European Patterns of Westward Expansion

Prior to 1776, the land to the west of the British colonies was of high priority for settlers and politicians. In the earliest days of European settlement of the Atlantic coast, from about 1600 to 1680, the "frontier" was essentially any part of the forested interior of the continent beyond the fringe of existing settlements along the coast.

English, French, Spanish, and Dutch patterns of expansion and settlement differed widely. Only a few thousand French migrated to Canada; these habitants settled in villages along the St. Lawrence river, building communities that remained stable for long stretches; they did not leapfrog west the way the British did. Although French fur traders ranged widely through the Great Lakes region, they seldom settled down and instead maintained a nomadic lifestyle. The Dutch set up fur trading posts in the Hudson River valley, followed by large grants of land to rich landowning patroons who brought in tenant farmers to create compact, permanent villages. They did not push westward.

In contrast, the English colonies generally pursued a more systematic policy of widespread settlement of the New World for cultivation and exploitation of the land, a practice that required the application of "legal" property rights to the new conditions. (These policies were legal according to British law but largely disregarded or exploited the rights of American Indians.) The typical English settlements were quite compact and small, typically under a square mile. Conflict with American Indians quickly arose as the British expanded further into their territory. 

The French and Indian Wars of the 1760s resulted in a complete victory for the British, who took possession of the lands west to the Mississippi River, which had formerly been claimed by the French but were largely inhabited by American Indian tribes. By the early 1770s, British settler-invaders were moving across the Appalachians into western Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Ohio.

American Indian Land

The Royal Proclamation of 1763 prohibited the North American colonists from establishing or maintaining settlements west of a line running down the crest of the Appalachian Mountains. There were two motivations for this policy: first, the British wished to avoid warfare with the American Indians. This aim had little to do with respect for tribal rights and was more motivated by the high expense of conflicts with American Indians and the lack of British soldiers on the continent. Some American Indians welcomed this policy, believing that the separation would allow them to resume their traditional ways of life; others realized that the proclamation, at best, would only provide some breathing room before the next onslaught of invaders.

The other intention of the proclamation was to concentrate colonial settlements on the seaboard, where they could be active participants in the British mercantile system. The first priority of British trade officials was to populate the recently secured areas of Canada and Florida, where colonists could reasonably be expected to trade with the mother country; settlers living west of the Appalachians would be highly self-sufficient and have little opportunity to trade with English merchants.

The reaction of colonial land speculators and frontiersmen to this proclamation was highly negative. From their perspective, they had risked their lives in the recent war only to be denied the lands they coveted. Most concluded that the proclamation was only a temporary measure; a number ignored it entirely and moved into the prohibited area anyway. Almost from its inception, the proclamation was modified to suit the needs of influential British people with interests in the American west, including many high British officials as well as colonial leaders. Prominent American colonists joined with land speculators in Britain to lobby the government to move the line further west. As a result, the boundary line was adjusted in a series of treaties.

The British American colonies in 1763

This map shows the status of the American colonies in 1763, after the end of the French and Indian War. Although Great Britain won control of the territory east of the Mississippi, the Proclamation Line of 1763 prohibited British colonists from settling west of the Appalachian Mountains. (credit: modification of work by the National Atlas of the United States)

Conestoga Massacre

In December of 1763, following the end of the French and Indian War and the signing of the proclamation, a vigilante group made up of Scots-Irish frontiersmen known as the Paxton Boys attacked the local Conestoga, a Susquehannock tribe who lived on land negotiated by William Penn and their ancestors in the 1690s. In the aftermath of the French and Indian War, the frontier of Pennsylvania remained unsettled. A new wave of Scots-Irish immigrants encroached on American Indian land in the back country. These settlers claimed that American Indians often raided their homes, killing men, women, and children.

Many Conestoga were Christian, and they had lived peacefully with their European neighbors for decades. Although there had been no American Indian attacks in the area, the Paxton Boys claimed that the Conestoga secretly provided aid and intelligence to the hostiles. On December 14, 1763, more than 50 Paxton Boys marched on the Conestoga homes near Conestoga Town, Millersville, and murdered six people and burned their cabins. The colonial government held an inquest and determined that the killings were murder. The new governor, John Penn, offered a reward for their capture. The ruthlessness of these conflicts reflected a growing divide between the British colonists and American Indians.