A history of Canada, 1763-1812

by Sir Charles Prestwood Lucas

With this great area, covering the present province of Ontario and the north central states of the American Republic, the Royal proclamation dealt as follows: ‘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 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.’

Thus North America, outside the recognized limits of the old or new colonies, was for the time being constituted a great native reserve; and even within the limits of the colonies it was provided ‘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’. Trade with the Indians was to be free and open to all British subjects, but the traders were to take out licences, and, while no fees were to be charged for such licences, the traders were to give security that they would observe any regulations laid down for the benefit of the trade.[2]

It is impossible to study the correspondence which preceded the Proclamation of 1763, without recognizing that those who framed it were anxious to frame a just and liberal policy, but its terms bear witness to the almost Difficulties of the situation. insuperable difficulties which attend the acquisition of a great borderland of colonization, difficulties which in a few years’ time were largely responsible for the American War of Independence. How to administer a new domain with equity and sound judgement; how to give to new subjects, acquired by conquest, the privileges enjoyed by the old colonies; how to reconcile the claims of the old colonies, whose inland borders had never been demarcated, with the undoubted rights of native races; how to promote trade and settlement without depriving the Indians of their heritage;—such were the problems which the British Government was called upon to face and if possible to solve. The proclamation was in a few years’ time followed up by the Quebec Act of 1774, in connexion with which more will be said as to these thorny questions. In the meantime, even before the proclamation had been issued, the English had on their hands what was perhaps the most dangerous and widespread native rising which ever threatened their race in the New World.

French policy in North America.

The great French scheme for a North American dominion depended upon securing control of the waterways and control of the natives. Even before the dawn of the eighteenth century, Count Frontenac among governors, La Salle among pioneers, saw clearly the importance of gaining the West and the ways to the West; and they realized that, in order to attain that object, the narrows on the inland waters, and the portages from one lake or river to another, must be commanded; that the Indians who were hostile to France must be subdued, and that the larger number of red men, who liked French ways and French leadership, must be given permanent evidence of the value of French protection and the strength of French statesmanship.

The French posts in the West.

Along the line of lakes and rivers in course of years French forts were placed. Fort Frontenac, first founded in 1673 by the great French governor whose name it bore, guarded, on the site of the present city of Kingston, the outlet of the St. Lawrence from Lake Ontario. Fort Niagara, begun by La Salle in the winter of 1678-9, on the eastern bank of the Niagara river, near its entrance into Lake Ontario, covered the portage from that lake to Lake Erie. Fort Detroit, dating from the first years of the eighteenth century, stood by the river which carries the waters of Lake Huron and Lake St. Clair into Lake Erie. Its founder was La Mothe Cadillac. The post at Michillimackinac was at the entrance of Lake Michigan. From Lake Erie to the Ohio were two lines of forts. The main line began with Presque Isle on the southern shore of the lake, and ended with Fort Duquesne, afterwards renamed Pittsburg, the intermediate posts being Fort Le Bœuf at the head of French Creek, and Venango where that stream joins the Alleghany. Further west, past the intermediate fort of Sandusky, which stood on the southern shore of Lake Erie, there was a second series of outposts, of which we hear little in the course of the Seven Years’ War. The Maumee river flows into the south-western end of Lake Erie, and on it, at a point where there was a portage to the Wabash river, was constructed Fort Miami, on or near the site of the later American Fort Wayne. On the Wabash, which joins the Ohio not very far above the confluence of the latter river with the Mississippi, were two French posts, Fort Ouatanon and, lower down its course, Fort Vincennes. On the central Mississippi the chief nucleus of French trade and influence was Fort Chartres. It stood on the eastern bank of the river, eighty to ninety miles above the confluence of the Ohio, and but a few miles north of the point where the Kaskaskia river flows into the Mississippi. On the Kaskaskia, among the Illinois Indians, there was a French outpost, and settlement fringed the eastern side of the Mississippi northwards to Fort Chartres. Above that fort there was a road running north on the same side to Cahokia, a little below and on the opposite side to the confluence of the Missouri; and in 1763 a French settler crossed the Mississippi, and opened a store on the site of the present city of St. Louis. The posts on the Mississippi were, both for trading and for political purposes, connected with Louisiana rather than with Canada; and, though the Peace of Paris had ceded to Great Britain the soil on which they stood, the French had not been disturbed by any assertion of British sovereignty prior to the war which is associated with the name of the Indian chief Pontiac.

The rising of Pontiac.

The rising which Pontiac headed came too late for the Indians to be permanently successful. In any case it could have had, eventually, but one ending, the overthrow of the red men: but, while it lasted, it seriously delayed the consolidation of English authority over the West. After most wars of conquest there supervene minor wars or rebellions, waves of the receding tide when high-water is past, disturbances due to local mismanagement and local discontent; but the Indian war, which began in 1763, Its special characteristics. had special characteristics. In the first place, the rising was entirely a native revolt. No doubt it was fomented by malcontent French traders and settlers, disseminating tales of English iniquities and raising hopes of a French revival; but very few Frenchmen were to be found in the fighting line; the warriors were red men, not white. In the second place it was a rising of the Western Indians, of the tribes who had not known in any measure the strength of the English, and who had known, more as friends than as subjects, the guidance and the spirit of the French. Of the Six Nations, the Senecas alone, the westernmost members of the Iroquois Confederacy, joined in the struggle, and the centre of disturbance was further west. In the third place the rising was more carefully planned, the conception was more statesmanlike, the action was more organized, than has usually been the case among savage races. There was unity of plan and harmony in action, which betokened leadership of no ordinary kind. The leader was the Ottawa chief Pontiac.