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Independence Declared: 1775 to 1777

War Breaks Out

April 19, 1775
The first shots of the Revolutionary War are fired at Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts. The news of the bloodshed rockets along the eastern seaboard, and thousands of volunteers converge-called "Minute Men"-on Cambridge, Mass. These are the beginnings of the Continental Army.

Learn more about Minute Man National Historical Park

Britain Forms an Alliance with Patriot Slaves

November 1775
The British governor of Virginia, Lord Dunmore, issues a proclamation offering freedom to any slaves of rebellious Americans who are able to enter British lines. Throughout the course of the war, tens of thousands of African Americans will seek their freedom by supporting the British. A smaller number will fight on the patriot (pro-independence) side, despite policies that discourage their enlistment

Battle of Bunker Hill: Americans Hold Their Own

June 17, 1775
In the first major action of the war, inexperienced colonial soldiers hold off hardened British veterans for more than two hours at Breed's Hill. Although eventually forced to abandon their position, including the high ground of Bunker Hill overlooking Boston, the patriots show that they are not intimidated by the long lines of red-coated infantrymen. Of the 2,200 British seeing action, more than 1,000 end up dead or wounded.

Learn more about Boston National Historical Park

Moores Creek: Loyalists Defeated

February 27, 1776
A force of loyalists (Americans who want to remain British subjects), most of them of Scots descent, is defeated by a patriot army at the Battle of Moores Creek Bridge. This setback will largely quiet loyalist activity in the Carolinas for three years.

Learn more about Moores Creek National Battlefield

South Carolinians Repel British Attempt to Take Charleston

June 28, 1776
A British invasion force mounts an all-day attack on a patriot force on Sullivan's Island. The invaders are unable to land their troops on the island, and the tricky waters of Charleston Harbor frustrate the British navy. The fleet retires in defeat, and South Carolina will remain untouched by the enemy for three more years.

Learn more about Fort Moultrie National Monument

America Declares Its Independence

July 1776
The Declaration of Independence is adopted by the Second Continental Congress. Following a decade of agitation over taxes and a year of war, representatives make the break with Britain. King George III isn't willing to let his subjects go without a fight, and loyalist sentiment remains strong in many areas. Americans' primary allegiance is to their states; nationalism will grow slowly.

Learn more about Independence National Historical Park

George Washington Crosses the Delaware River

December 1776 to January 1777
In a bold move, Washington moves his troops into New Jersey on Christmas night. The patriots then surprise a force of German troops fighting for Britain at Trenton on December 26. They achieve a similar victory over British troops at Princeton on January 3, reviving hopes that the war just might be winnable. The army then encamps for the winter at Morristown, New Jersey.

Learn more about Morristown National Historical Park

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Timeline of the Revolution - American Revolution (U.S. National Park Service)

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April 19, 1775 The first shots of the Revolutionary War are fired at Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts. The news of the bloodshed rockets along the eastern seaboard, and thousands of volunteers converge-called "Minute Men"-on Cambridge, Mass. These are the beginnings of the Continental Army.

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Life in England and America

Paine was born of a Quaker father and an Anglican mother. His formal education was meagre, just enough to enable him to master reading, writing, and arithmetic. At 13 he began work with his father as a corset maker and then tried various other occupations unsuccessfully, finally becoming an officer of the excise. His duties were to hunt for smugglers and collect the excise taxes on liquor and tobacco. The pay was insufficient to cover living costs, but he used part of his earnings to purchase books and scientific apparatus.

Paine's life in England was marked by repeated failures. He had two brief marriages. He was unsuccessful or unhappy in every job he tried. He was dismissed from the excise office after he published a strong argument in 1772 for a raise in pay as the only way to end corruption in the service. Just when his situation appeared hopeless, he met Benjamin Franklin in London, who advised him to seek his fortune in America and gave him letters of introduction (including one to Franklin's son-in-law, Richard Bache).

Paine arrived in Philadelphia on November 30, 1774. Bache introduced him to Robert Aitkin, whose Pennsylvania Magazine Paine helped found and edit for 18 months. In addition Paine published numerous articles and some poetry, anonymously or under pseudonyms. One such article was "African Slavery in America," a scathing denunciation of the African slave trade, which he signed "Justice and Humanity."

Paine had arrived in America when the conflict between the colonists and England was reaching its height. After blood was spilled at the Battles of Lexington and Concord, April 19, 1775, Paine argued that the cause of America should be not just a revolt against taxation but a demand for independence. He put this idea into Common Sense, which came off the press on January 10, 1776. The 50-page pamphlet sold more than 500,000 copies within a few months. More than any other single publication, Common Sense paved the way for the Declaration of Independence, unanimously ratified on July 4, 1776.

During the war that followed, Paine served as volunteer aide-de-camp to Gen. Nathanael Greene. His great contribution to the patriot cause was the 16 " Crisis" papers issued between 1776 and 1783, each one signed Common Sense. "The American Crisis. Number I," published on December 19, 1776, when George Washington's army was on the verge of disintegration, so moved Washington that he ordered it read to all the troops at Valley Forge. Its opening is among the most stirring passages in the literature of the American Revolution:

These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us-that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: It is dearness only that gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated. Britain, with an army to enforce her tyranny, has declared that she has a right not only to tax but "to bind us in all cases whatsoever," and if being bound in that manner is not slavery, then is there not such a thing as slavery upon earth. Even the expression is impious, for so unlimited a power can belong only to God.

This paper, combined with the subsequent victory of Washington's army in the Battle of Trenton later in the month, had the probable effect of inspiring many soldiers, whose term of service would expire January 1, to reenlist.

In 1777 Congress appointed Paine secretary to the Committee for Foreign Affairs. He held the post until early in 1779, when he became involved in a controversy with Silas Deane, a member of the Continental Congress, whom Paine accused of seeking to profit personally from French aid to the United States. But in revealing Deane's machinations, Paine was forced to quote from secret documents to which he had access as secretary of the Committee for Foreign Affairs. As a result, despite the truth of his accusations, he was forced to resign his post.

Paine's desperate need of employment was relieved when he was appointed clerk of the General Assembly of Pennsylvania on November 2, 1779. In this capacity he had frequent opportunity to observe that American troops were at the end of their patience because of lack of pay and scarcity of supplies. Paine took $500 from his salary and started a subscription for the relief of the soldiers. In 1781, pursuing the same goal, he accompanied John Laurens to France. The money, clothing, and ammunition they brought back with them were important to the final success of the Revolution. Paine also appealed to the separate states to cooperate for the well-being of the entire nation. In "Public Good" (1780) he included a call for a national convention to remedy the ineffectual Articles of Confederation and establish a strong central government under "a continental constitution."

At the end of the American Revolution, Paine again found himself poverty-stricken. His patriotic writings had sold by the hundreds of thousands, but he had refused to accept any profits in order that cheap editions might be widely circulated. In a petition to Congress endorsed by Washington, he pleaded for financial assistance. It was buried by Paine's opponents in Congress, but Pennsylvania gave him £500 and New York a farm in New Rochelle. Here Paine devoted his time to inventions, concentrating on an iron bridge without piers and a smokeless candle.

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Thomas Paine | Biography, Common Sense, Rights of Man, Religion, & Significance

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Thomas Paine, political propagandist whose Common Sense pamphlet and Crisis papers influenced the American Revolution. His other prominent works included Rights of Man, a defense of the French Revolution and of republican principles, and The Age of Reason, an exposition of the place of religion in society.

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The Second Continental Congress and the Declaration of Independence - Independence National Historical Park (U.S. National Park Service)

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The Second Continental Congress met inside Independence Hall beginning in May 1775. It was just a month after shots had been fired at Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts, and the Congress was preparing for war. They established a Continental army and elected George Washington as Commander-in-Chie…

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Table of Contents

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Battles of Lexington and Concord, (April 19, 1775), initial skirmishes between British regulars and American provincials, marking the beginning of the American Revolution. Acting on orders from London to suppress the rebellious colonists, General Thomas Gage, recently appointed royal governor of Massachusetts, ordered his troops to seize the colonists' military stores at Concord. En route from Boston, the British force of 700 men was met on Lexington Green by 77 local minutemen and others who had been forewarned of the raid by the colonists' efficient lines of communication, including the ride of Paul Revere. It is unclear who fired the first shot. Resistance melted away at Lexington, and the British moved on to Concord. Most of the American military supplies had been hidden or destroyed before the British troops arrived. A British covering party at Concord's North Bridge was finally confronted by 320 to 400 American patriots and forced to withdraw. The march back to Boston was a genuine ordeal for the British, with Americans continually firing on them from behind roadside houses, barns, trees, and stone walls. This experience established guerrilla warfare as the colonists' best defense strategy against the British. Total losses were British 273, American 95. The Battles of Lexington and Concord confirmed the alienation between the majority of colonists and the mother country, and it roused 16,000 New Englanders to join forces and begin the Siege of Boston, resulting in its evacuation by the British the following March.

Jeff Wallenfeldt.

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Battles of Lexington and Concord | Revolutionary War, Patriots, British

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Battles of Lexington and Concord, (April 19, 1775), initial skirmishes between British regulars and American provincials, marking the beginning of the American Revolution. Acting on orders from London to suppress the rebellious colonists, General Thomas Gage, recently appointed royal governor of

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Coming of the American Revolution: First Continental Congress

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As a direct response to the Boston Tea Party, Lord North's ministry during the early months of 1774 brought before Parliament the Coercive Acts, a string of bills that became known in the colonies as the Intolerable Acts: The Boston Port Act (March 31, 1774), the Massachusetts Government Act (May 20, 1774), the Administration of Justice Act (May 20, 1774), and the Quartering Act (June 2, 1774). The Quebec Act (June 22, 1774), mostly because of timing rather than intent, was also considered by some colonials, especially in New England, and by many historians as part of the Intolerable Acts. The most important of them was the first passed, the Boston Port Act, because it was news of its passage that led to the call for the First Continental Congress. Within a year, the British government's attempt to enforce the bundle of legislation tipped a constitutional crisis into the Revolutionary War.

The Coercive Acts closed the port of Boston, unilaterally changed the government of the Massachusetts Bay Colony to centralize British authority, permitted colonial leaders accused of crimes to be tried in another colony or in England, and sanctioned the billeting of British troops in unused buildings.

North's ministry considered the acts as critical to the restoration of Parliament's authority in the colonies. British Americans perceived them as arbitrary and unreasonable attacks on fundamental constitutional rights. Among the Intolerable Acts, some colonials included the Quebec Act, because it protected the Roman Catholic Church in Canada, established a royally-appointed rather than an elected legislative assembly, and placed much of the western territory that colonials hoped to exploit outside of the reach of American governments.

Although the clear target of the Intolerable Acts was Boston, the greater audience for the legislation included every radical and potential opposition leader in the British Atlantic. The striking revocation of the province's 1691 charter by the Massachusetts Government Act, for example, was an intentional display of the supremacy of Parliament, a serious lesson to be learned by all of the colonies, from Ireland to Barbados. If the legislation succeeded in separating Boston from the rest of the colonies and bringing its residents to heel, no disaffected upstarts could legitimately claim that sovereignty over any constitutional matters derived from any source outside of Parliament.

Word of the Intolerable Acts led to an unprecedented outbreak of public dismay and disaffection throughout British America (including the Caribbean) and directly resulted in the creation of the First Continental Congress in September 1774 compromised of delegates from 13 of the mainland colonies.

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As a direct response to the Boston Tea Party, Lord North's ministry during the early months of 1774 brought before Parliament the Coercive Acts, a string of bills that became known in the colonies as the Intolerable Acts: The Boston Port Act (March 31, 1774), the Massachusetts Government Act (May 20, 1774), the Administration of Justice Act (May 20, 1774), and the Quartering Act (June 2, 1774).

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Introduction

On 5 March 1770, Parliament rescinded the Townshend duties on four of the five commodities that had been taxed; the duty on tea remained in force. Outraged patriots sought to shore up sagging efforts to boycott tea by appealing to merchants (nonimportation) and the citizenry (nonconsumption). But people loved their tea, and their resolve weakened.

In the spring of 1773, the East India Company had a large amount of surplus tea on hand. To aid the failing company, thwart the smuggling of Dutch tea, and reassert its authority to levy taxes on the colonies, Parliament authorized the Tea Act on 10 May 1773. Tea sold in America would carry no duty for the East India Company; instead, the tea would be taxed at the point of entry in colonial ports. Consignees, or special agents, were appointed in Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, and Charleston to receive and sell the tea.

In the fall of 1773, as newspapers publish the particulars of the East India Company plan, colonists learn that the tea is coming. Protests soon circulate. Writing out of Philadelphia, "Scaevola" rebukes the tea agents, calling them political bombadiers. Refusing a summons to resign their commissions, Boston's tea agents counter that they are the true sons of liberty. Demonstrating its decided disagreement, a patriot mob storms Richard Clarke's King Street shop on 3 November.

Boston's consignees petition the governor to safeguard the tea once it arrives, but with British forces confined to Castle William since the unfortunate events of the Boston Massacre, Hutchinson is powerless to oblige. The streets belong to the opposition.

On Sunday, 28 November, the Dartmouth, carrying 114 chests of tea, arrives in Boston Harbor. A meeting, open to all Bostonians and anyone from neighboring towns who chooses to attend (a group identified as the Body), is called at Faneuil Hall. When the crowd swells, it adjourns to Old South Meeting House. The Body speaks, demanding that the tea be returned, and the assembly appoints a watch of 25 men to guard Griffin's Wharf.

From Philadelphia and New York, news arrives that anyone attempting to land the tea in those ports should beware an unwelcome visit. By 2 December, consignees have resigned in three port towns, and the taunt goes forth: Will you shrink at Boston?

By 15 December, the Eleanor and the Beaver, also both laden with tea, arrive at Griffin's Wharf. The law is clear: if the duty on the Dartmouth's tea is not paid by 17 December, the customs officer is authorized to seize the ship and its cargo. The governor, the ships' owners, and the tea consignees all refuse to return the tea to England. Voting at a 16 December meeting at Old South, the Body resolves to prevent the East India tea from being landed, stored, sold, or consumed. At the conclusion of the meeting, the crowd streams out onto the street, chasing 30 to 60 men dressed as Indians down to Griffin's Wharf. In what John Adams calls an intrepid "exertion of popular power," the men proceed to dump 342 chests of tea into the sea.

Governor Hutchinson is incensed, calling the dumping of the tea high treason. Energized by their victory, boisterous patriots urge Bostonians, "keep up your courage." When news of the event arrives there, New York celebrates Boston's Indians, as does Philadelphia. Boston, once suspect, is now praised for its steadfast opposition to tyrannical English policies.

Not all, however, applaud the Destruction of the Tea (later designated the Boston Tea Party). At the end of January, the town of Marshfield urges good and loyal subjects to speak up against the Bostonians' unlawful act. Still, in March, Indians are found destroying the tea-again. And in April, another episode raises questions whether the perpetrators are good Indians or bad Indians.

In February, the tea ship captains arrive in England and are summoned to testify before the Privy Council; since they are not able to identify individuals responsible for the destruction of the tea, the government decides to punish the entire town of Boston. Until the East India Company is reimbursed for its loss, the port of Boston will be closed.

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Coming of the American Revolution: Boston Tea Party

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On 5 March 1770, Parliament rescinded the Townshend duties on four of the five commodities that had been taxed; the duty on tea remained in force. Outraged patriots sought to shore up sagging efforts to boycott tea by appealing to merchants (nonimportation) and the citizenry (nonconsumption).

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Tea Act, (1773), in British American colonial history, legislative maneuver by the British ministry of Lord North to make English tea marketable in America. A previous crisis had been averted in 1770 when all the Townshend Acts duties had been lifted except that on tea, which had been mainly supplied to the Colonies since then by Dutch smugglers. In an effort to help the financially troubled British East India Company sell 17,000,000 pounds of tea stored in England, the Tea Act rearranged excise regulations so that the company could pay the Townshend duty and still undersell its competitors. At the same time, the North administration hoped to reassert Parliament's right to levy direct revenue taxes on the Colonies. The shipments became a symbol of taxation tyranny to the colonists, reopening the door to unknown future tax abuses. Colonial resistance culminated in the Boston Tea Party (December 1773), in which tea was dumped into the ocean, and in a similar action in New York (April 1774).

Chelsey Parrott-Sheffer, Research Editor.

Learn More in these related Britannica articles:

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Tea Act, (1773), in British American colonial history, legislative maneuver by the British ministry of Lord North to make English tea marketable in America. A previous crisis had been averted in 1770 when all the Townshend Acts duties had been lifted except that on tea, which had been mainly

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Introduction

In June 1767, Parliament passed the Townshend Acts, which levied import duties on articles including tea, lead, glass, paint, and paper and established a Board of Customs Commissioners for America to be stationed in Boston. Bostonians protested the import duties by encouraging nonimportation and nonconsumption movements in the colonies. In February 1768, the customs commissioners asked Parliament to guarantee their safety as they carried out their duties in Boston. Troops began arriving in October of that year. Many Bostonians resented the presence of the standing army in their town, and patriot leaders made concerted efforts to feed the population's animosity toward the soldiers.

As the nonimportation movement falters in January and February of 1770, some Bostonians take it upon themselves to discourage merchants from selling British goods. Importers' stores are vandalized and customers bullied. On 22 February, eleven-year-old Christopher Seider is slain as irate customs informer Ebenezer Richardson fires into a crowd. Patriots ensure that Seider becomes a young martyr in the war against import duties.

By the winter of 1770, civilians are clashing more and more frequently with the soldiers of the Fourteenth and Twenty-ninth Regiments, the last troops remaining in Boston. (Other regiments had been previously relocated.) After a series of clashes between soldiers and workers at John Gray's ropewalks during the weekend of 2 March, Bostonians are predicting additional trouble. On the evening of 5 March, a lone sentry posted in front of the Customs House is hassled by a group of young men. As the crowd swells, Captain Thomas Preston leads seven soldiers from the Twenty-ninth Regiment to reinforce the sentry, but he cannot persuade the crowd to disperse. Amidst the noise and confusion, shots are fired; three civilians are killed and two more are mortally wounded. Within hours of the episode, Captain Preston and his men are in jail, and townspeople are demanding that the troops be removed from Boston. Newspapers scramble to report the news of the tumultuous week and its capstone event.

Tories and patriots immediately blame each other for the confrontation, and both sides begin collecting depositions to support their points of view. The Tories strike first, and their account and depositions are sent to England on 16 March. Not content to let military officials talk for him, Preston speaks out from his jail cell. Patriot leaders, meanwhile, stage their own propaganda attack. A town-appointed committee drafts a narrative implying that the incident was the result of a sinister plot. Paul Revere markets an engraving that vividly depicts a bloody massacre, while others commemorate the "tragical scene" in verse.

Patriot leaders call for an immediate trial, but Lieutenant Governor Thomas Hutchinson, knowing that townspeople are demanding an eye for an eye, hopes to push the trials into the summer. The trials are ultimately delayed until fall, but in the intervening months, Richardson is tried in the death of young Seider and found guilty of murder.

John Adams, Robert Auchmuty Jr., and Josiah Quincy Jr. are retained to defend Preston and his men. Robert Treat Paine and Samuel Quincy (brother of Josiah) will prosecute. Lieutenant Governor Thomas Hutchinson, also chief justice of the Superior Court of Judicature, declines to preside at the trials. Benjamin Lynde serves in his place. Preston's trial opens on 24 October 1770, and a few days later the jury reaches a surprise verdict: not guilty. Preston's men are tried separately beginning 27 November 1770. Adams prepares a complicated defense, and six of the soldiers are found not guilty; two others are found guilty of manslaughter but escape the death penalty.

Quiet settles over Boston following the trials. Writing under the pseudonym "Vindex," Samuel Adams attempts to retry Preston and the soldiers through a series of newspaper articles, but his writings fail to rouse public sentiment as he had hoped. Adams does succeed in turning 5 March into a day of mourning, and commemorative orations are delivered in Boston each year through 1784. Years later, John Adams looks back at the events of 1770, believing that justice had prevailed.

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Coming of the American Revolution: Boston Massacre

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In June 1767, Parliament passed the Townshend Acts, which levied import duties on articles including tea, lead, glass, paint, and paper and established a Board of Customs Commissioners for America to be stationed in Boston. Bostonians protested the import duties by encouraging nonimportation and nonconsumption movements in the colonies.

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Learn about the Townshend Acts from the American Revolution including how they got their name, what the laws did, why the colonists protested them, results, and interesting facts.

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Declaratory Act, (1766), declaration by the British Parliament that accompanied the repeal of the Stamp Act. It stated that the British Parliament's taxing authority was the same in America as in Great Britain. Parliament had directly taxed the colonies for revenue in the Sugar Act (1764) and the Stamp Act (1765). Parliament mollified the recalcitrant colonists by repealing the distasteful Stamp Act, but it actually hardened its principle in the Declaratory Act by asserting its complete authority to make laws binding on the American colonies "in all cases whatsoever." This crisis focused attention on the unresolved question of Parliament's relationship to a growing empire. The act particularly illustrated British insensitivity to the political maturity that had developed in the American provinces during the 18th century, partly in response to Parliament's unwritten policy of salutary neglect toward the colonies during the first half of the century. Parliamentary suspension of the New York Assembly as part of the Townshend Acts of 1767 increased colonial alarm, and each new regulatory act added to the colonists' fear of the parliamentary threat to well-established colonial institutions of self-government.

Adam Augustyn.

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Declaratory Act | Effects & Significance

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Declaratory Act, (1766), declaration by the British Parliament that accompanied the repeal of the Stamp Act. It stated that the British Parliament's taxing authority was the same in America as in Great Britain. Parliament had directly taxed the colonies for revenue in the Sugar Act (1764) and the Stamp Act (1765).

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This 1774 print shows Boston colonists pouring tea down the throat of a loyalist official whom they have tarred and feathered. Tax commissioners were commonly threatened with tarring and feathering when they tried to enforce the Stamp Act of 1765, which imposed a tax on all papers and official documents in the American colonies. The aftermath of the Stamp Act influenced constitutional safeguards and the First Amendment. (Print by Philip Dawe via Wikimedia Commons, public domain)

The Stamp Act of 1765 was ratified by the British parliament under King George III. It imposed a tax on all papers and official documents in the American colonies, though not in England.

King George III imposed a tax on official documents in American colonies

Included under the act were bonds, licenses, certificates, and other official documents as well as more mundane items such as plain parchment and playing cards. Parliament reasoned that the American colonies needed to offset the sums necessary for their maintenance. It intended to use the additional tax money to pay for war expenses incurred in Great Britain's struggles with France and Spain.

Many American colonists refused to pay Stamp Act tax

The American colonists were angered by the Stamp Act and quickly acted to oppose it. Because of the colonies' sheer distance from London, the epicenter of British politics, a direct appeal to Parliament was almost impossible. Instead, the colonists made clear their opposition by simply refusing to pay the tax.

Prominent individuals such as Benjamin Franklin and members of the independence-minded group known as the Sons of Liberty argued that the British parliament did not have the authority to impose an internal tax. Public protest flared and the ensuing violence attracted broad attention. Tax commissioners were threatened and quit their jobs out of fear; others simply did not succeed in collecting any money. As Franklin wrote in 1766, the "Stamp Act would have to be imposed by force." Unable to do so, Parliament repealed the Stamp Act just one year later, on March 18, 1766.

American separatist movement grew during protest of Stamp Act

The colonists may well have accepted the stamp tax had it been imposed by their own representatives and with their consent. However, the colonists' emerging sense of independence - nurtured by the mother country and justified by their multiple interactions with other trading nations - heightened the colonists' sense of indignation and feelings of injustice. Even had they submitted to it, there is little doubt that many would have been troubled by the negative impact of a tax on the free press.

Scholars contend that the American separatist movement gained a great deal of influence as a result of its success in protesting the Stamp Act.

Stamp Act aftermath influenced constitutional safeguards, First Amendment

The act and the violence that erupted with its passage remained fresh in the young country's memory. The crafters of the Constitution were careful to include safeguards against usurpations of freedom and the violence such acts could breed. Article 5 provides for a constitutional amending process, allowing for changes in the laws without resort to violent revolution.

The First Amendment secures freedom of speech, the right to peacefully assemble, and the right to petition government. It also protects the freedom of the press.
This article was originally written in 2009. Stefanie Kunze has a PhD in Political Science and is a Lecturer in the Department of Sociology at Northern Arizona University. Dr. Kunze specializes in perpetrators of ethnocide, and more specifically Native American experiences with settler colonialism.
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This 1774 print shows Boston colonists pouring tea down the throat of a loyalist official whom they have tarred and feathered. Tax commissioners were commonly threatened with tarring and feathering when they tried to enforce the Stamp Act of 1765, which imposed a tax on all papers and official documents in the American colonies.

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This article was most recently revised and updated by

Quartering Act, (1765), in American colonial history, the British parliamentary provision (actually an amendment to the annual Mutiny Act) requiring colonial authorities to provide food, drink, quarters, fuel, and transportation to British forces stationed in their towns or villages. Resentment over this practice is reflected in the Third Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which forbids it in peacetime.

The Quartering Act was passed primarily in response to greatly increased empire defense costs in America following the French and Indian War and Pontiac's War. Like the Stamp Act of the same year, it also was an assertion of British authority over the colonies, in disregard of the fact that troop financing had been exercised for 150 years by representative provincial assemblies rather than by the Parliament in London. The act was particularly resented in New York, where the largest number of reserves were quartered, and outward defiance led directly to the Suspending Act as part of the Townshend Acts of 1767. After considerable tumult, the Quartering Act was allowed to expire in 1770.

An additional quartering stipulation was included in the Intolerable Acts of 1774.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica Adam Augustyn.

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Quartering Act | Summary, Significance, & Facts

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Quartering Act, the 1765 British parliamentary provision requiring colonial authorities to provide food, drink, quarters, fuel, and transportation to British forces stationed in their towns. Resentment over this practice is reflected in the Third Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which forbids it in peacetime.

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The British Parliament passed the Sugar Act in 1764. It provided for a strongly enforced tax on sugar, molasses, and other products imported into the American colonies from non-British Caribbean sources. The act was also called the Plantation Act or the Revenue Act.

British Prime Minister George Grenville proposed the Sugar Act. It was actually a renewal of the largely ineffective Molasses Act of 1733. The Sugar Act was aimed at ending the smuggling trade in sugar and molasses from the French and Dutch West Indies. It was also meant to provide increased income for the British Empire, which had been enlarged following the French and Indian War.

Molasses is a syrup made from sugar. The American colonies imported large quantities of molasses to make rum. England wanted to make sure that they bought it from the sugar plantations of the British West Indies. However, molasses from French and Dutch colonies was cheaper. To counter that, the Molasses Act put a tax of six pence (a pence is a penny) per gallon on foreign molasses to try to force the colonists to buy the British product. The problem was that the British did not adequately enforce the tax. Therefore, the American colonies were able to get around it by bribing officials and smuggling the cheaper foreign molasses from non-British colonies. With these methods the American colonists did not need to buy molasses from the British West Indies.

The Molasses Act expired in 1763. The next year the British Parliament reinstated it-with some changes-as the Sugar Act. Grenville wanted the act to be more favorable to England. Although he lowered the tax on foreign molasses to three pence, he included more items-such as sugar, coffee, and some fabrics-under the tax. In addition, the tax was strictly enforced. Tax evaders had to appear before a British judge. Ship cargoes were confiscated if the rules were not followed. Under these harsh conditions the American colonists were unable to acquire any foreign cheap molasses. The sugarcane planters of the British West Indies gained a virtual monopoly of the American market. The act also hampered other colonial maritime commerce. The American colonists protested the Sugar Act, and two years later Parliament lowered the tax.

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The British Parliament passed the Sugar Act in 1764. It provided for a strongly enforced tax on sugar, molasses, and other products imported into the American colonies from non-British Caribbean sources. The act was also called the Plantation Act or the Revenue Act. British Prime Minister George Grenville proposed the Sugar Act.

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When did the French and Indian War begin?

What was the main cause of the French and Indian War?

Which treaty made France surrender Canada to Britain?

French and Indian War, American phase of a worldwide nine years' war (1754-63) fought between France and Great Britain. (The more-complex European phase was the Seven Years' War [1756-63].) It determined control of the vast colonial territory of North America. Three earlier phases of this extended contest for overseas mastery included King William's War (1689-97), Queen Anne's War (1702-13), and King George's War (1744-48).

Causes of the French and Indian War

The French and Indian War began over the specific issue of whether the upper Ohio River valley was a part of the British Empire, and therefore open for trade and settlement by Virginians and Pennsylvanians, or part of the French Empire. Behind this issue loomed an infinitely larger one, however: which national culture was to dominate the heart of North America. Settlers of English extraction were in a preponderance in the coveted area, but French exploration, trade, and alliances with Native Americans predominated.

British territorial claims rested upon explorations of the North American continent by John Cabot in the latter part of the 15th century. In the early 17th century, an English royal charter granted land within certain limits between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans to both the Virginia Company and the Plymouth Company. In 1663 the province of Carolina was created to the south of Virginia, with a sea-to-sea grant; the Carolina charter was amended two years later, and the expanded territory would come to form the colonies of North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. Thus, all the lands to the south of French Canada and to the north of Spanish Florida, stretching from sea to sea, were claimed by England. In conflict with this was France's claim to the whole of the Mississippi valley, including the Ohio Valley, based upon the explorations of René-Robert Cavelier, sieur de la Salle. Starting from Canada, La Salle moved through the Great Lakes and then, after descending the Mississippi River in 1682, took possession in the name of the king of France of all lands drained by the river and its tributaries.

For about 60 years, the conflict over which country had the stronger claim to the lands in the great Mississippi basin was to remain in abeyance. The English gradually settled all along the Atlantic seaboard to the south of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, where more than a dozen colonies-including British Nova Scotia, founded in 1749-came into existence and flourished. In the course of time, the inhabitants of these colonies in the course of time pushed westward from tidewater areas to establish themselves in the Piedmont country. By the middle of the 18th century, the small cabins of Virginians were to be found even to the west of the Appalachians on the upper reaches of such waterways as the New and Holston rivers. By that period, hundreds of Pennsylvanian traders had likewise settled in the villages of Indian peoples of the upper Ohio Valley, with whom Great Britain was allied. The French, firmly in control of Canada from the early 17th century, gradually began expanding into the Great Lakes region, establishing a permanent settlement at Detroit.

Initial hostilities

A conflict between the two colonial powers over their rival North American claims was doubtless inevitable, but because their areas of trade exploitation were widely separated, that conflict might have been delayed for many years had not the governor-general of New France forced the issue. Although the French had a scant presence in the neighbourhood of the Allegheny River and the upper Ohio River where Pennsylvania traders were concentrated, in 1749 the governor-general ordered Pierre-Joseph Céloron de Blainville to compel the trading houses in that region to lower the British flags that flew above them. The traders, regarded as trespassers on French lands, were ordered to retreat to the eastern slopes of the Appalachians. This directive did not have the desired effect, however, and force was applied in 1752 when the important British colonial trading centre at Pickawillany on the upper Great Miami River was destroyed. That move was followed by the capture or killing of every English-speaking trader that the French and their Indian allies could find in the upper Ohio Valley. Those actions struck directly not only at the people of Pennsylvania but also at those of Virginia.

The government of Virginia took the position that the lands of the upper Ohio were clearly included in the colony's 1609 charter. It argued that this grant gave Virginia a claim to the western lands that was more valid than New France's claim, which was based upon La Salle's much later journey down the Mississippi. In harmony with this point of view, the governor and council of Virginia had by the end of 1752 conditionally granted about 2,300 square miles (6,000 square km) of land in the Ohio Valley to settlers. As a result, almost every important Virginia family-including members of the Washington, Lee, and Randolph families-was vitally interested in the fate of the Ohio area. When news reached Williamsburg, the colonial capital, that the French were driving out English traders and building forts on the headwaters of the Allegheny in order to consolidate their positions, Lieut. Gov. Robert Dinwiddie determined to act. In October 1753 Dinwiddie dispatched young George Washington to the French Fort LeBouef (now Waterford, Pennsylvania) to warn the garrison there that it was occupying land that belonged to Virginia. After that mission failed, the Ohio Company of Virginia, which had received a special grant of upper Ohio Valley land, was encouraged to build a fort at the convergence of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers (modern Pittsburgh), with the understanding that troops from Virginia would support the undertaking.

The French, however, were too quick. Descending the Allegheny in large numbers in the spring of 1754, French troops overwhelmed the uncompleted fort before Virginia militia under Col. Joshua Fry could arrive. Upon Fry's death in May 1754, Washington assumed command of the militia and entrenched himself at a post that came to be called Fort Necessity (now Confluence, Pennsylvania), about 40 miles (60 km) from the French position at Fort Duquesne. On May 28 Washington's forces engaged a French scouting party, killing the commander, Coulon de Jumonville, and nine others as well as taking 20 prisoners. The French could not ignore such a provocation and descended upon Fort Necessity, besieging it on July 3. Although Washington had been reinforced with militia troops from Virginia and a company of regular British infantry from North Carolina, the combined French and Indian force outnumbered the defenders roughly two to one. Washington surrendered the fort, which was then burned by the French, and withdrew with his forces to Virginia.

The government of Virginia appealed to London for assistance. Fearing the renewal of war with France after just six years of peace, George II at first stubbornly refused to consider the request, agreeing with his prime minister, the duke of Newcastle, who said, "Let Americans fight Americans." When it became clear that raw Virginia militia could not make headway against seasoned French regulars, George ordered Gen. Edward Braddock to go to Virginia with a force and eject the French from Fort Duquesne and its environs. Adm. Edward Boscawen was sent into the region of the Gulf of St. Lawrence with a powerful fleet to prevent further reinforcement of French troops from arriving in Canada. The war thus begun to defend British territorial claims in the Ohio Valley spread like wildfire across the continent.

Early French successes

The first four years saw nothing but severe reverses for the British regulars and American colonials, primarily because of superior French land forces in the New World. Braddock was killed and his army scattered in July 1755 when the force was ambushed while approaching Fort Duquesne. In 1756 the defenders of Fort Oswego on Lake Ontario were obliged to surrender, as were the defenders of Fort William Henry near Lake Champlain in 1757. Lord Loudoun's amphibious expedition from New York City against the great French fortress of Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island ended in dismal failure that year. In July 1758 Gen. James Abercrombie attacked the French stronghold at the northern end of Lake George, Fort-Carillon (later renamed Fort Ticonderoga). Despite outnumbering the French defenders under Gen. Louis-Joseph de Montcalm-Grozon, marquis de Montcalm, almost four to one, Abercrombie's army was almost destroyed. Moreover, the frontier settlements in what are now central New York, central Pennsylvania, western Maryland, and western Virginia were deserted while thousands of families fled eastward in panic to escape the hostilities.

During those years of defeat, the only notable success scored by the British and colonial forces was the capture in 1755 of the well-fortified Fort Beauséjour on the Chignecto Isthmus, a narrow strip of land connecting Nova Scotia with the mainland. British authorities held the region to be a part of Nova Scotia, ceded by France in the April 1713 treaty of Utrecht. However, the French-speaking Acadians who lived in the region not only steadfastly refused to take an oath of loyalty to the British crown but had provided Fort Beauséjour with provisions and a large labour force to aid the French in consolidating their foothold on the isthmus. As no large contingent of British soldiers was available to garrison the area and subdue the pro-French populace, the British authorities at Halifax decided to disperse the Acadians as a war measure. Transports carried most of the Acadians away from their villages in western Nova Scotia and distributed them among the British colonies to the south. Some returned to the area after the war, while others settled in French Louisiana, where their descendants became known as Cajuns. The exile of the Acadians from Nova Scotia was famously dramatized in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's narrative poem Evangeline (1847).

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French and Indian War | Definition, History, Dates, Summary, Causes, Combatants, & Facts

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French and Indian War, American phase of a worldwide nine-year war (1754-63) fought between France and Great Britain. It determined control of the vast colonial territory of North America. Three earlier phases of the contest for overseas mastery included King William's War, Queen Anne's War, and King George's War.

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The Treaty of Paris, which marked the end of the French and Indian War, granted Britain a great deal of valuable North American land. But the new land also gave rise to a plethora of problems.

The ceded territory, known as the Ohio Valley, was marked by the Appalachian Mountains in the east and the Mississippi River in the west.

Despite the acquisition of this large swath of land, the British tried to discourage American colonists from settling in it. The British already had difficulty administering the settled areas east of the Appalachians. Americans moving west would stretch British administrative resources thin.

Further, just because the French government had yielded this territory to Britain did not mean the Ohio Valley's French inhabitants would readily give up their claims to land or trade routes. Scattered pockets of French settlers made the British fearful of another prolonged conflict. The war had dragged on long enough, and the British public was weary of footing the bill.

Even after Britain issued the Royal Proclamation of 1763, Daniel Boone continued to settle areas west of the Appalachian Mountains. This 1851 painting, Daniel Boone Leading Settlers through the Cumberland Gap, depicts the popular image of a confident Boone leading the early pioneers fearlessly into the West.

Moreover, the Native Americans, who had allied themselves with the French during the Seven Years' War, continued to fight after the peace had been reached. Pontiac's Rebellion continued after the imperial powers achieved a ceasefire.

The last thing the British government wanted were hordes of American colonists crossing the Appalachians fueling French and Native American resentment.

The solution seemed simple. The Royal Proclamation of 1763 was issued, which declared the boundaries of settlement for inhabitants of the 13 colonies to be Appalachia.

The Royal Proclamation of October 7, 1763

BY THE KlNG. A PROCLAMATION

Whereas We have taken into Our Royal Consideration the extensive and valuable acquisitions in America, secured to our Crown by the late definitive Treaty of Peace, concluded at Paris. the 10th day of February last; and being desirous that all Our loving Subjects, as well of our Kingdom as of our Colonies in America, may avail themselves with all convenient Speed, of the great Benefits and Advantages which must accrue therefrom to their Commerce, Manufactures, and Navigation, We have thought fit, with the Advice of our Privy Council, to issue this our Royal Proclamation, hereby to publish and declare to all our loving Subjects, that we have, with the Advice of our Said Privy Council, granted our Letters Patent, under our Great Seal of Great Britain, to erect, within the Countries and Islands ceded and confirmed to Us by the said Treaty, Four distinct and separate Governments, styled and called by the names of Quebec, East Florida, West Florida and Grenada, and limited and bounded as follows, viz.

First - The Government of Quebec bounded on the Labrador Coast by the River St. John, and from thence by a Line drawn from the Head of that River through the Lake St. John, to the South end of the Lake Nipissim; from whence the said Line, crossing the River St. Lawrence, and the Lake Champlain, in 45. Degrees of North Latitude, passes along the High Lands which divide the Rivers that empty themselves into the said River St. Lawrence from those which fall into the Sea; and also along the North Coast of the Baye des Châleurs, and the Coast of the Gulph of St. Lawrence to Cape Rosières, and from thence crossing the Mouth of the River St. Lawrence by the West End of the Island of Anticosti, terminates at the aforesaid River of St. John.

Secondly - The Government of East Florida. bounded to the Westward by the Gulph of Mexico and the Apalachicola River; to the Northward by a Line drawn from that part of the said River where the Chatahouchee and Flint Rivers meet, to the source of St. Mary's River, and by the course of the said River to the Atlantic Ocean; and to the Eastward and Southward by the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulph of Florida, including all Islands within Six Leagues of the Sea Coast.

Thirdly - The Government of West Florida. bounded to the Southward by the Gulph of Mexico. including all Islands within Six Leagues of the Coast, from the River Apalachicola to Lake Pontchartrain; to the Westward by the said Lake, the Lake Maurepas, and the River Mississippi; to the Northward by a Line drawn due East from that part of the River Mississippi which lies in 31 Degrees North Latitude, to the River Apalachicola or Chatahouchee; and to the Eastward by the said River.

Fourthly - The Government of Grenada, comprehending the Island of that name, together with the Grenadines, and the Islands of Dominico, St. Vincent's and Tobago. And to the end that the open and free Fishery of our Subjects may be extended to and carried on upon the Coast of Labrador, and the adjacent Islands.

We have thought fit, with the advice of our said Privy Council to put all that Coast, from the River St. John's to Hudson's Streights, together with the Islands of Anticosti and Madelaine, and all other smaller Islands Iying upon the said Coast, under the care and Inspection of our Governor of Newfoundland.

We have also, with the advice of our Privy Council. thought fit to annex the Islands of St. John's and Cape Breton, or Isle Royale, with the lesser Islands adjacent thereto, to our Government of Nova Scotia.

We have also, with the advice of our Privy Council aforesaid, annexed to our Province of Georgia all the Lands Iying between the Rivers Alatamaha and St. Mary's.

And whereas it will greatly contribute to the speedy settling of our said new Governments, that our loving Subjects should be informed of our Paternal care, for the security of the Liberties and Properties of those who are and shall become Inhabitants thereof, We have thought fit to publish and declare, by this Our Proclamation, that We have, in the Letters Patent under our Great Seal of Great Britain, by which the said Governments are constituted. given express Power and Direction to our Governors of our Said Colonies respectively, that so soon as the state and circumstances of the said Colonies will admit thereof, they shall, with the Advice and Consent of the Members of our Council, summon and call General Assemblies within the said Governments respectively, in such Manner and Form as is used and directed in those Colonies and Provinces in America which are under our immediate Government: And We have also given Power to the said Governors, with the consent of our Said Councils, and the Representatives of the People so to be summoned as aforesaid, to make, constitute, and ordain Laws. Statutes, and Ordinances for the Public Peace, Welfare, and good Government of our said Colonies, and of the People and Inhabitants thereof, as near as may be agreeable to the Laws of England, and under such Regulations and Restrictions as are used in other Colonies; and in the mean Time, and until such Assemblies can be called as aforesaid, all Persons Inhabiting in or resorting to our Said Colonies may confide in our Royal Protection for the Enjoyment of the Benefit of the Laws of our Realm of England; for which Purpose We have given Power under our Great Seal to the Governors of our said Colonies respectively to erect and constitute, with the Advice of our said Councils respectively, Courts of Judicature and public Justice within our Said Colonies for hearing and determining all Causes, as well Criminal as Civil, according to Law and Equity, and as near as may be agreeable to the Laws of England, with Liberty to all Persons who may think themselves aggrieved by the Sentences of such Courts, in all Civil Cases, to appeal, under the usual Limitations and Restrictions, to Us in our Privy Council.

We have also thought fit, with the advice of our Privy Council as aforesaid, to give unto the Governors and Councils of our said Three new Colonies, upon the Continent, full Power and Authority to settle and agree with the Inhabitants of our said new Colonies or with any other Persons who shall resort thereto, for such Lands. Tenements and Hereditaments, as are now or hereafter shall be in our Power to dispose of; and them to grant to any such Person or Persons upon such Terms, and under such moderate Quit-Rents, Services and Acknowledgments, as have been appointed and settled in our other Colonies, and under such other Conditions as shall appear to us to be necessary and expedient for the Advantage of the Grantees, and the Improvement and settlement of our said Colonies.

And Whereas, We are desirous, upon all occasions, to testify our Royal Sense and Approbation of the Conduct and bravery of the Officers and Soldiers of our Armies, and to reward the same, We do hereby command and impower our Governors of our said Three new Colonies, and all other our Governors of our several Provinces on the Continent of North America, to grant without Fee or Reward, to such reduced Officers as have served in North America during the late War, and to such Private Soldiers as have been or shall be disbanded in America, and are actually residing there, and shall personally apply for the same, the following Quantities of Lands, subject, at the Expiration of Ten Years, to the same Quit-Rents as other Lands are subject to in the Province within which they are granted, as also subject to the same Conditions of Cultivation and Improvement; viz.

To every Person having the Rank of a Field Officer - 5,000 Acres.

To every Captain - 3,000 Acres.

To every Subaltern or Staff Officer, - 2,000 Acres.

To every Non-Commission Officer, - 200 Acres.

To every Private Man - 50 Acres.

We do likewise authorize and require the Governors and Commanders in Chief of all our said Colonies upon the Continent of North America to grant the like Quantities of Land, and upon the same conditions, to such reduced Officers of our Navy of like Rank as served on board our Ships of War in North America at the times of the Reduction of Louisbourg and Quebec in the late War, and who shall personally apply to our respective Governors for such Grants.

And whereas it is just and reasonable, and essential to our Interest, and the Security of our Colonies, that the several Nations or Tribes of Indians with whom We are connected, and who live under our Protection, should not be molested or disturbed in the Possession of such Parts of Our Dominions and Territories as, not having been ceded to or purchased by Us, are reserved to them. or any of them, as their Hunting Grounds. - We do therefore, with the Advice of our Privy Council, declare it to be our Royal Will and Pleasure. that no Governor or Commander in Chief in any of our Colonies of Quebec, East Florida. or West Florida, do presume, upon any Pretence whatever, to grant Warrants of Survey, or pass any Patents for Lands beyond the Bounds of their respective Governments as described in their Commissions: as also that no Governor or Commander in Chief in any of our other Colonies or Plantations in America do presume for the present, and until our further Pleasure be known, to grant Warrants of Survey, or pass Patents for any Lands beyond the Heads or Sources of any of the Rivers which fall into the Atlantic Ocean from the West and North West, or upon any Lands whatever, which, not having been ceded to or purchased by Us as aforesaid, are reserved to the said Indians, or any of them.

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.

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.

And whereas great Frauds and Abuses have been committed in purchasing Lands of the Indians, to the great Prejudice of our Interests and to the great Dissatisfaction of the said Indians: In order, therefore, to prevent such Irregularities for the future, and to the end that the Indians may be convinced of our Justice and determined Resolution to remove all reasonable Cause of Discontent, We do, with the Advice of our Privy Council strictly enjoin and require that no private Person do presume to make any purchase from the said Indians of any Lands reserved to the said Indians, within those parts of our Colonies where, We have thought proper to allow Settlement: but that, if at any Time any of the Said Indians should be inclined to dispose of the said Lands, the same shall be Purchased only for Us, in our Name, at some public Meeting or Assembly of the said Indians, to be held for that Purpose by the Governor or Commander in Chief of our Colony respectively within which they shall lie: and in case they shall lie within the limits of any Proprietary Government, they shall be purchased only for the Use and in the name of such Proprietaries, conformable to such Directions and Instructions as We or they shall think proper to give for that Purpose: And we do, by the Advice of our Privy Council, declare and enjoin, that the Trade with the said Indians shall be free and open to all our Subjects whatever, provided that every Person who may incline to Trade with the said Indians do take out a Licence for carrying on such Trade from the Governor or Commander in Chief of any of our Colonies respectively where such Person shall reside, and also give Security to observe such Regulations as We shall at any Time think fit, by ourselves or by our Commissaries to be appointed for this Purpose, to direct and appoint for the Benefit of the said Trade:

And we do hereby authorize, enjoin, and require the Governors and Commanders in Chief of all our Colonies respectively, as well those under Our immediate Government as those under the Government and Direction of Proprietaries, to grant such Licences without Fee or Reward, taking especial Care to insert therein a Condition, that such Licence shall be void, and the Security forfeited in case the Person to whom the same is granted shall refuse or neglect to observe such Regulations as We shall think proper to prescribe as aforesaid.

And we do further expressly conjoin and require all Officers whatever, as well Military as those Employed in the Management and Direction of Indian Affairs, within the Territories reserved as aforesaid for the use of the said Indians, to seize and apprehend all Persons whatever, who standing charged with Treason. Misprisions of Treason, Murders, or other Felonies or Misdemeanors, shall fly from Justice and take Refuge in the said Territory. and to send them under a proper guard to the Colony where the Crime was committed of which they, stand accused, in order to take their Trial for the same.

Given at our Court at St. James's the 7th Day of October 1763, in the Third Year of our Reign.

GOD SAVE THE KING

- Royal Proclamation, October 7, 1763

But what seemed simple to the British was not acceptable to their colonial subjects. This remedy did not address some concerns vitally important to the colonies. Colonial blood had been shed to fight the French and Indians, not to cede land to them. What was to be said for American colonists who had already settled in the West?

In addition, the colonies themselves had already begun to set their sights on expanding their western boundaries; such planning sometimes even causing tension among the colonies. Why restrict their appetites to expand? Surely this must be a plot to keep the American colonists under the imperial thumb and east of the mountains, where they could be watched.

Consequently, this law was observed with the same reverence the colonists reserved for the mercantile laws. Scores of wagons headed westward. How could the British possibly enforce this decree? It was nearly impossible.

The Proclamation of 1763 merely became part of the long list of events in which the intent and actions of one side was misunderstood or disregarded by the other.

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The Royal Proclamation of 1763 [ushistory.org]

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The Treaty of Paris, which marked the end of the French and Indian War, granted Britain a great deal of valuable North American land. But the new land also gave rise to a plethora of problems. The ceded territory, known as the Ohio Valley, was marked by the Appalachian Mountains in the east and the Mississippi River in the west.