British statesmen, however, had long since become convinced that a new Western policy was imperative. As early as May, 1763, before Pontiac’s uprising even began, the Board of Trade had already devised a plan to keep the western lands outside the colonies, at least temporarily. British regulars would patrol the frontier, keeping the settlers out of the territory, and the Indians in it: only licensed traders would be permitted past these borders. The plan was to be provisional; it was hoped that Britain could obtain concessions from the Indians from time to time and thus open the country to settlement gradually without the danger of arousing the Indians all over again.
The news of the Pontiac affair finally made some sort of control over the Western territory essential, if for no other reason than to pacify the Indians. On October 7, George III signed the Proclamation of 1763; by this document a line was drawn from Canada to Florida, along the watershed of the Appalachian Mountains. British America was now divided into two parts, with the western half reserved for the Indians. All colonial claims to this Indian territory were annulled, and no private persons could any longer obtain land there. No one, in fact, would be allowed to enter the territory without the permission of royal agents.
Every colonial assembly approved the Proclamation Line, as did the fur traders, the merchants, and the land companies, all of whom were sure to profit by the exclusion of the settlers. But the average colonist was furious; they felt that they had done their part in conquering the territory from the French, only to be told that now they could not even enter the promised lands. The colonial population was already doubling every 20-25 years, and the post-war depression showed no signs of letting up. And on the frontier there was plenty of resentment in any case – resentment against the land speculators in New England and Virginia, the land-grabbing gentry in New York, and against the slave-owning planters in the southern colonies. The new immigrants mistrusted many of these same people, who had cheated them and used them at every opportunity, and people like the Scotch-Irish despised anything and anyone English.
Perhaps the major flaw in this Proclamation Line was that the provisional aspect of the original proposal had now been discarded; all indications pointed to a permanent arrangement, a policy that would keep the settlers confined to the coastal areas, where they could more easily be controlled. And, as if to justify the colonists’ worst fears, the British government followed up with the announcement that a permanent garrison of 10,000 British regulars would now be stationed in the colonies; by past standards a large number, indeed, especially since General Amherst himself had already declared that 6,500 troops would be more than sufficient to do the job. Still, in the wake of Pontiac’s war, the additional soldiers seemed to make sense – until it was noticed that most of the troops were stationed at places like Halifax and New York, rather than at Fort Pittsburgh or Detroit, or the Carolina frontier. The more observant among the colonists were already beginning to question just exactly who was to be impressed by this show of strength, the Indians or the settlers?