
Benjamin Franklin established the first overseas mission of the United States in Paris in 1779. In the period following the American Revolution, George Washington sent a number of close advisers to the courts of European potentates in order to garner recognition of American independence with mixed results, including Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Francis Dana and John Jay . Much of the first fifty years of the Department of State concerned negotiating with imperial European powers over the territorial integrity of the borders of the United States as known today. In the latter half of the nineteenth century, the State Department was concerned with expanding commercial ties in Asia, establishing Liberia, foiling diplomatic recognition of the Confederacy and securing its presence in North America. America's global preeminence became evident in the twentieth century, and the State Department was required to invest in a large network of diplomatic missions to manage its bilateral and multilateral relations. .Listed below are American embassies and other diplomatic missions around the world. The US has coined some of its consulates as "American Presence Posts", to provide chiefly consular services.