Royal Proclamation of 1763

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Eastern North America in 1770, with the proclamation line following the Royal Proclamation of 1763 (yellow) and the Treaty of Fort Stanwix 1768 (orange).

The Royal Proclamation of 1763 was issued on October 7, 1763 by the British King George III. put on. It divided the British territories in North America that were newly obtained in the Treaty of Paris in 1763 and regulated trade, land acquisition and the resettlement of European settlers beyond the declared line of proclamation . The proclamation line was a temporary border between the colonies and the Indian Reserve . At that time it was largely marked by the Appalachians . The main aim of the proclamation was to stabilize relations with the Indians of North America .

prehistory

The Impact of the Proclamation of George III on a 1970 Franklin Mint Medal

The Treaty of Paris in 1763 ended the Seven Years' War overseas. In North America he ended the war that had begun in 1754 . Through the treaty, the French lost large parts of New France to the British and Spanish. The French were left with only the western half of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola (today's Haiti ) and the fishing islands of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon in North America , which, however, were not allowed to be fortified.

Many Indian tribes in the former French territories - especially in the area around the Great Lakes - had long and close relationships with France and were appalled to find themselves now under British rule. The Pontiac uprising from 1763 to 1766 was an unsuccessful attempt by several tribes to prevent the British from occupying former French territories. Work on the proclamation had already begun before the outbreak of the uprising, but was pushed ahead quickly afterwards. The British hoped that the Indians would accept the British settlement and thus prevent further clashes.

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The new territories in North America ceded by the French were divided by the proclamation into the province of Québec , West Florida and East Florida . In addition, the island of Grenada was incorporated into the kingdom.

The proclamation created a border between the British colonies on the Atlantic coast and the Indian Reserve called land of the Indians west of the Appalachians. This line of proclamation should not represent a fixed but a temporary border and direct further expansion towards the west in orderly and lawful channels. The proclamation banned private individuals from buying Indian land. Instead, any future land acquisition should only be carried out by official emissaries of the British Crown during a public meeting with representatives of the Indian tribes involved. Emissaries of the crown were also only allowed to assign land to settlers with the consent of the king. Thus the British Crown had a monopoly on all future purchases of land within the Indian Reserve . Furthermore, British settlers were forbidden to permanently settle beyond the proclamation line on Indian land.

The line of proclamation was adjusted several times in treaties with the Indians: 1768 in the Treaty of Fort Stanwix , 1768 in the Treaty of Hard Labor and 1770 in the Treaty of Lochaber .

consequences

East of the Appalachians, colonists opposed the proclamation and in the west it was ignored. They continued to settle illegally in western Pennsylvania . Neither the British nor the military could stop this, and by 1774 there were almost 50,000 European settlers west of the Appalachians. This increased tension between the European settlers and the Indian tribes west of the Appalachians. The proclamation contributed to the alienation of the colonialists from the British government, which ultimately led to the American War of Independence .

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