"Our Netherlanders raise good wheat, rye, barley, oats, and peas, and can brew as good beer here as in our Fatherland, for good hops grow in the woods; and they who make it their business can produce enough of those things, as everything can be grown which grows in Holland, England, or France, and they are in want of nothing but men to do the work. It is a pleasant and charming country, if only it were well peopled by our nation." (219)
"In short, it is a country well adapted for our people to inhabit, on account of the similarity of the climate and the weather to our own." From a first-hand account compiled by Johan de Laet The Climate. Johan de Laet, a director of the Dutch West India Company and a man of great influence, compiled a work of various writings on New Netherland. The following description of the area's climate is taken from one of those works. This passage assures the potential colonist that the land is very habitable.
"As to the climate and seasons of the year, they nearly agree with ours, for it is a good deal colder there than it ought to be according to the latitude; it freezes and snows severely in winter, so that often there is a strong drift of ice in the river. But this occurs some years more than others, as with us. There is also the same variety of winds in that country, and in summer thunder and lightning with violent showers. In short, it is a country well adapted for our people to inhabit, on account of the similarity of the climate and the weather to our own ; especially since it seems to lack nothing that is needful for the subsistence of man, except domestic cattle, which it would be easy to carry there; and besides producing many things of which our own country is destitute.
Wine can be made there with industry, since vines are already found that require nothing but cultivation. We have before stated how the country there abounds in timber suitable for ship-building; it is sought by our people for that purpose, who have built there several sloops and tolerable yachts." (50)
Friedrich von Reck
In 1736, Philip Georg Friedrich von Reck, then only twenty five years old, sailed with other colonists from Germany to Georgia. One of his intentions, expressed in a letter before he left Europe, was to bring back from America "ocular proof" of what he called "this strange new world." Idealistic and enthusiastic, well-educated and blessed with an amazing artistic gift, von Reck kept a travel diary, wrote separate descriptions of the plants, animals and Indians he discovered in Georgia and drew some fifty watercolor and pencil sketches of what he saw.
The Yuchi, also spelled Euchee and Uchee, are people of a Native American tribe who traditionally lived in the eastern Tennessee River valley in Tennessee in the 16th century. The Yuchi were well known mound builders. During the 17th century, they moved south to Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina. After suffering many fatalities due to epidemic disease and warfare in the 18th century, several surviving Yuchi were removed to Indian Territory in the 1830s, together with their allies the Muscogee Creek. (Some who remained in the South were classified as "free persons of colour"; others were enslaved.)
Some remnant groups migrated to Florida, where they became part of the recently formed Seminole Tribe of Florida.Today the Yuchi live primarily in the northeastern Oklahoma area, where many are enrolled as citizens in the federally recognized Muscogee Creek Nation. Some Yuchi are enrolled as members of other federally recognized tribes, such as the Absentee Shawnee Tribe and the Cherokee Nation.
