Spain opens the Mississippi; Pinckney wins a treaty Madrid didn't want to sign

For a decade, Spain had kept New Orleans closed to American goods, choking off the only practical route western farmers had to sell their crops. On October 27, 1795, in Madrid, U.S. envoy Thomas Pinckney and Spanish minister Manuel de Godoy signed a treaty fixing the border between the United States and Spanish Florida at the 31st parallel and guaranteeing Americans free navigation of the Mississippi to the sea. New Orleans reopened to American shipping. Spain, worried about French ambitions in Europe, had decided an American friend mattered more than a border dispute in Florida…