2
Indepen dence and Nation
Building
A
lthough the titanic battle for empire between the French
and British ended with a total English victory, it created monu-
mental problems in London as to the administration of this vast
domain. French forces had been swept from the region west of the Al-
legheny Mountains, but thousands of Indians lived in the area and re-
sented and resisted the ever-increasing invasion of their hunting
grounds by English colonists. The Indians also demanded that the
British continue the French practice of supplying them with weapons
and ammunition and lower prices on other trading necessities. The
British had no intention of imitating French practice, and in the sum-
mer of 1763 the Indians fi nally rose up, under the leadership of the Ot-
tawa chief Pontiac, in an effort to drive the settlers back to the ocean.
Tribes from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico joined the rebellion
and destroyed every frontier fort west of the mountains.
The British government not only decided that it must keep a stand-
ing army of at least 10 , 000 troops in North America to maintain order
and control, but also issued the Proclamation of 1763 , which forbade
colonists from settling west of the Appalachian Mountains. It drew a
north- south line at the crest of the mountains with the idea of reserv-
ing the land west of the line for the Indians. This was meant to pacify
the tribes but served only to infuriate the colonists, who refused to be
bound by the Proclamation.