The Treaty of Paris was the agreement Britain and the United States signed in 1783 to officially end the American Revolutionary War.
Representatives signed the treaty in Paris on September 3, 1783. The American negotiators were Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, John Jay, and Henry Laurens, while David Hartley represented Great Britain. King George III’s government formally recognized the United States as free, sovereign, and independent.
The treaty established the new nation’s boundaries, extending west to the Mississippi River, south to Spanish Florida, and north to the Great Lakes. It also addressed fishing rights, debts owed to British creditors, and the treatment of Loyalists who had supported Britain.
The fighting largely stopped after the British surrender at Yorktown in 1781, but the war did not formally conclude until the peace agreement was negotiated and ratified. The Treaty of Paris is distinct from the 1783 treaties involving Britain, France, Spain, and the Dutch Republic that collectively formed the broader Peace of Paris.