The Dutch in Brazil: The Forgotten Colony of New Holland

Long before New Amsterdam, the Dutch West India Company seized a slice of Brazil. From 1630 to 1654, the WIC controlled Recife and Olinda, establishing a colony called Nieuw-Holland (New Holland). At its helm was Johan Maurits van Nassau-Siegen, a visionary governor who turned Recife into a cosmopolitan hub, complete with a palace, an observatory, and a botanical garden. He invited artists like Frans Post and Albert Eckhout to document the land and its people, producing some of the earliest European paintings of Brazil. But the colony's economy relied on sugar, worked by enslaved Africans. Maurits's tolerant policies toward Jews and Catholics made Recife a haven, but the Portuguese would not rest. After a decade of conflict, the Dutch were expelled in the Second Battle of Guararapes. This episode explores the rise and fall of Dutch Brazil, the legacy of Maurits, and the bitter end that saw the colony traded for New York.

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