Tag: Treaty of Paris

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Benjamin Franklin and the American Legacy in Paris

France has an extraordinary way of commemorating the glorious past through landmarks and monuments. Benjamin Franklin had been an off and on resident of Paris living at 66 rue Raynouard, the former Hotel de Valentinoise, in Passy. He was recognized as the first official diplomat and Ambassador of the thirteen American colonies. There is a […]

by John E. Happ
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The Silence of Slavery in Revolutionary War Art

“His Britannic Majesty shall with all convenient speed, and without causing any Destruction, or carrying away any Negroes or other Property of the American inhabitants, withdraw . . . from said United States.” These words from the 1783 Treaty of Paris that officially brought the seven-year American Revolution to a close guaranteed America’s independence from […]

by Edna Gabler
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Rockingham, Washington’s Headquarters, 1783

George Washington slept here. After the commander in chief was summoned to Princeton, New Jersey during the summer of 1783, and finding no rooms for rent, certainly not anything sizeable enough to serve his needs, Washington, his wife Martha, their servants and enslaved persons, and a small company of soldiers managed to find a place […]

by Jett Conner
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The Annapolis Convention of 1786: A Call for a Stronger National Government

Speaking at South Carolina’s ratification convention in 1788, Charles Pinckney derided the Articles of Confederation as a “miserable, feeble mockery of government.” Pinckney was a young but significant figure at the Constitutional Convention along with his cousin Charles Cotesworth Pinckney. While coastal South Carolinians, rooted in Charleston, were likely to prevail in support of the […]

by Jason Yonce
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Happy Fourth of July! . . . and a Question

For something special this Independence Day, we asked JAR contributors a simple but thought-provoking question. Their answers are insightful and remind us of the broad range of people and events that transformed thirteen British colonies into the United States of America. How would you answer this question: If there was another national holiday, in addition […]

by Editors
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How Article 7 Freed 3000 Slaves

The American Peace Commissioners, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, John Jay, and Henry Laurens, signed the preliminary articles of peace in Paris with Richard Oswald, the British Commissioner, at the Hotel de York on November 30, 1782. The French Foreign Minister, Count de Vergennes, learned of the treaty and wrote to the French minister to the […]

by Bob Ruppert
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1763: A Revolutionary Peace Exhibit

The Treaty that Redefined North America On Wednesday August 10, 1763, crowds of Bostonians gathered after nightfall and stood watch over the harbor. Under the glow of the bonfires that lined the town’s shoreline, the people assembled to view a fireworks display, which signified the importance and special nature of the occasion: Earlier that afternoon, […]

by Elizabeth M. Covart