THE DUTCH CONQUEST
By the end of the sixteenth century Holland was practically independent,
and the "Beggars of the Sea" were carrying her arms and trade all over
the world. Numerous private companies of Dutch merchants made war
against Spain on their own account, and great fortunes were made in the
capture of Spanish fleets and in trade with Spanish and Portuguese
colonies. The Dutch East India Company within a few years possessed
itself of the better part of the Portuguese empire in the Indian Ocean,
and the West India Company was organised to do the same in South
America. Incorporated in 1621, it included various smaller companies
already engaged in trade and privateering, and was an immense
corporation which finally owned more than eight hundred ships, and sent
to Brazil alone more than seventy thousand troops. Although protected,
subsidised, and conceded a monopoly by the Dutch government, it always
remained essentially a company for private profit.
The Company's primary object was to capture the Spanish treasure
fleets; its secondary object was to conquer the possessions of Spain and
Portugal in South America. Brazil furnished the best base for the
operations that were intended to make the South Atlantic a Dutch lake;
Bahia and Pernambuco were near Europe, had good harbours, lay on the
direct route to the Plate and the Pacific, and from them Africa could be
conveniently attacked. The sugar trade was a large thing in itself and
the daring Dutch traders believed that the Portuguese colonists might
welcome a deliverance from Spanish domination. Spain's power was a
rotten shell, and impulses lying deep in the national spirit pushed the
Dutch on to aggression. The peoples of Western Europe had finally felt
all the stimulating influences of the Renaissance, of the Lutheran and
Jesuit Reformations, and of the Era of Discovery. It was the epoch of
the Thirty Years' War, of the League of Avignon, and of that confused
fighting caused by the more vigorous peoples grasping for a share of the
spoils of the New World.
In 1623 news came of the equipping by the West India Company of an
expedition whose destination was manifestly to be Bahia. The Spanish
government took no measures for defence. The local authorities
half-heartedly began to fortify the city, but there were no troops
except militia to man the works, and when the Dutch fleet hove in sight
a panic ensued. The governor was captured, but many of the inhabitants
fled into the back country, and a guerrilla warfare was kept up which
shut up the Dutch inside the fortifications. They made use of their
time in improving the defences, and soon made Bahia the best fortress in
South America.
The news of the capture created consternation in Lisbon. Great exertions
were made by the Portuguese merchants, as well as by the Spanish
government, and the most formidable armament which up to that time had
crossed the equator was prepared. It was composed of fifty-two ships and
of twelve thousand men--the latter being mercenaries gathered from every
country in Europe. The Dutch commander had not yet been re-enforced and
made little resistance when such an overwhelming force arrived in Bahia
harbour. He surrendered with the honours of war and the Spanish fleet
retired. In a few weeks another Dutch fleet appeared, bringing
provisions and re-enforcements. It was too late, however, and the Dutch
did not venture to attack an enemy whom they themselves had furnished
with such excellent re-enforcements. The Dutch, driven from the land,
remained undisputed masters of the sea, and the Spanish and Portuguese
could no longer trade except in convoys. In 1627 the celebrated Piet
Heyn--the Dutch Sir Francis Drake--sailed boldly into Bahia harbour, and
despising the fire of the forty guns of the forts, captured twenty-six
ships within pistol-shot of the shore cannon. He ran his own ship right
in between the two best Portuguese men-of-war, the forts did not dare
fire for fear of wounding their own men, the Portuguese flagship was
sunk, and the rest surrendered in terror. Among the spoils were three
thousand hogsheads of sugar, which Piet Heyn sent home at his leisure,
while he ravaged the shores of the bay. The following year he fell in
with the Mexican treasure fleet and captured it bodily. This was the
greatest capture ever made at sea. The West India Company declared a
dividend of fifty per cent. after paying the expenses of the
unsuccessful Bahia expedition, and resumed its plans of conquest with
more vigour than ever.
[Illustration: OLD FORT AT BAHIA.]
After careful consideration Pernambuco was selected as a more vulnerable
point of attack than Bahia. The fortifications were feeble, and there
were numerous Jewish merchants in the city whose friendship could be
counted on. Once more the Spanish government did nothing to avert the
threatened blow, and in February, 1630, a Dutch fleet of fifty sail with
seven thousand men arrived in front of Pernambuco. Three thousand men
were landed to the north of the town and easily defeated the militia
which tried to prevent their taking the place from the rear. The
inhabitants fled to the interior, and after a creditable resistance the
forts fell. The property captured was estimated at near ten million
dollars. In the meantime, Albuquerque, the Brazilian commander, had
retired to a defensible ranch commanding the road between Recife and
Olinda, and whence communication could be kept up with the sea by way of
Cape St. Augustine. This ranch is celebrated in Brazilian tradition as
the "Arraial de Bom Jesus." The Brazilians rallied and from this
vantage-ground began to harass the Dutch. The promises of commercial,
religious, and political tolerance had produced little effect on the
more ardent spirits. The Indians remained faithful to the Portuguese,
and with the negroes did good service in the guerrilla warfare. For the
first two years the Dutch could accomplish little except to improve the
fortifications around the town, and the Brazilians acquired a confidence
in their own ability to make head against regular troops which later
stood them in good stead.
In 1631 a fleet of twenty ships appeared from Spain, but the Dutch
Admiral sailed boldly out and gave them battle. The net results to the
Spaniards were the landing of only a thousand men, who, after some
difficulty, joined the militia at Bom Jesus. But the seeds of discontent
were germinating among the Brazilians. On closer contact the heretics
proved to be human. The planters wanted peace and an opportunity to sell
their sugar. The Indians, negroes, and other adventurous spirits
composing the guerrilla bands robbed both friend and foe. The soldiers
were tired of serving without pay. A half-breed named Calabar, a man of
remarkable bravery, cunning, and skill in woodcraft, deserted to the
Dutch and gave them valuable assistance. Re-enforcements came from
Holland, and under Calabar's guidance the Dutch learned the value of
ambuscading and made sudden expeditions which took the important
settlements by surprise.
In 1633 two special representatives of the Company came with
instructions to prosecute the war vigorously and to endeavour to
conciliate the Brazilians. The latters' resistance weakened; many of
Albuquerque's volunteers deserted; the Dutch expeditions up and down the
coast were successful. The island of Itamarica, Rio Grande do Norte,
Parahyba, and the settlements in Alagoas were successively reduced.
Resistance was soon confined to the country just back of Pernambuco
itself, and in 1635 the last posts which held out--Bom Jesus and St.
Augustine--surrendered. The whole coast from the San Francisco River
north to Cape St. Roque was in the hands of the Dutch. There was nothing
for it but submission or emigration. Many laid down their arms, but
Albuquerque and his faithful lieutenants, the negro Dias and the Indian
Camarrao, reluctantly took their way toward Bahia, the only place of
refuge. The Brazilian historians claim that ten thousand Pernambucanos,
men, women, and children, accompanied Albuquerque, preferring to leave
their homes, property, and friends rather than accept the foreign and
heretic yoke. A sweet bit of revenge awaited them on their journey.
Encountering and overpowering a small Dutch garrison at Porto Calvo,
they took its members prisoners, and among them found the traitor,
Calabar. Him they hanged, while the Dutchmen were let go unharmed.
When Albuquerque reached the San Francisco he was replaced by a
Spaniard, Rojas, who had brought re-enforcements of seventeen hundred
Spanish troops. The new commander gave battle to the Hollanders, but in
the first action was utterly defeated and lost his own life. For the
next two years Pernambuco was ravaged by the most frightful burnings and
massacres. The Spanish mercenaries and the bands of negroes and Indians
scoured the interior, and the Dutch retaliated with the same methods.
The prosperous colony was fast being depopulated and its industries
ruined. It became manifest that a policy at once vigorous and
conciliatory was necessary, and the Company determined to send out a
governor-general with vice-regal powers.
The merchants of the Directory chose Count John Maurice, of
Nassau-Siegen, a scion of the reigning house, and a descendant of
William the Silent. A more fortunate selection could not have been made.
Though only thirty-two years old, Count Maurice had already proved
himself a brave and skilful soldier; he was a man of culture, a thorough
son of the Renaissance, a lover of the arts, and, like most of his
house, religiously tolerant and liberal to an extent extraordinary for
that bitter age. He was one of those few spirits, in advance of their
time, to whom Catholic and Protestant, Jew and Gentile were the same--to
whose instincts religious and commercial intolerance was repugnant.
He arrived in 1637, and his keen eye at once saw that the two obstacles
to pacification were the military raids which the new Spanish commander,
Bagnuoli, was directing from his position near the San Francisco; and
the fear of the Pernambuco sugar planters that Dutch dominion meant
their forcible conversion to Calvinism. The Dutch troops were now well
equipped and seasoned for warfare in the tropical woods, and their
officers had learned how to exercise their trade under these difficult
circumstances with all the coolness, shrewdness, and steadiness of their
race. Commanded by Maurice they easily inflicted a crushing defeat upon
the motley crew Bagnuoli had been able to gather. The whole country
north of the San Francisco fell into Maurice's hands, and he crossed
that river and destroyed the Brazilian base of supplies in Sergipe. The
next year he was ordered by the Directory to attack Bahia with
insufficient forces, and was compelled to retire after a forty-days
siege. Two years later, however, his fleet defeated and nearly destroyed
the largest naval force Spain had sent out since the Invincible Armada.
Of the six thousand soldiers on board who had been expected to drive him
from Brazil, only one thousand were landed, away north of Cape St.
Roque, whence they barely managed to reach Bahia after a march of over a
thousand miles through the wilderness, suffering the most frightful
hardships. Maurice followed up this victory by occupying Sergipe (1640)
and Maranhao (1641). Ceara had fallen into his hands in 1637. The whole
of Brazil from the 3rd to the 12th degree of latitude, a solid body of
territory containing more than two-thirds of the population and
developed resources, was apparently irretrievably lost to the
Portuguese. They only retained Bahia and the isolated settlements in
Para and the southern provinces.
In internal administration Maurice was equally vigorous. He suppressed
the exactions of Dutch soldiers and functionaries, and established law,
order, and justice. Agriculture, industry, and commerce flourished as
never before. He found Recife a miserable port village and left it a
city of two thousand houses. He does not seem to have made any especial
exertions to secure Dutch immigration. The Brazilians were not displaced
as landed proprietors, and most of the plantations confiscated from the
persistently rebellious were resold to Brazilians who accepted the Dutch
rule. He permitted to Romanists and Jews the free and public exercise of
their faith. Many Jews came to Pernambuco, and with their characteristic
capacity soon became prominent and useful in the commercial life of the
colony. The courts were so organised as to secure representation for
Brazilians. He summoned a sort of legislature of the principal
colonists--the first representative assembly on South American soil--and
put into effect the measures it proposed. Local administration was
entrusted to Brazilians, and his aim was evidently to make the colony
self-governing.
But this positivist of the seventeenth century, this genial pagan who
had caught the essential spirit of the Renaissance and had the courage
to put it into practice centuries before it became dominant even in the
realm of thought, was too far in advance of his time. His countrymen
could not understand him or his ideas, and the Portuguese colonists were
equally incapable of appreciating what he was trying to do for them. His
edifice scattered like a card house the moment he left. To all
appearances every vestige of his work was swept away; it is only a
memory and an example; a wave that dashed far up the beach at the
beginning of the flood-tide, leaving a mark that long served only to
show how far the water had once come. It remained for the nineteenth
century and another nation of shopmen to put into practice, on a scale
large enough to convince the world, the great principle of
non-interference by the central government with the religious beliefs
and the local self-government of colonies.
The moneyed aristocrats of the West India Company distrusted Maurice as
a member of a reigning family which was maintained in power by its
popularity with the masses. The Directory wanted immediate profits, not
an empire established on a broad and sure foundation. In their hearts
they preferred a steward and bookkeeper to a prince and a statesman. The
Calvinist clergy bitterly complained of the liberties conceded their
Catholic competitors for tithes, and succeeded in imposing on Maurice
the execution of the prohibition against religious processions--then as
now so dear to the Brazilian heart. Spies were sent out to report on him
and he was continually hampered.
Among the Brazilians he was equally misunderstood. While personally so
popular that not one of their chroniclers has a word of dispraise for
him, they could not forget that he was of a different race and religion,
and he did not succeed in converting them to his ideas. His best
personal friends were among those most influential, after his departure,
in stirring up the exclusive Brazilian feeling.
Maurice was not a man to be easily daunted. For seven years he remained
in office, fighting the Directory, the Calvinist ministers, the corrupt
officials, trying to reconcile the jealousies between Dutchmen and
Brazilians, and to create a homogeneous community. But after the power
of the Nassau family began to decline with the rise of the Witt
oligarchy, the Directory determined to be rid of him. In 1644 he made a
vigorous demand for more troops, and when it was refused sent in a
Bismarckian resignation, which, to his surprise, was immediately
accepted with many polite protestations of thanks for his services.