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DUTCH
In 1624 there lived in the Bahia about twelve a thousand people, among
others proprietors, African farmers, slaves and catequizados indians. Thirty
six plants produced sugar, reason that it attracted attention of the dutch
West Indian Company (WIC). On the 9th of May, a squadron of 26 great ships
penetrated the Barra, opening fire against the Fort of Santo Antônio.
Following the landing of a thousand soldiers, the massa of the population
fled away, leaving an almost desert city for the invaders. "Enemies of
the Catholic Church", the Dutch commanded by Johan van Dorth looked for
the churches in quartéis, and pillaged all the values they could
load. Fourteen local controllers, among them governor Mendonça Furtado,
were imprisoned and sent to Amsterdam. The Dutch did not succeed to obtain
firm safe reins on Salvador, nor on the sugar production. Months after
the invasion, the exiled Bahians already surrounded the city. As much van
Dorth as his successor, Albert Schouten, had been assassinated, what weakened
the dutch resistance. In March of 1625, the aid squadron arrived finally.
Luso-spanish men, 52 ships and twelve a thousand men. Although such a big
contingent, the Dutch still resisted for almost one month, but signed surrender
April 30. They had left an arrasada city, where the order was kept to the
cost of successive hangings. The Dutch had charged weighed for the reconstruction,
which enpovered the citizens who returned out of the exile. In 1627, a
new attempt of the WIC was made, tnow by commander Piet Heyn. They crossed
the Barra and pillaged ships, but the damage did not pass three thousand
boxes of sugar. After twenty days of stubbornness, the " heretics " moved
away from the Baía de Todos os Santos, but the threat still could
return. Pernambuco was another great producing center of sugar of Brazil,
and there the Dutch conquered their bigger victory. Johan Maurits, Count
of Nassau, fixed government in Olinda, from where he would try more two
onslaughts against Salvador, in 1637 and 1638. The capital, already recovered
of the panic of 1624, not only resisted the conquest of the Dutch, but
it gave also support to the reconquest of Pernambuco, in which the Salvadorian
heroes João Fernandes Vieira, Andres Vidal de Negreiros, Enrique
Dias and Philip Camarão acted. |
