Royal Proclamation of 1763
George III forbade settlement west of the Appalachians in October 1763 and the colonists ignored it. The proclamation followed the peace that transferred Canada and everything east of the Mississippi from France, and it followed Pontiac's War — a rising of Indigenous nations across the Great Lakes and Ohio country that had taken eight British forts in a summer and demonstrated that the new territory could not be garrisoned cheaply. The line drawn along the crest of the Appalachians reserved the interior for Indigenous nations, prohibited private purchases of their land, and required licences to trade. The reasoning in London was fiscal and practical: settlement beyond the mountains would produce wars that the army would have to fight and the Treasury would have to pay for. The reasoning in Virginia was that speculators including Washington held claims to hundreds of thousands of acres beyond the line, granted for service in the war just ended, and had now been told the grants were void. The line was moved west twice by treaty within six years and was crossed continuously in the meantime. Its inclusion among the grievances of 1776 is usually understated, since taxes make a better story. The Quebec Act of 1774, which extended that province south to the Ohio, was treated in the colonies as the same policy made permanent and was counted among the Intolerable Acts. The Northwest Ordinance in 1787 organised the same territory for settlement. The line also established a principle that outlived the empire that drew it. Canadian courts have treated the proclamation as a constitutional document recognising Indigenous title, it is referred to in the constitution of 1982, and it is cited in land claims today.
- Year: 1763 CE
- Category: Political
