PREFACE

The rise and fall of the Dutch in seventeenth-century Latin America continues to fascinate historians. One particularly remark- able episode took place during the height of Dutch power in the early 1640s, when the West India Company (WIC) launched an expedition to Chile. In January 1643 a naval squadron consisting of five vessels and six hundred soldiers, sailors, and craftsmen set sail from , the capital of Dutch , to the coast of southern Chile. The goal of this expedition, led by Hendrick Brouwer, was to establish a per- manent outpost at the abandoned Spanish colonial city of . This city had been overrun by the Mapuche, an indigenous people, in 1598. The Dutch viewed the Mapuche as a possible ally in their ongoing war against the Spanish Habsburg Empire. Establishing an alliance with the Mapuche would undermine the in . Additionally, the WIC was especially eager to gain access to the rich gold mines that it believed existed in the vicinity of Valdivia. Although the Brouwer expedition failed in meeting its objectives of establishing durable alliances and finding gold, an account of the enterprise, based on original journals and logbooks, was published in in 1646. The book’s lengthy and descriptive title is Jour- nal and History of the Voyage made East of the Strait of Le Maire, to the Shores of Chile, under the command of Lord General Hen- drick Brouwer, having taken place in the year 1643. Travel accounts had become a popular genre of literature in the seventeenth-century and the Journal and History about the arduous sea voyage from Brazil to Chile was published to capitalize on the public fascination with dangerous adventures of Europeans in exotic places. However, the book was also a political pamphlet intended to influence the public debate about whether to renew the charter of the WIC. Because the Brouwer expedition failed in its objectives and since the xii | PREFACE

WIC’s Atlantic Empire disintegrated quickly in the mid-seventeenth century, the Journal and History was quickly forgotten inside and outside the . Interest in the Brouwer expedition was first revived in Chile in 1892, when a Spanish translation of the Journal and History was published. After more than a century, renewed Dutch scholarly attention to the WIC led to the rediscovery of the Brouwer expedition. In 2015 a critical edition of the main journal of the Brouwer expedition, which is kept in the National Archives of the Netherlands and which forms the basis for the Journal and History, was published as a volume in the series of Dutch maritime voyages of the Linschoten-Vereeniging. To make the primary sources of the obscure but fascinating Brouwer expedition accessible to English readers, the present book is an annotated translation of the Journal and History as it was first published in 1646. Some of the research for this translation and critical edition of the Journal and History of the Brouwer expedition was done at the National Library of the Netherlands and at the National Archives of the Netherlands. Both institutions were indispensable for the com- pletion of this project. The digitization of the papers relating to the Brouwer expedition by the National Archives was especially helpful. Digitized research aids such as the Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal (Dictionary of the ) were also of enormous help in making sense of early modern terms. Moreover, this book could not have been written without the help of the excellent editorial scholarship on the Brouwer expedition produced by Elisabeth Erb and Henk den Heijer. Their critical observations and reflections on the Dutch voyage to Chile in 1643 made my task much more manage- able. A presentation about the Brouwer expedition at a conference on privateering and in the Americas held in Lima in 2012 made me realize how significant the topic of Dutch expansion on the Pacific coast of South America still is for Chilean and Peruvian maritime historians. I would also like to thank the two anonymous reviewers as well as the following individuals for helpful comments on the manuscript: Michiel van Groesen, Henk den Heijer, Jaap Jacobs, Kris Lane, Cees Paul and the Stichting Nederlandse Kaap Hoorn-vaarders, Erik Thomson, Diederick Wildeman, Jorge Nallim, and the partic- ipants of the Latin American studies seminar at the University of Manitoba. All errors of interpretation and translation are my own. For help with Spanish translations, I want to thank Kayla Quiring. PREFACE | xiii

Weldon Hiebert of the Geography Department at the University of Winnipeg did an excellent job of preparing the map. I am also grate- ful to Diederick Wildeman and the Nederlands Scheepvaartmuseum in Amsterdam for supplying me with the illustrations of the History and Journal. For inviting me to contribute to the series, I want to thank Matthew Restall. The editorial staff at Penn State University Press, in particular Susan Silver and Laura Reed-Morrisson, was very supportive in guiding this project to completion. The University of Winnipeg provided me with financial support during various stages of this project. Finally, a big thank you to Kristin, Saskia, Evelien, and Fern.