18 a short history of the united states
In North Carolina the inhabitants grew tobacco and provided naval
stores to shipbuilders. In South Carolina, because of the moisture,
temperature, and soil conditions, the colonists cultivated rice and in-
digo, which is used as a dye.
Many of the Carolina colonists were Scots-Irish who were predomi-
nantly Presbyterian in their religious beliefs and had initially moved
from lowland Scotland to northern Ireland, where they remained for
many years before crossing the ocean and settling in the Carolinas.
They engaged the various Indian tribes in defending themselves against
the Spanish in Florida. These tribes included the Wateree, Congaree,
Santee, Waxhaw, and Catawba, all of whom belonged to the Siouan
group. The most dominant tribe, however, was the powerful and fi erce
Cherokee Nation, who were concentrated in the mountains to the west
and related to the Iroquois farther north.
The Carolina settlers frequently aided one group of Indians against
another in combat and regularly sold captured natives into slavery. Be-
fore long these settlers had exterminated or enslaved the Indians in the
Carolinas, or reduced them to a state of total dependence.
Charles II and his brother James, the Duke of York, who later
succeeded Charles as James II, cast covetous eyes on the Dutch colony
of New Netherland, especially the attractive port at the foot of Man-
hattan Island where the Hudson River ran into the ocean. The Dutch
had not been as successful as the English in establishing colonies since
its citizens lacked the impetus of English settlers in migrating to
America. The people in New Amsterdam, for example, had little re-
gard for the Dutch West India Company and its autocratic governors.
The most recent dictator, Peter Stuyvesant. arrived as governor in the
colony on May 11 , 1647 , looking “like a peacock.” He was all pomp and
majesty. He wore a decorated peg leg, having lost his own in a pitched
battle several years earlier. Determined to bring order and one-man
control to the colony, he ruled for seventeen years by stern decrees that
won him few friends and many enemies.
Since England and Holland were commercial rivals, it did not take
long for Charles to initiate a war by granting to his brother James all
the land between the Connecticut and Delaware rivers. Then a British