1651 - Exploration, Colonization

Exploration, Colonization

The English governor of Barbados Francis Willoughby, 38, 5th Baron Willoughby, settles Surinam on the northwest coast of South America with immigrants from other South American colonies and various Caribbean islands (see 1581). They establish the town of Paramaribo on the site of a French settlement nine miles upriver from the Atlantic and take over what is nominally Spanish territory but has resisted European settlement for 70 years (see politics [Treaties of Breda], 1667).

The duke of Courland (Latvia) Jacob Kettler obtains a grant of the 116-square-mile Caribbean island of Tobago from England's Charles II and establishes a settlement in the north (see politics, 1662).