colony · South America

Dutch Brazil

1630 CE – 1654 CE · capital Mauritsstad

The Dutch West India Company's colony in northeastern Brazil, which under Johan Maurits briefly made Recife a centre of art, science and religious tolerance.

Origins

During the Eighty Years' War against Spain, which then ruled Portugal, the Dutch West India Company attacked Brazil's sugar coast. After a failed occupation of Salvador in 1624 and 1625, a Dutch fleet captured Olinda and Recife in Pernambuco in 1630 and gradually extended control along the coast from Sergipe to Maranhão.

Rule and society

Count Johan Maurits of Nassau-Siegen governed from 1637 to 1644. He built Mauritsstad beside Recife, restored sugar production and seized Portuguese slave-trading posts in Africa. He brought the painters Frans Post and Albert Eckhout and the naturalists Georg Marcgraf and Willem Piso, whose work was the first scientific study of Brazil. Catholics and Jews enjoyed toleration, and Recife's Kahal Zur Israel was the first synagogue in the Americas.

Decline and legacy

After Johan Maurits left, Portuguese planters rose in 1645 and defeated the Dutch at the Battles of Guararapes in 1648 and 1649. Recife surrendered in 1654, and by the Treaty of The Hague in 1661 the Dutch renounced Brazil for a payment. Many Jews from Recife later settled in New Amsterdam.

Connections (4)

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Cite this page
APA
The Epoch Institute. (2026). Dutch Brazil. In The Epoch Institute States Register. https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/dutch-brazil
MLA
“Dutch Brazil.” The Epoch Institute States Register, The Epoch Institute, 2026, https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/dutch-brazil. Accessed .
Chicago
The Epoch Institute. “Dutch Brazil.” The Epoch Institute States Register. 2026. https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/dutch-brazil.
Harvard
The Epoch Institute (2026) ‘Dutch Brazil’, The Epoch Institute States Register. Available at: https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/dutch-brazil (Accessed: ).

Last reviewed October 2026Random state ↻