Proclamation of 1763 Date: October 7, 1763 Author: John Pownall; Board of Trade, Great Britain Geographic Area: Britain; American colonies Summary Overview The Proclamation of 1763, issued October 7, 1763, by residing in British North America, or living in an Indian Great Britain’s Board of Trade under King George III, community along the Appalachian divide. The procla- represented an attempt to control settlement and trade mation transformed colonial-imperial land discussions on the western frontier of Britain’s North American colo- and political relationships for the next decade. The edict nies. The Proclamation of 1763 essentially closed the challenged colonial conceptions about who “owned” the Ohio Valley to settlement by colonists by defi ning the land and who should direct the settlement of it. The re- area west of the Appalachian Mountains as Indian land sulting salvos showed just how divergent colonial and and declaring that the Indians were under the protec- imperial thoughts were regarding the future of North tion of the king. No settlement or land purchases were American settlement. to be conducted there without the Crown’s approval. Even before Britain and France signed the Treaty of The proclamation also defi ned four new colonies that Paris in February of 1763, ending the Seven Years’ War, Great Britain had won from France and Spain in the English politicians had decided to reassess the imperial- just-concluded Seven Years’ War (1756–1763, known colonial relationship. Many English offi cials believed in its American manifestation as the French and Indian that their North American colonies had shown an utter War). These colonies were Quebec (which in fact had disregard for England’s needs during the just-completed long been settled), East and West Florida, and the island confl ict. In military and economic matters the colonists of Grenada. had thought only of their self-interest, not Great Britain’s. The British hoped by this decree to prevent the con- The result had been not only a major war but also a dou- fl icts between colonists and Indians that had played a bling of Britain’s national debt—a direct consequence part in the recent costly war and in fomenting a new of colonial autonomy. The years preceding the war had Anglo-Indian war that had just broken out, today often seen tentative moves to impose a royal presence in North called Pontiac’s Rebellion (1763–1765) for the name of America, but they had not been enough. The war had the Ottawa chief who was a principal leader on the Indi- shown just how independent the American colonies had an side. They also hoped to encourage settlement in the become. Many a writer advised British offi cials to re- newly gained colonies while, at the same time, ending think and restructure their relationship with the Ameri- or at least controlling the seemingly endless westward can colonies. As the historian P. J. Marshall once noted, stream of colonists, who in this and other respects had one “lesson of war for Britain’s rulers was that empire begun to appear too independent. While most scholars required the effective exercise of authority”(Marshall, p. have focused on its impact on Anglo-Indian relations 89) Now Whitehall offi cials saw the postwar period as along the frontier, it is important to remember that the an opportunity to reassert parliamentary control over the Proclamation of 1763 suggested the permanency of Brit- colonies. ish troops in colonial America. One area in which imperial offi cials were very proac- tive in their assertion of royal authority was Indian af- Defi ning Moment fairs. The Crown called representatives of several colo- The context for the Proclamation of 1763 depended on nies to the meeting known as the Albany Congress of one’s location within the emerging British Empire. The 1754 largely to address Indian land complaints, and the act’s implications differed according to whether the per- decision in 1755 to create an Indian superintendency son considering it was within the chambers of Whitehall, system showed growing imperial concern about colonial 3 DDDD 118th8th CCentury.inddentury.indd 3 99/8/2017/8/2017 33:23:26:23:26 PPMM 4 • THE AMERICAN COLONIES IN RESISTANCE AND REVOLUTION autonomy regarding Indian relations. Nothing worried chain in 1753, English policy makers were unprepared. policy makers more than colonial efforts to expropriate One result of colonial actions had been that Indian Indian land, often illegally. Indeed, from London’s per- agents such as William Johnson spent the fi rst half of the spective it was colonial claims to western lands and the Seven Years’ War reestablishing Indian alliances rather colonists’ insistence on settling these lands that had pre- than securing Indian allies to fi ght against the French. cipitated the Seven Years’ War. The Crown might have Many of the issues that Hendrick had raised were still hoped to forestall such a confl ict, but it was unable to unresolved at the end of the confl ict. do so. And when the colonial confl ict became an inter- Imperial offi cials, when looking at an enlarged territo- national confl ict, imperial offi cials found they could not rial base and an economic crisis at home, knew that good focus solely on their North American colonists, even if Indian relations were cheaper to maintain than wars of they had wanted to. conquest. Nevertheless, peaceful relations were going to While the colonies thought only of the conquest of be diffi cult if unrestricted colonial settlement of the West Canada, London offi cials needed to concern themselves was allowed to continue. From Britain’s perspective, this with affairs in the Caribbean, Europe, Africa, and Asia. problem was compounded by the seeming indifference The result was a constant struggle between royal and of the colonists. Many settlers, and not just veterans who colonial offi cials over the war in North America. Colo- had been promised land for service, had begun moving nial governments complained about paying for the war into western Pennsylvania and the Ohio Valley. Fort Pitt while having no say in how it was prosecuted. The British (on the site of present-day Pittsburgh) served as more statesman William Pitt’s promise in 1758 to reimburse than “an imposing symbol of imperial presence and colonial regimes for the costs of the war solved some of a threat to Indian independence” (Callaway, p. 55). It the problems, but at a steep price; it contributed mightily served as a beacon for squatters and settlers. to England’s enormous debt crisis. Perhaps more impor- Complicating the situation were competing colonial tant, the colonists’ audacity to challenge London on both territorial claims, such as the struggle between Pennsyl- money and military matters revealed how much power vania and Connecticut over the Wyoming Valley. South colonial legislatures had assumed over the decades. Carolina and Georgia had their own territorial confl icts. Once the war ended, the Board of Trade decided to The original charters extended beyond the Allegheny and assume powers previously exercised by the colonies and Appalachian mountains, and now settlers used these give these powers to royal offi cials. The Crown was not charters to justify their western expansion. Making mat- going to return to the pre-1754 status quo in colonial- ters from the home government’s viewpoint worse was imperial relations. Nowhere was this new assertion more the fact that settlement west of the mountains put the obvious—and, from a colonial perspective, more danger- settlers beyond the geographic reach of both imperial ous—than in Parliament’s decision regarding western and colonial offi cials. Rivers there fl owed away from the lands. Known as the Proclamation of 1763, the act closed Atlantic Ocean. Geography dictated that settlers turn off the Ohio Valley to colonial settlement. Colonists and their back on England and look toward the Ohio and their governments had assumed that the victory over the Mississippi rivers for their future. Imperial offi cials knew French had offered them this region. The Proclamation that their enlarged empire required addressing this de- of 1763 therefore marks the moment when colonists be- velopment. gan “to reformulate their understanding of Britain” as a The result of both Indian unhappiness and colonial bastion of republican virtue and see it instead as a cor- movement was a decision by Whitehall offi cials to re- rupt tyrannical regime (Shalev, p. 122). think colonial expansion. Britain’s newly won lands in In their reconception of England, colonists usually ig- North America offered the Crown not only an opportu- nored their own actions regarding their Indian neighbors nity to rein in this expansion—the cause of the war—but and the growing rift between the two peoples. London also an opportunity to remind the colonies of where ulti- offi cials, however, did not. They remembered how colo- mate power lay. nial land greed had precipitated the war. Militarily this was important because England’s strategy toward North Author Biography America was predicated upon her Covenant Chain of Seemingl y coming out of nowhere and issued to address Friendship with the Six Nations Iroquois. When Hen- a specifi c event, the Proclamation of 1763 actually had drick, a Mohawk spokesman, symbolically broke the roots extending back nearly a decade. In 1754, when the DDDD 118th8th CCentury.inddentury.indd 4 99/8/2017/8/2017 33:23:26:23:26 PPMM Proclamation of 1763 • 5 Seven Years’ War was just brewing, the British colonial Indian territory and the new colonies. They would serve statesman Thomas Pownall (1722–1805) wrote a pro- a dual mission. First, they would stand as a reminder of posal for colonizing the interior of North America with British power.