Treaty with Great Britain, 1783 Less than five months after the surrender of Cornwallis, the British Parliament passed an act to enable the king to make peace till July 1783. In the end of November, 1782, a provisional treaty was signed, the negotiations on behalf of Congress having been conducted by Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, John Jay, and Henry Laurens. On September 3, 1783, this treaty was made definitive in the form here printed, and the complete independence of the American States acknowledged by Great Britain. IN the name of the most holy and undivided Trinity. It having pleased the Divine Providence to dispose the hearts of the most serene and most potent Prince George the Third, by the Grace of God, King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith,...and of the United States of America, to forget all past misunderstandings and differences.... Done at Paris, this third day of September in the year of our Lord, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-three. D. HARTLEY (SEAL)
On December 3, 1803, it was recommended by President Thomas Jefferson that the Congress of the United States pass a treaty with the Kaskaskia Indians. Included in this treaty was the annual support to a Catholic missionary priest of $100, to be paid out of the Federal treasury. Later in 1806 and 1807, two similar treaties were made with the Wyandotte and Cherokee tribes. The treaty provided: ART. 3d....And whereas the greater part of the said tribe have been baptized and received into the Catholic Church, to which they are much attached, the United States will give annually, for seven years, one hundred dollars toward the support of a priest of that religion, who will engage to perform for said tribe the duties of his office, and also to instruct as many of their children as possible, in the rudiments of literature, and the United States will further give the sum of three hundred dollars, to assist the said tribe in the erection of a church. ART. 7th. This treaty is to be in force and binding upon the said parties, as soon as it shall be ratified by the President and Senate of the United States. In witness whereof, the said commissioner plenipotentiary, and the head chiefs and warriors of the said Kaskaskia tribe of Indians, have hereunto set their hands and affixed their seals, the thirteenth day of August, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and three, and of the Independence of the United States the twenty-eighth. William Henry Harrison, [L. S.]
Sealed and delivered in the presence of—
By the Louisiana Purchase, Texas had become a part of the United States; but in 1819 it had been ceded to Spain in the negotiations for Florida. Two years later Mexico, including Texas, had become independent, and the United States made two unsuccessful attempts to purchase Texas from Mexico. The settlement of Texas by immigrants from the United States finally led to the secession of Texas and its annexation by the United States, with the result that the Mexican War broke out in May, 1846. It was closed by this treaty, by which the United States gained not only Texas but New Mexico and Upper California. IN THE name of Almighty God: The United States and the United Mexican States animated by a sincere desire to put an end to the calamities of the war....who, after a reciprocal communication of their respective full powers, have, under the protection of Almighty God, the Author of Peace, arranged, agreed upon, and signed the following: Treaty of Peace, Friendship, Limits, and Settlement between the United States of America and the Mexican Republic.... If (which is not to be expected, and which God forbid) war should unhappily break out between the two republics, they do now, with a view to such calamity, solemnly pledge themselves to each other and to the world to observe the following rules.... All churches, hospitals, schools, colleges, libraries, and other establishments for charitable and beneficent purposes, shall be respected, and all persons connected with the same protected in the discharge of their duties, and the pursuit of their vocations.... Done in quintuplicate, at the city of Guadalupe Hidalgo, on the second day of February, in the year of the Lord one thousand eight hundred and forty-eight. N. P. TRIST [L. S.]
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