Treaty of Easton, 1758

Colonial wars began in European theatres and spread to North America with little thought of the consequences to those most directly involved, the Native tribes who actually lived here.  Ever since the 17th century, tribes had developed intricate trading networks with either France or England, the two dominant powers.  Each tribe had their reasons for preferring one or the other.  The Iroquois were almost unanimous in their support of the English, while other tribes, such as the Delaware/Lenape and the Shawnee, at times preferred the French.  Fortunately, some colonial officials, such as Sir William Johnson, saw the need to get as many tribes as possible on the side of the British and worked feverishly to that end throughout the Seven Years War, 1758-1763.

The Delaware/Lenape at this time were especially aggrieved.  The Walking Purchase treaty of 1737 had defrauded them of most of their range in Pennsylvania.  Now they were being asked to give up any claims to hunting lands in New Jersey.  In October, 1758, representatives of 13 tribes including the Iroquois, the Delaware/Lenape and the Shawnee met in Easton, Pennsylvania to work out an agreement.  Conrad Weiser, a colorful character on the Pennsylvania frontier, served as the interpreter and official representative of Johnson's Indian Department.  Colonial representatives from Pennsylvania were also present.  The tribes all agreed not to support the French in return for guarantees of the right to settle in the Ohio Valley.  The British undertook to bar settlement beyond the Allegheny Mountains.  The various tribes reiterated their cession of land in Pennsylvania and the Delaware in particular were paid 1,000 Spanish reals for the New Jersey land.  The Governor of Pennsylvania, William Denny, took the opportunity to reiterate Pennsylvania's peaceful relationship with the Delaware.

So, how did this all work out in reality?  Although the British did issue the Proclamation of 1763, forbidding American settlement beyond the Appalachian Mountains, Settlers ignored it and the British found it next to impossible to police.  Settlers poured into Pennsylvania and then into the Ohio Valley, Kentucky and Tennessee, disrupting the hunting ranges of all these tribes.  Many tribal leaders soon found that the English weren't the trading partners the French had been, curtailing sales of weapons, ammunition and liquor while demanding higher quotas of pelts.  King Phillip's War of 1764 was the result of all of the above.  The settlement boundaries would be pushed back by the Treaty of Fort Stanwix in 1768 and the frontier remained as volatile as ever it had been.

The Royal Proclamation of 1763

American school children are routinely taught that the American Revolution was a rebellion against taxation without representation.  And, while taxes on stamps and tea may have been an issue for Americans in urban areas along the East Coast, there was a far more pressing issue out west-land.

The push to go west was a part of American culture long before we existed as a country.  As cities grew and more Settlers arrived here, there was only one place for them to go, further west.  As land became exhausted through farming and deforestation, or younger sons and brothers needed a way to make a living, the only thing for them to do was to look for land and opportunity in the backcountry, overmountain, and encroaching further and further on Native hunting ranges.  Prior to the French and Indian/Seven Years War (1755-1763), France owned the land that now forms the Missouri and Mississippi draining basin.  However, it was a large area to police and American settlers routinely trespassed on it, keeping the frontier in almost constant turmoil.  Both England and France depended heavily on local citizen militias and Native auxiliaries to fight their colonial wars for them.  The incentive for the Natives was to back the power which provided greater assurance of their land rights.  The incentive for White militiamen was the possibility of land grants of western land.  So sure were these men that they would have a share of the western land that speculation was a booming business, with men such as George Washington laying claim to large swathes of the Ohio Valley sight unseen, in an investment they intended to divide and sell some day.

When the War was settled with the Treaty of Paris in 1763, all of France's possessions in America were turned over to Britain.  No one bothered to deal with Native claims to their homelands and hunting ranges, or the interests of land speculators or veterans who felt they were entitled to a share of the spoils.  The Crown instead promptly passed the Royal Proclamation of 1763.  In part, it divided up the former French lands for administrative purposes.  Then it dashed speculators hopes by declaring that all the land from the Mississippi River to the Appalachian Mountains was an Indian Reserve and barred to White settlement.  While White hunters could hunt and trap on this land, assuming a war party didn't catch them doing so, they were barred from settling on the land.  Further, colonies and private individuals were forbidden from selling or buying the land.  Great Britain hoped to keep peace with the Natives, promote settlement in America and open the land in future to settlement in an orderly progression.  For that reason, they assigned an arbitrary cutoff.  Land drained by rivers flowing east to the Atlantic was open to settlement.  Land drained by rivers flowing into the Mississippi watershed was off limits.

This simplistic solution left nobody happy.  Colonel governments and land speculators saw their investment disappearing before their eyes.  Veterans felt cheated of part of their incentive for fighting what had been a long and vicious war.  Anyone wanting, or needing, to head west to find a piece of land to support themselves and a family had to do so illegally, by scouting
a piece of land and squatting, dodging any Natives who might object.  The Natives came to understand that the British weren't anymore interested in helping them protect their hunting ranges than the French had been.  It was up to them.  Shawnee, Ottawa, Cherokee and other raiding parties made repeated attacks on isolated farms and settlements.  The Settlers retaliated in kind and the frontier was as violent a place as ever.  The colonists were caught in a vicious cycle.  They couldn't expect Crown protection, since settling on this land was a violation of law, yet they felt that Britain, by not curbing the Natives and upholding the rights of Whites to settle on this land, didn't have the right population's interests at heart.  Americans came to believe that they were required to foot the bill for the Seven Years War as a series of taxes on stamps, tea and other luxury goods streamed from London, cutting into American trade.  They also felt that Britain was tying their hands by not allowing settlement of the western frontier beyond the Appalachians. 

The Proclamation of 1763 was one of a series of Crown laws and directives known as the Intolerable Acts.  It's considered one of many inexorable steps to Revolution and separation between Britain and the United States, so much so that it has been commemorated in the over 250 years since its passing, as in the Franklin Mint commemorative pictured.  Even after the Revolution, portions of the Proclamation Line in Canada remained off-limits to settlement and formed the basis of continuing treaties with tribes there.  In the United States, the principle that the federal government was the proper entity to treat with Native nations for land carried over, although the boundary for settlement was gradually and inevitably adjusted west and ultimately ignored.