With these new territories Britain now had to face two major challenges. First it had to deal with the French Catholic population of New France and Acadia and second it had to deal with the Indigenous peoples living in the territories west of the Appalachians and east of the Mississippi. (which formed the boundary of the 13 Colonies)
Ever since the 1730s, British settlers had been crossing the Appalachians and moving west into the Ohio River area, settling on tribal land and displacing Indigenous inhabitants. It was the conflict between British settlers and the French and their First Nations allies that started the French & Indian War. This area north of the Ohio River and bordered by the Mississippi River and Great Lakes came to be known as the Northwest Territory or Old West.
To deal with these problems Britain issued a Royal Proclamation in 1763 (shortly after signing the Peace Treaty) that would address both issues. First it established the land on either side of the St. Lawrence as the colony of Quebec. The people would be allowed to worship as Catholics but they would not be allowed to elect their own government and an appointed Council would have to swear an oath of loyalty to the King.
Acadia, on the other hand was added to the colony of Nova Scotia and, in continuing the deportation that started in 1755, all Acadian (French) people were to be expelled. Between 1755-1763 more than 15,000 Acadians were rounded up by soldiers who burned their homes and crops and sent them off to the 13 Colonies, France, or the Caribbean. Many also escaped to Quebec and Louisiana. Thousands died in the process and their properties were confiscated and passed on to new British settlers from the 13 Colonies.
To deal with the conflict west of the Appalachians, the lands west of Quebec and the Appalachians all the way to the Mississippi were now to be reserved as Indian territory, or their “hunting grounds”. British subjects would not be allowed to purchase reserve lands or settle there and British subjects who had already settled on reserve land were required to move out. Any purchase of reserved land had to be done at a tribal assembly and only by a designated agent of the Crown.
Unfortunately, the British military were unable and unwilling to enforce the provisions of the Royal Proclamation, and corrupt government agents induced the main Indigenous groups to continue selling their land in the Ohio Valley. Tens of thousands of settlers moved into the area and violent expulsions of the Indigenous population continued.
The Royal Proclamation and access to western lands was one of the most significant areas of dispute between Britain and the colonies, and would soon become a contributing factor leading to the American Revolution.
Nonetheless, the Royal Proclamation has a particular place in the history of aboriginal rights. It is the first legal recognition of aboriginal title, rights and freedoms, and is recognized in the Canadian Constitution of 1982 which states the Charter cannot override the aboriginal rights granted in the Royal Proclamation.
In addition,
other measures were taken to tighten the collection of taxes and reduce
smuggling. This, in turn, led to riots in the colonies with the view that the
British had no right to impose taxes since the colonies were not represented in
the British Parliament. “No taxation without representation.”
There were
three colonies in the north, Quebec, Nova Scotia, and PEI but they were very
different from the 13 colonies in the south. In the north the population was
around 100,000 and it was 85% French and Catholic whereas there were 2.5
million in the south, including ½ million who were slaves, and they were mostly
British and Protestant.
The southern
colonies were upset with the passing of the Quebec Act which now gave Quebec
all the territory west of the Appalachians and effectively blocked any
expansion into the west. There were, however,
two sides, the Patriots who were against the Crown, and the Loyalists who
supported it.
In 1775 war broke out in Boston and an army was established under the command of George Washington. The Colonists tried to get Quebec to support the revolution but were rebuffed so they tried unsuccessfully to invade Quebec. On July 4th 1776 the Declaration of Independence was unanimously adopted by the American Congress and there was no turning back on the war now.
The British campaign strategy in the north was to cut off New England, which was viewed as the hotbed of the rebellion, with one army coming down from Quebec and the other going up from New York. But the British got defeated at Saratoga, so they hunkered down in New York. At this point the French, Spanish, and Dutch decided to join in on the Patriots side and attack Britain’s other colonial possessions in Asia and the Caribbean.
Britain now
had to fight on numerous fronts including Europe, the Caribbean, and south-east
Asia and this severely stretched its capabilities. France sent a fleet and 4,000
troops to the Patriots while at the same time Britain had to divert a
substantial portion of its military resources to deal with the other
battlegrounds.
In the south
the British occupied Charleston and Savannah but weren’t able to make much
progress in the countryside. The British governor of Virginia proclaimed freedom
for all slaves who joined the British forces and the slave owners, who until now had been
supporters of the British, switched sides and were now in support of the Revolution. In 1781 the
British were defeated at Yorktown by French and Patriot forces and this ended
direct warfare in North America although in 1782 Jean Francois de la Peruse, a French naval captain, captured and destroyed the HBC York Factory and Prince of Wales Forts.
Overall, it was a lack of coordination at the senior command level, a shortage of troops, and serious supply and logistics issues that caused the superior British forces to lose the war.
It took until 1783 before another Treaty of Paris settled all of the British, French, Spanish, and 13 Colonies disputes. The key provisions of the Peace of Paris were; recognition of the independence of the United States, confiscated Loyalist property was to be returned, and imprisoned Loyalists would be set free. The U.S. territory was now expanded west to the Mississippi River and Great Britain ceded control of the disputed lands south of the Great Lakes. Britain also returned Florida to Spain.
Once again however,
the Indigenous inhabitants were not a part of the peace negotiations. The American Revolutionary War was
essentially two parallel wars for the American Patriots. The war in the east
was a struggle against British rule, while the war in the west was an
"Indian War" with the Patriots fighting the British and their Indian
allies for control of the territory east of the Mississippi River.
When the British made peace with the Americans in the 1783 Treaty of Paris, they ceded a vast amount of Indian territory to the United States, more than doubling its size. As far as the United States was concerned, Indian tribes who had sided with the British, and had fought against the Americans, were enemy combatants and, as a result, they were considered a conquered people who had lost their land. Many Indians subsequently fled to Canada or moved further west.
The
Declaration of Independence stated “We hold these truths to be self-evident,
that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with
certain inalienable Rights, among them, Life, Liberty and the pursuit of
Happiness”.
However, African slaves which made up 20% of the population and were called “other
persons” didn’t have these rights, nor did Indigenous inhabitants west of the
Appalachians who were being forcibly pushed out or killed by white settlers,
nor did the Loyalists who were still having their property confiscated and were
being tarred, feathered, and hanged, or imprisoned.
With
mistreatment of the Loyalists continuing after the war, in spite of the terms
of the treaty, 60,000-70,000 Loyalists decided to leave America with 50,000
going to what would become Canada. They were joined by 2,000 Iroquois under the
leadership of Joseph Brant who had fought on the British side, and 5,000
blacks, both slaves owned by the Loyalists and ex-slaves who had been promised
freedom for joining the British forces.
With an
existing population of only 100,000 in Quebec and Nova Scotia, an influx of
this many people presented serious problems, but room had to be found for them.
To avoid conflict with the French Catholics in Quebec it was decided they had
to go to where it wasn’t inhabited by the French so they looked at the region
west of Montreal and north of Lake Erie and Lake Ontario up to HBC’s Rupert’s
Land.
However, after the 1763 Royal Proclamation, this land belonged to the Mississauga First Nation and, starting in 1781, negotiations had to be undertaken to purchase and survey this territory which became known as the Upper Canada land surrenders. Eventually 10,000 Loyalists were settled in these townships and the 2,000 Iroquois were settled at the northeast end of Lake Erie.
21,000 Loyalists were settled in Nova Scotia and another 14,000 were settled in New Brunswick over a 9-month period that was extremely chaotic. There was a lack of food, supplies and equipment, the administrators couldn’t cope properly, and the allocation of land was very inequitable, particularly for the blacks. The Royal Proclamation should have protected the lands of the Mi'kmaq but the government of Nova Scotia took the position that it didn't apply to the colony. Because Britain had defeated the French and their Native allies they claimed the Indians lost their lands to the British by right of conquest. As a result the Mi'kmaq had to stand by and watch their traditional lands being given away to the new settlers and having to petition the government for land grants.
While the colony of Quebec was still overwhelmingly French, the continued migration of settlers in the 1780’s had mostly British-American roots and they wanted to have English rules like the colonies of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Accordingly, the Constitutional Act of 1791 was enacted which established a new entity, Canada, with two provinces, Upper and Lower Canada. Lower Canada would retain French civil law and be Roman Catholic while Upper Canada would be English and have English institutions. However, with regards to the land belonging to the Natives two completely different policies were followed. In Lower Canada, where the Royal Proclamation had specifically excluded the colony of Quebec but where an edict was subsequently issued to the governor to not molest or disturb any Indians on the land they occupied, these guidelines were ignored and settlers steadily took over Native land. In Upper Canada however, Native land was obtained by negotiating with the various Native groups and following the principles of the Royal Proclamation, though not without considerable deceit.
Many Native-American tribes practised some form of slavery before the Europen introduction of African slavery into North America. The Haida and Tlingit were well known as fierce warriors and slave-traders who raided up and down the west coast. Other tribes like the Comanche in the southwest raided Mexico for slaves and the Cherokee, Chocktaw and other southeastern tribes embraced slave trading in their wars with the Shawnee and Yamasee. While various North American tribes had always kept war captives as slaves the arrival of a European market for slaves increased the raiding and warfare amongst almost all groups. Captives could be enslaved, killed, or adopted as part of a process to replace warriors that had been killed in battle. While Indigenous slaves were mostly used for clearing plantation land in New England and as domestic servants, many were also sent off to the Caribbean to work on the plantations. The Indigenous slave trade only ended after the American Civil War when slavery of both blacks and Indians was outlawed.