In gaining these land holdings, the British declared their American colonies to be complete and secure from external threats. The Treaty of Paris, signed on February 10, 1763, effectively removed France from the continent, forcing her to cede all territory east of the Mississippi River to the victor, Great Britain.

The end of the French and Indian War brought great geographic and political changes to North America. The divergent social, political, and economic perspectives that emerged among Virginia’s wealthy elite ultimately aided in pushing the colony to rebellion in the following decade. As many of Washington’s counterparts shared these views, the Proclamation Line of 1763 was significant in that it marked the beginning of a clear ideological break with the mother country. Washington deemed the Royal Proclamation’s controls on trade and migration discriminatory against colonials seeking to alleviate personal debts through profitable landholdings, particularly veterans of the French and Indian War. As a member of the Virginia gentry, a patron of numerous land companies, and an established surveyor, the boundary line profoundly affected George Washington. The Royal Proclamation was more successful in its ability to restrict the aims of private, Virginia-based land companies and their investors who sought to capitalize on the sale of lands in the Ohio Valley. While Britain intended for the boundary line to alleviate tensions between Anglo settlers and indigenous peoples, eager colonists largely ignored the proclamation and settled beyond the boundary with few consequences from the government. In addition, the British government viewed westward expansion as a threat to their mercantile economic system, expressing concern that opening up the west to farming families would provide the colonies with opportunities to gain economic independence through commercial agriculture. Officials in London feared that an increased Anglo-American presence in the western territory would encourage Native American violence that, when paired with resistance from French settlers in the region, would incite another expensive conflict for the empire. This measure advanced British governmental efforts to discourage westward expansion in the decade before the American Revolution, an objective motivated by a number of sociopolitical and economic factors. Decreed on October 7, 1763, the Proclamation Line prohibited Anglo-American colonists from settling on lands acquired from the French following the French and Indian War. The Proclamation Line of 1763 was a British-produced boundary marked in the Appalachian Mountains at the Eastern Continental Divide.

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