The battle at Point Pleasant, 250 years ago, shows how it is essential that we recognize how bewilderment can shape history. The confusion at Pittsburgh transformed into something else, something much more recognizable and familiar to colonists who were having a difficult time understanding what was going on.
They were encouraged to do so because Governor Dunmore and his man John Connolly grasped the power of bewilderment as a state of play. They understood how confusion as a constant state of mind can offer political opportunities. Chaos agents (like Dr. John Connolly) thrive in a climate of bewilderment. To gain advantage, they sow misinformation, cast aspersions on their opponents, and rile people up even to violence. They act decisively when knowledge about something—a boundary, a dispute—is imperfect. Or they take steps to turn something that is settled, like an election, and purposely bewilder it.
Donald Trump and his political chaos agents are not the first ones to sow bewilderment and then exploit it to their advantage. There were several of them at work in Pittsburgh in the 1770s, men who were supposed to be working for governments or kings but who were really only out for themselves. They were all trying to use confusion to improve their futures and fortunes and conquer the Ohio country. We barely remember their names, but what they did there would have consequences for a quarter millennium of American history.
The American Revolution offers a lavish buffet of examples of bewilderment, both as a state of mind and a state of play. A year after the battle at Point Pleasant, George Washington had taken command of a “Continental Army” outside Boston. Colonists all over North America marched and shouldered arms to fight against King George, its own baffling experience. Governor Dunmore was drawing up plans to cut the rebellion in two, and he enlisted his man John Connolly to pull his scheme off. The two plotted for Connolly to ride again to Pittsburgh and encourage the Native peoples he had recently fought to seek revenge on the Virginians. Connolly was to lead a Native invasion of northern Virginia while Dunmore would emancipate the enslaved people in Virginia and lead them on a military campaign against the rebellious colonies. Where should these two fearsome forces link up? Mount Vernon, they decided.