In America250 history, which 1783 treaty formally recognized the United States as independent from Great Britain?

The Treaty of Paris (1783) formally recognized the United States as independent from Great Britain. Signed in Paris on September 3, 1783, it officially ended the American Revolutionary War between the two countries.

The American negotiators were Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, John Jay, and Henry Laurens. The British representative was David Hartley. The treaty’s first article declared that Britain recognized the thirteen former colonies as “free, sovereign, and independent states.”

The agreement also established boundaries for the new nation, granted American fishermen rights in waters near Newfoundland, and addressed debts, Loyalist property, prisoners, and access to the Mississippi River. Its territorial terms gave the United States land extending west to the Mississippi River.

The Treaty of Paris is sometimes confused with the 1776 Declaration of Independence. The Declaration announced the colonies’ decision to separate; the 1783 treaty ended the war and secured Britain’s formal recognition of that independence. America250 commemorates the 250th anniversary of the declaration and the founding era that followed it.