America's Critical Period - Foreign Issues

Foreign Issues

Although the war was over, the British had not completely abandoned the United States. Tensions with the British continued to plague the country even after the treaty had been signed. British troops refused to leave the forts in Detroit, Otsego, and New York because the government refused to return land confiscated from Tories during the war. Furthermore, American sailors, no longer under British protection, were being captured and sold into slavery by North African pirates. In 1785, pirates from Algiers captured an entire crew from an American merchant ship off the coast of Portugal. Spain also complicated things after the Revolution due to disputes such as the West Florida Controversy and Western issues based around the Mississippi River.