North America c. 1780

The Treaty of Paris concluded the Seven Years’ War and confirmed Britain as the dominant colonial power in North America. France was forced to cede a huge swathe of Canada, Rupert’s Land, to Britain. Spain received Florida, together with all its holdings west of the Mississippi. There remained areas of contention; Louisiana was transferred from France to Spain under the Treaty of Paris, but had a large Francophone population swelled by migrants from the lands France had surrendered in Canada. On the Pacific seaboard, seafaring Russian traders were probing steadily down the lightly settled coastline to the margins of Spanish and British dominions. Spain and France would gain revenge for the Treaty of Paris in the American Revolutionary War. By 1780 they had both declared war on Britain and funded and armed the rebels, and the Spanish defeated British forces in the South, recapturing Florida.