France’s and Spain’s defeat in the Seven Years’ War led to a major shift in colonial territories both claimed and controlled all over the world. For the residents of the Thirteen Colonies, what was significant was that, via the Treaty of Paris signed February 10th, 1763, France gave up all its claims to Canada, and Spain gave up its claims to East and West Florida.

Understand that when the 1763 Treaty of Paris was signed, most of the land that is now modern Canada and part of the United States became a British colony. The land was mostly unexplored, and the boundaries were, at best, guesses based on information from trappers and traders who ventured into the interior to trade with the Native Americans.

Those in the Thirteen Colonies resided mostly on the coast with settlers pushing west into what is now Kentucky, Tennessee, and Ohio. The majority of Canadians lived in Nova Scotia and along the St. Lawrence River.

In the Thirteen Colonies, settlers were emigrants from all over Europe, but mostly England, Ireland, Germany, and what was known at the time as the Holy Roman Empire (modern Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Hungary and parts of Italy). These intrepid souls were drawn to the Thirteen Colonies because there were economic opportunities for them and the chance to own land.

In the minds of English leaders, British North America was now secure from any external threats (France and Spain). Therefore, they decided to redraw the map, so to speak, via the Proclamation Line of 1763. Issued on October 7th, 1763, the English rationale was that the continued westward movement of settlers was a threat to the English Mercantile System in which its colonies sent raw materials to England. British firms then turned them into manufactured goods which were sold to British colonists throughout the empire.

Via a series of acts in the 17th and early 18th Century, the British Parliament codified this economic concept into a series of laws known as the Navigation Acts. These acts irritated British citizens (the same ones who became Rebels in 1775) living in the colonies because there were customers willing to buy the same stuff – rice, indigo, lumber, dried fish, etc. – for a higher price. In toto, the Navigation Acts prohibited merchants living in a British colony from trading with any country other than Great Britain.

King George III’s proclamation drew a line down the spine of the Appalachian Mountains as it was known at the time. It was an attempt to confine the Thirteen colonies to a strip of land bounded on the west by the Appalachians, the north by Canada, the east by the Atlantic and Florida in the south.

Residents of the Thirteen Colonies were forbidden to own or buy land beyond this mountain range. If you look at the map accompanying this post, you’ll notice that Quebec was given what is now Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin.

Unfortunately, the map drawn by King George III’s minions didn’t reflect the realities on the ground or the will of the colonists. The proclamation didn’t stop settlers from moving west and conflicted with the territorial claims of Georgia, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Pennsylvania. Their legislatures had drawn lines on a map following lines of latitude westward from their eastern border as far west as the Mississippi River.

The colonists dislike of the lines on the map from the Proclamation of 1763, so in 1768, the British Parliament moved the line westward, but it too was ignored. Any law, or tax, or enforcement action by the British was ignored.

While the Proclamation of 1763 was not THE cause of the American Revolution, it was a contributor. The bottom line is that our Founding Fathers didn’t want some ruler 3,000+ miles away telling them where they could go, what they could sell, and what they could do. As a country, it is in our DNA.

Map is Jon Piatek’s depiction (created in 2008) of the lines drawn in the Proclamation of 1763.

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