’s original instructions, which declared the northern boundary of the U.S. on the Great Lakes and the western boundary on the Mississippi River to be
2Draft Peace Treaty Presented by Richard Oswald to the American Peace Commissioners, 25 November 1782 (Adams Papers)
, above, only in that it ran the northern boundary through the middle of the Great Lakes. For the alternatives considered before this solution was devised, see the [
3To John Adams from Samuel Osgood, 7 December 1783 (Adams Papers)
’s Oct. 1779 instructions as sole peace negotiator had declared as a prerequisite to any peace treaty a northern U.S. boundary on the Great Lakes and a western boundary on the Mississippi River. As a result of pressure by the French, the June 1781 instructions to the joint commission transformed the 1779 ultimatum into a discretionary goal of the negotiation and made the sanctity...
4John Quincy Adams to John Adams, 3 August 1785 (Adams Papers)
The British were obligated to surrender several military posts in the northwest, on and near the Great Lakes, under arts. 2 and 7 of the Definitive Treaty of 3 Sept. 1783, but they continued to occupy them while controversies over the claims of British subjects in American courts (arts. 4 and 5) remained unresolved.
5To John Adams from Richard Henry Lee, 3 September 1787 (Adams Papers)
...prior to statehood. A mixture of land sale agreement and lawmaking, it shaped what became the politically fraught area of the Northwest Territory, encompassing the Allegheny Mountains on the east, the Great Lakes on the north, the Mississippi River on the west, and the Ohio River on the south. The ordinance, which pledged “the utmost good faith” to Native Americans and prohibited slavery...
6To John Adams from Benjamin Lincoln, 11 September 1793 (Adams Papers)
...broke out between the King of Great Britain, and the people of those colonies, which are now the United States. That by the treaty of peace, made with the King, about ten years since, the great lakes and the waters which unite them, were by him declared to be the boundaries of the United States.—That after peace was made with the King, it remained to make peace with the those nations, who...