Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
staging point on the way to the Far East, became an increasingly important piece of
the far-flung Portuguese Empire. When Europe's taste for sugar took off in the early
seventeenth century, the northeast of Brazil quickly became very valuable real estate,
and a tempting target for the expanding maritime powers of northern Europe, jealous
of the Iberian monopoly in the New World.
War with the Dutch
he Dutch , with naval bases in the Caribbean and a powerful fleet, were the best
placed to move against Brazil. From 1580 to 1640 Portugal was united with Spain,
against whom the Dutch had fought a bitter war of independence; the continuing
Spanish presence in Flanders still menaced them. In 1624 a Dutch fleet appeared
off Salvador and occupied the city within 24 hours. But they were pinned down by
enraged settlers and expelled in 1625 by a hastily assembled combined Spanish and
Portuguese fleet - the only direct intervention made by either country in the conflict.
When a Dutch force was once more repulsed from Salvador in 1627, they shifted
their attention further north and found the going much easier. Olinda was taken
in 1630, the rich sugar zones of Pernambuco were occupied, and Dutch control
extended up to the mouth of the Amazon by 1641. With settlers moving in and a
fleet more powerful than Portugal's, Dutch control of the Northeast threatened to
become permanent.
John Maurice of Nassau (1604-79) was sent out as governor of the new Dutch
possessions in Brazil in 1636, as the Dutch founded a new capital in Pernambuco -
Mauritzstaadt, now Recife. His enlightened policies of allowing the Portuguese
freedom to practise their religion, and including them in the colonial government,
may have resulted in a Dutch Brazil had it not been for the conservatism of the Dutch
West India Company , his effective employers. They insisted on Calvinism and heavy
taxes to pay for his lavish expenditures, and when John Maurice resigned in disgust and
returned to Holland in 1644 the settlers rose. After five years of ambushes, plantation
burnings and massacres, the Brazilians pushed the Dutch back into an enclave around
Recife. The Dutch poured in reinforcements by sea, but two climactic battles in 1648
and 1649 at Guararapes , just outside Recife, saw Dutch military power broken. They
finally surrendered Recife in 1654 - in the Treaty of The Hague (1661) the Dutch gave
up all claims to Brazil in exchange for four million reais.
The bandeirantes
The expulsion of the Dutch demonstrated the toughness of the early Brazilians,
which was also very evident in the penetration and settlement of the interior during
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Every few months expeditions set out,
following rumours of gold and looking for indigenous peoples to enslave. They
carried an identifying banner, a bandeira , which gave the name bandeirantes to the
adventurers; they became the Brazilian version of the Spanish conquistadores . São Paulo
became the main bandeirante centre thanks to its position on the Rio Tietê, one of the
few natural highways that flowed east-west into the deep interior.
he average bandeira would be made up of a mixed crew of people, reflecting the
many - and often conflicting - motives underlying the expedition. None travelled
without a priest or two ( bandeirantes may have been cut-throats, but they were devout
1605-94
1612-14
1624
1630-54
Quilombo dos Palmares, a
community of escaped slaves,
is governed by semi-mythical
leaders Ganga Zumba and Zumbi
Failed French
attempt to colonize
São Luís region
The Dutch temporarily
occupy Salvador
Dutch occupation
of Olinda and Recife
 
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