1763 and All That

On Saturday, 21 September, the Fletcher School of Diplomacy at Tufts University will host a public symposium on “War, Peace, and Empire: the 1763 Paris Treaty in Diplomatic-Historical Perspective.”

This symposium, supported by the Military Historical Society of Massachusetts, will be chaired by Alan K. Henrikson, Lee E. Dirks Professor of Diplomatic History and Director of Diplomatic Studies at the Fletcher School. It will bring together scholars of eighteenth-century war, diplomacy, and geopolitics with modern experts on international relations to discuss a treaty that rewrote the map of North America. Register for that free symposium here.

Meanwhile, the Old State House museum in Boston continues to host an exhibit on the 1763 treaty, including Britain’s actual copy of that treaty on display in this country for the first time. The signatures and seals of the English, French, and Spanish negotiators on the last page of that treaty appear above.

Among the items in that exhibit I found particularly striking was a wampum belt with the year “1766” woven into the pattern, a tribute maintaining good relations with one of the Native American nations of the Great Lakes region a few years after this peace. Also a large map with notes on recent border changes actually engraved into the design. That exhibit runs through 7 October.

That date is also the 250th anniversary of the British government’s “Royal Proclamation of 1763,” which set new rules for governing Canada and maintaining peace with Britain’s Native allies. On Friday, 4 October, the Old State House will host a roundtable on that proclamation chaired by Daniel Richter of the University of Pennsylvania. The panelists will be Colin Calloway of Dartmouth, Heather Welland of S.U.N.Y. Binghamton, and Karl Hele of Concordia. Registration for this event will open soon.