The Ending of the War

The Treaties of Paris and Hubertusburg

Most of the North American fighting of the French and Indian War (the North American theatre of the Seven Years' War) ended on September 8, 1760, when the Marquis de Vaudreuil surrendered Montreal—and effectively all of Canada—to the British. However, the war did not officially end until the signing of the Treaty of Paris on February 10, 1763. The treaty resulted in France's loss of all its North American possessions east of the Mississippi except for Saint Pierre and Miquelon, two small islands off of Newfoundland, marking the beginning of an era of British dominance in North America.

Britain also gained control of French Canada, a colony containing approximately 65,000 French-speaking, Roman Catholic residents. Early in the war in 1755, the British had expelled French settlers from Acadia, some of whom eventually fled to Louisiana. Now at peace and eager to secure control of its hard-won colony, Great Britain found itself obliged to make concessions to its newly conquered subjects. The European theatre of the war was settled by the Treaty of Hubertusburg on February 15, 1763. 

Treaty of Hubertusburg

An image of the 1763 peace settlement reached at the Treaty of Hubertusburg ending the Seven Years' War in central Europe.

Consequences of the War

The war changed economic, political, governmental, and social relations between Britain, France, and Spain; their colonies and colonists; and the American Indians that inhabited the territories they claimed. France and Britain both suffered financially because of the war, with significant long-term consequences.

The Royal Proclamation of 1763

Following the peace treaty, King George III issued the Royal Proclamation of 1763 on October 7. The proclamation outlined the division and administration of the newly conquered territory. Included in its provisions was the reservation of lands west of the Appalachian Mountains to its original American Indian population, a demarcation that was at best a temporary impediment to a rising tide of westward-bound British invaders. One of the biggest problems confronting the British Empire in 1763 was controlling land speculators whose activities often led to frontier conflicts in both Europe and the British colonies. Many American Indian peoples—primarily in the Great Lakes region—had a long and close relationship with France and were dismayed to find that they were now under British sovereignty.

The proclamation created a boundary line (often called the proclamation line) between the British colonies on the Atlantic coast and American Indian lands west of the Appalachian Mountains. The proclamation line was not intended to be a permanent boundary between white and indigenous lands but rather a temporary boundary which could be extended further west in an orderly, "lawful" (according to the British) manner. The proclamation outlawed private purchase of American Indian land, which had often created problems in the past; instead, all future land purchases were to be made by Crown officials "at some public Meeting or Assembly of the said Indians." Furthermore, British colonists were forbidden to move beyond the line and settle on indigenous lands, and colonial officials were forbidden to grant grounds or lands without royal approval. The proclamation was less about respecting or preserving the American Indians' rights to their land; rather, it gave the British Crown a monopoly on all future land purchases from American Indians.

Almost immediately, many British colonists and land speculators objected to the proclamation boundary, since there were already many settlements beyond the line and many existing land claims yet to be settled. Indeed, the Royal Proclamation itself called for lands to be granted to British soldiers who had served in the Seven Years' War. 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 with American Indians. The Treaty of Fort Stanwix and the Treaty of Hard Labor, both signed 1768, and the Treaty of Lochaber of 1770, opened much of what is now West Virginia and Kentucky to British settlement.

Economic Consequences

In addition to vastly increasing Britain's land in North America, the Seven Years' War changed economic, political, and social relations between Britain and its colonies. It plunged Britain into debt, nearly doubling the national debt. The Crown, seeking sources of revenue to pay off the debt, chose to impose new taxes on its colonies. These taxes were met with increasingly stiff resistance, until troops were called in to ensure that representatives of the Crown could safely perform their duties of collecting taxes. Over the years, dissatisfaction over the high taxes would steadily rise among the colonists until eventually culminating in the American Revolutionary War.  

France returned to the North American stage in 1778 to support American colonists against Great Britain in the Revolutionary War. For France, the military defeat and the financial burden of the Seven Years' War weakened the monarchy and eventually contributed to the advent of the French Revolution in 1789.