Dutch Capture of Pernambuco and Colonial Expansion of Dutch Brazil (1630)

Timeline

1. 1630Coast of Pernambuco · PernambucoIn January 1630 the Dutch West India Company dispatched an expeditionary fleet of 65 ships and over 7,000 men led by commanders including Hendrik Langer Hendericksen van der Borch, landing on the coast of Pernambuco with the aim of controlling the wealthiest sugar-producing region of Portuguese Brazil and breaking the Iberian colonial monopoly in the Atlantic.
2. 1630Olinda and Recife · PernambucoIn February 1630 Dutch forces captured and burned Olinda, the capital of Pernambuco, and then controlled the port city of Recife; the Portuguese authorities and local planters withdrew inland to organize resistance, but the Dutch had already seized the wealthiest sugar-export hub of northeastern Brazil.
3. 1630Recife (Mauritsstad) · RecifeAfter the 1630 conquest, the WIC established colonial administrative institutions in Recife and took over sugar mills and the slave trade network; through the 1630s the Dutch gradually consolidated control over the Pernambuco coast, Recife developed into the capital of Dutch Brazil, and later governor Johan Maurits (in office 1637–1644) built it into the planned city of Mauritsstad, one of the most prosperous Dutch colonial cities in the Americas.