Western Boundary

[shedevil]

After the Revolutionary War, what was the western boundary of the United States?

[Clanad]

See if this helps on your homework assignement...

The Treaty of Paris was signed in September 1783, effectively ending the Revolutionary War. 
The Treaty of Paris was a United States victory. When the British began negotiating in September 1781, they wanted to lose as little as possible. France wanted to gain from the war for which it had spent blood and booty. Other allies�Spain, Holland, Russia, Portugal, Denmark, and Sweden� had a stake in the outcome as well. By the terms of the Franco-American Treaty, each nation had promised not to make a separate treaty. The Confederation Congress had instructed its peace commissioners�Benjamin Franklin, John Jay, and John Adams�to follow the lead of Charles Grannier de Vergennes, the French foreign minister. It soon became apparent that their goals were very different. France was suggesting that the western boundary stop at the crest of the Appalachian mountains, that the territory from there to the Mississippi River remain in British hands, and that the British keep the areas they controlled at the end of the war, New York City being one. The United States would become a dependency of France. The British, wanting to block the French from re-establishing a presence on the continent, began secret talks with the Americans. In those talks, they agreed to vacate the new United States, recognize the Mississippi River as its western boundary (New Orleans was excluded), and extend fishing rights off the coast of Newfoundland to Americans. For its part, Congress would agree to recommend to the states the restoration of civil rights and of property to the Loyalists. Both countries recognized the validity of pre-war debts. It was a good deal and the Americans violated their treaty with France and signed a separate peace with Great Britain with the above provisions. Once again, the European balance of power allowed the weak United States to thrive.

[Peter Pedant]

This summary is what I was taught in History O level in 1965. At the end of the war, the allies of the United States were queuing up for 'their' share, and in the end the Americans relied on the British to limit French demands.

At the time it seemed unlikely.