois Nation, as well as with Tanacharison (or the "Half-King") from the Seneca Nation, another Iroquois Confederacy tribe. The Half-King had already met with the French commandant, whom he found to be "very stern" and brusque. The commander had compared the Native Americans to "Flies or Musquito's," and Tanacharison was told that the land belonged to France, and that "If People will be rul'd by me they may expect Kindness but not else."2
From their meeting, Washington gathered information from Tanacharison about the numbers and locations of the French forts, as well as intelligence concerning individuals taken prisoner by the French. Washington shared details of his mission with the Native Americans, however he was asked to wait until other Indigenous allies arrived to meet before proceeding further west. Washington recorded that: "As I found it impossible to get off without affronting them in the most egregious Manner, I consented to stay."3
It was on this trip and possibly during the course of these negotiations with the Native Americans that Washington was given a nickname by Tanacharison that hearkened back to one of Washington's forebearers. In the late seventeenth century, Washington's great-grandfather John Washington participated in an effort to suppress a Native American uprising in Virginia and Maryland. This conflict involved members of both the Susquehannah and the Piscataway, an Algonquian nation that lived across the Potomac River from Mount Vernon. Although five leaders had made efforts to negotiate under a flag of truce, colonists massacred them. The Susquehannahs gave John Washington who was a participant an Algonquian name that translated to "town taker" or "devourer of villages."
The elder Washington's reputation was remembered and when the Native Americans met his great-grandson in 1753 they called George Washington by the same name, Conotocarious. Washington later wrote that this name "being registered in their Manner and communicated to other Nations of Indians, has been remembered by them ever since in all their transactions during the late War [referencing the American Revolution].4 Although Washington was engaging with members of the Seneca and Oneida Nations as allies in the context of the Alleghany Expedition, this nickname remained afterwards.
Washington referred to himself as "Conotocaurious" in a letter that he wrote to interpreter and negotiator Andrew Montour in October of 1755 expressing his desire that the Oneida resettle along the Potomac. Washington wrote, "Recommend me kindly to our good friend Monacatootha, and others; tell them how happy it would make Conotocarious to have an opportunity of taking them by the hand at Fort Cumberland, and how glad he would be to treat them as brothers of our Great King beyond the waters."5 Decades later, Washington evoked this title again in a communication with Seneca leaders in 1790.6
Notes:
1. “From George Washington to Major General John Sullivan, 31 May 1779,” Founders Online, National Archives.
2. "Journey to the French Commandant, 31 October 1753-16 January 1754," The Diaries of George Washington. Vol. 1, ed. Donald Jackson (Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia), 137.
3. Ibid., 140.
4. Quoted in David Humphreys, Life of General Washington With George Washington's Remarks, ed. Rosemarie Zagarri (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2006), 10. This is a modern edition, the quote originally comes from Washington's own biographical memoranda supplied to Humphreys in preparation of the biography. The biographical memorand can be found in Mount Vernon's manuscript collection.
5. "George Washington to Andrew Montour, 10 October 1755," The Writings of George Washington, Vol. 1 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1931), 198.
6. "To George Washington from the Seneca Chiefs, 1 December 1790," Founders Online, National Archives.
Bibliography:
Calloway, Colin G. The Indian World of George Washington: The First President, the First Americans, and the Birth of the Nation. Oxford University Press, 2018.
Coe, Alexis. You Never Forget Your First: A Biography of George Washington. Penguin Publishing Group, 2021.
Valsania, Maurizio. First Among Men: George Washington and the Myth of American Masculinity. John Hopkins University Press, 2022.
