Ohio Company; Proclamation of 1763
Appalachian Boundary for Indian Territory Causes Revolutionary War
Nov 9, 2007
In the 1748 several prominent Virginians and wealthy Englishmen received a land grant from King George II for up to a half a million acres in the Ohio River Valley. Among the Virginians were two brothers of George Washington, Lawrence and Augustine. Young George would inherit Lawrence’s interest in the Company upon his death. It was on a 1754 mission for Virginia Governor Dinwiddie, another member of the company, that George Washington was sent on official Colony business. His objective was to warn the French away from encroaching on Virginia (read Ohio Co. of Virginia) soil.
1763
Washington's diplomatic mission would be the spark that many historians say was the genesis of the French and Indian War. Among other motives, including pacification of the Native Americans and an excuse to keep a heavy military presence in America, the Proclamation of 1763 became law on October 7, 1763. The text of the document covered many mundane things such as where the borders of Quebec, E. Florida. W. Florida and the Grenada Islands would be. It also provided generous land grants to veterans of the war. It was not until the last few paragraphs that the ears of every wealthy member of the Ohio Co. began to burn. Their grant had just been made null and void by this proclamation. They could see five hundred million acres of the Ohio Valley curling up in the smoke of King George’s peace pipe!
Colonial Loyalty Wins … For Now
Although their initial reaction might have been one of shock, these still loyal subjects quickly began to rationalize among themselves that this would be a minor setback. Even in 1767 George Washington took the attitude that it was “a temporary expedient to quit the minds of the enemies” and that anyone who “neglects the present opportunity of hunting out good Lands” might be missing the boat. Then it was only a year later when the Indian Agent, William Johnson negotiated a huge compromise with the Iroquois, moving the boundary to the Ohio River itself. Although this opened up the “Caintuck” hunting grounds south of the Ohio to many Virginians, it still left the Ohio Company somewhat tenuous.
Regulars Transfer to Cities
By this time, because the Indians did not want to see them in the forts and because King George had some heavy duty tax collection to enforce, most of the British troops, ostensibly sent to protect the European population were transferred to troubled cities like New York and Boston. Several other revenue acts had been passed and then withdrawn over colonial protests. In these late 1760’s the King and the majority in Parliament were becoming exasperated with the stingy purse strings in America. It seemed, then, to many colonists, that this had been the Mother Country’s plan all along. The Standing Army sent to enforce that proclamation line in 1763 was now focusing on “subjugating” their own countrymen. That 1500 mile long Appalachian Mountain fuse was about to run out and no one was quite sure how pervasive the explosion would be.
Sources
The Scratch of a Pen 1763 and the Transformation of North America by Colin G. Calloway. 2006, Oxford University Press
The Crucible of War: The Seven Years War and the Fate of Empire in British North America 1754 - 1766, by Fred Anderson, 2000, Alfred Knopf
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