Background
The 1763 Peace of Paris is no obscure artifact of diplomatic history of interest only to archivists and antiquarians, but a milestone in the history of the continent whose repercussions are still felt today. A generation of imperial conflict—one culminating in the Seven Years War—ended in 1763 on terms that sowed the seeds of the future United States and Canadian nations.
At its most intense, the fighting had embroiled most of Europe’s great powers, their client states, and colonists overseas; Native American nations; Africans both free and enslaved; and South Asian peoples and princes. In North America, the Seven Years War concluded a long chain of Anglo-French clashes going back to the early seventeenth century: among Americans, this “French & Indian” war is best remembered for launching the military career of one George Washington.
The celebrations Boston mounted on August 10, 1763 to mark the end of this war were very much celebrations of empire, of perceived Anglo-American ascendancy over the Bourbon powers of France and Spain and their Native American allies. Yet the pomp and pageantry masked very real stresses and tensions as London sought to reform and restructure the enormously expanded empire British arms had conquered and European diplomacy had ratified. Indeed, even while Bostonians celebrated, in the Ohio Country “Pontiac’s” rebellion pitted French-allied First Nations against their would-be British rulers, and two years later the city would itself explode in riots over the Stamp Act, London’s ill-planned attempt to raise revenue for imperial defense and administration by taxing certain colonial transactions.
Our attempt to recreate Boston’s “peace party” will combine an historical awareness of the complexities of that moment with a recognition of how far (if incompletely) towards peaceful co- existence the descendants of the Seven Years War’s protagonists—Anglophone and Francophone, Euro-American and Native—have moved over the past 250 years. The vision is thus to fill the Old State House and its environs with “eighteenth-century” people while showcasing the diversity of peoples and protagonists who shaped the course of our shared North American history.
At its most intense, the fighting had embroiled most of Europe’s great powers, their client states, and colonists overseas; Native American nations; Africans both free and enslaved; and South Asian peoples and princes. In North America, the Seven Years War concluded a long chain of Anglo-French clashes going back to the early seventeenth century: among Americans, this “French & Indian” war is best remembered for launching the military career of one George Washington.
The celebrations Boston mounted on August 10, 1763 to mark the end of this war were very much celebrations of empire, of perceived Anglo-American ascendancy over the Bourbon powers of France and Spain and their Native American allies. Yet the pomp and pageantry masked very real stresses and tensions as London sought to reform and restructure the enormously expanded empire British arms had conquered and European diplomacy had ratified. Indeed, even while Bostonians celebrated, in the Ohio Country “Pontiac’s” rebellion pitted French-allied First Nations against their would-be British rulers, and two years later the city would itself explode in riots over the Stamp Act, London’s ill-planned attempt to raise revenue for imperial defense and administration by taxing certain colonial transactions.
Our attempt to recreate Boston’s “peace party” will combine an historical awareness of the complexities of that moment with a recognition of how far (if incompletely) towards peaceful co- existence the descendants of the Seven Years War’s protagonists—Anglophone and Francophone, Euro-American and Native—have moved over the past 250 years. The vision is thus to fill the Old State House and its environs with “eighteenth-century” people while showcasing the diversity of peoples and protagonists who shaped the course of our shared North American history.