History Spotlight, 1/14

The Treaty of Paris, signed on September 3, 1783, is ratified by the United States on this day in 1784 officially ending the American Revolution. The signers were Ben Franklin, John Adams and John Jay, for the US, and Member of Parliament David Hartley for King George III. Other belligerents in the war (France, the Netherlands, and Spain) got their own treaties later on.
The ten main points of the treaty are:
1) All 13 colonies are free and sovereign and the King lets go of all claims to them.
2) Establishing the boundaries between the United States and British North America (that's Canada to you and me). The map made by John Mitchell (a whopping 6.5 feet by 4.5 feet) used to determing the border contained numerous inaccuracies which would cause no end of mischief. For example, the Northwest Angle, that little bit of Minnesota on the northern side of Lake of the Woods is completely isolated from the rest of the continental United States. This is because the the Treaty of Paris said that the border ran from the Lake of the Woods due west to the Mississippi, but the Mississippi is much farther south than that. Another area was the Republic of Indian Stream, that little piece of New Hampshire that sticks up into Canada.
3) Fishing rights to US fishermen in the Grand Banks, off the coast of Newfoundland and in the Gulf of St Lawrence.
4) Recognizing the the validity of debts on either side.
5) Giving back confiscated Loyalist lands to their rightful owners. Many states wound up ignoring this one.
6) Preventing future confiscation of property owned by Loyalists.
7) Prisoners of war on both sides to be released.
8) Great Britain and America to have equal access to the Mississippi River.
9) Land captured by the US outside of the provisions of the treaty are to be returned without compensation.
10) Ratification to occur within six months.

In addition to, this Britain gave Spain back Florida (which was East and West Florida at the time) Unfortunately, nobody knew exactly where the northern border of Florida was, which would cause no end of trouble when Andrew Jackson was riding around down there during the Creek War. Also causing problems in Florida is the fact that Spain didn't sign any treaty allowing the Americans access to the Missippi and used their position in Florida to make a general nuisance of themselves.