The Treaty of Paris formally ended the American Revolutionary War, a turning point central to America250 history.
Representatives of Great Britain and the United States signed the treaty in Paris on September 3, 1783. Britain recognized the United States as free, sovereign, and independent states, formally acknowledging the outcome for which the revolutionaries had fought.
The American negotiators were Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, John Jay, and Henry Laurens. The treaty also established generous boundaries for the new United States, extending west to the Mississippi River and north to the Great Lakes. It addressed fishing rights, prisoners of war, debts, and property claims.
The treaty is often confused with the preliminary peace articles agreed in 1782 or with the separate treaties Britain signed with France, Spain, and the Dutch Republic. Those agreements formed part of the wider Peace of Paris, but the Treaty of Paris specifically settled the war between Britain and the United States. Congress ratified it in January 1784.