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I tried to count how many treaties have been called “The Treaty of Paris” and my ADHD kicked in before I finished. There have been a shit-ton, because it gives people an excuse to visit Paris, I guess. I mean it is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world. Anyway, this is about the 1784 one that ended the American Revolutionary War.
--On This Day in History, Shit Went Down: January 14, 1784--
Okay quickest summary ever. For a decade the British had been taxing the fuck out of the colonies to pay for the French and Indian War, which was being fought in the Americas because France was colonist as fuck too. The “and Indian” part was because both sides depended on Native Americans to fight for them. Shit, this isn’t turning into a quick summary at all. Anyway, fucking taxes.
Then the Brits started taxing tea and there was the “taxation without representation is tyranny” stuff and eventually the Americans started fighting the British (and those loyal to the British) and then declaring independence and then more fighting and the Americans were really shitty at it and getting their asses kicked but they didn’t give up and slowly got better at fighting and they had home field advantage and France was all fuck Britain let’s help the Americans and eventually the British said ah fuck it we give up let’s hang in Paris and work out a treaty.
But back then they didn’t have airports, no matter what Trump said, or e-signing of documents and not even fucking fax machines, so it took a while for this treaty to get all worked out and signed and ratified and shit. The “on this day” for today’s story was January 14, 1784 when the U.S. Congress of the Confederation said yeah okay this looks good and ratified that fucker that had been signed in Paris the previous September. And why wouldn’t they? It was way in their favor in terms of borders (remember that the British still owned much of what would later become Canada). It also talked about fishing rights and keeping/returning shit confiscated during the war and arranged for the exchanging of prisoners.
It’s alleged that Britain was generous in terms of the granting favorable borders to the fledgling nation as a long-term strategy, seeing the U.S. as being a future ally and trading partner. I mean, that really did work out for them what with America saving British asses in not one but two world wars (sarcasm).
The U.S. ratified copies of the treaty took a slow boat, not a magical Trumpy time-traveling airplane, to Britain and was ratified on April 9, and went into effect on May 12, 1784, when the fully ratified copies were exchanged in Paris and then it was America fuck yeah.
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The whole taxes deal was a thing, sure, but it’s also a smokescreen for a major reason rich landowners talked a whole bunch of poor people to die for the cause. Washington, Jefferson, and quite a few others were land speculators. Indian lands, to be specific. That’s how they made enough money to buy human beings - what you think they made their money selling tobacco? Remember reading they were “surveyors?” Land speculators.
The trouble was, jolly olde England and King George had made the Treaty of Niagara in 1763, promising to keep those damn land speculators east of the Ohio valley. That did not sit well with the white second sons in the colonies, and it took them a few years but they did manage to whip up a frenzy for “independence” over the tax on tea and such things, so that they could quickly resume taking Indian lands and selling them and getting even more rich and buying even more black bodies.