France and Britain, in the preliminary treaties …
Years: 1783 - 1783
January
France and Britain, in the preliminary treaties signed with France and Spain on January 20, 1783, return to each other nearly all the territories they had taken from each other since 1778, except for Tobago, which the French had captured in 1781 and are allowed to keep.
France also gains some territory around the Senegal River in Africa, which it had lost to Britain in 1763.
The whole arrangement for fishing around the Newfoundland coast has to be renegotiated because of the rights awarded to the Americans.
The Spanish do much better.
They do not have to hand back West Florida or Menorca, and are also given East Florida in exchange for the Bahamas (so tens of thousands of refugees who had fled to East Florida from the United States will have to move again).
Both East Florida and part of West Florida had been Spanish possessions before 1763, so the 1783 treaty does not specify boundaries, allowing the Spanish to claim that the 1763 boundaries still apply (the remainder of West Florida had been part of French Louisiana before 1763, and the rest of Louisiana had then been handed over to Spain).
The opportunity is taken to resolve long-standing disputes about logwood cutting in Central America.
The British, however, continue to hold Gibraltar after the siege is abandoned.
France also gains some territory around the Senegal River in Africa, which it had lost to Britain in 1763.
The whole arrangement for fishing around the Newfoundland coast has to be renegotiated because of the rights awarded to the Americans.
The Spanish do much better.
They do not have to hand back West Florida or Menorca, and are also given East Florida in exchange for the Bahamas (so tens of thousands of refugees who had fled to East Florida from the United States will have to move again).
Both East Florida and part of West Florida had been Spanish possessions before 1763, so the 1783 treaty does not specify boundaries, allowing the Spanish to claim that the 1763 boundaries still apply (the remainder of West Florida had been part of French Louisiana before 1763, and the rest of Louisiana had then been handed over to Spain).
The opportunity is taken to resolve long-standing disputes about logwood cutting in Central America.
The British, however, continue to hold Gibraltar after the siege is abandoned.
Locations
People
- Benjamin Franklin
- Charles Gravier, Count of Vergennes
- Henry Laurens
- John Adams
- John Jay
- Pedro Pablo Abarca de Bolea y Jiménez de Urrea, 10th Count of Aranda
- William Petty, Earl of Shelburne
Groups
- Puerto Rico (Spanish Colony)
- Netherlands, United Provinces of the (Dutch Republic)
- France, (Bourbon) Kingdom of
- Ohio Country
- Saint Lucia (French colony)
- Spain, Bourbon Kingdom of
- Newfoundland (British Colony)
- Britain, Kingdom of Great
- The Bahamas, British Crown Colony of
- India, East India Company rule in
- India, French
- East Florida
- West Florida
- Loyalists (American Revolution)
- United States of America (US, USA) (Philadelphia PA)
Topics
- American Revolution
- American Revolutionary War, or American War of Independence
- Anglo-French War (1778–1783)
- Anglo-Spanish War
- Gibraltar, Great Siege of
- Anglo-Dutch War, Fourth
