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Endurance and Triumph
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war in Parliament eroded. By the spring of 1782, the British had opened
peace negotiations with the United States.
On September 3, 1783, American and British representatives signed the
Treaty of Paris. It officially ended the Revolutionary War. Great Britain
gave up all claims to the 13 colonies. It recognized them as “free, sover-
eign, and independent states.”
When Lord Cornwallis surrendered his British army at Yorktown, Virginia, in Octo-
ber 1781, it marked the end of major combat in the American Revolution. The war
officially ended when British and American officials signed a peace treaty in Paris
on September 3, 1783.