Today marks the 260th anniversary of the Royal Proclamation of 1763.
Over the course of Canadian history, there are few documents that carry more weight. With less than 2,000 words, the Crown laid out in this document a precedent in British Canadian law that normalized territorial treaty-making, and recognized Aboriginal Rights and Title. In 1982, the Proclamation was enshrined in section 25 of Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Designed to sort out jurisdictional issues in North America following the Seven Years’ War (1756-63), the Proclamation served four important purposes:
- It established the boundaries of four new British colonies: Quebec, East Florida, West Florida, and Grenada; it also modified the boundaries of Nova Scotia and Georgia.
- It provided a schedule for assigning free land to veterans of the war.
- It established a protocol for British administrators to follow regarding colonial expansion onto Indigenous Lands.
- From the British perspective, it reserved for Indigenous nations the Land lying to the west of the Appalachian Mountains.
At its core, the Proclamation is the document that set out a process for British colonial settlement and jurisdiction that continues to define the world in which North Americans live today.
There’s a problem, though: the principles outlined in the Proclamation were muddied by the on-the-ground realities of eighteenth-century life in ways that clearly resonate today. Nothing demonstrates this better than the colony of Nova Scotia’s origin story: there, the Proclamation’s provisions have never been fully adopted.
Continue reading “Nova Scotia and the Paradox of the Royal Proclamation”
Thomas Peace 