The Proclamation Line of 1763

in 1766 the British military was concentrated in areas acquired from France and Spain, and there were no forts in Virginia
Source: Library of Congress, Cantonment of His Majesty's forces in N. America according to the disposition now made & to be compleated as soon as practicable taken from the general distribution dated at New York 29th. March 1766

The Proclamation Line of 1763 was one of many attempts to define a boundary that would separate colonists from Native Americans. The intent of a separation boundary was to reduce conflict and thus the costs to maintain peace in the border zone between two cultures.

British officials intended for the Proclamation Line of 1763 to minimize the need for new forts in the contact zone between colonists and Native Americans, and the need for expensive troops to be stationed and supplied on the western side of the Atlantic Ocean.

Historian Woody Holton argues that in 1762, the leaders in the colonies were satisfied to be part of the British Empire. They received military protection against the French, Spanish, and Native Americans without paying a fair share of the costs.

The Americans were able to ignore Parliament's mercantilist restrictions, which were designed to limit colonist's trade to just British sites within the empire. Direct trade to France or the Netherlands, or to any other place controlled by another European country, was prohibited. American trade was supposed to enrich England with fees and taxes.

Such trade brought cheap raw materials from North America to England. Restricting trade also ensured England captured a large consumer market; American colonists could purchase manufactured goods only from England. Because the Americans were evading the trade restrictions, particularly by sending ships to Caribbean islands controlled by other nations, taxpayers in England were subsidizing the defense of the colonies.

The British Navy could keep Spain and France from landing a large army in North America, but only Brtish troops could protect against attacks by Native Americans on the western edge of settlement. To minimize the cost of the defense subsidy, Parliament needed a different strategy to minimize the threat of Native American attack.

That strategy was to control the westward migration of colonists, whose seizure of Native American lands was the trigger for conflict. If the Proclamation Line of 1763 had been successfully enforced, then there would have been no need to raise funds by a Stamp Act tax in 1765, or other taxes which spurred revolution:¹

Britain wanted to stop land speculators, like George Washington and Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. The British government wanted to stop them from stealing land from the Indians because whenever you do that, you provoke a war with the Indians. And the British government understood something that a lot of people today forget. And that is, the most expensive thing that any government ever does is go to war.

And so the British said, OK, again, this is not out of sympathy. This is a matter of strategy. What do we need to do to appease the Indians and keep them from attacking our colonies? And that is, have the colonies stop stealing their land.

Virginia officials in Jamestown, Williamsburg, and finally Richmond never solved the problem of how to expand settlement and maintain peace with the Native Americans. The 1763 edict from King George III was the last of multiple attempts by colonial officials in England and Virginia to establish a border separating colonists from the original occupants of the land. It was no more successful than other limit-of-settlement lines defined as far back as 1619.

Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia claimed lands west to the Mississippi River after the Treaty of Paris was signed in 1763
Source: Library of Congress, An accurate map of North America (by Emanuel Bowen, 1763)

After Virginia relinquished its claims to the Northwest Territory across the Ohio River to the Congress in 1781 and Kentucky became an independent state in 1792, Virginia no longer claimed lands that were still occupied by Native American tribes. Making peace with the Native Americans became a problem for Federal officials - but since seven of the first twelve presidents were born in Virginian, the state's perspective remained significant even after cession of western land claims.

Starting in 1607, John Smith and other colonial leaders sought to extend England's control over territory and to reduce the power on the Native Americans. Competition over land led to three Anglo-Powhatan wars during 1609-1646, as the English displaced the Algonquian-speaking Native Americans living on the Coastal Plain.

Starting with the first Jamestown Fort in 1607, followed in 1611 with construction of a palisade to fortify the site of Henricus, the colonists sought to isolate "English" territory from "Native American" territory. In 1613 Bermuda Hundred was blocked off by a wooden wall, distinguishing colonists-only territory and excluding Native Americans.

To minimize the potential for individuals in the colony to irritate the Native Americans and trigger retaliation, the first meeting in 1619 of what became the House of Burgesses required colonists to stay within a limited territory. The legislature passed laws that mandated:²

That no man may go above twenty miles from his dwelling place, nor upon any voyage whatsoever shall be absent from thence for the space of seven days together, without first having made the Governor or commander of the same place acquainted therewith, upon pain of paying twenty shillings to the public uses of the same incorporation where the party delinquent dwells.

That no man shall purposely go to any Indian towns, habitation, or places of resort without leave from the Governor or commander of that place where he lives, upon pain of paying 40 shillings to public uses as aforesaid.

immediately after the French and Indian War, English magazines highlighted both the expansion of colonial territory (tinted brown) and the existing inhabitants
Source: Library of Congress, A new map of North America, shewing the advantages obtain'd therein to England by the peace (May, 1763)

After the 1622 uprising, the General Assembly considered building a wooden barricade between Martins Hundred and Kiskiak/Chiskiack (now the Naval Weapons Station at Yorktown). Colonists reinforced their individual houses, rather than build the wall. In 1633 at the conclusion of the Second Anglo-Powhatan War, a palisade was constructed further upstream between College Creek (called Archer's Hope at the time) and Queens Creek. That forced the Kiskiak/Chiskiack tribe to migrate north across the York River.³

location of proposed 1622 palisade (blue) and 1633 palisade (red),
excluding Algonquians from Peninsula
Source Map: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) MyWaters

The first Native American "preserve" to be established in Virginia was Indiantown Neck on the Eastern Shore. 1,500 acres were designated for use by the Accomac (Gingaskin) tribe in 1640, establishing a model used to create reserved lands (reservations) for other tribes.

The 1644 uprising led to the Third Anglo-Powhatan War and the end of the paramount chiefdom in eastern Virginia once led by Powhatan. The victorious colonists forced the putative "emperor," Necotowance, to sign a 1646 peace treaty that restricted Native Americans to lands west of the Blackwater River and north of the York River.

Theoretically English settlement was prohibited north of the York River, except for the land south of Poropotank Creek (current boundary of Gloucester-King and Queen counties). All trade was to be channeled through specific forts, and Native Americans were required to wear "a coat of striped stuff" when inside the restricted zone.⁴

Despite the promises, English settlement was quickly authorized in the territory north of the York River that was supposedly reserved for the Native Americans. Rather than live in compact towns, the colonists established scattered tobacco plantations and isolated "quarters" that intruded into traditional hunting territories.

As colonial settlement expanded, the English sought to minimize conflict by designating areas reserved for Native American occupation:⁵

Just as specific tracts had been assigned to the Eastern Shore's Accomack Indians in 1640 and to the Pamunkey, Kiskiak/Chiskiack, and Weyanoke in 1649, during the early 1650s acreage was assigned to the Rappahannock, Totusky, Moratticund, Mattaponi, Portobago, Chickahominy, Nanzattico, Nansemond, and upper Nansemond (Mangomixon), and perhaps others as well. Many of these Native preserves lay in the Middle Peninsula or Northern Neck.

Creating a boundary to separate "English" from "Native American" territory did not succeed in limiting conflict. Indentured servants who completed their term of service moved to the edges of English occupation to establish new farms where rights to land were easiest to acquire, expanding the zone of settlement and intruding deeper into Native American territory.

Borderland conflicts based on the land hunger of colonists finally erupted into Bacon's Rebellion in 1676. Though the backcountry raids were led by Dogue and Susquehannock, Nathaniel Bacon's forces did not distinguish between good and bad Native Americans. Peaceful Pamunkey and Occoneechee living where they were "supposed to be" were attacked, and their furs and accumulated wealth were stolen.

the rebels under Nathaniel Bacon attacked the Occoneechee, 100 miles from Jamestown
Source: ESRI, ArcGIS Online

Bacon's Rebellion was followed by the Treaty of Middle Plantation in 1676. The English gradually abandoned the idea that towns occupied by "tributary tribes" could serve as a buffer against raids by the Iroquois or Susquehannock.⁶

"Outrages" in the border area were perpetrated by both sides for another century. Isolated groups of Native Americans or settlers were attacked/murdered with little or no provocation, retaliatory raids created more hostility, and the cycle of violence and vengeance continued intermittently.

Raiders on both sides justified their actions based on a philosophy of collective responsibility. If a colonist was attacked by a Native American, it was not required to identify and punish the individual perpetrator; colonists could respond by attacking any Native American. Similarly, if settlers attacked Native Americans, then it was legitimate for that tribe to balance the score by burning, capturing, and killing at whatever settler farm was convenient.

Native American groups living within Tidewater Virginia were effectively suppressed after Bacon's Rebellion, but problems continued with tribes on the borders. Throughout the 1700's, multiple treaties sought to separate the Native Americans from the English while legitimizing settlement on more territory. Each treaty expanded the area for colonial occupation and reduced the land base of different tribes.

In the 1722 Treaty of Albany, Governor Spotswood negotiated with the Iroquois based in New York to push their hunting expeditions (and raids on the Cherokees) west of the headwaters of the rivers flowing into the Chesapeake Bay. In 1744 in the Treaty of Lancaster, the Iroquois agreed to stay west of the Shenandoah Valley. In 1768 in the Treaty of Fort Stanwix, the Iroquois abandoned their claims to lands south of the Ohio River.

In 1768 and 1770 treaties and informal agreements, the Cherokee ceded their claims to Virginia as far west as the mouth of the Kentucky River.

the Iroquois relinquished their claims to lands south of the Ohio River in the 1722 Treaty of Albany, the 1744 Treaty of Lancaster, and the 1768 Treaty of Fort Stanwix
Source: ESRI, ArcGIS Online

As settlers sought cheap farmland, colonial settlement extended west of the Appalachian Mountains. English and colonial officials recognized that the European population in North America (and the population of slaves imported originally from Africa) would grow substantially. Native Americans on the western boundaries of the colonies would have to be expelled, and their land claims would have to be extinguished or finessed.

Massive land grants to the Ohio Company in 1748 and the Loyal Land Company in 1749 reflected the understanding that a critical mass of farmers would begin to produce crops beyond the Eastern Continental Divide. Once the lands in the watersheds of the Ohio, Kanawha, Greenbrier, and Tennessee rivers were settled, agricultural trade would go down the Mississippi River rather than directly to the Atlantic coastline.

The expected shift of population to the west had substantial political ramifications. The French claimed the Ohio River watershed, and Spain controlled New Orleans and the Mississippi River trade.

the French published maps claiming the Enlish had no authority west of the Allegheny Front
Source: Library of Congress, Carte de la Louisiane et du cours du Mississippi ... (by Guillaume de L'Isle, 1718)

In 1763, the English victory in the French and Indian War (known in Europe as the Seven Years War) eliminated the power of the French to supply Native Americans who resisted Virginia's colonial expansion into the watersheds of the Ohio River and other drainages that flowed west to the Mississippi River.

In the treaty negotiations, France chose to retain its sugar-producing, profitable Caribbean islands that had been captured by the English. Canada, which had required subsidies rather than produced a profit, was ceded to the victorious English. France also retained the islands or Miquelon and St. Pierre plus fishing rights near Newfoundland.

The English agreed to allow Catholics to continue to practice their religion in Canada, and French culture survived in Quebec. The English did not try to suppress it as they had done in Nova Scotia in the 1750's, because after 1763 the military threat from any French-occupied land had been eliminated.

The 1763 treaty also reshaped Spanish claims in North America. After Spain joined France in the war, the British captured Havana. In the peace treaty, Spain reclaimed Cuba by granting Florida to the British.

To make Spain whole after the cession of Florida, in the Treaty of San Ildefonso France gave to Spain all of its claims to the Louisiana Territory west of the Mississippi River. New France disappeared from the map of North America.⁷

at the end of the French and Indian War, French negotiators at the Treaty of Paris traded away Canada and the Ohio Valley in order to retain sugar-producing islands in the Caribbean, and Virginia gentry with land grants expected to profit by selling western lands to new settlers
Source: Library of Congress, An accurate map of North America. Describing and distinguishing the British, Spanish and French dominions on this great continent; according to the definitive treaty concluded at Paris 10th Feby. 1763 (Emanuel Bowen, 1767)

After the 1763 Treaty of Paris, the Virginia gentry with existing land grants and other colonial leaders who saw the potential for getting a government-granted windfall expected easier access to the unsettled lands claimed by Virginia. They based those claims on the Second Charter of 1609.

Unfortunately for the land-hungry gentry, defeat of the French did not bring peace to the western edge of colonial settlement. Until 1755, the European rivals had fought in North America primarily through proxies by recruiting different Native American tribes (or the same tribes at different times) to attack traders associated with the other side. After the French were expelled, the fighting continued.

after the Treaty of Paris in 1763, the French retained two islands near Newfoundland but no lands on the North American continent, thus eliminating the opportunity for Native American tribes to use potential French alliances when negotiating with the British
Source: Atlas of the Historical Geography of the United States, Possessions of European States in East North America after the Treaty of Paris, 1763 (Plate 41a, digitized by University of Richmond)

In 1763 the Native Americans launched desperate attacks on the western settlements from New York to Virginia. They recognized that the English would grow stronger over time, and the Native Americans would no longer have access to French support. During "Pontiac's Uprising" in 1763-64, all British forts west of the Ohio were captured except Detroit and Fort Pitt.

It was clear to the political, business, and military leaders in London that the expensive Seven Years War to defeat the French would be followed by expensive peacekeeping operations on the edges of the colonies. The regiments raised for the war could not be demobilized or withdrawn completely, so soldiers kept in North America would have to be supplied and paid. Taxes in England would have to stay high in order to subsidize the military occupation of lands newly acquired from France.

The colonists on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean would be the primary beneficiaries of the continuing military presence. They expcted to continue to pay the indirect taxes, including export duties on tobacco, but did not anticipated being burdened by new direct taxes. There were no colonists sitting in Parliament, and from the coonial perpective there were no elected representatives with the authority to impose direct taxes.

The gentry in Virginia and leaders in other colonies anticipated the western lands would become available immediately for unrestricted settlement. The French claim had been extinguished and the Native Americans had lost the one European ally providing guns and supplies, so a wave of settlers could move west to create new farms on parcels sold by the land speculators.

The Board of Trade in London viewed the prize of victory in North America differently. British officials knew their expanded empire required funds for military protection, but Great Britain could not afford to perpetuate an unending series of wars with Native Americans in North America. The solution was to raise more funds and to reduce costs:⁸

The foremost task facing Britain was meeting the costs of victory. To gain and maintain the new empire cost great sums of money which the crown knew it could not extract from British taxpayers already overburdened with levies on land, imports, exports, windows, carriages, deeds, newspapers, advertisements, cards and dice, and a hundred other items of daily use.

The land tax, for instance, was 20 percent of land value. These were taxes parliament had levied on residents in Great Britain but not on the colonists. Many taxes had been in effect since an earlier war in the 1740's (King George's War). With the national debt at a staggering £146,000,000, much of it the result of defending interests in the New World, and several million pounds owed to American colonies as reimbursement for maintaining troops during the war, British taxpayers, rich and poor alike, expected relief.

In fact, these war debts forced parliament to impose additional taxes in 1763, including a much-despised excise tax on cider. It is hardly surprising to find most Britons agreed that in the future the Americans should be responsible for those expenses directly attributable to maintaining the empire in America. That future costs were to be shared seemed politically expedient and the reasonable thing to do. Every ministry which came to power in Britain after 1763 understood this as a national mandate it could not ignore.

To raise funds, Parliament passed the Sugar Act of 1764. Americans had to pay tariff duties on all imported molasses, coffee, textiles, and wine. Resistance to the new taxes spurred creation of Committees of Correspondence so different colonies could coordinate boycotts as a response. Parliament ignored American objections and passed the Stamp Act in 1765, taxing all legal documents as well as the printing of newspapers and pamphlets. Prime Minister Grenville projected that the revenue would cover up to 20% of the costs for maintaining British troops in North America.

In Virginia, the House of Burgesses passed the Stamp Act Resolves to express opposition to the direct tax imposed on the colonies. During the debate, Patrick Henry's suggestion that King George III could meet the same fate as Caesar and King Charles I led to cries of "treason" from other burgesses.

Mobs, some organized as Sons of Liberty, threatened officials who prepared to collect the stamp tax. In Williamsburg, Governor Fauquier had to personally escort the official tax collector, George Mercer, from the steps of Charlton’s Coffeehouse to the Governor's Palace to ensure his safety.

The House of Burgesses had passed the most radical of his proposals by just one vote, and rescinded its approval the next day. With or without official approval, that resolution became a widely accepted belief among the colonists that Parliament was proposing direct taxes that threatened rather than protected fundamental liberties:⁹

Resolved, Therefore that the General Assembly of this Colony have the only and sole exclusive Right and Power to lay Taxes and Impositions upon the Inhabitants of this Colony and that every Attempt to vest such Power in any Person or Persons whatsoever other than the General Assembly aforesaid has a manifest Tendency to destroy British as well as American Freedom.

the Proclamation of 1763, the Sugar Act of 1764, the Stamp Act of 1765, and later the Townshend duties inflamed colonial opposition to rule from London and stimulated the American Revolution
Source: John Carter Brown Library, The Bostonian's Paying the Excise-Man, Or Tarring & Feathering

To reduce the costs of managing the borderlands, colonial land hunger would have to be curbed.

To the dismay of colonial leaders, George III issued the Royal Proclamation of 1763. It created new provinces (Quebec, West Florida, East Florida and Grenada) out of lands acquired from the French, plus a huge "Indian Reserve" closed to settlement. The Indian Reserve included all the acquired land outside the boundaries of Quebec, West Florida, and East Florida.

The decree prohibited colonial governors from authorizing surveys or issuing land grants beyond the Proclamation Line drawn at the crest of the Alleghenies. Overnight, Virginians were blocked from moving to the territory west of the Eastern Continental Divide separating the watersheds of rivers flowing to the Atlantic Ocean from rivers flowing to the Gulf of Mexico.

the Proclamation of 1763 defined a boundary blocking settlement (red line), based on the Eastern Continental Divide
Source: US Geological Survey (USGS), Hydrography Viewer

All English settlers living west of that watershed divide - including those already living in the valleys of the New River and the Holston River - were supposed to leave "forthwith." The British objective was to minimize conflicts with the tribes, and thus reduce the costs to the English government of defending the colonies from Native American raids.

The Proclamation of 1763 was clear:¹⁰

And We do further declare it to be Our Royal Will and Pleasure, for the present as aforesaid, to reserve under our Sovereignty, Protection, and Dominion, for the use of the said Indians, all the Lands and Territories not included within the Limits of Our said Three new Governments, or within the Limits of the Territory granted to the Hudson's Bay Company, as also all the Lands and Territories lying to the Westward of the Sources of the Rivers which fall into the Sea from the West and North West as aforesaid. [emphasis added]

And We do hereby strictly forbid, on Pain of our Displeasure, all our loving Subjects from making any Purchases or Settlements whatever, or taking Possession of any of the Lands above reserved, without our especial leave and Licence for that Purpose first obtained.

And We do further strictly enjoin and require all Persons whatever who have either wilfully or inadvertently seated themselves upon any Lands within the Countries above described or upon any other Lands which, not having been ceded to or purchased by Us, are still reserved to the said Indians as aforesaid, forthwith to remove themselves from such Settlements.

settlers already living in the New River Valley were supposed to move east of the Blue Ridge (red line), according to the Proclamation of 1763
Source: Library of Congress, A map of the most inhabited part of Virginia containing the whole province of Maryland with part of Pensilvania, New Jersey and North Carolina (Joshua Fry and Peter Jefferson, 1755)

Parliament did not pass a law in 1763 limiting settlement of western lands. The king issued the order directly, using his authority to address the distinctive circumstances at the end of the French and Indian War:¹¹

As opposed to a statute passed by Parliament - a body representative of the people - the proclamation was the embodiment of the monarch, symbolized by the fact that when the ruler died, the proclamation often did, as well. The monarch used proclamations to legislate extraordinary and often temporary emergencies that were not clearly defined by statutes.

The land hungry gentry in Virginia controlled the colonial government. Through the Ohio Company, the Loyal Land Company, and other grants the speculating Virginia gentry had acquired claims to hundreds of thousands of acres "lying to the Westward of the Sources of the Rivers which fall into the Sea from the West and North West." The average colonial soldier who had fought in the French and Indian War wanted to settle on lands acquired through military action, rather than reward the Native Americans - especially tribes that had been allies of the French.

With the stroke of a pen, George III dramatically undercut the economic dreams of French and Indian War veterans and most of the political leaders in Virginia. The king told them the equivalent of "drop dead." The proclamation made clear that the gentry did not control the Board of Trade in London, and the desires of war veterans were secondary to the concerns of the budget managers in London.

The Proclamation of 1763 abruptly blocked colonial westward settlement into "all the Lands and Territories lying to the Westward of the Sources of the Rivers which fall into the Sea from the West." The long-coveted Ohio River valley, over which Virginians had contested with the French since Governor Dinwiddie sent George Washington to Fort LeBoeuf in 1753 to demand the French leave the region, was reserved for Native Americans.

A short pamphlet produced by the Virginia Department of Education made the point succinctly:¹²

The Proclamation of 1763 would separate the Indians and whites while preventing costly frontier wars. Once contained east of the mountains, the colonials would redirect their natural expansionist tendencies southward into the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida, and northward into Nova Scotia. Strong English colonies in former Spanish and French territories would be powerful deterrents to future colonial wars.

George III's Proclamation Line is consistent with modern "smart growth" land use principles where development is concentrated within urban growth boundaries, with long-range plans and zoning used to steer development to specified areas and reduce the cost of government services. Colonial land speculators, similar to modern land speculators, refused to accept the 1763 political decision as final.

the Proclamation of 1763 was intended to block new colonial settlement in western New York and Pennsylvania, as well as western Virginia, North Carolina, and even Georgia
Source: Perry-Castaneda Library Map Collection, The British Colonies in North America, 1763-1775 (from William R. Shepherd's "Historical Atlas," 1923)

The proclamation included a key phrase, "for the present." Land companies and others in the colonies still planned to obtain title to vast stretches of western lands at little or no cost from the colonial government, hold that land for a generation or even two, then sell it as population expanded in the west.

Virginia's newly-acquired territory west of the Allegheny Front was not "empty and ripe for settlement" in 1763
Source: Library of Congress, A new map of the British Dominions in North America; with the limits of the governments annexed thereto by the late Treaty of Peace, and settled by Proclamation, October 7th 1763 (by Thomas Kitchin, 1763)

Virginia's leaders agitated constantly to open up the western lands for speculation, sale, and settlement. The concept of "conflict of interest" was very different from today, and government officials placed a high priority on increasing their personal wealth through continued land speculation. Since the Proclamation blocked conversion of land claims into cash, the 1763 boundary had to be revised.

the Indian Reserve was a barrier to western expansion by Virginia colonists
Source: University of North Carolina, "Early Maps of the American South," A map of the Southern Indian district of North America (by John Stuart, 1775)

Virginia's officials expected to modify the king's limits on settlement. George Washington wrote the equivalent of "this too shall pass" to a surveyor in 1767:¹³

I can never look upon the Proclamation in any other light (but this I say between ourselves) than as a temporary expedient to quiet the minds of the Indians. It must fall, of course, in a few years, especially when those Indians consent to our occupying those lands. Any person who neglects hunting out good lands, and in some measure marking and distinguishing them for his own, in order to keep others from settling them will never regain it. If you will be at the trouble of seeking out the lands, I will take upon me the part of securing them, as soon as there is a possibility of doing it...

Officials appointed by London soon agreed to adjust the boundary defined in the Proclamation of 1763. The Board of Trade still sought to constrain westward movement of the colonists in order to prevent new wars, but agreed to shrink the Indian Reserve in order satisfy some of the demand for land speculation and to accommodate some risk-taking families already living west of the watershed divide. Up to the American Revolution, Governor Dunmore in Williamsburg and other colonial officials appointed by London facilitated the peaceful surrender of Native American land claims within the Indian Reserve.

Colonial officials and British appointees pushed the Board of Trade in London for authority to negotiate new treaties with Native American tribes, after Pontiac's Rebellion was ended with a 1766 treaty signed at Fort Ontario. William Johnson and John Stuart, superintendents for the northern and southern districts of the British Indian Department, wanted to shift the Proclamation Line westward and appease land-hungry colonists.

Extension of the line of colonial settlement into "Indian Country" required support primarily from the Iroquois and the Cherokee. Though William Johnson preferred to keep them fighting each other, in 1768 he finally hosted a meeting at his home in New York where the two tribes agreed to peace. The Cherokee travelled there via ship from Charleston, to avoid the dangers of walking through Iroquois-controlled lands.

Johnson and Stuart then negotiated two treaties in 1768 separately with Iroquois and Cherokee tribes to authorize settlement further west. Those treaties did not gave the English "clear title" to the lands, but Virginia officials resumed issuing land warrants, approving surveys, and confirming ownership through land patents without waiting for the elimination of any claims by the Shawnee, Delaware, Mingo, Ottawa, or Wyandot.

In the 1768 Treaty of Fort Stanwix, the Iroquois ceded whatever claims they had to lands south of the Ohio River as far west as the mouth of the Tennessee River.

the 1771 map produced by Guy Johnson (William Johnson's son-in-law) after the 1768 Treaty of Fort Stanwix reveals the ignorance of the British regarding lands controlled by the Iroquois
Source: The Internet Archive, The Documentary History of the State of New-York (p.1090)

In the separate Treaty of Hard Labor in 1768 and then the 1770 Treaty of Lochaber, the Cherokee ceded their claims to lands west of the Blue Ridge, as far as the confluence of the Kentucky and Ohio rivers.

the 1768 Treaty of Fort Stanwix assumed the Iroquois could cede land south of the Ohio River, all the way west to the mouth of the Tennessee ("Cherokee") River
Source: E. B. O'Callaghan, The Documentary History of the State of New York (1850)

the Cherokee signed the 1768 Treaty of Hard Labor and the 1770 Treaty of Lochaber, expanding the territory controlled by Virginia and reducing the extent of the Cherokee hunting grounds
Source: ESRI, ArcGIS Online

Resolution of claims by other Native Americans required further fighting. Raids by the Shawnee and others continued in western Virginia, and settlers in the Kentucky region had to build fortified "stations" for protection.

Cornstalk, leader of the Shawnee, recognized the overwhelming military superiority of the British forces after the Native Americans were defeated in Pontiac's Rebellion in 1763. Cornstalk advocated for peacefully adjusting to expanding settlement, but failed in his efforts. Both colonists and Native Americans created incidents that inflamed the other side. In two famous incidents, Daniel Boone's son James was captured and tortured to death in 1773, while the family of the Mingo leader Logan was murdered while peacefully visiting a cabin on the Ohio River (the "Yellow Creek Massacre").

In 1774, after the "Boston Massacre," King George III extended the boundaries of the province of Quebec down to the Ohio River. The Quebec Act of 1774 eliminated any opportunity for the Virginia governor and General Assembly to finalize land claims north of the Ohio River. British officials avoided creating conflict with the Iroquois, Shawnee, and Cherokee by limiting the extended boundary of Quebec to just the Ohio River. The 1774 Quebec Act did not affect claims of the Iroquois in New York, or of any Native American group to lands south of the Ohio River.

The king's decision failed to intimidate the Virginia gentry or other rebellious colonial leaders. Based on the Cherokee land cessions in the 1770 Treaty of Lochaber, the General Assembly had split Augusta County in 1770 to form Botetourt County. In 1772, the colonial legislature carved Fincastle County out of Botetourt County. In 1774, Virginia's colonial leaders split Augusta County, creating the "District" of West Augusta rather than the "county" of West Augusta to avoid a direct confrontation with the Proclamation of 1763.

Also in 1774, Governor Dunmore sought to create a distraction from the rebellious debates in Williamsburg and to strengthen colonial commitment to Great Britain. With support from the General Assembly, Lord Dunmore mobilized county militias (no British regiments were involved) and launched a two-pronged attack into Shawnee-controlled territory.

Dunmore led one wing of the army, assembling it at Fort Pitt. Before that wing descended the Ohio River, the other part of the Virginia army led by Andrew Lewis defeated the Shawnee at Point Pleasant. Cornstalk then negotiated the Treaty of Camp Charlotte to end Dunmore's War. In that 1774 treaty, the Shawnee ceded their claims to lands south of the Ohio River.

the victory by Andrew Lewis at Point Pleasant was followed by the Treaty of Camp Charlotte, but Lord Dunmore's efforts to keep the Virginia gentry allied with Great Britain still failed
Source: West Virginia Archives and History, Teacher Resources, Map of Mid-Atlantic and Midwestern States during the Revolutionary War Era

Dunmore had acted inconsistently with the intent behind the Proclamation of 1763. In his official report, he made excuses for strengthening the fort at the Forks of the Ohio River:¹⁴

The Policy of Government, respecting the back Country, and the Measures pursued in consequence of it, which your Lordship has been at the pains of explaining to me, I cannot, as you rightly observe, be ignorant of, and I might Suppose your Lordship informed that I was not ignorant of them...`

...In regard to the Fort of Pittsburg, this, your Lordship has Seen in my relation, was done by my order: but if it be seen as it really was, in the light of a temporary work for the defence of a Country, and its terrified Inhabitants in a time of imminent danger, I presume it will appear very different from reestablishing a Fort which had been demolished by the Kings express orders, as if this Act of mine had been contrary to or in disregard of His Majesty's orders:

And My Lord, I fear, that it must be owing to the unfavourable opinion which your Lordship conceives of my Administration, that it did not readily occur to your Lordship, that the distress and alarm, of which you were apprised at the Same time, however they were occasioned, required that Step, and accounted for it.

In London, British officials were not as accommodating as Governor Dunmore. Under Lord Hillsborough, Secretary of State for the Colonies, the Commissioners of Trade and Plantations had opposed grants west of the 1763 line until he was replaced by the Earl of Dartmouth. After the Privy Council indicated it could support the proposed new colony of Vandalia in 1773, the commissioners relaxed their opposition. Still, Dunmore took a career-ending risk to go to war in order to assist Virginians speculating on lands west of the Allegheny Front.¹⁵

Vandalia was approved but never implemented. That threat to the land grants obtained by the Ohio Company, Greenbrier Company, and Loyal Land Company was blocked by inertia, as much as by opposition from British officials who objected to settling the Indian Reserve.

A more significant barrier to the Virginia land speculators was the Quebec Act of 1774, one of the "intolerable" acts passed by Parliament in reaction to the Boston Tea Party. It incorporated into the Province of Quebec all lands not within the Indian Reserve or the colonies of East Florida, West Florida. Catholics within the expanded boundaries of Quebec were granted religious freedom, but from the Virginia point of view the greatest problem was the increased legal impediment to acquiring title to western lands.

lands claimed by the Cherokee in the Tennessee River watershed were placed in an Indian Reserve and excluded from colonial settlement, according to the Proclamation of 1763
Source: Atlas of the Historical Geography of the United States, British Possessions after the Quebec Act, 1774 (Plate 46a, digitized by University of Richmond)

in 1774, Britsh officials extended Quebec to include Virginia's claims to land north of the Ohio River
Source: Library of Congress, Revolutionary War, 1775-1783 (Hart-Bolton American history maps, 1917)

In 1775, Richard Henderson totally ignored the Proclamation of 1763 when he negotiated the Treaty of Sycamore Shoals with the Cherokee. The sale of the Cherokee claims to much of the Kentucky region theoretically extinguished Cherokee claims and authorized colonial settlement on 20 million acres.

From a legalistic perspective, as viewed by the British, the 1768 Treaty of Fort Stanwix, 1768 Treaty of Hard Labor, the 1770 Treaty of Lochaber, the 1774 Treaty of Camp Charlotte, and the Treaty of Sycamore Shoals pushed the Proclamation of 1763 boundary westward. Those treaties allowed settlement far beyond the Eastern Continental Divide in what today is southwestern Virginia, West Virginia, most of Kentucky, and much of Tennessee and Ohio.

However, raids from Native American groups living north of the Ohio River continued to limit the ability of colonists to occupy western lands. As predicted by Cherokee leader Dragging Canoe at the signing of the 1775 Treaty of Sycamore Shoals, Kentucky was a "dark and bloody ground." Ohio also remained a zone of conflict. Cornstalk visited a Virginia fort at Point Pleasant in 1777 to renew the peaceful status of the Shawnee, but he was seized and murdered.¹⁶

In 1783, George Washington endorsed an American equivalent of the Proclamation of 1763 to separate Native Americans and settlers:¹⁷

To suffer a wide extended Country to be overrun with Land jobbers-Speculators, and Monopolizers or even with scatter'd settlers is, in my opinion, inconsistent with that wisdom & policy which our true interest dictates, or that an enlightned People ought to adopt; and besides, is pregnant of disputes, both with the Savages, and among ourselves, the evils of which are easier, to be conceived than described; and for what? but to aggrandize a few avaricious Men to the prejudice of many and the embarrassment of Government. For the People engaged in these pursuits without contributing in the smallest degree to the support of Government, or considering themselves as amenable to its Laws, will involve it by their unrestrained conduct, in inextricable perplexities, and more than probable in a great deal of Bloodshed...

As the Country, is large enough to contain us all; and as we are disposed to be kind to them and to partake of their Trade, we will from these considerations and from motives of Compn, draw a veil over what is past and establish a boundary line between them and us beyond which we will endeavor to restrain our People from Hunting or Settling, and within which they shall not come, but for the purposes of Trading, Treating, or other business unexceptionable in its nature.

The Confederation Congress did mimic the British government's 1763 ban on western expansion. It issued an American proclamation 20 years after King George III (emphasis added):¹⁸

...whereas it is essential to the welfare and interest of the United States as well as necessary for the maintenance of harmony and friendship with the Indians, not members of any of the states, that all cause of quarrel or complaint between them and the United States, or any of them, should be removed and prevented: Therefore the United States in Congress assembled have thought proper to issue their proclamation, and they do hereby prohibit and forbid all persons from making settlements on lands inhabited or claimed by Indians, without the limits or jurisdiction of any particular State, and from purchasing or receiving any gift or cession of such lands or claims without the express authority and directions of the United States in Congress assembled.

And it is moreover declared, that every such purchase or settlement, gift or cession, not having the authority aforesaid, is null and void, and that no right or title will accrue in consequence of any such purchase, gift, cession or settlement.

The American Revolution completely eliminated British authority to dictate the terms of American settlement on western lands. Great Britain delayed its withdrawal of garrisons in the territory it surrendered and stimulated additional Native American resistance, but British officials lost their influence in awarding/blocking land grants or determining where Americans could settle.

Virginia relinquished its claim in 1784 when the Continental Congress accepted the cession of the Northwest Territory in 1784. Virginia leaders still remained deeply involved in shaping the settlement pattern for the lands west of the old Proclamation of 1763 line.

Thomas Jefferson wrote the Ordinance of 1784, which proposed the creation of new states from the Southwest Territory and Northwest Territory. Jefferson assumed Native American claims would be acquired through purchase, legitimizing settlement. He proposed creating 10 new states, giving them equal status with existing states once they gained enough population to enter the union.

The Confederation Congress approved the ordinance, but did not implement it. The 13 original states had little desire to dilute their authority, or see residents flee to the west without paying their debts and leave fewer people behind to carry the tax burden.

The survey-before-sale approach was adopted in the Land Ordinance of 1785, facilitating actual transfer of lands. Passage of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 finally led to the creation of new states. The Proclamation Line, as declared by the Confederation Congress in 1783, did not result in the United States creating permanent colonies with constrained sovereignty on the western side of the line.¹⁹

After the American Revolution, the new national government continued the British approach of creating reserves for Native Americans. It signed treaties that defined boundaries defining lands reserved for Native Americans, failed to enforce the barriers to settlement, and then revised treaty boundaries.

The 1785 Treaty of Fort McIntosh established a new boundary with a reserve between the Cuyahoga and Maumee rivers for the Wyandot, Delaware (Lenape), Chippewa (Ojibwa), and Ottawa. After "Mad Anthony" Wayne's victory at the Battle of Fallen Timbers, the 1795 Treaty of Greenville redefined that line. Neither treaty protected the reserved lands for long.

the 1785 Treaty of Fort McIntosh was intended to release eastern and southern Ohio for American settlement, while reserving a portion of the Northwest Territory "to the Wiandot and Delaware nations, to live and to hunt on, and to such of the Ottawa nation as now live thereon"
Source: ESRI, ArcGIS Online

In the Compact of 1802, after the Yazoo Land Fraud, the Federal government assumed Georgia's western land claims. President Thomas Jefferson schemed to acquire Native American lands east of the Mississippi River peacefully. He wrote to a trusted ally in 1803:²⁰

...by giving them effectual protection against wrongs from our own people, the decrease of game rendering their subsistence by hunting insufficient, we wish to draw them to agriculture, to spinning & weaving... when they withdraw themselves to the culture of a small piece of land, they will percieve how useless to them are their extensive forests, and will be willing to pare them off from time to time in exchange for necessaries for their farms & families...

...we shall push our trading houses, and be glad to see the good & influential individuals among them run in debt, because we observe that when these debts get beyond what the individuals can pay, they become willing to lop th[em off] by a cession of lands

Georgians were frustrated at the Federal government's slow pace of buying the land and opening it to settlement. General Andrew Jackson took advantage of the War of 1812 to invade Native American territory in the southeast and even Spanish-controlled Florida. After the Battle of Horseshoe Bend in 1814, Jackson and other American negotiators forced the Mikasuki (Muskogee)-speaking tribes to sign a series of treaties between 1816-20.

Under pressure, Creek leaders who had fought as allies of Jackson - and were critical to his victory at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend - were forced to cede their territory and migrate westward across the Mississippi River. Signing the Treaty of Fort Jackson and other cessions allowed the tribes to maintain sovereignty while abandoning their homeland. The alternative choice was to remain within what became Alabama and western Georgia, and attempt to assimilate into American society.

the National Park Service now owns the site of the 1814 Battle of Horseshoe Bend, after which Creek chiefs were forced to cede nearly half of their land to the United State

The final chapter in the settlement of the lands between the Eastern Continental Divide and the Mississippi River came when President Andrew Jackson pressed Congress successfully to approve the Indian Removal Act in 1830. A year earlier, gold was discovered in Cherokee-controlled territory. Jackson was anxious to accommodate Georgia officials in part because South Carolina was looking for allies to declare that a state could nullify the 1828 tariff as unconstitutional, and even secede if a state found a Federal law to be oppressive. To isolate South Carolina and force it to accept continued Federal authority, President Jackson gave Georgia settlers what they wanted most: access to Native American land.

The removal of the Five Civilized Tribes in the south (Choctaw, Creek, Chickasaw, Seminole, and Cherokee) resulted from that law, including the Cherokee expulsion via the "Trail of Tears." Northern tribes, including the Shawnees, Wyandots (Hurons) and Ottawas, were also displaced west of the Mississippi River. The Sauk and Fox returned to Illinois to hunt in 1832, but were expelled again after the Black Hawk War.

The Choctaw were the first to be removed to the Indian Territory, now Oklahoma. Not all chose to go, and today the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians have a reservation in east central Mississippi. Similarly, not all the Cherokee joined the Trail of Tears. With the help of an ally, they purchased the rights to land. The Qualla Boundary in western North Carolina is still the home of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.

The Third Seminole War in 1856-58 triggered the last forced deportation from the southeastern United States prior to the Civil War, but not all Native Americans in Florida were caught and expelled. The Seminole Tribe of Florida organized in 1957, established a Tribal Roll to documents its members, and pioneered use of bingo and modern casinos to generate tribal revenue.

Mikasuki-speaking Creeks avoided capture by retreating into the Everglades. The Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida was reestablished in 1962, and they occupy one of many reservations of different tribes that still exist as organized groups east of the Mississippi River.²¹

Treaties Defining the Boundaries Separating English and Native American Territories in Virginia

Virginia's Cession of the Northwest Territory

Vandalia and the Grand Ohio Company

the Indian Removal Act of 1830 pushed across the Mississippi River the boundary that was defined in the Proclamation of 1763, creating an Indian Reserve to limit conflicts between settlers and Native Americans"
Source: Library of Congress, Map showing the lands assigned to emigrant Indians west of Arkansas and Missouri.

Links

• Journal of the American Revolution
• The Fear of Domination: Resistance Against Tyranny (January 7, 2020)
• Map Scholar
• The Proclamation Line
• The New Map of Empire: How Britain Imagined America before Independence (by S. Max Edelson, 2017)
• The Royal Proclamation of 1763: Its Effect upon Virginia Land Companies by Eugene M. Del Papa, published in the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 83, No. 4 (Oct., 1975), pp. 406-411

the Proclamation Line of 1763 west of the Eastern Continental Divide as an "Indian Reserve"
Source: Department of State, Milestones: 1750-1775 - Proclamation Line of 1763, Quebec Act of 1774 and Westward Expansion

References

most of the American Revolution battles were fought east of the 1763 Proclamation Line
Source: Library of Congress, Revolutionary War, 1775-1783 (Hart-Bolton American history maps, 1917)