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Article: The price Charles II paid for a big apple Nigel Tisdall visits the tropical paradise that England swapped for a snow-prone North American outpost
- Article from:
- The Sunday Telegraph London
- Article date:
- July 20, 2008
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 2008 The Sunday Telegraph London. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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Sitting by the Suriname river at sunset, sipping a cool Parbo
beer as the commuters of Paramaribo head for home in fleets of
motorised pirogues, it seems appropriate to ponder the twists of
history. Back in 1667, when English settlers from Barbados were
colonising this humid corner of South America, a bizarre global swap
took place. Under the Treaty of Breda, which ended the Second Anglo-
Dutch War, Charles II relinquished his claims to the Pacific island
of Run and this remote tropical territory in exchange for a
fledgling port on the Hudson river called Nieuw Amsterdam. The
latter grew into New York, while Dutch Guiana - renamed the Republic
of Suriname following independence in 1975 - ...