Spain and the United States Sign the Treaty of San Lorenzo

For Americans settling west of the Appalachians, the Mississippi connected local production with distant markets, but Spain controlled the lower river and New Orleans. Spanish forts and competing territorial claims added a security dispute to the commercial one. [1]

Thomas Pinckney and Manuel de Godoy signed the Treaty of San Lorenzo on 27 October 1795. Spain accepted the thirty first parallel as the boundary with the United States and opened the Mississippi to American navigation. Merchants could move goods through Spanish controlled New Orleans without paying the duties that had obstructed western trade. [1]

Godoy had sought negotiations as Spain struggled in the wars of the French Revolution. He wanted peace with France but feared that John Jay’s talks in London might produce an Anglo American alliance against Spanish possessions. Pinckney, the American minister in Britain, arrived in Spain with authority to settle the dispute. He rejected Godoy’s proposal for an alliance and threatened to leave when the negotiations stalled over port charges. [1]

Godoy conceded. The agreement made western settlement more attractive to Americans and reduced Spain’s ability to maintain a buffer along its frontier. It also ended Spanish commitments of military support to Indigenous communities in the disputed region, weakening their resistance to American expansion. [1]

Western and southern settlers welcomed terms that made their farms and trade more promising, and Pinckney's connection to the Federalists helped the party gain support beyond its strongest regions. [1]

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