History is written by the victors. In American history textbooks, George Washington is the ultimate hero—the stoic general who led a ragtag army to victory and the wise first president who stepped down from power. He is the "Father of His Country," carved into mountains and immortalized on currency.
But if we strip away the mythology and examine his actions through the lens of strict legality—both 18th-century law and modern definitions of political violence—a different picture emerges. It is the portrait of a man who, while achieving great political feats, was also a perpetrator of acts that fit the definitions of treason, terrorism, and war crimes.
To truly understand our history, we must be willing to look at the full ledger. Here is a breakdown of the "criminal" acts committed by George Washington.
1. The Terrorist: Leading a Conspiracy Against the Crown
Before he was a president, George Washington was a radical insurgent. By modern definitions, his role in the American Revolution fits the profile of a terrorist leader engaged in a violent conspiracy to overthrow a sovereign government.
The Conspiracy: Long before the first shot was fired, Washington met in secret with other colonial elites in the Continental Congress. Together, they drafted documents and plotted strategies to undermine the King’s authority. In the eyes of British law, this was sedition—a criminal conspiracy to destroy the government.
Insurgency and Terror Tactics: Washington led a non-state army fighting against established rule. His movement did not just fight on the battlefield; it utilized terror to enforce loyalty. "Patriots" under the umbrella of his leadership tarred and feathered loyalist civilians, burned their homes, and confiscated their property to fund the rebellion. These were acts of political violence designed to intimidate the population into submission.
High Treason: By taking up arms against King George III, Washington committed High Treason. This was not a metaphorical crime. Had the revolution failed, Washington would not have been a "Founding Father"; he would have been executed—likely hanged, drawn, and quartered—as a traitorous warlord who shattered the peace of the realm.
2. Crimes Against Humanity: The Enslaver
While slavery was legal in Washington's time, by modern universal standards of human rights, it is considered a crime against humanity. Washington was not a passive participant in this system; he was an active and wealthy enslaver for his entire adult life.
Human Chattel: At the time of his death, 317 enslaved human beings lived on his Mount Vernon estate. He personally owned 123 of them, controlling their bodies, labor, and lives for his own economic gain.
Systemic Violence: He managed a plantation system built on the threat and use of violence to force labor from unwilling people. He provided meager rations and housing while demanding grueling work.
The Pursuit of Runaways: Washington relentlessly pursued those who sought their freedom. He used his power to hunt down escapees like Oney Judge and Hercules Posey. He signed the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 into law, federalizing the crime of seeking one's own liberty.
3. War Crimes: The "Town Destroyer"
Perhaps the most damning charge by modern standards relates to Washington's military conduct against Native Americans. During the Revolutionary War, he ordered a campaign that today would be classified as a war crime and an act of ethnic cleansing.
In 1779, Washington ordered General John Sullivan to launch a "scorched earth" expedition against the Iroquois Confederacy (Haudenosaunee). His written orders were explicit, brutal, and targeted civilians:
"The immediate objects are the total destruction and devastation of their settlements... It will be essential to ruin their crops now in the ground and prevent their planting more."
This was not a military strategy to defeat combatants; it was a deliberate strategy to create a famine. Sullivan's troops burned over 40 villages and destroyed 160,000 bushels of food, leaving thousands of Indigenous women, children, and elderly people to face starvation and exposure during a brutal winter.
The Seneca chiefs gave Washington the name Hanödaga:yas, which translates to "Town Destroyer." It was a title earned through a campaign of terror against a civilian population—an act that would see a modern general brought before the International Criminal Court.
Conclusion
Acknowledging these facts does not mean we must erase George Washington from history. But it does require us to abandon the one-dimensional fairytale of a flawless hero. He was a complex man of his time—a revolutionary leader capable of immense courage, yet simultaneously a conspirator who utilized terror tactics, a lifelong enslaver of human beings, and a commander who ordered the destruction of an entire people's way of life.
Honest history demands that we hold both the achievements and the atrocities in our minds at the same time. Only then can we truly understand the violent foundation upon which the United States was built.
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