The Treaty of Paris formally ended the American Revolutionary War celebrated through America250.
Signed on September 3, 1783, the treaty recognized the independence of the United States from Great Britain. It also established boundaries for the new nation, including territory extending west to the Mississippi River.
The military turning point had come earlier at Yorktown in 1781, where George Washington’s forces and their allies compelled the surrender of a major British army. Fighting and negotiations continued afterward, so Yorktown was decisive but not itself the formal peace settlement.
The Treaty of Paris is easily confused with later treaties bearing the same name. A separate Treaty of Paris in 1898 ended the Spanish-American War, while the 1783 treaty concluded the conflict arising from the Declaration of Independence.