The Treaty of Paris recognized United States independence at the end of the American Revolutionary War.
Signed in 1783, the treaty ended the war between the United States and Great Britain. Britain acknowledged the United States as a sovereign and independent nation. The agreement also established boundaries, fishing rights, and arrangements concerning debts and Loyalists.
The treaty followed the American victory at Yorktown in 1781 and subsequent negotiations. Its recognition of sovereignty was crucial because the Declaration of Independence had announced independence in 1776, but international recognition and a peace settlement came later. The treaty therefore marks the diplomatic conclusion of the founding conflict.
This Treaty of Paris should not be confused with other treaties bearing the same name. The 1783 agreement ended the American Revolutionary War; a different Treaty of Paris in 1898 ended the Spanish-American War. The 1783 treaty is especially relevant to America250 because it completed the international process begun by the Declaration.