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The Proclamation of 1763: A Temporary & Permanent Solution
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By Michael
Suddard
The year 1763 saw an end to the Seven Years war in Europe.
However, tensions were on the rise in North America between British settlers, French
settlers and Amerindians. There were two main issues facing the British
Crown. The first issue was what colonial
possessions of France would the British acquire in the
Treaty of Paris? This problem was quickly solved when “the peace treaty was
formally ratified in Paris and passed in the British
parliament” in 1763.
However, the boundaries of the former colony of New France were never formally defined. The second issue was what the British would
do with the Amerindian population and its continued rebellion against British
colonial rule under the leadership of Pontiac.
The British Crown needed to move quickly in an attempt
to quell the problems within North America before they got out of control. The expediency in which problems were
erupting in North America required a quick response from the government in London.
However, the issues concerning Amerindian nations required extensive
consultation and treaty making. The
Proclamation of 1763, therefore, was meant as a temporary measure in order to
pacify the Amerindian populations by the Crown until further treaties could be
signed. The proclamation also clarified
the borders and governing structure of the territories that the British
possessed in North America following the Treaty of Paris on a permanent basis. In order to fully understand the reasons as
to why issues in British North America required both temporary and permanent
solutions, the causes, clauses of the Proclamation of 1763 and the reactions to
the proclamation need to be fully investigated.
The causes for the issuance of the Proclamation of
1763 are easier to explain if each factor is isolated individually. One of the main causes was the French defeat
following the Seven Years War in Europe and the British Conquest of North America.
The French, “in September 1760,… burned their standards, boarded ships and went
home.”
These French troops left behind French speaking farmers and businessmen
that needed to be dealt with. Also, what
borders would the former French colony be allowed to keep? Therefore, the solution to this issue was to
define the colony’s boundaries and to define how this new British colony was
going to be governed.
Another problem was the Amerindian reaction to the
signing of the Treaty of Paris on the 10th
of February 1763 by France.
The concern of the Amerindians was made known to the British
superintendent general of Indian affairs, Sir. William Johnson, by his deputy, George Croghan,
who was stationed at Fort Pitt.
Croghan wrote:
By letters I have rec’d from Major Gladwin & Cap’t Campbell (at Detroit) it appears that the Indians in
them parts are very uneasy in their minds, since they have heard that so much
of the Country is ceded to Great Britain, and indeed Indian Nations hereabouts
are full as uneasy, as till now they always expected Canada would be given back
to the French on a Peace. They say the
French had no Right to give up their Country to the English.
The problem, as
George Croghan was noting, was that the Amerindians
believed the war was “the concern of the combatants in which they (the
Aboriginals) were involved only as fighting allies; they had no conception that
their lands were at stake.”
Also, the Amerindians pointed out that they had not been conquered, it
was the French. Therefore, the
Amerindians were questioning how the French were giving Amerindian land to the
English without Amerindian permission.
Another issue the Amerindians were
concerned about was the westward expansion of American settlement onto, what
the Amerindians claimed, to be their lands.
Also, the Amerindian allies of the British during the war believed that
their people would be receiving better trade deals. These better trade deals did not materialize
following the capitulation of the French.
Leading Amerindian Historian Olive Patricia Dickason
in her book, Canada’s First Nations: A History of Founding Peoples from
Earliest Times, outlines the Amerindian problem:
Britain’s Amerindian allies
had been led to believe that once the French were driven out, encroaching
settlers would also go; but when the French left, more settlers than ever moved
into their territories. The allies had
been promised that with peace they would be getting better deals in trade;
instead, British traders raised their prices, claiming that the had had to sell
unprofitably low during the war. During
hostilities the British co-operated with Amerindian leaders to limit the liquor
trade in order to preserve them as allies, but with peace they displayed much
less interest in protecting the Natives from the traffic that was so
deleterious to them yet highly profitable to settlers. Traders swarmed into Amerindian territory,
where they all to often behaved badly; the Amerindians were powerless to
control them, and colonial governments found it inexpedient to do so. The British were aware that such behaviour
and malpractices were causing the Amerindians to desert from their alliances.
The Amerindians
were agitated that European traders were not being adequately supervised in
their business deals with Amerindian nations.
The British needed to move quickly to quell the problem before an
Amerindian rebellion occurred.
While the Proclamation of 1763 was being drafted in London, a rebellion amongst Amerindians
erupted. On the 7th
of May 1763 Fort Detroit came under siege by Amerindians who
were led by an Ottawa War Chief, Pontiac.
At Fort Detroit, the British wanted to end the siege
before relations with Amerindian tribes further deteriorated. This lead to Sir William Johnson to send out
Wampum belts to reconfirm with their Amerindian allies that the British “had no
intention to possess or claim Aboriginal territory in the vicinity of Detroit.” The
circulation of Wampum belts seemed to work as the siege of Detroit ended in 1763. However, a more likely explanation would be
that the Amerindians needed to reach their winter hunting grounds before winter
set in. By the end of
the uprising, Pontiac had led an Amerindian coalition that
would ultimately bring down eight British forts and lay siege to both British
forts located at Pittsburgh and Detroit. The
British needed to quell the situation in North America through the autumn and winter months
if there was any hope of repairing the strained relations between themselves
and their Amerindian allies.
While Pontiac’s uprising was raging in North America, British officials in London were drafting new regulations to
sort out the British problems in North America.
Lord Egremont, the secretary of state for the
Southern Department, by May of 1763 had already determined the basic policy and
turned over the document to the proper administrative channels in order to
secure an official proclamation. Lord Egremont,
therefore, turned to the British Board of Trade for assistance. The British Board of Trade called upon their
secretary, John Pownall, to edit Lord Egremont’s
proposed policies for British North America. Franklin B. Wickwire,
in his article “John Pownall and British Colonial
Policy,” examines Pownall’s contemplations over the
Proclamation in terms of its relations to the problems concerning Amerindian
lands and how the proclamation was eventually proclaimed:
Pownall objected to the division of Canada
into two parts, although Egremont had suggested it,
and the Board did not ever advise partition.
The Proclamation adopted as a western boundary for the colonies the
geographical line Secretary Pownall proposed. Although the need for establishing such a
line had long been agreed upon, its precise location had never been settled. After its second report on August 5 the Board
drafted the Proclamation. Attorney
General Charles Yorke examined it. Pownall re-examined
it and altered some parts, stressing in the document the temporary nature of
the policy of limiting westward expansion.
The Council then approved the Proclamation and …King [George III] signed
it.
With the Proclamation of 1763 outlining the division
of lands and how the colonies of North America would be governed proclaimed in England, the process of peacefully
implementing the policies in North America needed to be undertaken.
The Proclamation of 1763 was issued in order to solve
the many issues in British territories in North America.
The first issue that was most pressing was what the new boundaries of the
old French colonies would be and how the British intended to govern the new
territories. The proclamation of 1763
made the boundaries clear when it says:
The government of Quebec bounded on the Labrador Coast
by the River St. John, and from thence by a Line drawn from the Head of that
River through the Lake of St. John, to the South end of the Lake Nipissim; from whence the said Line, crossing the River St.
Lawrence, and the Lake Champlain, in 45.
Degrees of North Latitude, passes along the High Lands which divide the
Rivers that empty themselves into the said River St. Lawrence from those which
fall into the Sea; and also along the North Coast of the Baye
des Chaleurs, and the Coast of the Gulph of St. Lawrence to Cape Rosieres,
and from thence crossing the Mouth of the River St. Lawrence by the West End of
the Island of Anticosti, terminates at the aforesaid
River of St. John.
The boundaries
were meant to be a permanent solution for the British government for two
purposes. The first purpose was to
establish boundaries for how large a colony the new colonial government would
control. The second purpose was to
clarify the Amerindian issue of boundaries.
Historically, the French colonies had claimed a vast territory from today’s
Quebec City, along the St. Lawrence to the Great Lakes and south and westward of the Appalachian Mountains to the Gulf of Mexico.
Thus, the British wanted to clarify for the Amerindians which lands the
new British colony would occupy.
The governance of the former French colony in North America by the British was also
explained. The British placed governors
in the new colonies to begin implementing British governing institutions. These governors were to create colonial
legislatures that were to oversee colonial matters under existing British
legislation. The British had
successfully outlined on a permanent basis the boundaries and the governance of
how the new British colonies acquired from France after the Treaty of Paris.
The second purpose of the Proclamation
of 1763 was to appease the Amerindian nations in their concerns about British
trade and settlement west of the Appalachian Mountains on a temporary basis. The setting of boundaries on a temporary
basis by the British was meant to limit British colonial expansion until a firm
peace treaty could be negotiated between the British and Amerindian nations. This meant that
the British, “acknowledged the existence of aboriginal [land] title and
established the Crown as protector of that title.” To
further strengthen relations with Amerindians, the proclamation said that only
representatives of the British Crown in London could negotiate and accept transfers
of lands from Amerindian control to British colonial control. This clause of the proclamation was intended,
as historian Arthur Ray notes, “to protect Indians from unscrupulous land
speculators and…[to] minimize the risk of alienating” the Amerindian nations any further. Therefore, the Amerindian nations would be
appeased that they would only have to deal with appointed officers of the
British Crown and not the many unscrupulous land companies or settlers looking
to acquire land cheaply.
The proclamation also outlined what the British
believed Amerindian lands were left.
Olive Patricia Dickason in her book, Canada’s
First Nations: A History of Founding Peoples from Earliest Times, wrote
that in practice “this meant lands beyond the Appalachian Mountains and the western borders of Quebec, about a third of the North American
interior…” were believed to still be under Amerindian control. The Amerindian
nations would benefit from these clauses of the proclamation because the
Amerindians could now see what land possessions the British were claiming and
what the British saw as being aboriginal territory.
The proclamation, as Dr. Dickason
also points out, had some faults with it as well. For example, the proclamation “did not apply
to Rupert’s land, whatever its boundaries were, deemed to be under the
jurisdiction of the HBC [(Hudson Bay Company)]; neither was it operative in the
Arctic, which in any event had a different
land-use pattern.” This lack of clarity in terms of the Arctic and Rupert’s land can easily be
explained because Amerindian resistance to British settlement had not originated
from these areas in this time period. In
fact, these areas of North America saw the British owned Hudson Bay Company and Amerindians peacefully
trading with each other during this time period. Where the main problems of Amerindian
resistance to British colonial expansion had occurred was south of the Great Lakes and west of the Appalachian Mountains.
Thus, the Proclamation of 1763 was only intended to temporarily deal
with the areas of contention between British settlers and Amerindian nations until
further negotiations could be held.
The proclamation also explained the British Crown’s
position on existing settlers and which British subjects were allowed on the
new Amerindian Territory.
All settlers, under the proclamation, that currently inhabited territory
outside of the British land claim were to be removed. Also, only licensed traders by the British
Crown and members of the British military were allowed to enter Amerindian
territory. These clauses were meant to
appease the Amerindian nations by removing any British settlers from Amerindian
lands and trying to ensure only British controlled traders could engage in
business with the Amerindian population.
The reaction, the consequences and the problems of the
Proclamation of 1763 took time to be noticed and acknowledged by the officials
of the British Crown and the Amerindian nations. The American colonial response, however, came
quickly. George Washington, the future
first president of the United States, believed the Proclamation of 1763
was a positive piece of British policy.
Washington wrote that “I can never look upon that Proclamation in any
other light…then as a temporary expedient to quiet the Minds of the Indians and
must fall of course in a few years especially when those Indians are consenting
to our Occupying the Lands.” Thus, the American colonial leaders
believed that the Proclamation of 1763 was a mere temporary measure before a
more permanent solution could be negotiated with Amerindian nations.
The American
colonial governments chose to support the proclamation on land settlement on
the basis that the proclamation was temporary in nature. Thus, when the Loyal Land Company called on
the governor of Virginia and the House of Burgesses for a renewal of its land
grants west of the Appalachian mountains, both refused. The Loyal Land Company, recognizing the
ruling colonial government’s authority, only settled the 200,000 acres of the
company’s land grants on the east side of the proclamation line by 1768. The Loyal Land
Company and other companies would have to wait for the signing of the Treaty of
Fort Stanwix before being allowed to settle land west
of the Appalachian
Mountains.
However, before the Treaty of Fort Stanwix
was signed by Sir William Johnson and the Amerindian nations, other treaties
were signed between Johnson’s department of Indian Affairs and Amerindian
nations. Johnson received a copy of the
proclamation in December of 1763 and “immediately made plans to convene a great
council meeting at Niagara.” On the 31 of
July 1764, “Johnson reaffirmed the Covenant Chain with delegates from the
western nations, who represented the people of the Upper Great Lakes region.”
However, the meeting did not discuss territorial issues and Pontiac, the
leader of the uprising against the British, was not present. Pontiac’s absence would be rectified when
Johnson dispatches two separate treaty-signing parties to Fort Detroit in 1765.
Perhaps the reasons territorial issues were not discussed was because
Sir William Johnson did not want the Amerindian nations to know about the land
dealings within his department and the British military stationed in North
America that were contrary to the clauses laid out in the Proclamation of 1763.
Victor Lytwyn and Dean Jacobs provide several key
examples of British officials flagrantly disregarding the Proclamation of 1763:
For example, Lieutenant-Colonel Campbell witnessed a
deed on 3 September 1765 involving a tract of land on the south side of the
Detroit River granted by Pontiact to George
MacDougall,….Colonel Croghan, also witnessed that
deed, as well as at least four other deeds in the days and weeks to follow.
These land
dealings became so rampant that in 1771 Major-General Thomas Gage issued a
warning to officers based at Fort Detroit to end the private land deals. However, the land deals did not end there
because in 1774 Commander-in-Chief Fredrick Haldimand
was forced to send a copy of the Proclamation of 1763 to Fort Detroit in order to remind his officers of
British land policy. The land dealings
had become so rampant that negotiations between the Sir William Johnson and the
Amerindian nations needed to be held soon.
Johnson convened a meeting at Fort Stanwix in 1768. The negotiations at Fort Stanwix were to complete negotiations
between the British Crown and Amerindians on further British settlement west of
the Appalachian
Mountains. Thus, the Treaty at Fort Stanwix was meant to remove the temporary
restrictions in a peaceful manner. As
Canadian historians Margaret Conrad, Alvin Finkel and
Cornelius Jaenen note in their book, History of
the Canadian Peoples: Beginnings to 1867, the Treaty of Fort Stanwix did not result in peace:
More than three thousand Natives, mostly Iroquois and
their allies, met with Johnson at Fort Stanwix in 1768 to establish a permanent
boundary between white settlers and Indian hunting grounds. The Iroquois abandoned much of the Ohio country to white settlement. Since neither the Iroquois nor the British
could control the people they claimed to bargain for, the new boundary line was
widely ignored. As independent traders
and settlers clashed Native communities, the Anglo-American frontier dissolved
into Chaos.
The Treaty of
Fort Stanwix failed to peacefully end the fraudulent
land deals that had been occurring amongst British officials in North America.
The treaty only inflamed relations between British settlers and local
Amerindian tribes. The treaty failed
because the Iroquois nations had signed over lands that belonged to Shawnees, Delaware and Cherokee tribes.
Thus, conflict began to erupt as the British settlers came into contact
with the Amerindian nations in the form of Lord Dunmore’s war of 1774. However, this was not the only action by
British officials that caused conflict in British colonies of North America.
In the former French colony of Quebec, the British Crown were attempting
to anglicize the population via immigration from the British Isles and by introducing British
institutions. However, by 1772, Sir Guy
Carleton, the Governor of Quebec, believed that “’barring a catastrophe
shocking to think (Carelton probably meant smallpox),
this country must, to the end of time, be peopled by the Canadian race’…[and]
must be governed by institutions and practices familiar to them.” The Quebec Act
of 1774 would allow Carleton’s beliefs to become reality. The Quebec Act set forth the right for the
Catholic Church to collect tithes and the colony was allowed to use French
civil law again. However, in order to
prevent the new English merchants in Montreal from rebelling, the fur trade to the
west was reopened to Quebec merchants in 1774. The
Quebec Act was only meant to appease the French population and not to supersede
the boundaries or governing structure set out in the Proclamation of 1763. However, the Quebec Act was meant to ensure
the Quebec colony did not join the thirteen American
colonies in rebellion.
The Proclamation of 1763 was proposed by the British
Crown in order to settle the remaining issues in British North America.
The Proclamation solved the problem of boundaries and governance in the
former French colony of Quebec on a permanent basis. Also the Quebec Act further satisfied the
former French colonists by further strengthening the Catholic Church through
tithes and re-introducing Civil Law. The
proclamation also solved the Amerindians concerns over the French signing of
the Treaty of Paris and British settlers by declaring the boundaries for
settlement until further negotiations could occur and the eventual signing of
the Treaty of Fort Stanwix in 1768. The Proclamation of 1763 was meant as both a
permanent solution to some issues while being a temporary solution on others.
The Proclamation of 1763 also came to be a flash point
for future relations between North American settlers and Amerindians. The limits to British settlement that were
part of the Proclamation of 1763 and the Treaty of Fort Stanwix
only further American aspirations towards rebellion and eventually signing the
Declaration of Independence on the 4th of July 1776. The Proclamation of 1763 would also become a
problem for Amerindian nations trying to make land claims. For example:
in 1973, Frank Calder, founder and president of British Columbia’s Nisg’a
Tribal Council (1955-1974), went to court to establish his people’s right to
their traditional lands, which they had neither ceded by treaty or lost in a
war. He lost, but on a
technicality. Although the judges
disagreed on whether the Royal Proclamation of 1763 applied to British Columbia, all but one agreed that aboriginal
title existed in law independently of any treaty, executive order, or
legislative enactment…But they did affirm that aboriginal rights existed, at
least in principle.
Further court
cases and protests over Amerindian land claims have been made in Canada and the United States under clauses in the Proclamation of
1763. Thus, the British attempt to solve
tensions between British, French and Amerindians following the Seven Years War
seems to have failed since tensions between these linguistic groups in still
exist in North
America
today.
Appendix
A
The Royal
Proclamation - October 7, 1763
BY THE KlNG. A
PROCLAMATION
GEORGE R.
Whereas We have taken into Our Royal Consideration the
extensive and valuable Acquisitions in America, secured to our Crown by the late
Definitive Treaty of Peace, concluded at Paris. the 10th Day of February last; and
being desirous that all Our loving Subjects, as well of our Kingdom as of our
Colonies in America, may avail themselves with all convenient Speed, of the
great Benefits and Advantages which must accrue therefrom
to their Commerce, Manufactures, and Navigation, We have thought fit, with the
Advice of our Privy Council. to issue this our Royal Proclamation, hereby to
publish and declare to all our loving Subjects, that we have, with the Advice
of our Said Privy Council, granted our Letters Patent, under our Great Seal of
Great Britain, to erect, within the Countries and Islands ceded and confirmed to
Us by the said Treaty, Four distinct and separate Governments, styled and
called by the names of Quebec, East Florida, West Florida and Grenada, and
limited and bounded as follows, viz.
First--The Government of Quebec bounded on the Labrador
Coast by the River St. John, and from thence by a Line drawn from the Head of
that River through the Lake St. John, to the South end of the Lake Nipissim; from whence the said Line, crossing the River St.
Lawrence, and the Lake Champlain, in 45. Degrees of North Latitude, passes
along the High Lands which divide the Rivers that empty themselves into the
said River St. Lawrence from those which fall into the Sea; and also along the
North Coast of the Baye des Chaleurs,
and the Coast of the Gulph of St. Lawrence to Cape Rosieres, and from thence crossing the Mouth of the River
St. Lawrence by the West End of the Island of Anticosti,
terminates at the aforesaid River of St. John.
Secondly--The Government of East Florida. bounded to the Westward by the Gulph of Mexico and the Apalachicola River; to the Northward by a Line drawn
from that part of the said River where the Chatahouchee
and Flint Rivers meet, to the source of St. Mary's River.
and by the course of the said River to the Atlantic Ocean; and to the Eastward
and Southward by the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulph of
Florida, including all Islands within Six Leagues of the Sea Coast.
Thirdly--The Government of West Florida. bounded to the Southward by the Gulph of Mexico. including all Islands within Six Leagues of the Coast.
from the River Apalachicola to Lake Pontchartrain; to
the Westward by the said Lake, the Lake Maurepas, and
the River Mississippi; to the Northward by a Line drawn due East from that part
of the River Mississippi which lies in 31 Degrees North Latitude. to the River
Apalachicola or Chatahouchee; and to the Eastward by
the said River.
Fourthly--The Government of Grenada, comprehending
the Island of that name, together with the Grenadines, and the Islands of Dominico, St. Vincent's and Tobago. And to the end that the
open and free Fishery of our Subjects may be extended to and carried on upon
the Coast of Labrador, and the adjacent Islands. We have thought fit. with the advice of
our said Privy Council to put all that Coast, from the River St. John's to
Hudson's Streights, together with the Islands of Anticosti and Madelaine, and all
other smaller Islands Iying upon the said Coast,
under the care and Inspection of our Governor of Newfoundland.
We have also,
with the advice of our Privy Council. thought fit to annex the Islands of St.
John's and Cape Breton, or Isle Royale, with the lesser Islands adjacent
thereto, to our Government of Nova Scotia.
We have also,
with the advice of our Privy Council aforesaid, annexed to our Province of Georgia all the Lands Iying
between the Rivers Alatamaha and St. Mary's.
And whereas it
will greatly contribute to the speedy settling of our said new Governments,
that our loving Subjects should be informed of our Paternal care, for the
security of the Liberties and Properties of those who are and shall become
Inhabitants thereof, We have thought fit to publish and declare, by this Our
Proclamation, that We have, in the Letters Patent under our Great Seal of Great
Britain, by which the said Governments are constituted. given express Power and
Direction to our Governors of our Said Colonies respectively, that so soon as
the state and circumstances of the said Colonies will admit thereof, they
shall, with the Advice and Consent of the Members of our Council, summon and
call General Assemblies within the said Governments respectively, in such
Manner and Form as is used and directed in those Colonies and Provinces in
America which are under our immediate Government: And We have also given Power
to the said Governors, with the consent of our Said Councils, and the
Representatives of
We have also thought fit, with the advice of our Privy
Council as aforesaid, to give unto the Governors and Councils of our said Three
new Colonies, upon the Continent full Power and Authority to settle and agree
with the Inhabitants of our said new Colonies or with any other Persons who
shall resort thereto, for such Lands. Tenements and Hereditaments,
as are now or hereafter shall be in our Power to dispose of; and them to grant
to any such Person or Persons upon such Terms, and under such moderate
Quit-Rents, Services and Acknowledgments, as have been appointed and settled in
our other Colonies, and under such other Conditions as shall appear to us to be
necessary and expedient for the Advantage of the Grantees, and the Improvement
and settlement of our said Colonies.
And Whereas, We are desirous, upon all occasions, to
testify our Royal Sense and Approbation of the Conduct and bravery of the
Officers and Soldiers of our Armies, and to reward the same, We do hereby
command and impower our Governors of our said Three
new Colonies, and all other our Governors of our several Provinces on the
Continent of North America, to grant without Fee or Reward, to such reduced
Officers as have served in North America during the late War, and to such
Private Soldiers as have been or shall be disbanded in America, and are
actually residing there, and shall personally apply for the same, the following
Quantities of Lands, subject, at the Expiration of Ten Years, to the same
Quit-Rents as other Lands are subject to in the Province within which they are
granted, as also subject to the same Conditions of Cultivation and Improvement;
viz.
To every Person
having the Rank of a Field Officer--5,000 Acres.
To every
Captain--3,000 Acres.
To every
Subaltern or Staff Officer,--2,000 Acres.
