The British Royal Proclamation of 1763 forbade American colonists from settling west of which natural barrier?

The Proclamation of 1763 was issued by King George III at the end of the French and Indian War to appease Native Americans by checking the encroachment of European settlers on their lands. It created a boundary, known as the proclamation line, separating the British colonies on the Atlantic coast from American Indian lands west of the Appalachian Mountains. In the centuries since the proclamation, it has become one of the cornerstones of Native American law in the United States and Canada.

After the conclusion of the French and Indian War in America, the British Empire began to tighten control over its rather autonomous colonies. In response to Pontiac’s Rebellion, a revolt of Native Americans led by Pontiac, an Ottawa chief, King George III declared all lands west of the Appalachian Mountains off-limits to colonial settlers.

The Proclamation also contributed to the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War in 1775. The Proclamation legally defined the North American interior west of the Appalachian Mountains as a vast indigenous reserve. This angered people in the Thirteen Colonies who desired western expansion.

The British monarch reserved the lands west of the Appalachian chain as exclusive “hunting grounds” for the “several nations or tribes of Indians” under his “protection.” As sovereign of this territory, however, the king claimed ultimate “dominion” over the entire region.