The Patriot Post® · America 250: The Proclamation of 1763

The French and Indian War, known as the Seven Years’ War in Europe, had pitted the French and their allies, several native nations, against the English colonists, fighting alongside the British military. When the 1763 Peace of Paris was signed, the British crown more than doubled the lands controlled in what would become the United States. From the western boundaries of the original 13 colonies, the English now “owned” all lands to the banks of the Mississippi River, including the fertile Ohio River Valley, originally controlled by the French.

The English colonies were jubilant; in an economy where land ownership was considered inheritable wealth and success, many colonists were anxious to pack their goods and move west for a new beginning.

However, there was a problem.

The British Parliament and King George III were concerned about the implications of that migration westward. Yes, the lands were under British control, but the crown remembered the recent uprising of the native peoples in those regions. Pontiac’s Rebellion had begun in May 1763 and had resulted in hundreds of deaths, both among the colonists and the indigenous. Parliament also considered the lands as a possible source of wealth for a crown strapped with debt from the years of warfare. If peace could be nurtured with the native population, the British government might recoup some of its expenditures, but that depended on maintaining control of the lands while a short-range plan was drafted.

That plan ultimately was manifested in the Proclamation of 1763, which announced the crown’s two major objectives. First, no colonists would be “allowed” to move west of the Alleghany and Appalachian Mountains and establish residency by constructing homes and claiming lands. To compound that directive, those who had already moved west and across the mountains were ordered to return to their previous homes. Since the Proclamation of 1763 was a “royal proclamation,” the colonists had no input in the decision nor a legitimate recourse to protest its enactment.

But they were angry. Very angry.

The veterans of that conflict believed that they had earned the land by their participation — and, in their eyes, their skill — in fighting against the French and the Indians. For many of them, they had claimed lands across those mountains prior to war breaking out in 1756. To be ordered now, seven years later, to abandon their homes and the improvements each had made on their lands was the height of insult. After all, the colonists believed that the war had been won — not by the red-coated British military unfamiliar with frontier fighting, but by the thousands of men who had conquered the wilderness and gained a knowledge of fighting against the French and Indians.

Additionally, many of the wealthiest colonial leaders had already formed “land acquisition companies” and had designs on those lands. Those investors lost vast amounts of capital and pledged to reclaim those losses. The volatility of the situation increased since investors’ land grants had been gifted before the war commenced, and additional land grants had been issued by the colonial governors immediately following the cessation of fighting. Those colonial leaders and investors, including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and others, felt personally betrayed.

In reality, the British government did not intend for the Proclamation line to be a permanent border for the colonists, but perception is more important than reality. No one in Parliament explained that it was a temporary measure until peace could be gained with the indigenous peoples or a land-grant program could be designed and implemented. In the absence of an explanation, the colonists and colonial leaders saw their wartime efforts casually dismissed and their chances for wealth and economic stability dashed.

Ultimately, new lines would be drawn, but not for several years. In the meantime, colonists in the South — predominantly Scots, Irish, and Scotch-Irish — simply reacted as they had for hundreds of years when plagued by English decrees: they ignored the British laws. They moved westward, or they refused to leave their lands west of the Appalachians. In the New England and Middle Atlantic colonies, a similar pattern of behavior occurred. Colonists moved into the upper Ohio Valley, laid claim to former French forts and lands, and engaged in trade.

One question created by the Proclamation would become a perpetual question: Did the Proclamation establish sovereign Indian nations?

Most historians agree that the Proclamation of 1763 escalated the disunity between the English crown and the English colonists. How significant was that anger? Every drop of rain waters the ground…