Abstract

During the mid-eighteenth century, relations between British Americans and Indians in North America were defined by the events of the Seven Years’ War and Pontiac’s War. A critical component of the relationship was the Native American capture of European American civilians, particularly those living on land simultaneously claimed by competing groups. Native American captivity had a long history in the colonies and continues to be studied by historians. This article concludes that the strict separation introduced by the Proclamation Line of 1763 was ineffective because it did not take into account the complexity of white-Indian relations at mid-century, but the ideology behind the Line’s implementation resolved the tension that had been the defining character of life on simultaneously claimed land. That resolution had far-ranging effects, pointing to the lasting importance of Pontiac’s War as well as the impact of those events on the continuing relationship between Native Americans and Americans.

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