English and Irish Settlement on the River Amazon 1550-1646

During the first half of the seventeenth century English and Irish made persistent efforts to maintain trading factories and plantations on the Amazon, often making very considerable profits from tobacco, dyes and hardwood; the Irish were renowned for their experience of the river and expertise in Indian languages. The failure, ultimately, of these undertakings, was due to foreign policy priorities of the English crown, rather than to an inhospitable environment.