Dutch-Portuguese War
Encyclopedia
The Dutch–Portuguese War was an armed conflict involving Dutch
forces, in the form of the Dutch East India Company
and the Dutch West India Company
, against the Portuguese Empire
. Beginning in 1602, the conflict primarily involved the Dutch companies invading Portuguese colonies in the Americas
, Africa
, India
and the Far East
. The war can be thought of as an extension of the Eighty Years War and Thirty Years' War
being fought in Europe
at the time between Spain and the Netherlands, as Portugal was in a dynastic union
with the Spanish Crown, after the 1580 Portuguese succession crisis, for most of the conflict. However, the conflict had little to do with the war in Europe and served mainly as a way for the Dutch to gain an overseas empire and control trade at the cost of the Portuguese. English
forces also assisted the Dutch at certain points in the war.
The result of the war was that although Portugal won in South America
and Africa, the Dutch were clearly the victors in the Far East and South Asia. English ambitions also greatly benefited from the long standing war between its two main rivals in the Far East.
It opposed primarily the polity of Portugal and that of the Netherlands.
Portugal was throughout most of the initial period under Spanish Habsburg rule (following the 1580 Iberian Union
) and Spain was battling the Dutch in Flanders
and trying to eliminate their rebellion otherwise known as the Eighty Years War.
Spain also cut off the Netherlands from the spice and other markets of Lisbon, making it necessary for the Dutch to send their own expeditions to the sources of these commodities and to take control of the Indies spice trade.
off the Azores, the Madre de Deus
. Loaded with 900 tons of merchandise from India and China, estimated at half a million pounds
(nearly half the size of English Treasury at the time). This foretaste of the riches of the East galvanised interest in the region.
That same year, Cornelis de Houtman
was sent by Dutch merchants to Lisbon, to gather as much information as he could about the Spice Islands. In 1595, merchant and explorer Jan Huyghen van Linschoten
, having travelled widely in the Indian Ocean at the service of the Portuguese, published a travel report in Amsterdam
, the "Reys-gheschrift vande navigatien der Portugaloysers in Orienten" ("Report of a journey through the navigations of the Portuguese in the East"). This included vast directions on how to navigate between Portugal and the East Indies and to Japan. Dutch and British interest fed on new information led to a movement of commercial expansion, and the foundation of the English East India Company
, in 1600, and Dutch East India Company
(VOC), in 1602, allowing the entry of chartered companies in the so-called East Indies.
In 1602 the Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie
(Dutch East India Company or VOC) was founded, with the goal of sharing the costs of the exploration of the East Indies
and ultimately re-establishing the spice
trade, a vital source of income to the new Republic of the Seven United Provinces.
The Republic was at the time fighting the Habsburgs for their independence and the reason why the Dutch sought to control the spice trade was one of economic survival. Prior to the union of the Portuguese and Spanish Crowns (respective territories depicted), Portuguese merchants used the Low Countries as a base for the sale of their spices in northern Europe. After the Spaniards wrested control over the Portuguese Empire
though, they declared an embargo on all trade with the rebellious provinces (see: Union of Utrecht
).
This meant the trade would now be directed through the southern low countries (roughly present-day Belgium), which according to the Union of Arras or (Union of Atrecht) were pledged to the Spanish monarch and were Roman Catholic, as opposed to the Dutch Protestant north. This also meant that the Dutch had lost their most profitable trade partner and their most important source of financing the war against Spain. Additionally they would lose their distribution monopoly with France, the Holy Roman Empire
and northern Europe. Their North Sea fishing and Baltic cereal trading activities would simply not suffice to maintain the republic.
. Naval power, essential to the Dutch economy and independence, was made a high priority.
At dawn of February 25, 1603 three ships of the Dutch East India Company (V.O.C) seized the Santa Catarina
, a Portuguese carrack
. It was such a rich prize that its sale proceeds doubled the capital of the V.O.C. The legality of keeping the prize was questionable under Dutch statute and the Portuguese demanded the return of their cargo. The scandal led to a public judicial hearing and a wider campaign to sway public (and international) opinion. As a result Hugo Grotius
in The Free Sea (Mare Liberum
, published 1609) formulated the new principle that the sea was international territory, against the Portuguese Mare clausum policy
, and all nations were free to use it for seafaring trade. The 'free seas', provided suitable ideological justification for the Dutch breaking up trade monopolies through its formidable naval power.
The first expeditions succeeded in bypassing Portuguese dominion of the Cape of Good Hope and the Indian Ocean in general.
The Indian fortress system lacked maintenance and technological improvement. Portuguese fortresses everywhere were isolated and undermanned.
The Dutch also managed to break the Portuguese monopoly of the spice trade. As the Dutch fleets grew in size, so did their interference with Portuguese trade, and the first skirmishes took place.
By 1619, the Dutch conquered Jayakarta - which they renamed to Batavia
and made it their capital in the East Indies.
For the next twenty years, the two cities of Goa
and Batavia fought each other relentlessly, since they stood as the capital of the Portuguese India State
(or the Indian Vice-Royalty) and the Dutch East India Company's base of operations.
In fact, Goa had been under intermittent blockade since 1603. Most of the fighting took place in west India, where the Dutch Malabar campaign sought to impose yet another monopoly on the spice trade. Dutch and Portuguese fleets faced off for control of the sea lanes, while on mainland India the war involved more and more Indian kingdoms and principalities as the Dutch capitalised on local resentment of Portuguese conquests in the early 16th century.
In all, and also because the Dutch were kept busy with their expansion in Indonesia, the conquests made at the expense of the Portuguese were modest: some Indonesian possessions and a few cities and fortresses in the Arabian sea. The most important blow to the Portuguese east empire and the culmination of the war would be the conquest of Malacca
in 1641 (depriving them of the control over these straits), Ceylon in 1658, and the Malabar coast in 1663, even after the signing of the peace Treaty of The Hague (1661)
.
However, important sideshow battles also took place in the South China sea with initially combined fleets of Dutch and English vessels, and subsequently exclusively Dutch ships assaulting Macau
. The attempts to capture Macau
failed, but the Dutch were ultimately successful in acquiring the monopoly of trade with Japan, and the English eventually decided to simply build their own tradepost in China around the Pearl River delta, which they would call Hong Kong.
Surprised by such easy gains in the East, the Republic quickly decided to exploit Portugal's weakness in the Americas. In 1621 the Geoctroyeerde Westindische Compagnie (Authorised West India Company or WIC
) was created to take control of the sugar trade and colonise America (the New Netherland project
). The Dutch West India Company
would, however, not be as successful as its eastern counterpart.
The Company benefited from a large investment in capital, drawing on the enthusiasm of the best financiers and capitalists of the Republic, such as Isaac de Pinto
, by origin a Portuguese Jew.
The invasion began with a series of temporary conquests by the Dutch of some principal ports in Portuguese Brazil such as the capital Salvador
and Olinda
. The whole Brazilian northeast was occupied and Recife
was renamed Mauritsstad. The Dutch were opposed by the general government's efforts to expel them, directed from Salvador, Olinda and the countryside.
At the same time small incursions were organised against the Portuguese African possessions in order to take control of the slave trade and complete the trade triangle that would ensure the economic prosperity of the Netherlands. Elmina
and other Portuguese Gold Coast
trade posts were taken and Luanda
was put to siege.
In a remarkably short time the situation looked all but lost to the Portuguese with strategic ports and areas under Dutch control. With links to Portugal cut off and Dutch forces and colonisers growing in strength the resistance to Dutch rule was bound for eventual collapse. The turning point in the war occurred with the arrival of a powerful Iberian force on April 30, 1625, under the command of the Spanish Admiral Fadrique de Toledo
. The fleet consisted of 34 Spanish ships, 22 Portuguese ships and 12,500 men (three quarters were Spanish and the rest Portuguese). Its reconquest of the strategically important city of Salvador da Bahia would prove strategically important in sustaining the Portuguese campaigns to oust the Dutch from Brazil over the next two decades. Nevertheless the greatest period of Dutch colonial activity in Brazil came after this date. In response to these Dutch invasions the Portuguese settlers imposed a war of attrition on the ground forces of the West India Company. The West India Company became overstretched, and its fleets could not effectively carry out a blockade of Portuguese ports. The arrival of reinforcements from Portugal ensured the defeat of the Dutch and their expulsion from Brazil.
In 1640 the Portuguese took advantage of the Catalan Revolt
and themselves revolted from the Spanish-dominated Iberian Union
. From this point onwards the English decided instead to re-establish their alliance with Portugal.
The Dutch, determined to recover or retain their territories, postponed the end of the conflict. But as they had to contend with the English at the same time they eventually decided to offer terms.
, based in the Spanish Netherlands, was also related to this overseas war. The Spanish also clashed with the Dutch over the Spice Islands
trade after seizing a trading fort on Ternate
that had been lost by the Portuguese, and establishing forts on Tidore
. However, they were fully stretched themselves, having to cope with Dutch and French attacks upon their own shipping and colonies and the Barbary pirates and Ottomans
in the Mediterranean.
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
forces, in the form of the Dutch East India Company
Dutch East India Company
The Dutch East India Company was a chartered company established in 1602, when the States-General of the Netherlands granted it a 21-year monopoly to carry out colonial activities in Asia...
and the Dutch West India Company
Dutch West India Company
Dutch West India Company was a chartered company of Dutch merchants. Among its founding fathers was Willem Usselincx...
, against the Portuguese Empire
Portuguese Empire
The Portuguese Empire , also known as the Portuguese Overseas Empire or the Portuguese Colonial Empire , was the first global empire in history...
. Beginning in 1602, the conflict primarily involved the Dutch companies invading Portuguese colonies in the Americas
Americas
The Americas, or America , are lands in the Western hemisphere, also known as the New World. In English, the plural form the Americas is often used to refer to the landmasses of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions, while the singular form America is primarily...
, Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
and the Far East
Far East
The Far East is an English term mostly describing East Asia and Southeast Asia, with South Asia sometimes also included for economic and cultural reasons.The term came into use in European geopolitical discourse in the 19th century,...
. The war can be thought of as an extension of the Eighty Years War and Thirty Years' War
Thirty Years' War
The Thirty Years' War was fought primarily in what is now Germany, and at various points involved most countries in Europe. It was one of the most destructive conflicts in European history....
being fought in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
at the time between Spain and the Netherlands, as Portugal was in a dynastic union
Dynastic union
A dynastic union is the combination by which two different states are governed by the same dynasty, while their boundaries, their laws and their interests remain distinct...
with the Spanish Crown, after the 1580 Portuguese succession crisis, for most of the conflict. However, the conflict had little to do with the war in Europe and served mainly as a way for the Dutch to gain an overseas empire and control trade at the cost of the Portuguese. English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
forces also assisted the Dutch at certain points in the war.
The result of the war was that although Portugal won in South America
South America
South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
and Africa, the Dutch were clearly the victors in the Far East and South Asia. English ambitions also greatly benefited from the long standing war between its two main rivals in the Far East.
Introduction
This war occurred mostly throughout the end of the 16th and beginning of the 17th centuries.It opposed primarily the polity of Portugal and that of the Netherlands.
Portugal was throughout most of the initial period under Spanish Habsburg rule (following the 1580 Iberian Union
Iberian Union
The Iberian union was a political unit that governed all of the Iberian Peninsula south of the Pyrenees from 1580–1640, through a dynastic union between the monarchies of Portugal and Spain after the War of the Portuguese Succession...
) and Spain was battling the Dutch in Flanders
Flanders
Flanders is the community of the Flemings but also one of the institutions in Belgium, and a geographical region located in parts of present-day Belgium, France and the Netherlands. "Flanders" can also refer to the northern part of Belgium that contains Brussels, Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp...
and trying to eliminate their rebellion otherwise known as the Eighty Years War.
Spain also cut off the Netherlands from the spice and other markets of Lisbon, making it necessary for the Dutch to send their own expeditions to the sources of these commodities and to take control of the Indies spice trade.
Casus Belli
In 1592, during the war with Spain, an English fleet had captured a large Portuguese carrackCarrack
A carrack or nau was a three- or four-masted sailing ship developed in 15th century Western Europe for use in the Atlantic Ocean. It had a high rounded stern with large aftcastle, forecastle and bowsprit at the stem. It was first used by the Portuguese , and later by the Spanish, to explore and...
off the Azores, the Madre de Deus
Madre de Deus
Madre de Deus was a Portuguese ship, renowned for her fabulous cargo, which stoked the English appetite for trade with the Far East, then a Portuguese monopoly....
. Loaded with 900 tons of merchandise from India and China, estimated at half a million pounds
Pound sterling
The pound sterling , commonly called the pound, is the official currency of the United Kingdom, its Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, British Antarctic Territory and Tristan da Cunha. It is subdivided into 100 pence...
(nearly half the size of English Treasury at the time). This foretaste of the riches of the East galvanised interest in the region.
That same year, Cornelis de Houtman
Cornelis de Houtman
Cornelis de Houtman , brother of Frederick de Houtman, was a Dutch explorer who discovered a new sea route from Europe to Indonesia and managed to begin the Dutch spice trade...
was sent by Dutch merchants to Lisbon, to gather as much information as he could about the Spice Islands. In 1595, merchant and explorer Jan Huyghen van Linschoten
Jan Huyghen van Linschoten
Jan Huyghen van Linschoten was a Dutch Protestant merchant, traveller and historian. An alternate spelling of second name is Huijgen....
, having travelled widely in the Indian Ocean at the service of the Portuguese, published a travel report in Amsterdam
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
, the "Reys-gheschrift vande navigatien der Portugaloysers in Orienten" ("Report of a journey through the navigations of the Portuguese in the East"). This included vast directions on how to navigate between Portugal and the East Indies and to Japan. Dutch and British interest fed on new information led to a movement of commercial expansion, and the foundation of the English East India Company
East India Company
The East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...
, in 1600, and Dutch East India Company
Dutch East India Company
The Dutch East India Company was a chartered company established in 1602, when the States-General of the Netherlands granted it a 21-year monopoly to carry out colonial activities in Asia...
(VOC), in 1602, allowing the entry of chartered companies in the so-called East Indies.
In 1602 the Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie
Dutch East India Company
The Dutch East India Company was a chartered company established in 1602, when the States-General of the Netherlands granted it a 21-year monopoly to carry out colonial activities in Asia...
(Dutch East India Company or VOC) was founded, with the goal of sharing the costs of the exploration of the East Indies
East Indies
East Indies is a term used by Europeans from the 16th century onwards to identify what is now known as Indian subcontinent or South Asia, Southeastern Asia, and the islands of Oceania, including the Malay Archipelago and the Philippines...
and ultimately re-establishing the spice
Spice
A spice is a dried seed, fruit, root, bark, or vegetative substance used in nutritionally insignificant quantities as a food additive for flavor, color, or as a preservative that kills harmful bacteria or prevents their growth. It may be used to flavour a dish or to hide other flavours...
trade, a vital source of income to the new Republic of the Seven United Provinces.
The Republic was at the time fighting the Habsburgs for their independence and the reason why the Dutch sought to control the spice trade was one of economic survival. Prior to the union of the Portuguese and Spanish Crowns (respective territories depicted), Portuguese merchants used the Low Countries as a base for the sale of their spices in northern Europe. After the Spaniards wrested control over the Portuguese Empire
Portuguese Empire
The Portuguese Empire , also known as the Portuguese Overseas Empire or the Portuguese Colonial Empire , was the first global empire in history...
though, they declared an embargo on all trade with the rebellious provinces (see: Union of Utrecht
Union of Utrecht
The Union of Utrecht was a treaty signed on 23 January 1579 in Utrecht, the Netherlands, unifying the northern provinces of the Netherlands, until then under the control of Habsburg Spain....
).
This meant the trade would now be directed through the southern low countries (roughly present-day Belgium), which according to the Union of Arras or (Union of Atrecht) were pledged to the Spanish monarch and were Roman Catholic, as opposed to the Dutch Protestant north. This also meant that the Dutch had lost their most profitable trade partner and their most important source of financing the war against Spain. Additionally they would lose their distribution monopoly with France, the Holy Roman Empire
Holy Roman Empire
The Holy Roman Empire was a realm that existed from 962 to 1806 in Central Europe.It was ruled by the Holy Roman Emperor. Its character changed during the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period, when the power of the emperor gradually weakened in favour of the princes...
and northern Europe. Their North Sea fishing and Baltic cereal trading activities would simply not suffice to maintain the republic.
Insertion in the East: Batavia challenges Goa
The Dutch were hopeful of some success, since in 1588 the English, with Dutch aid, had defeated the Spanish ArmadaSpanish Armada
This article refers to the Battle of Gravelines, for the modern navy of Spain, see Spanish NavyThe Spanish Armada was the Spanish fleet that sailed against England under the command of the Duke of Medina Sidonia in 1588, with the intention of overthrowing Elizabeth I of England to stop English...
. Naval power, essential to the Dutch economy and independence, was made a high priority.
At dawn of February 25, 1603 three ships of the Dutch East India Company (V.O.C) seized the Santa Catarina
Santa Catarina (ship)
Santa Catharina was a Portuguese merchant ship, a 150 ton carrack, that was seized by the Dutch East India Company during February, 1603 off Singapore...
, a Portuguese carrack
Carrack
A carrack or nau was a three- or four-masted sailing ship developed in 15th century Western Europe for use in the Atlantic Ocean. It had a high rounded stern with large aftcastle, forecastle and bowsprit at the stem. It was first used by the Portuguese , and later by the Spanish, to explore and...
. It was such a rich prize that its sale proceeds doubled the capital of the V.O.C. The legality of keeping the prize was questionable under Dutch statute and the Portuguese demanded the return of their cargo. The scandal led to a public judicial hearing and a wider campaign to sway public (and international) opinion. As a result Hugo Grotius
Hugo Grotius
Hugo Grotius , also known as Huig de Groot, Hugo Grocio or Hugo de Groot, was a jurist in the Dutch Republic. With Francisco de Vitoria and Alberico Gentili he laid the foundations for international law, based on natural law...
in The Free Sea (Mare Liberum
Mare Liberum
Mare Liberum is a book in Latin on international law written by the Dutch jurist and philosopher Hugo Grotius. In The Free Sea, Grotius formulated the new principle that the sea was international territory and all nations were free to use it for seafaring trade...
, published 1609) formulated the new principle that the sea was international territory, against the Portuguese Mare clausum policy
Mare clausum
Mare clausum is a term used in international law to mention a sea, ocean or other navigable body of water under the jurisdiction of a state that is closed or not accessible to other states. Mare clausum is an exception to mare liberum , meaning a sea that is open to navigation to ships of all...
, and all nations were free to use it for seafaring trade. The 'free seas', provided suitable ideological justification for the Dutch breaking up trade monopolies through its formidable naval power.
The first expeditions succeeded in bypassing Portuguese dominion of the Cape of Good Hope and the Indian Ocean in general.
The Indian fortress system lacked maintenance and technological improvement. Portuguese fortresses everywhere were isolated and undermanned.
The Dutch also managed to break the Portuguese monopoly of the spice trade. As the Dutch fleets grew in size, so did their interference with Portuguese trade, and the first skirmishes took place.
By 1619, the Dutch conquered Jayakarta - which they renamed to Batavia
Jakarta
Jakarta is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Officially known as the Special Capital Territory of Jakarta, it is located on the northwest coast of Java, has an area of , and a population of 9,580,000. Jakarta is the country's economic, cultural and political centre...
and made it their capital in the East Indies.
For the next twenty years, the two cities of Goa
Old Goa
Old Goa or Velha Goa is a historical city in North Goa district in the Indian state of Goa. The city was constructed by the Bijapur Sultanate in the 15th century, and served as capital of Portuguese India from the 16th century until its abandonment in the 18th century due to plague...
and Batavia fought each other relentlessly, since they stood as the capital of the Portuguese India State
Portuguese India
The Portuguese Viceroyalty of India , later the Portuguese State of India , was the aggregate of Portugal's colonial holdings in India.The government started in 1505, six years after the discovery of a sea route to India by Vasco da Gama, with the nomination of the first Viceroy Francisco de...
(or the Indian Vice-Royalty) and the Dutch East India Company's base of operations.
In fact, Goa had been under intermittent blockade since 1603. Most of the fighting took place in west India, where the Dutch Malabar campaign sought to impose yet another monopoly on the spice trade. Dutch and Portuguese fleets faced off for control of the sea lanes, while on mainland India the war involved more and more Indian kingdoms and principalities as the Dutch capitalised on local resentment of Portuguese conquests in the early 16th century.
In all, and also because the Dutch were kept busy with their expansion in Indonesia, the conquests made at the expense of the Portuguese were modest: some Indonesian possessions and a few cities and fortresses in the Arabian sea. The most important blow to the Portuguese east empire and the culmination of the war would be the conquest of Malacca
Battle of Malacca (1641)
In the early 17th century, the Dutch East India Company began the campaign to destroy Portuguese power in the East. At that time, the Portuguese had transformed Malacca into an impregnable fortress , controlling access to the sea lanes of the Straits of Malacca and the spice trade there...
in 1641 (depriving them of the control over these straits), Ceylon in 1658, and the Malabar coast in 1663, even after the signing of the peace Treaty of The Hague (1661)
Treaty of The Hague (1661)
The Treaty of The Hague was signed in 1661 between representatives of the Dutch Empire and the Portuguese Empire...
.
However, important sideshow battles also took place in the South China sea with initially combined fleets of Dutch and English vessels, and subsequently exclusively Dutch ships assaulting Macau
Macau
Macau , also spelled Macao , is, along with Hong Kong, one of the two special administrative regions of the People's Republic of China...
. The attempts to capture Macau
Battle of Macau
The Battle of Macau in 1622 was a conflict of the Dutch-Portuguese War fought in the Portuguese settlement of Macau, in southeastern China. The Portuguese, outnumbered and without adequate fortification, managed to repel the Dutch in a much-celebrated victory on June 24 after a three-day battle...
failed, but the Dutch were ultimately successful in acquiring the monopoly of trade with Japan, and the English eventually decided to simply build their own tradepost in China around the Pearl River delta, which they would call Hong Kong.
Sugar War - Government-General Vs. the WIC
Dutch West India Company
Dutch West India Company was a chartered company of Dutch merchants. Among its founding fathers was Willem Usselincx...
) was created to take control of the sugar trade and colonise America (the New Netherland project
New Netherland
New Netherland, or Nieuw-Nederland in Dutch, was the 17th-century colonial province of the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands on the East Coast of North America. The claimed territories were the lands from the Delmarva Peninsula to extreme southwestern Cape Cod...
). The Dutch West India Company
Dutch West India Company
Dutch West India Company was a chartered company of Dutch merchants. Among its founding fathers was Willem Usselincx...
would, however, not be as successful as its eastern counterpart.
The Company benefited from a large investment in capital, drawing on the enthusiasm of the best financiers and capitalists of the Republic, such as Isaac de Pinto
Isaac de Pinto
Isaac de Pinto was a Dutch Jew of Portuguese origin, a scholar and one of the main investors in the Dutch East India Company....
, by origin a Portuguese Jew.
The invasion began with a series of temporary conquests by the Dutch of some principal ports in Portuguese Brazil such as the capital Salvador
Salvador, Bahia
Salvador is the largest city on the northeast coast of Brazil and the capital of the Northeastern Brazilian state of Bahia. Salvador is also known as Brazil's capital of happiness due to its easygoing population and countless popular outdoor parties, including its street carnival. The first...
and Olinda
Olinda
Olinda is a historic city in the Brazilian state of Pernambuco, located on the country's northeastern Atlantic Ocean coast, just north of Recife and south of Paulista...
. The whole Brazilian northeast was occupied and Recife
Recife
Recife is the fifth-largest metropolitan area in Brazil with 4,136,506 inhabitants, the largest metropolitan area of the North/Northeast Regions, the 5th-largest metropolitan influence area in Brazil, and the capital and largest city of the state of Pernambuco. The population of the city proper...
was renamed Mauritsstad. The Dutch were opposed by the general government's efforts to expel them, directed from Salvador, Olinda and the countryside.
At the same time small incursions were organised against the Portuguese African possessions in order to take control of the slave trade and complete the trade triangle that would ensure the economic prosperity of the Netherlands. Elmina
Elmina
Elmina, is a town in the Central Region, situated on a south-facing bay on the Atlantic Ocean coast of Ghana, about 12 km west of Cape Coast...
and other Portuguese Gold Coast
Portuguese Gold Coast
The Portuguese Gold Coast was a Portuguese colony on the West African Gold Coast on the Gulf of Guinea.-History:The Portuguese established the following settlements on the Gold Coast from January 21, 1482:...
trade posts were taken and Luanda
Luanda
Luanda, formerly named São Paulo da Assunção de Loanda, is the capital and largest city of Angola. Located on Angola's coast with the Atlantic Ocean, Luanda is both Angola's chief seaport and its administrative center. It has a population of at least 5 million...
was put to siege.
In a remarkably short time the situation looked all but lost to the Portuguese with strategic ports and areas under Dutch control. With links to Portugal cut off and Dutch forces and colonisers growing in strength the resistance to Dutch rule was bound for eventual collapse. The turning point in the war occurred with the arrival of a powerful Iberian force on April 30, 1625, under the command of the Spanish Admiral Fadrique de Toledo
Fadrique Álvarez de Toledo y Mendoza
′Fadrique Álvarez de Toledo y Mendoza , was a Spanish noble and admiral.He was a Knight of the Order of Santiago, a Spanish Admiral, and Captain General of the Spanish Navy at the age of 37....
. The fleet consisted of 34 Spanish ships, 22 Portuguese ships and 12,500 men (three quarters were Spanish and the rest Portuguese). Its reconquest of the strategically important city of Salvador da Bahia would prove strategically important in sustaining the Portuguese campaigns to oust the Dutch from Brazil over the next two decades. Nevertheless the greatest period of Dutch colonial activity in Brazil came after this date. In response to these Dutch invasions the Portuguese settlers imposed a war of attrition on the ground forces of the West India Company. The West India Company became overstretched, and its fleets could not effectively carry out a blockade of Portuguese ports. The arrival of reinforcements from Portugal ensured the defeat of the Dutch and their expulsion from Brazil.
In 1640 the Portuguese took advantage of the Catalan Revolt
Catalan Revolt
The Catalan Revolt affected a large part of the Catalan Principality of Catalonia between the years of 1640 and 1659. It had an enduring effect in the Treaty of the Pyrenees , which ceded the county of Roussillon and the northern half of the county of Cerdanya to France , thereby splitting the...
and themselves revolted from the Spanish-dominated Iberian Union
Iberian Union
The Iberian union was a political unit that governed all of the Iberian Peninsula south of the Pyrenees from 1580–1640, through a dynastic union between the monarchies of Portugal and Spain after the War of the Portuguese Succession...
. From this point onwards the English decided instead to re-establish their alliance with Portugal.
The Dutch, determined to recover or retain their territories, postponed the end of the conflict. But as they had to contend with the English at the same time they eventually decided to offer terms.
Spanish involvement
The Spanish were actually aware that the growing strength of the Dutch was due in part to their expanding international trade, much of which was at Portuguese expense. Dutch aggression upon Portuguese interests was not viewed with equanimity by Spanish as evidenced by the intervention in Brazil. To this end the Spanish efforts to intercept Dutch ships by a fleet of DunkirkersDunkirkers
During the Dutch Revolt the Dunkirkers or Dunkirk Privateers, were commerce raiders in the service of the Spanish Monarchy. They were also part of the Dunkirk fleet, which consequently was a part of the Spanish Monarchy's Flemish fleet ...
, based in the Spanish Netherlands, was also related to this overseas war. The Spanish also clashed with the Dutch over the Spice Islands
Maluku Islands
The Maluku Islands are an archipelago that is part of Indonesia, and part of the larger Maritime Southeast Asia region. Tectonically they are located on the Halmahera Plate within the Molucca Sea Collision Zone...
trade after seizing a trading fort on Ternate
Ternate
Ternate is an island in the Maluku Islands of eastern Indonesia. It is located off the west coast of the larger island of Halmahera, the center of the powerful former Sultanate of Ternate....
that had been lost by the Portuguese, and establishing forts on Tidore
Tidore
Tidore is a city, island, and archipelago in the Maluku Islands of eastern Indonesia, west of the larger island of Halmahera. In the pre-colonial era, the kingdom of Tidore was a major regional political and economic power, and a fierce rival of nearby Ternate, just to the north.-Geography:Tidor...
. However, they were fully stretched themselves, having to cope with Dutch and French attacks upon their own shipping and colonies and the Barbary pirates and Ottomans
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
in the Mediterranean.
See also
- Portuguese EmpirePortuguese EmpireThe Portuguese Empire , also known as the Portuguese Overseas Empire or the Portuguese Colonial Empire , was the first global empire in history...
- United ProvincesDutch RepublicThe Dutch Republic — officially known as the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands , the Republic of the United Netherlands, or the Republic of the Seven United Provinces — was a republic in Europe existing from 1581 to 1795, preceding the Batavian Republic and ultimately...
- PortugalPortugalPortugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
- History of PortugalHistory of PortugalThe history of Portugal, a European and an Atlantic nation, dates back to the Early Middle Ages. In the 15th and 16th centuries, it ascended to the status of a world power during Europe's "Age of Discovery" as it built up a vast empire including possessions in South America, Africa, Asia and...
- NetherlandsNetherlandsThe Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
- History of the NetherlandsHistory of the NetherlandsThe history of the Netherlands is the history of a maritime people thriving on a watery lowland river delta at the edge of northwestern Europe. When the Romans and written history arrived in 57 BC, the country was sparsely populated by various tribal groups at the periphery of the empire...
- Dutch BrazilDutch BrazilDutch Brazil, also known as New Holland, was the northern portion of Brazil, ruled by the Dutch during the Dutch colonization of the Americas between 1630 and 1654...
- Spanish EmpireSpanish EmpireThe Spanish Empire comprised territories and colonies administered directly by Spain in Europe, in America, Africa, Asia and Oceania. It originated during the Age of Exploration and was therefore one of the first global empires. At the time of Habsburgs, Spain reached the peak of its world power....
- History of SpainHistory of SpainThe history of Spain involves all the other peoples and nations within the Iberian peninsula formerly known as Hispania, and includes still today the nations of Andorra, Gibraltar, Portugal and Spain...
- British EmpireBritish EmpireThe British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...
- History of EnglandHistory of EnglandThe history of England concerns the study of the human past in one of Europe's oldest and most influential national territories. What is now England, a country within the United Kingdom, was inhabited by Neanderthals 230,000 years ago. Continuous human habitation dates to around 12,000 years ago,...
- spice tradeSpice tradeCivilizations of Asia were involved in spice trade from the ancient times, and the Greco-Roman world soon followed by trading along the Incense route and the Roman-India routes...
- Resource war
- 1640s in Angola1640s in AngolaIn 1641, the Dutch seized Angola from the Portuguese. Dutch forces took control of Luanda and signed a treaty with Queen Nzinga of the Ndongo Kingdom. Nzinga unsuccessfully attacked the Portuguese at Massangano...
- Battle of SwallyBattle of SwallyThe naval Battle of Swally took place on 29–30 November 1612 off the coast of Suvali , a village near the city of Surat, Gujarat, India, and was a victory for four English East India Company galleons over four Portuguese naus and 26 barks .-Importance:This relatively small naval battle is...
- Battle of AlbrolhosBattle of AlbrolhosThe naval Battle of the Albrolhos took place on 10 August 1631 off the coast of Bahía, Brazil, during the Eighty Years' War. A joint Spanish-Portuguese fleet under Admiral Oquendo defeated the Dutch after a six hour naval battle.-Background:...
- Thirty Years War
- Eighty Years War
- ColonialismColonialismColonialism is the establishment, maintenance, acquisition and expansion of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. It is a process whereby the metropole claims sovereignty over the colony and the social structure, government, and economics of the colony are changed by...
- EmpireEmpireThe term empire derives from the Latin imperium . Politically, an empire is a geographically extensive group of states and peoples united and ruled either by a monarch or an oligarchy....
- Global Empire
- List of largest empires