Washington: A Life

by Ron Chernow

The shortsighted British preferred to save the fur trade with the Indians and, by a royal proclamation on October 7, 1763, banned settlers from regions west of the Allegheny Mountains. The Crown rationalized this policy by saying it was easier to defend subjects in seaport cities, but in a colony obsessed with real estate speculation, it was a catastrophic blunder to confine settlers to the eastern seaboard. The end of the war had no sooner disclosed tempting glimpses of riches than colonial masters in London snatched them away. Fearful that his western bonanza might evaporate, Washington condemned the move. “I can never look upon that Proclamation in any other light than as a temporary expedient to quiet the minds of the Indians,” he said.2 For Washington, the infamous decree was doubly damaging because it interfered with the bounty claims of veterans from the Virginia Regiment. To nobody’s surprise, settlers from Germany, Ireland, and elsewhere continued to spill into the Ohio Valley in a resistless tide. As