By John Reid The implications of the Royal Proclamation of 1763 for the territories and adjoining waters of what was later to be known as Atlantic Canada were profound. They were also diffuse and varied widely according to the political and physical geography of that vast area. The Proclamation redrew the imperial political geography. To the existing colony of Nova… Read more »
By Brian Slattery The Royal Proclamation is now 250 years old. Is it still relevant today? Arguably not. The document was drafted in London in the spring and summer of 1763 by a handful of bureaucrats and politicians. It was part of a project to enforce British imperial claims to a vast American territory from which France had recently withdrawn. … Read more »
By J.R. Miller Because its concluding paragraphs deal with First Nations and their lands, the Royal Proclamation of 1763 is sometimes referred to as “the Indians’ Magna Carta.” Many people regard George III’s policy for the new territories the United Kingdom had acquired following the Seven Years’ War as the guarantor of Aboriginal title law in Canada today. Its greatest… Read more »
By Tom Peace October 7th 2013 marks the 250th year since King George III issued what is, for Canadians, the Crown’s most famous Royal Proclamation. Over the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the English monarch released over a hundred royal proclamations. Some of these proclamations declared war (usually against France), others – such as the Royal Proclamation of October 23rd 1759 –… Read more »
By Gregory Kennedy I know what you are thinking. Not another commemoration of some dusty old treaty or some gruesome colonial war! Still, since both Thomas Mulcair and Thomas Peace called our attention to the 250th Anniversary of the Royal Proclamation of 1763 , it seems only fair that the Treaty of Utrecht of 1713 should get its due.
Although the lingo in modern scholarship may be less offensive than my tour guide a couple of weeks ago, the message in Merrell’s essay is that similar trends continue among professional historians. Despite broader inclusion of Native people as a subject studied by historians, North American history remains a discipline anchored in a European tradition.
