Indian Reserve (1763)

The Indian Reserve is a historical term for the largely uncolonized area in North America acquired by Great Britain from France through the Treaty of Paris (1763) at the end of the Seven Years' War (known as the French and Indian War in the North American theater), and set aside in the Royal Proclamation of 1763  for use by American Indians, who already inhabit  it.

The British government had contemplated establishing an Indian barrier state in the portion of the reserve west of the Appalachian Mountains, and bounded by the Ohio and Mississippi rivers and the Great Lakes.

British officials aspire to establish such a state even after the region is assigned to the United States in the Treaty of Paris (1783) ending the American Revolutionary War, but abandon  their efforts in 1814 after losing military control of the region during the War of 1812.[3]

In present-day United States, it consists of all the territory north of Florida and New Orleans that is east of the Mississippi River and west of the Eastern Continental Divide in the Appalachian Mountains that formerly comprised the eastern half of Louisiana (New France). In modern Canada, it consists of all the land immediately north of the Great Lakes but south of Rupert's Land belonging to the Hudson's Bay Company, as well as a buffer between the Province of Quebec (1763–1791) and Rupert's Land stretching from Lake Nipissing to Newfoundland.

The Royal Proclamation of 1763 organizes on paper much of the new territorial gains in three colonies in North America—East Florida, West Florida, and Quebec.

The rest of the expanded British territory is left to American Indians.

The delineation of the Eastern Divide, following the Allegheny Ridge of the Appalachians, confirms the limit to British settlement established at the 1758 Treaty of Easton, before Pontiac's War.

Additionally, all European settlers in the territory (who are mostly French) are supposed to leave the territory or get official permission to stay.

Many of the settlers move to New Orleans and the French land on the west side of the Mississippi (particularly St. Louis), which in turn had been ceded secretly to Spain to become Louisiana (New Spain).

In 1768, lands west of the Alleghenies and south of the Ohio are ceded to the colonies by the Cherokee at the Treaty of Hard Labour and by the Six Nations at the Treaty of Fort Stanwix.

However, several other Indian nations, particularly Shawnee and Mingo, continue to inhabit and claim their lands that have been sold to the British by other tribes.

This conflict leads to Dunmore's War in 1774, ended by the Treaty of Camp Charlotte where these tribes agree to accept the Ohio River as the new boundary.

Restrictions on settlement are to become a flash point in the American Revolutionary War, following the Henderson Purchase of much of Kentucky from the Cherokee in 1775.

The renegade Cherokee chief Dragging Canoe does not agree to the sale, nor does the Royal Government in London, which forbids settlement in this region.

As an act of Revolution in defiance of the crown, white pioneer settlers begin pouring into Kentucky in 1776, opposed by Dragging Canoe in the Cherokee–American wars, which continued until 1794.

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