CHAPTER THREE
AN EFFECTIVE BUT FRAGILE ALLIANCE: BRASILIANEN, TAPUYAS, AND THE DUTCHPORTUGUESE STRUGGLE FOR BRAZIL, 16241656
In its quest for empire in Brazil the WIC was eager to obtain the mili- tary support of the colony’s indigenous peoples. Like the Portuguese, the Dutch made a simplistic distinction between two types of indig- enous peoples in Brazil, Brasilianen and ‘Tapuyas’. Th e Brasilianen were aboriginal peoples who had been colonized by the Portuguese during the sixteenth century. Th e Brasilianen, Tupi-speaking peoples from coastal Brazil, were called by the Portuguese índios aldeados because they lived in aldeias or Jesuit-run mission villages. Th e Dutch viewed the Brasilianen as more ‘civilized’ than the nomadic and inde- pendent Tapuya peoples who inhabited the sertão or arid backcoun- try of northeastern Brazil. Whereas many scholars have concentrated on the meaning of the fascinating paintings of the Brasilianen and Tapuyas produced by Albert Eckhout, one of the court painters of Johan Maurits, the governor-general of Dutch Brazil from 1637 to 1644, the practical aspects of the Dutch alliance with the Brasilianen and the Tapuyas such as the status of the indigenous peoples in colo- nial society, the role of interpreters and liaison offi cers, and the role of diplomatic gift s have received less attention. Th is chapter especially focuses on the development of the alliance between the WIC and the Brasilianen. Although the alliance functioned quite well on a practical level, each side also had diff erent views of the relationship. Whereas colonial Dutch offi cials viewed the Brasilianen as indigenous peoples who were supposed to become obedient Protestants subjects of the Dutch colonial order, the Brasilianen saw the strategic relationship with the WIC as a way to maintain autonomy in an unpredictable colonial world.1
1 Th e most recent study of Albert Eckhout’s Brazilian paintings is Rebecca Parker Brienen, Visions of Savage Paradise: Albert Eckhout, Court Painter in Colonial Dutch Brazil (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2006). Brienen also discusses the distinction between Brasilianen and Tapuyas, see Brienen, 95–129. See also Ernst van den Boogaart, “Th e Slow Progress of Colonial Civility: Indians in the Pictorial Record of Dutch Brazil, 1637–1644,” in La Imagen del Indio en la Europa Moderna (Seville: 126 chapter three
Brasilianen and the Grand Design, 1624–1625
Th e fi rst WIC encounters with indigenous Brazilians occurred in the context of the Company’s ‘grand design’ to capture Salvador de Bahia, the economic and political centre of Portuguese Brazil, in 1624. As we have seen in chapter one the WIC had high expectations that the local colonial population, including the indigenous Brazilians, would welcome the Dutch as liberators from Spanish Habsburg tyranny. Th ings turned out very diff erently though as neither the moradores, the Portuguese colonists, nor the Indians received the WIC invaders favourably. Aft er the quick capture of Salvador de Bahia by the WIC in May 1624 the Portuguese fl ed to the Recôncavo, the fertile coastal hinter- land of Bahia, from where they waged an eff ective war against the Dutch invaders. Indigenous allies played a central role in this guerrilla campaign. Th e majority of Indians living in the Recôncavo were índios aldeados, Tupi-speaking mission Indians. Th e mission Indians were expert archers and were familiar with the heavily wooded and hilly Recôncavo. Th ey participated in ambushes against WIC soldiers who frequently ventured outside the city to collect food supplies. Accord- ing to António Vieira, at that time a sixteen-year old candidate of the Jesuit Order in Bahia, the Indian archers “formed the most prominent part of our [Portuguese] army, the part also that the [Dutch] enemies feared the most,” because the índios aldeados were able to unleash mul- tiple salvos of devastating arrows faster than the WIC soldiers could reload their cumbersome fi rearms. Th e Company soldiers especially feared the poisonous arrows. Undoubtedly the most eff ective ambush executed by Indians was one in June 1624 in which they killed Colo- nel Van Dorth, the commander of the WIC forces. As Van Dorth was riding his horse at the head of a large patrol outside the city, Indian bowmen hidden in the woods wounded the mounted Dutch offi cer. In
C.S.I.C., 1990). For a study of the Protestant mission programme among the Brasil- ianen, see F.L. Schalkwijk, Th e Reformed Church in Dutch Brazil (1630–1654) (Zoe- termeer: Boekencentrum, 1998), 168–229. An old (1947) but useful survey is still José Antonio Gonsalves de Mello, Nederlanders in Brazilië (1624–1654). De invloed van de Hollandse bezetting op het leven en de cultuur in Noord-Brazilië, transl. G.N. Visser and ed. B.N. Teensma (Zutphen: Walburg, 2001), 205–237. A classic study of the WIC alli- ance with the Tarairius, a Tapuya people, is Ernst van den Boogaart, “Infernal Allies: Th e Dutch West India Company and the Tarairiu, 1631–1654,” in Johan Maurits van Nassau-Siegen, 1604–1679. A Humanist Prince in Europe and Brazil, ed. E. van den Boogaart in collaboration with H.R. Hoetink and P.J.P. Whitehead, (Th e Hague: Johan Maurits Stichting, 1979), 519–538.