Dutch Brazil

Dutch Brazil, also called New Holland, was a colony of the Dutch Republic in the north-east of modern Brazil, held from 1630 to 1654 during the Dutch colonisation of the Americas. Its capital was Mauritsstad, today part of Recife, which also housed the headquarters of the Dutch West India Company. From 1630 the Dutch conquered almost half of Brazil's settled European area, and Governor John Maurice of Nassau invited artists, scientists and settlers to promote the colony. The economy rested on sugar plantations, the slave trade and the export of Brazilwood, and the Dutch sought to control the whole supply chain from Africa to the sugar mills. Portuguese and local resistance, however, wore down the occupation; after the Portuguese victory at the Second Battle of Guararapes in 1649, the Dutch surrendered on 26 January 1654. The Republic briefly demanded the colony back, and New Holland was formally ceded to Portugal by the Treaty of The Hague in 1661. Although short-lived, the Dutch period left a mark on the history and urban fabric of Recife.