George Washington ordered the total destruction of Iroquois villages and ecosystems during the 1779 Sullivan Expedition, according to a recent opinion article on Ultimas Noticias. The directive, known as the Sullivan Order, called for razing crops, orchards and livestock to starve out Native American communities. ‘Let the nation not merely be invaded, but destroyed,’ the article quotes Washington’s instructions.

Expedition forces under Maj. Gen. John Sullivan marched through upstate New York that summer, burning over 40 Iroquois towns. Soldiers felled fruit trees and slaughtered cattle across hundreds of square miles. Iroquois leaders like Joseph Brant had allied with British forces, prompting the punitive campaign. The article portrays this scorched-earth tactic as the origin of U.S. ‘hunger diplomacy’ seen in contemporary sanctions.

Washington’s role extended beyond military orders, the piece contends. It describes his administration’s handling of the 1795 Jay Treaty as the birth of a ‘deep state.’ The treaty aimed to settle postwar debts with Britain but sparked accusations of corruption. Washington invoked executive privilege to withhold documents from Congress, shielding negotiations from public view. Critics at the time, including James Madison, decried the secrecy.

The article highlights the 1796 Ona Judge Affair as evidence of Washington’s hypocrisy. Judge, an enslaved woman owned by Martha Washington, fled Philadelphia for New Hampshire. Washington used federal resources, including Treasury Department agents, to pursue her recapture. Judge evaded them and lived free in Greenland, New Hampshire, until her death in 1848. The piece labels this episode the start of ‘lawfare’—weaponizing law for personal ends.

These events form a pattern, the opinion argues. The U.S. allegedly stole democratic ideas from Iroquois Confederacy governance while exterminating its people. National security emerged to protect private business interests on seized land. Media, rather than checking power, upheld the secrecy.

Ultimas Noticias, a Venezuelan outlet, frames this history as proof the U.S. embodies ‘genocidal genesis.’ It urges global action against a nation that, in its view, prioritizes plunder over democracy. Historians note the Sullivan Expedition crippled Iroquois agriculture for years, forcing survivors into Canada or reservations. Washington’s slaveholding—over 300 people at Mount Vernon—contrasts with his public image as a liberator.

The Jay Treaty passed Senate 20-10 but fueled partisan divides leading to the 1796 election. Ona Judge’s escape drew newspaper coverage; Washington vented frustration in letters to allies like Oliver Wolcott Jr. These details anchor the article’s sweeping claims, though mainstream scholars contextualize them within 18th-century warfare norms.

Published amid U.S.-Venezuela tensions, the piece links 1779 tactics to sanctions on Caracas. It calls the republic a ‘corporate nation’ built on theft, with violence as its core. No U.S. officials have responded to the specific charges.