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 being fought in
Europe at the time between Spain and The Netherlands, as Portugal was unified under the
Spanish Crown 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 was the winner in
South America, the Dutch were clearly the winners in the Far East. Dutch ambitions were largely thwarted in other parts of the world by Portuguese resistance. 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.
The Dutch republic is regarded generally as the aggressor since its attack on the Portuguese colonial possessions was by all means unilateral and the initiative of the war was always on the Dutch side. The Dutch felt that it was easier to try to parasite the Portuguese empire rather than build their own presence from scratch.
On the other hand, it could be argued that Portugal was, throughout most of the initial period, under Spanish rule (following the 1580
Iberian Union) and since Spain was battling the Dutch in
Flanders and trying to eliminate their rebellion otherwise known as the Eighty Years War, it was thus legitimate for the Netherlands to take the war to all corners of the Spanish empire. This claim however cannot be regarded as realistically truthful because the Dutch Republic continued the war even after the Portuguese restoration in 1640; though it cannot be expected that the war, once begun, would be ended so easily.
As it is analysed further on, the real reason for the war was the Netherlands' attempt to take control of the Indies spice trade and that is not consistent with any technical justification of military defence.
Casus Belli
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 participants of the Dutch–Portuguese War. Blue: Dutch Republic, England with allies. Green: Portugal, Spain.
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 (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.
Insertion in the East: Batavia challenges Goa
thumb|left|The capture of [[Kingdom of Cochin|Kochi and victory of the V.O.C. over the Portuguese in 1656. 1682, Atlas van der Hagen]]
The Dutch were hopeful of some success, since in 1588 the English, with Dutch aid, had defeated the
Spanish Armada. 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.
Sugar War - Government-General Vs. the WIC
Dutch siege of Olinda
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 Netherlands project). The
Dutch West India Company would not however 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.
thumb|left|"Map of the Portuguese liberation of the city of Salvador in Brazil in 1631", João Teixeira Albernaz, o velho, 1631 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 Brazilian and African soil.
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 their control in Africa and remaining enclaves in Brazil waned they decided to sue for peace.
Spanish Involvement
The Spanish were acutely 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 were 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, the
Dunkirkers, 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 that had 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.
See also
