Major General Alexander Spotswood was a British army officer, explorer, and colonial administrator who served as the governor of Virginia from 1710 to 1722. After an unsatisfactory military career, in 1710, he was appointed as Virginia's governor, a post he held for twelve years. During that period, Spotswood engaged in the exploration of the territories beyond the western border, of which he was the first to see the economic potentials. In 1716, he organised and led an expedition west of the mountains, known as Knights of the Golden Horseshoe Expedition, with which he established the Crown's dominion over the territory between the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Shenandoah Valley, thus taking a decisive step for the future British expansion to the West.