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Show 11 States (compiled by Charles C. Royce) includes a section on "Colonial Policy Toward the Indians," from which we have selected examples that comprise a major portion of this work. It is our hope that an examination of the Thomas statement will give us a better perspective of the role of the colonies in the colonial and revolutionary period. This did not end at once with the adoption of the Constitution in 1789. It took a civil war to impress the states with the preeminence of the Union. After the mid-eighteenth century, the Board of Trade commenced discussions, in 1751, of some kind of organization that would centralize administration of Indian affairs (John R. Alden, John Stuart and the Southern Colonial Frontier [1944], p. 18). Because the English learned from the Indians during the Albany Congress of 1754 that more Indians supported the French program than their own, in 1755 steps were taken to give the British government a stronger hand in Indian affairs. To carry out this new program, Sir William Johnson was appointed superintendent for Indians in the northern department, and Edmond Atkin was appointed superintendent in the southern department. In 1762, Atkin was replaced by John Stuart. At the close of the French and Indian War, King George III issued the Proclamation of 1763 which established a western boundary for the colonies and encouraged settlement in areas that would not interfere with the Proclamation line. The officials of the established colonies were forbidden "for the present, and until our further Pleasure be known" to allow surveys or to grant lands beyond the |