By Keith Jamieson THE COVENANT CHAIN RELATIONSHIP The Haudenosaunee/Six Nations have a very different understanding of the Royal Proclamation of 1763. While the document stated the process by which the Crown would engage native people in acquiring lands for settlement, it also asserted the sovereignty of the Crown over all people in North America. To the Haudenosaunee, this unilateral proclamation… Read more »
By Donald Fyson The Royal Proclamation of 1763 holds an ambiguous place in debates over Quebec’s relationship with Canada. In sovereignist discourse, it is regularly evoked as a baleful reminder of British perfidy towards francophone Quebecers. The relatively benign military occupation between 1759/1760 and 1764 raised false hopes in the minds of the Canadiens (the French-descended colonists). The Royal Proclamation… Read more »
By Denys Delâge and Jean-Pierre Sawaya Translated by Thomas Peace On 24 December 1763 the Superintendent of Indian Affairs, Sir William Johnson, in the name of the British King George III, publicized the Royal Proclamation of 7 October 1763. In the weeks following Johnson’s announcement a paper copy was posted in the Catholic missions along the St. Lawrence Valley. In… Read more »
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It was part of a project to enforce British imperial claims to a vast American territory from which France had recently withdrawn.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 »
NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair made a good suggestion last week. After the Prime Minister publicly outlined the marching orders for his ministers – which did not address recent tensions with First Nations but did emphasize the allocation of funds and resources towards a handful of historical celebrations – Mulcair took him to task. Picking up perhaps on the contradiction of… Read more »
