Why did the conflict between the colonists and Britain increased after 1763?

After Britain won the Seven Years' War and gained land in North America, it issued the Royal Proclamation of 1763, which prohibited American colonists from settling west of Appalachia.

After the French and Indian War, the Treaty of Paris was drawn up, officially ending the war, granting the British a great deal of North American land. The territory that was gained, the Ohio Valley, was between the Appalachian Mountains in the east and the Mississippi River in the west. It gave the British access to important trade routes, but the new land also brought up many new problems.

Don't Go West, Young Man

Even though they fought hard to gain new land during the French and Indian War, the British tried to prevent American colonists from settling in it. It was already hard for them to govern the colonies from overseas. The British believed that if Americans moved west over the mountains, it would be too challenging to regulate trade and taxes, and that their resources would be spread too thin.

In addition, there were many people already living on the land in the Ohio Valley. Even though the French government had given up this territory to Britain, the French people who had settled there didn’t give up their claims to land or trade routes. The British could not afford another war, so they left the French settlers in those areas alone. There were other people settled in the Ohio Valley as well. Native Americans, who had helped the French during the War, were still fighting over land even though the War was over. One large battle called Pontiac's Rebellion went on even after the Europeans called a ceasefire.

>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.

The British government did not want American colonists crossing the Appalachian Mountains and creating tension with the French and Native Americans there. The solution seemed simple. They issued the Royal Proclamation of 1763, which declared the boundaries of the thirteen colonies as the Appalachian Mountains. Any travel or settlement beyond the mountains would be illegal.

Proclaim and Inflame

The Royal Proclamation of 1763 was very unpopular with the colonists. For those living in the colonies, creating a boundary was not helpful because it did not address some of their biggest problems with the War. Colonial blood had been shed to fight the French and Indians, and many felt they had the right to go settle on the land that was won. In addition, the Royal Proclamation of 1763 did not account for American colonists who had already settled in the West.

Since the end of the War, colonial governments had started planning an expansion into the new western territory. In fact, this had become a big political issue among colonists. Now they were being asked to restrict their desires to expand and explore. This angered the colonists. They felt the Proclamation was a plot to keep them under the strict control of England and that the British only wanted them east of the mountains so they could keep an eye on them. As a result, colonists rebelled against this law just like they did with the mercantile laws. They took scores of wagons westward toward the Ohio Valley. They believed that if they acted together, it would be nearly impossible for the British to enforce their new law.

You are a British lawmaker. You know the colonists will say "go pound sand" and ignore the Proclamation and there isn't much you can do about it. Would you pass this law anyway? Or would you do something else and if so, what?

The fight between the colonists and the British over enforcement of the Royal Proclamation of 1763 was one of many political battles between the British and their subjects in America. The colonists did not feel the law respected their needs for growth, so they ignored the Proclamation and headed forth into the west.

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The French and Indian War was the North American conflict that was part of a larger imperial conflict between Great Britain and France known as the Seven Years' War. The French and Indian War began in 1754 and ended with the Treaty of Paris in 1763. The war provided Great Britain enormous territorial gains in North America, but disputes over subsequent frontier policy and paying the war's expenses led to colonial discontent, and ultimately to the American revolution.

The French and Indian War resulted from ongoing frontier tensions in North America as both French and British imperial officials and colonists sought to extend each country's sphere of influence in frontier regions. In North America, the war pitted France, French colonists, and their Native allies against Great Britain, the Anglo-American colonists and the Iroquois Confederacy, which controlled most of upstate New York and parts of northern Pennsylvania. In 1753, prior to the outbreak of hostilities, Great Britain controlled the 13 colonies up to the Appalachian Mountains, but beyond lay New France, a very large, sparsely settled colony that stretched from Louisiana through the Mississippi Valley and Great Lakes to Canada. (See Incidents Leading up to the French and Indian War and Albany Plan)

The border between French and British possessions was not well defined, and one disputed territory was the upper Ohio River valley. The French had constructed a number of forts in this region in an attempt to strengthen their claim on the territory. British colonial forces, led by lieutenant colonel George Washington, attempted to expel the French in 1754, but were outnumbered and defeated by the French. When news of Washington's failure reached British Prime Minister Thomas Pelham-Holles, Duke of Newcastle, he called for a quick undeclared retaliatory strike. However, his adversaries in the Cabinet outmaneuvered him by making the plans public, thus alerting the French Government and escalating a distant frontier skirmish into a full-scale war.

The war did not begin well for the British. The British Government sent General Edward Braddock to the colonies as commander in chief of British North American forces, but he alienated potential Indian allies and colonial leaders failed to cooperate with him. On July 13, 1755 Braddock himself died while on a failed expedition to capture Fort Duquesne in present-day Pittsburgh, after being mortally wounded in an ambush. The war in North America settled into a stalemate for the next several years, while in Europe the French scored an important naval victory and captured the British possession of Minorca in the Mediterranean in 1756. However, after 1757 the war began to turn in favor of Great Britain. British forces defeated French forces in India, and in 1759 British armies invaded and conquered Canada.

Facing defeat in North America and a tenuous position in Europe, the French Government attempted to engage the British in peace negotiations, but British minister William Pitt (the elder), Secretary for Southern Affairs, sought not only the French cession of Canada but also commercial concessions that the French Government found unacceptable. After these negotiations failed, Spanish King Charles III offered to come to the aid of his cousin, French King Louis XV, and their representatives signed an alliance known as the Family Compact on August 15, 1761. The terms of the agreement stated that Spain would declare war on Great Britain if the war did not end before May 1, 1762. Originally intended to pressure the British into a peace agreement, the Family Compact ultimately reinvigorated the French will to continue the war, and caused the British Government to declare war on Spain on January 4, 1762 after bitter infighting between King George III's ministers.

Despite facing such a formidable alliance, British naval strength and Spanish ineffectiveness led to British success. British forces seized French Caribbean islands, Spanish Cuba, and the Philippines. Fighting in Europe ended after a failed Spanish invasion of British ally Portugal. By 1763, French and Spanish diplomats began to seek peace. In the resulting Treaty of Paris (1763), Great Britain secured significant territorial gains, including all French territory east of the Mississippi river, as well as Spanish Florida, although the treaty returned Cuba to Spain.

Unfortunately for the British, the fruits of victory brought seeds of future trouble with Great Britain's American colonies. The war had been enormously expensive, and the British government's attempts to impose taxes on colonists to help cover these expenses resulted in increasing colonial resentment of British attempts to expand imperial authority in the colonies. British attempts to limit western expansion by colonists and inadvertent provocation of a major Indian war further angered the British subjects living in the American colonies. These disputes would ultimately spur colonial rebellion that eventually developed into a full-scale war for independence.

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