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This webpage reproduces an article in the
English Historical Review
Vol. 18, No. 72 (Oct. 1903), pp642‑663

The text is in the public domain:
George Edmundson died in 1930.

This page has been carefully proofread
and I believe it to be free of errors.
If you find a mistake though,
please let me know!

 p642  The Dutch on the Amazon and Negro
in the Seventeenth Century

Part I. — Dutch Trade on the Amazon

Dutch seamen first made acquaintance with the coast of Brazil, either serving on Portuguese vessels or through connivance of the Portuguese government, as early as 1580.​1 Towards the end of the sixteenth century the scanty records that survive show us an ever-increasing number of ships from Holland and Zeeland making their way westward.​2 Their first objective was the coast of Guinea; then crossing the Atlantic to Brazil it was their habit to creep along the shore, visiting the various river estuaries for the purpose of bartering goods with the natives, until they reached the famous salt mines of Punta de Araya,​3 a short distance beyond the Orinoco. Having taken in a freight of this precious commodity, they returned home by way of the West Indian Islands. The well-known Zeeland merchant Balthazar de Moucheron was one of the first pioneers of this traffic, which already in 1599 had assumed large proportions. We owe to Jan De Laet, an unimpeachable authority, our knowledge of the earliest intercourse of the Dutch with the Amazon. In his Nieuwe Wereldt4 he tells us that about 1599 or 1600

they of Flushing have built upon it (the Amazon) two small forts and dwelling-places, of which the one named Nassau is built on Coyminne, which is like an island 18 or 20 miles long, but narrow and divided by a  p643 creek from the mainland, and was reckoned to be some 80 leagues up the river. The other, named Orange, lies 7 leagues lower than this.

These two forts are marked on Robert Dudley's map​5 as situated on the left bank of the river Parnayba or Xingú, a southern affluent of the main stream of the river immediately before its subdivision into the many channels by which its volume of waters finds its way into the ocean. The erection of fortified trading stations so far inland at this early date is a proof that these Flushing merchants already contemplated the establishment of permanent commercial relations with the natives of the interior.

A few years later, in the narrative of Master John Wilson of Wansted,​6 one of the colonists settled at Wiapoco by Captain Charles Leigh in 1605, several references are made to the presence of Dutch vessels trading along the Guiana coast. Among these he specifically mentions that 'the Indians advertised us of three ships that were in the Amazons, and that one of them would come to us to the river of Wiapoco.' This ship came in due course, and it turned out to be a ship called the 'Hope' of Amsterdam, trading under an English captain, John Sims by name, for certain merchants of that city. This same vessel had been to Wiapoco the previous year, and now remained there six months. Wilson adds that Leigh's colonists 'had never any store of commodities to trade up in the Maine such as the two Hollanders hath, which are there, and were left there at our coming from thence by John Sims.' The remains of the English settlers embarked in the 'Hope' (31 May 1606), which, after calling at Cayenne and Trinidad, sailed home to Flushing. From this narrative we gather that the Dutch method of trading was, in cases where no actual settlement was attempted, to leave factors on the various rivers along the coast with supplies of barter goods, the stores being replenished and the product of the traffic conveyed by ships, which paid periodical visits to the several stations.

The next information of interest comes from Spanish sources in a document forwarded by the duke of Lerma to the council of the Indies for their consideration.​7 It is dated 4 April 1615, and  p644 treats of the advances that the Dutch, French, and English were making on the banks and lands of the river of the Amazons. The more important paragraphs run as follows:—

In the Hague of Holland there has appeared Pieter Lodewycx,​8 a captain of the fleet resident in Flushing, with his son Jan Pieterse,​9 both returned from the West Indies from the banks of Wiapoco, where they have erected two houses and cultivated tobacco, and the said Pieter went for a cruise in the river of the Amazons, a stretch of 100 leagues up, and on his return brought with him much profit of red dye, tobacco, and different spices, and as far as he there had converse of the inhabitants [learnt] that in that country from there onwards there are many inhabitants and tribes, where there be much greater profit for merchants — the which moved them to return with all the ships to Wiapoco, as well to furnish supplies to the new settlement they have made there, as to push on in the said river of the Amazons in quest of its slave-barter.​10 With that object two of the admiralty have ratified articles of association​11 with the burgomaster of Flushing, Jan de Moor, the one named Angelo Lennes, and the other Herr van Lodensteyn,​12 by whose hand he (De Moor) received from the estates of Holland their consent for the establishment of the said colony and settlement, and this without prejudice to the large and general settlement that the said estates think of making in those parts of America in case the war shall not proceed, which many desire and hold for certain; and so the whole company of maritime trade and commerce urge the said estates to assist them with some considerable aid, so that they may be able to go and gather information and explore the whole extent and breadth of the said river of the Amazons from whence the said estates shall draw great gain in the future as time goes on.

Alás says, and affirms, that a certain Englishman, before that Jan Pieterse​13 made his settlement in the river of Wiapoco, in reconnoitring it made his way up the Wiapoco, accompanied by twenty savages and some canoes, over sixty-eight rapids or falls of the river, and from there forward he found a level and uniform country without any more rapids, and afterwards a very deep and broad river, and that they would have voyaged onwards by it, and by it arrived at the great city of Manoa, of which there is so great fame, but since the savages who live on the banks of that river have fled — whom the said savages called Norwacas — their cassava-root victuals and all other provisions failed them, the which compelled him with his company to return without passing further, and the said Jan Pieterse has a mind to try the enterprise, and to reconnoitre the said country by the same route by the help of the estates of Holland aforesaid.

 p645  This narrative clearly embodies the report of an agent at the Hague in Spanish pay, of Portuguese nationality, bearing the name of Alás.​14 Jan Pieterse, of Flushing, is a well-known name among the seamen who won distinction some years later in the service of the West India Company.​15 We shall meet him again at Wiapoco in 1628. The father, Pieter Lodewycx, from whom Alás derived so much information, appears, from a paragraph in another document of the same author­ship, to have been a regular frequenter of the Guiana coast for a considerable period. 'The aforesaid captain,' says this report,​16 'journeyed for four leagues up the smaller rivers at various times, in obedience to the orders given him by his superiors in 1599.' This date at once recalls the name of the Zeeland merchant Balthazar de Moucheron already mentioned. In 1599, chiefly under Moucheron's auspices, the great expedition under Admiral van der Does set sail to make conquests on the Guinea coast, and on its failure, owing to sickness, a squadron crossed the Atlantic to Brazil, and coasting along returned by the West Indies. The chief command of this fleet, on the death of Van der Does, was taken over by Vice-Admiral Geleynsse, of Flushing, probably the 'Angelo Lenees' of the Alás report. Another expedition, entirely Moucheron's, also sailed in this year under the command of Joris van Spilbergen; it was destined likewise in the first instance to trade on the west coast of Africa, but afterwards, under secret instructions, set out for the Spanish West Indies, and returned with considerable booty. Of this fleet of Spilbergen's Captain Willem Lodewycx was second in command, upon a ship named 'De Moor.' Among those associated with him in Moucheron's service were Michiel Leynsse (or Geleynsse) and Everard van Lodensteyn.​17 The mere collocation of names suggests that the commercial company of whose beginning Alás speaks, and of which Jan de Moor was so long the head,​18 was the legitimate successor to the vast projects and world-wide schemes of daring enterprise set on foot by the genius and energy of Balthazar de Moucheron.

 p646  The historical accuracy of Alás's report is worth comment. At first sight it might appear improbable, in view of the perennial rivalry between Hollanders and Zeelanders, that Jan de Moor, burgomaster of Flushing, Admiral Geleynsse, and Captains Pieter Lodewycx and Jan Pieterse, all hailing from the Zeeland port, should have applied for help to the estates of Holland. But the reason was that Flushing in 1614‑15 was still in the hands of the English, and that in 1614 the estates of Holland had passed a resolution encouraging settlement and exploration across the seas, and offering a trade monopoly for a certain number of years to the patrons and pioneers. The Englishman referred to by Alás is Captain Harcourt, who has left an account of his voyage up the Wiapoco in 1609. The association of Jan Jansz Lodensteyn, burgomaster of Delft, with the Zeelanders in their petition accounts for the Delft element — which I have already shown in my Dutch in Western Guiana to have been so marked among the early colonisers of Essequibo.19

A description of the disposition of the Zeeland merchants at this time, with a probable reference to the voyage of Pieter Lodewycx to the Amazon, may be found in another and slightly earlier document, forwarded by the duke of Lerma to the council of the Indies. It bears the date 5 July 1614, and says —

The West India Company is likewise being pressed forward by certain merchants, reckless men and enemies of quietness; they are going about through all the towns in Holland and Zeeland to persuade the people to favour it; in no part have they received greater hopes of carrying out their object than in Zeeland, as it is a matter very consonant to the disposition of that part, and because over there they will have need of sailors and employment for ships, of which they have so great a quantity that they are ruining each other. They have cast their eyes on the river Orellana,​20 and a caravel has already been despatched from Flushing to go up the said river as far as possible and make acquaintance with the inhabitants thereof.​21

The spirit which is here described as animating the Zeelanders was especially strong in Flushing, though there it was as yet held in check by the presence of an English governor and garrison, and the determination of King James not to give offence to the Spanish government. The embargo was, however, to be speedily removed by the statesmanlike diplomacy of the advocate of Holland,  p647 Oldenbarneveldt. In the early part of 1616, taking advantage of the pecuniary embarrassments of the king, he redeemed the cautionary towns, of which Flushing was the most important, by a cash payment, and freed them henceforth from foreign control. The effect was immediate. Before the end of 1616 two bodies of colonists had left the Zeeland ports for the wild coast of Guiana, the one to found a settlement on the river Essequibo, in the north-west, the other on the river Amazon, in the south-east.

Our knowledge of these two settlements of 1616 is derived from the manuscripts of Major John Scott. The account given by that writer of the early history of the colony of Essequibo in his 'Description of Guiana,' preserved in the British Museum,​22 has already been shown by me​23 to be accurate and trustworthy. The passage in which he tells of the expedition to the Amazon is found in an unfinished manuscript upon the 'History and Description of the River of the Amazones,' two copies of which are extant among the Pepys papers, one in the Bodleian Library at Oxford,​24 the other in the library of Magdalene College, Cambridge.25

In the yeare 1616, one Peeter Adrianson, in the Golden Cock of Vlushings, sayled for the Amazones, and having been as high as the entrance of the Strait, they feared they might be in a wrong channel, regard Back again, and between the River Coropatube and the River Ginipape on a peninsula by a little river on one side and an Arme of the Amazones on the other side, they built a fort, many of these people were English that then inhabited in Vlushing and at Ramakins, towns then in the hands of the English. They were one hundred and thirty men and fourteen of them carryed their famelies to plant with them, they had Bread, Pease, Beefe, Porke, Bakon, Otmeal, Vinegar, and twentie Hogsheads of Brandey, a store for one whole yeare, besides their ship provisions they had a fair corispondence with a nation of Indians their Nieghbours, called Supanes. The ship haveing stayed thier four months till their Fort was finished, and some Huts built, without as well as within the Fort, the Indians assisted them in planting Tobacco, Annotta, a red dye, a Bastard Scarlet. Things in this condition, the ship leaves them sayling for Zeeland, but returns the yeare Following, with recruites of all things necessary. But Bread and Meat was not at all now wanting, they loaded the ship with Tobacco, Anotta, and Specklewood, the Loding was sould for Sixtie Thousand pounds sterling money. These were the two first voyages of the Admiral de Vuyler, the first in the tenth, and the second in the twelfth year of his age A.D. 1618 as I have had it from his own mouth, as also that the Losse of that Hopeful Colony was thier engaging  p648 themselves in the Quarels of the Indians, assisting the Supanes against another nation called the Periotes, who were in Aliance with the Portogueze. This occasioned these Indians to give them great disturbance, they accompanying the Portogueze in their vessels to attack them soe that though they could not make themselves masters of their Fort and Plantations (the Supanes their neighbours in great Bodies assisting them), yet several of the English and Dutch being kild and wounded. Two ships comeing in the year 1623, they all embarked with what they had, Back for Zeeland, bringing with them very considerable riches.

It will be noted that Scott claims that his knowledge of these events was derived from the personal testimony of an eye-witness. The informant may be identified with the famous Admiral de Ruyter,​26 who was born at Flushing, 24 March 1607, and who would have been in his tenth year when 'Peeter Adrianson' sailed from that port in the 'Golden Cock.' The latter was also a man of note in the naval annals of his time, being the Pieter Adriaansz Ita​27 who in 1630 went as second in command of the expedition which captured Olinda and the Reciff. We shall find him again in the Amazon in 1623.

Almost every detail of what may be styled the Scott-De‑Ruyter narrative about this colony about the river Ginipape can be authenticated from contemporary sources. In an earlier part of his 'Description of the River Amazones' Scott, using the information of another eye-witness,​28 tells us that

Fiftie Four Leagues below the East Banke of this River was a fort built on a peninsula by some Hollanders in the yeare 1616, but since the Portegueze have had a small fort thiere, which they caled Destierro, also on the North Banks of the Amazone, From which Fort, sayling on the North Side of the River six leagues, you will come to the River Ginipape.

This identifies the locality of the Dutch settlement with the Portuguese fort six leagues from the mouth of the Ginipape, which Acuña saw in his descent with Pedro Teixeira in 1639, and which he says 'they call El Destierro.'​29 There is likewise contemporary Portuguese evidence about the establishment of De Moor's colony above the Ginipape of a particularly interesting character.

 p649  In 1615 the French had been expelled from São Luis do Maranhão by Jeronymo de Albuquerque. Encouraged by this success the governor of Brazil gave orders that an expedition under Francisco Caldeira de Castel Branco should be despatched to explore the mouths of the Amazon, and erect a fort in such a position as to check the trading excursions of the Dutch and English up the river from the Cabo do Norte. A copy of the official narrative of this expedition may be found in the British Museum.​30 It effected a result of lasting importance. Coasting along, Caldeira mistook the channel of Sapurará for the chief mouth of the river, and on its north shore, thirty leagues up stream, on 15 Dec. 1615, laid the foundation of a settlement, to which he gave the name Nossa Senhora de Belem. It was the beginning of the state of Grão Pará and of Portuguese dominion on the Amazon. While thus engaged in his exploration Caldeira learned from a French fugitive from Maranhão, whom he encountered, that higher up the river a Zeelander (Framengo) was travelling among the native villages, and besides this man there were others, who had learned the language and engaged in traffic with the Indians, and that three Zeeland vessels had a few days before gone up stream. On learning this, Caldeira sent his informant to find the Zeelander and get further information from him, with the result that he heard that the Hollanders and Zeelanders (Olandeses e Framengos)​31 had 250 to 300 men in two fortresses of wood, and two sugar mills, and that the natives reported that 150 leagues from the new Portuguese settlement of Belem there were much people in fifteen boats​32 fortifying themselves, having women with them. Here then we have, first, the Dutch factors travelling about in the Indian villages near the mouth of the river; then the two long-established forts of Orange and Nassau on the Xingú; lastly, the colonists of Pieter Adriansz (it is mentioned by Scott that some had their families with them) engaged in fortifying themselves on the peninsula above Ginipape. It is further by no means improbable  p650 that the three Zeeland vessels mentioned by the Frenchman were the very three vessels which, according to a well-known passage in Scott's description of Guiana, in this year 1616 conveyed 'Captain Gromwegle' and his settlers to the Essequibo.​33 In accordance with the usual practice, these, on their way westward, would visit the various trading places along the wild coast,​34 beginning with the Amazon. Not impossibly they may have been instructed to inquire after the whereabouts of Pieter Adriaansz, and give any assistance that might be necessary. It is at least a credible supposition, in agreement with stated facts.

Scott's narrative contains one peculiarly illuminating piece of information concerning the colonists taken out by the 'Golden Cock.' 'Many of these people,' we read, 'were English, that inhabited in Flushing and at Rammekens, towns then in the hands of the English.' This statement at once explains why it is that these early settlements on the Amazon are described by one author as English, by another as Dutch.​35 It was because the bodies of settlers who went out at this time from the cautionary towns contained, as did the populations of the town themselves, a considerable intermixture of English, men who by long residence had identified their interests with those of their adopted country, joined in Dutch enterprise, and traded under the Dutch flag. The fact that this passage was written fully half a century after the redemption of Flushing and Rammekens by Oldenbarneveldt is one more signal, because undesigned, proof of the remarkable accuracy, both generally and in detail, of the Scott manuscripts.36

It has been assumed that the expedition under Pieter Adriaansz was a consequence of the representations of Pieter Lodewycx and Jan Pieterse, and that it was sent out under the auspices of Jan de Moor and Co. The colonists, according to Scott, prospered for some six years, until, through quarrels with the Indian tribes, and attacks of the Portuguese, with whom these Indians allied themselves, they found their position no longer tenable, and finally, in 1623, embarked in two vessels for Zeeland, bringing back home with them considerable riches. Both the assumption and the narrative of the return can be confirmed by contemporary evidence.

 p651  In 1621 the Dutch West India Company came into existence, and by the terms of its charter private trading enterprise in the Amazon became henceforth illegal, though no doubt it was to some extent connived at. In the minutes of the proceedings of the XIX​37 for 4 Nov. 1623 we find

that the request of the heer burgomaster, Jan de Moor, was read, in which he asks permission to send a ship and yacht into the Amazons to bring down his colonists, about seventy white men (Christenen); and after deliberation it is resolved that such is an infringement of the charter, and cannot be permitted, but that instructions shall be given to Admiral Willekens to bring back the colonists thence at the first opportunity.

And a later entry, 3 April 1624, represents 'Heer Johan De Moor aende Co.' negotiating with the XIX and the Zeeland chambers for the taking over of their goods for the Amazons at a valuation, showing that already at this date their private venture had been given up.

One point more may be mentioned. Scott says that the De Moor colonists 'loaded the ship with tobacco, anotta, and specklewood, the loding was sould for sixtie thousand pounds sterling money.' De Laet in his well-known description of the West Indies published in 1624, speaking of the commodities brought from the Amazons and neighbouring rivers, specially mentions annotto, speckle-wood, and tobacco as bringing in good returns. The annotto, he says,

has been sold in Holland for twelve shillings sterling. . . . There is also a red speckled wood, which the natives call Pira Timimiere (in Netherland letterwood), which is worth thirty or forty pounds sterling a ton. . . . Lastly, there is here a profitable merchandise, to wit, tobacco . . . out of whose planting in a short time very great profits can be gathered.

Of the course of events between the dates 1616 and 1622 (except what is told us in Scott's narrative) we know little. In 1616, immediately after the foundation of Belem, Caldeira hearing, as we have seen, that the Dutch had established several factories in the northern mouth of the Amazon, despatched Pedro Teixeira with a force to expel them. Teixeira succeeded in destroying a large Dutch vessel, and in carrying off her artillery to Belem, but he was himself wounded in the action, and does not appear to have effected anything further. Dissensions among the Portuguese themselves and the hostility of the natives, who attacked even the fortifications of Belem itself, gave to the Dutch for a few years a free hand in their trade in the Amazon. Meanwhile the  p652 political aspect of things had changed. In 1621, at the conclusion of the twelve years' truce, war had broken out once more between Spain and the United Netherlands, and the Dutch West India Company had been formed with the avowed object of conquest and plunder in the Spanish Indies. The Amazon lay within the limits of their charter, and this fact may have been the primary cause of the abandonment of his successful colony by Jan de Moor, who, being himself one of the leading directors of the Zeeland chamber of the new company, was doubtless desirous not to infringe those exclusive privileges which it was now his interest to maintain.38

But there is another cause mentioned in Scott's narrative, of which we must now speak. The year 1622 was marked by the appointment of Bento Maciel Parente to be Capitão Mor of Grão Pará, a man of great energy and ambition, who had already made himself notorious in those parts for unscrupulousness and cruelty. Shortly afterwards Luis Aranha Vasconcellos arrived at Belem with a special commission from Madrid to co‑operate with Maciel in the expulsion of the Dutch and other foreigners from the Amazon.​39 An expedition was sent up the river Pará to reconnoitre, and found its way blocked on entering the main stream by a strongly entrenched post on the north bank near the mouth of the river Corupá, occupied by a mixed body of Dutch, English, and French settlers,​40 with a large number of native allies. Maciel, however, having concentrated a considerable force, attacked them, expelled them from their trenches, and drove them down the river. He would next appear to have destroyed the Dutch factories of Orange and Nassau up the Xingú, and then to have descended the northern mouth of the river, known as the Rio Felippe, where he, opposite the Ilha de Tocujos, encountered a Dutch vessel. This he assailed with such vigour that, after a fierce and prolonged combat, the captain, who was none other than Pieter Adriaansz of Flushing, was compelled to run his ship aground and burn her.​41 After this  p653 achievement Maciel returned to Corupá and built a fort on the southern bank opposite the Dutch settlement, at a place called Mariocay, which was to remain for some seventy years the chief Portuguese outpost on the Amazon.

One of the best early notices of this Portuguese fort of Corupá may be found in a most interesting contemporary account of the ascent of the Amazon by Pedro Teixeira in 1638, which was written at Quito in that year, most probably by the Jesuit father Alonso de Rojas, and embodies information derived by him from Teixeira's chief pilot, Bento da Costa.​42 After describing its position on the southern bank of the river, its armament and defence, the writer proceeds to speak of the Dutch fort, which formerly stood on the opposite northern shore, of the attacks made upon it by the Portuguese, and of its ultimate capture with many prisoners. He adds:

Among the spoils they took a large ship​43 in which came the great pilot Matamatigo, that by order of the governors of the rebel islands came on purpose to explore this river, and arrived with his ship as far as the province of the Trapajosos, distant 200 leagues from Gran Pará.

From this passage it is evident that the person named by the author el gran piloto was well known to those who took part in Teixeira's famous expedition, and to the Spaniards of Quito, and the question naturally arises, Who was he? Can we learn anything about him or about this voyage to the Trapajosos from other sources?44

Again, it is to Scott's narratives that we must turn for an answer to our questions. In his 'Description of Guiana'​45 Scott mentions his great indebtedness to one Matteson, born at Ghent, who became his prisoner during the English expedition against the Dutch colony of Essequibo in 1665. This man is there described as having managed a trade for the Spaniards from the city of San Thomé, in Orinoco, for twenty-two years, and as being one of 'the greatest Travailers that ever were in Guayana of Christians.' In  p654 his unfinished 'Description of the Americas'​46 Scott has more to tell us about him. 'I received very much of what I shall relate,' he writes,

from Captaine Mathias Matteson, a Ghentoise by nation, but was Captaine of the Admiral vessel in which Pedro Teixeiro imbarked when he went upon the discovery of the mightie Amazons, A.D. 1637. . . . This Matteson was captain of the vessel, I made the discovery of part of the Amazons River, and afterwards, A.D. 1665 and 1666, of one of the vessels in the squadron of ships I commanded against the French and Dutch on the Island Tobago and on the Coast of Guiana. I bought of this man all his mapps, carts, and journalls which he had made in fortie years, while he had served the Spanish and Portuguese in the West Indies.

And again in another place —

Besides Herrera and divers Spaniards that have writ of this river . . . their are none that have been soe perticular as Capt. Mathias Matteson, he has noted that their are above eight hundred Islands in the Amazone Empire.

In 1661, Scott tells us, Matteson quitted the Spanish for the Dutch service, and it was as a Dutch official that he became prisoner to the English in 1665. Clearly Padre de Rojas's 'Matamatigo'​47 was Scott's Mathias Matteson, and el gran piloto was the natural and fitting description which a writer telling the story of the wonderful voyage, at Quito in 1638, would give of the man, whose knowledge of the navigation of the Amazon had caused his selection as captain of Pedro Teixeira's own vessel, and whose very presence in the far inland Spanish town afforded such signal proof of his skill. The forty years mentioned by Scott almost exactly coincide with the interval between 1624, when 'Matamatigo' may be supposed to have entered the service of his Portuguese captors, and 1665, when, as a prisoner of war, Matteson sold his manuscripts to the English major, whose thirst for geographical information he had been able to gratify.

Padre de Rojas's statement that the ship — that of Matamatigo — 'by order of the governors of the rebel islands came on purpose to explore this river, and arrived as far as the province of the Trapajosos, distant 200 leagues from Grão Pará,' next requires elucidation. It has been seen that the captain of the vessel was Pieter Adriaansz. Mattiasº Matteson must in 1623 have been quite a young man, and probably sailed as stuurman. The directors of the Zeeland chamber of the West India Company are no doubt indicated by 'the governors of the rebel islands.' In the first flush of their newly acquired charter every opening for enterprise and trade was eagerly sought by the various chambers, and it was to be  p655 expected that a body of which Jan de Moor himself was a prominent member would be desirous to adventure something in a region whose profitableness the burgomaster had so successfully assayed. It would seem, then, that Pieter Adriaansz, as the captain who had carried out De Moor's colonists some six years before to a destination far up the Amazon, was now chosen to plant another settlement in that same part of the river to which he had already penetrated in 1616. He would appear, according to Rojas,​48 to have sailed, possibly once again in the 'Golden Cock,'​49 past the rivers Ginipape and Corupataba as far as the mouth of the Tapajos. This was the superior limit of the voyage. It was in his descent that Adriaansz was unfortunate enough to encounter the victorious flotilla of Maciel, with the result that, after a stiff fight, he only succeeded in saving the lives of himself and a portion of his crew by running his ship aground at the mouth of the small river Okian, opposite the island of Tucujos.50

Were this all that contemporary testimony had to tell us about this ill-fated expedition, the statement made above that its object was to plant a new settlement high up the Amazon could not be regarded as proved. But there is singularly strong corroborative evidence. Acuña, in his account of the return of Teixeira from Quito in 1639, writes as follows about the river of the Tapajosos:​51 —

I must relate that it is of such depth, from the mouth to a distance of many leagues, that in times past an English ship of great burden ascended it, those people intending to make a settlement in this province, and to prepare harvests of tobacco. They offered the natives advantageous terms; but the latter suddenly attacked the English, and would accept no other than the killing of all the strangers they could get into their hands and the seizure of their arms, which they retain to this day. They forced them to depart from the land much quicker than they had come, the people who remained in the ship declining another similar encounter (which would have destroyed them all) by making sail.

In this passage Acuña makes the confusion between English and Dutch usual to Portuguese and Spanish writers in the treating of this subject.​52 That he was in error is shown conclusively by  p656 another extract from the Viaje. The author is telling​53 of the descent from Quito to Pará in 1637 of the two Franciscan friars Toledo and Brieva, with six soldiers, and of their experiences at the hands of these 'Estrapajosos.' He adds:

In this village these soldiers saw skulls of men, arquebuses, pistols, and linen shirts, and when afterwards they advised the Portuguese of this, they told them that these Indians had killed some Dutchmen that had arrived as far as these provinces, whose were the skulls and arms.

The form of the narrative here plainly points to the soldiers themselves​54 as the source of information, and we are therefore justified in reading Dutch for English in Acuña's version of the story. Ill-luck would seem to have pursued this voyage of Pieter Adriaansz throughout.

The first attempt of the Portuguese in 1623 to expel the Dutch met, as we have seen, with partial success. It was, however, but a spasmodic effort, and it ceased precisely at the moment of a great revival of Dutch activity. A remarkable manuscript journal in the British Museum​55 (already quoted) furnishes a record of the state of things in the Amazon in 1623‑4 from the testimony of an eye-witness. The journal begins by stating that the directors of the West India Company, as soon as they entered upon their administration, resolved to despatch a vessel of 100 tons, named the 'Pigeon,'​56 on a voyage of inspection of the river Amazon and the coast of Guiana. When it was equipped, a certain Jesse des Forestes, the writer of the journal, who had, by permission of the states-general, enrolled a number of families desirous of settling in the Indies, petitioned that these might be employed in the service of the company. The proposal was not approved by the directors, but they offered to take Jesse des Forest and a certain number of 'heads of families' selected by him, to see the place and choose for themselves the site for a settlement. This was agreed to, and on 1 July 1623 the 'Pigeon' sailed from the Texel. It carried on board ten heads of families, under the leader­ship of Des Forestes, all bering, like himself, distinctively French names.57

 p657  They did not enter the Amazon till 6 Oct. As they were in the offing they came upon another vessel which had set sail about the same time as themselves, and from which they had parted company at Plymouth. It was commanded by Pieter Jansz of Flushing.​58 In making their way through the intricate channels both ships frequently grounded, though the writer more than hints that some of these mishaps were due to the craft of Pieter Jansz, who thereby contrived to be the first to reach the English and Irish settlements.​59 These were six in number — English and Irish at Supanapoko, English at the mouth of the river Okian, at Tillekille, and Onarmeonaka, and Irish at the mouth of the Taurege.​60 Each of these was visited in turn, with the result that Jesse des Forestes and his fathers of families, having heard at Supanapoko of the burning of Pieter Adriaansz's ship, and being afraid of the proximity of 'the Spaniards' at Pará, determined that they would proceed further along the coast in search of a safer place for settling. Another reason for this decision may have been the reception they met with at the hands of the Irish colonists. They left Pieter Jansz anchored off the Irish settlement in the mouth of the Taurege, and the evidence of one of these Irishmen, by name Gaspar Chillan, exists. In a petition to the king of Spain, in 1632, he recounts how the Irishmen were left in the Amazon by an English corsair named Thomas Roe,​61 that they built a fort, and that they, on religious grounds, declined to enter into any relations with some Dutch ships who visited them shortly afterwards, and wished to make a settlement at their side. 'They quickly went away,' says Chillan, 'without gaining the goodwill of the Irish.' Evidently at this time, though the Dutch coasting traders appear to have regularly  p658 visited the mouth of the Amazon for the purpose of bartering goods and trafficking with the English and Irish resident factors, their own settlements lay further up the river. The 'Pigeon' thereupon set sail for the river Wiapoco, whither it was followed by Pieter Jansz three weeks later. In the interval this bold seaman, undeterred by the fate of his fellow-townsman, Pieter Adriaansz, had made his way up stream and burnt the new fort​62 just erected at Mariocay, above the Corupá, by Maciel Parente. At Wiapoco the heads of families elected to settle, and there the 'Pigeon' left them on the first day of 1624.

It is beside our purpose here to speak of the hardships and privations these French refugees suffered during the next seventeen months. They were heartily glad when on 23 May 1625 a yacht named the 'Vliegende Draeck,'​63 under the command of Galeyn van Stabels, of Flushing, entered the river under orders from the directors of the West India Company to offer them a passage home. Des Forestes informs us that Van Stabels had just been in the Amazon with Admiral Lucifer to take there Captain Oudaen​64 and from eighty to one hundred soldiers. It will be shown later that this strong body of men had been sent out to reoccupy Corupá.

The sequence of events stands out, therefore, with the utmost distinctness. In the earlier part of 1623 Maciel Parente expelled the Dutch from Corupá and the Xingú, destroyed the ship of Pieter Adriaansz, and finally built a fort opposite the former Dutch post to check further incursions of the foreigners in the trunk stream of the Amazon. In November of this same year Pieter Jansz, with a view, no doubt, of personally testing the accuracy of the native rumours about the presence of the Portuguese at Corupá, ascended the river, drove out the small garrison from the post which barred his progress, and set fire to its wooden defences. His first step on returning would be to inform his employers of what he had heard, seen, and done. They on their part seem to have lost no time in taking adequate steps to repair their misfortune. They felt that the possessor of a stronghold at Corupá held the key to the trade of the Amazon, and so Captain Oudaen was sent out with a sufficient force, as they judged, to establish himself firmly at the point of vantage, and to hold his own against any attack likely to be made against him. But they did not take due  p659 account of the energy and determination of Maciel Parente. The news was brought to him — exaggerated, as usual, in the transmission — that 200 Dutch, under a leader named Nicolas 'Hosdan,'​65 had arrived in the Amazon, and established themselves in their old quarters. He quickly raised a powerful flotilla under the tried leader­ship of Pedro Teixeira, and despatched it with orders to oust the newcomers. For the most authentic account of the issue of the expedition we have to turn to the pages of that most veracious of chroniclers, Jan De Laet.

The very next year after the return of the pères de familles from the river Wiapoco a certain Jan van Ryen obtained leave to take out a body of colonists to that river, and Admiral Lucifer was commissioned to carry them. Accordingly on 23 Jan. 1627 he set sail, accompanied not only by Galeyn van Stabels, in the 'Vliegende Draeck,' but by the other Flushing captain, Jan Pieterse, whose connexion with the Wiapoco was of long date,​66 in the 'Leeuwin.' The story of what they found on the Wiapoco is best told in De Laet's words.67

March 5. — They anchored in 4 fathoms of water about 2 leagues from Comaribo; sailed the next day to the River Wiapoco, where they had been charged to land some colonists; the 7th they anchored before Caribote in 3 fathoms of water, and at low water grounded; and as the savages, who lived thereabouts, did not come on board, two sloops were sent to Comaribo to fetch some of them on board, and the following day they brought two to conduct them to the other inhabitants. Again making their way up stream with the sloops, they came by night to a place called by the natives Wacogenive, where they found two huts, and observed that the savages were frightened at the coming of our folk, but could not understand the reason for it. The next day they visited the place, and found the same very suitable for the settlement of the people  p660 they had brought, so the 10th they began to unlade their goods and bring them ashore; the savages took flight in terror, the true cause of which they learnt first on the 13th from a negro who came to them and told them that a bark and two sloops with white men [Christenen] had come out of the River of the Amazons and had stopped there for a month, and when afterward they had divided themselves in four places, the savages had unexpectedly fallen upon them and killed all but three, of whom one was in Comaribo, and the two others higher up the river Wiapoco. When our people had heard this they laid hold of three savages and a woman that were on board and sent to Comaribo for the Dutchman, threatening to kill the captured savages if they did not bring him. Next day the man was brought on board, but they got little clearly from him, because (a strange circumstance) he had almost forgotten his mother tongue, so search was made for the other two, the which first came on board on the 17th. The one named Jan Hendricksz told them the whole circumstances of these slaughters; namely, that about eighteen months ago the Spaniards and Portuguese had come in great numbers, and had unexpectedly fallen upon the colony in the River of the Amazons, which had been made there under the command of Captain Oudaen, and that the same, after that he had bravely defended himself against the enemy for half a day, had betaken himself to his bark with the loss of seven or eight men; and had sailed to the creek, where the English had stayed them to barter there some provisions with them. The captain with eleven or twelve men having landed at the English settlement,​68 the enemy made their entry into the same creek with their cannon, and had attacked the English as well as the Netherlanders, and slain them all. The next day Lieutenant Pieter de Bruyne, having learnt this, betook himself to the bark with six and forty men still surviving, and fled to the river Wiapoco, and had there settled down, hoping to be safe. But after they had been there two or three days, Sergeant Marruyt shot the lieutenant, and the folk split up into four parties. The savages meanwhile, having resolved amongst themselves to get quit of these guests, came to them under pretext of friendship with their drink, that they call Pernau, and having made the folk quite drunk, with a loud cry fell upon them, and slew them with axes and hatchets, with the exception of these three​69 alone, whom they spared.

The expedition under Pedro Teixeira in 1625 thus completely achieved the object of its mission — the expulsion of the Dutch from Corupá. Not content with this, he pursued the fugitives, and finding that some of them had landed at the English settlement on the Okian, he swept this, in its turn, out of existence, English and Dutch perishing in one indiscriminate slaughter. He next turned his attention to the Irish. According to an eye-witness,  p661 Gaspar Chillan, the Irish (he himself was one of them) were seventy in number, the name of their captain was James Purcell,​70 and without fighting they surrendered their fort, which, according to Jesse des Forestes, stood on the Taurege. They did this in the hope that their community of religion with the Portuguese would secure them favourable treatment. Probably Teixeira was unable to restrain his fierce followers, who, in their blind hatred against the intruding foreigners, were careless of nationality. Fifty-four of the miserable Irishmen were butchered in cold blood, the rest sent as prisoners to S. Luis. Here another eye-witness, the Jesuit Padre Luis Figueira, records their presence in the following year, 1626, and it is significant that he speaks of Purcell as a Hollander.71

These vigorous proceedings had now effectually cleared the river, except in the immediate neighbourhood of the Cabo do Norte. The attacks of the Hispano-Portuguese being directed, not from the sea, but from the point of junction of the river Pará with the main stream, the lowest factories, protected as they were by the frequent presence of armed Dutch ships, would be the last to survive. Accordingly during the next two or three years, in the minutes of the proceedings of the Zeeland chamber of the Dutch West India Company, and in De Laet's Jaerlijck Verhaal, notices may be found of trading still carried on with the Amazons; those entries cease in 1628. This, indeed, was the date of the last attempt at settlement on the Lower Amazon in which Dutchmen took part. The account of this settlement and of its fate is told at some length by Padre Luis Figueira,​72 and is so manifestly derived from personal knowledge acquired on the spot that the sequence of events, as given by him, may be confidently followed.

In 1626 Manuel de Sousa de Sáaº succeeded Maciel Parente as captain-general of Grão Pará. From the new governor, on his arrival, James Purcell obtained leave, through the good offices of an ecclesiastic (certo religioso), to embark with some of his companions for his own country. They sailed after some delay, and finally in the autumn of 1627 reached Spain in the company of Maciel Parente himself, and from thence were sent home — probably to England. They at once set to work to raise capital and organise an expedition with the object of settling again on the Amazon, and resuming their former trade in tobacco and other commodities. The enterprise seems to have been confined to no particular  p662 nationality, for Figueira mentions later, among the bearers of a flag of truce, three Scotsmen, but, according to his testimony, the bulk of those whose subsequent surrender he relates were Dutch. In April 1628 the new colonists arrived at the island of Tuenjú, close to Purcell's previous settlement on the Taurege, where they erected a strong fort well provided with artillery, and began to plant and barter with natives.

At the beginning of 1629 the news reached the ears of Sousa de Saá,º who at once sent Pedro da Costa​73 with 30 or 40 Portuguese soldiers and 800 Indians to capture the newcomers. Da Costa, however, even with such a force, found himself too weak for his task, and retired to Corupá. Reinforcements were sent, and with them Teixeira, who, after his junction with Da Costa, found himself in command of no less than 120 Portuguese and 1,600 Indians. These he embarked in 88 canoes, and on 28 Sept. arrived before what Figueira calls the Dutch fort. A regular siege ensued, but so stout was the resistance that not till 24 Oct. did the garrison surrender, and then on very favourable terms for those times. It was stipulated that they should keep their property and be sent back to their own country. Scarcely had Teixeira left with his prisoners for Corupá when a number of English vessels under a certain Captain North entered the Amazon, who, had they but arrived earlier, would have been strong enough to relieve the beleaguered garrison of Tucujú. These Englishmen in their turn built a fort a short distance lower down the river than Purcell's, and in the following year were, like their predecessors, expelled by Teixeira.74

The Portuguese were from this time onwards masters of the Lower Amazon. After 1625 ingress to the main stream was barred at Corupá, and after 1629 such desultory trading on the part of the Dutch as still continued was confined to the immediate neighbourhood of the Cabo do Norte, and owed its existence to the passing vessels laden with stores for one or more of the colonies on the Guiana coast. How completely trade in the Amazon had been abandoned in 1642 is proved conclusively by a petition addressed by a certain Gideon Morris to the directors of the Zeeland chamber in that year.​75 Largely owing to previous representations  p663 of this man,​76 and stirred by the reports concerning Pedro Teixeira's great voyage, just completed, an expedition had been sent from the Reciff​77 to extend the Dutch domain northwards by the capture of São Luis do Maranhão. This conquest was actually effected by Admiral Lichthardt; but Gideon Morris was far from satisfied. In the petition above mentioned, dated 'St. Lowys de Merenjohn,' 7 April 1642, he proceeded to put forth long arguments to show that the possession of Maranhão would be useless without that of Grão Pará and the Amazon.​78 They are too prolix to reproduce, and it is not necessary, but throughout they assume that the Lower Amazon was now entirely in Portuguese hands​79 and that the Dutch connexion with it had ceased. The recapture of Maranhão by the Portuguese in this same year, 1642, put a stop for ever to the dreams of Morris and to the further consideration of his proposal by the West India Company. Even as early as 1643, a petition from the inhabitants to the king of Portugal, João IV, shows that at that date the whole of the lands from the River of Maranhão to the River of Vicente Pinzon, along the coast, and inland as far as Corupá, had been already granted and occupied. From this time forward, alike as sites for factories and avenues for commerce with the interior, the mouths of the Amazon were sealed to the Dutch.

George Edmundson


The Author's Notes:

1 De Jonge, Opkomst van der Nederlandsche Gezag in Oost-Indien, pp35‑6; De Stoppelaar, Balthazar de Moucheron, pp166‑7. The first recorded voyage of a Dutchman to Brazil is that of Barent Ericsz, of Enckhuijsen, in 1590 (Brandt, Historie der Vermaerde Zee en Koop Stadt Enckhuijsen, I.261).

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2 The Spanish governor, Alvaro Mendez de Castro, reports, 16 Jan. 1599 (Arch. Gen. de Indias, at Madrid, press 54, case 4, bundle 1), 'An immense swarm of Dutch ships enter the various islands and ports on the coast of the mainland, and finding them unprovided with cloth, which is not sent from Spain, they sell it them cheap.'

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3 Called Punta del Rey by the Dutch, just south of the island of Margarita.

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4 De Laet, Nieuwe Wereldt, ed. 1630, pp561‑2. In the Latin edition of his work, which De Laet published in 1633, a remarkable addition (due, no doubt, to fresh information on the subject which had reached him in the interval) is made to this statement, showing that Dutch ships had begun to frequent the mouth of the Amazon at an even earlier date than the foundation of the Flushing settlement:

'Anno 1598 et etiam ante Amstelodames atque alii mercatores naves suas ad has oras (Amasonas) destinarunt, ut commercium cum barbaris, qui has oras accolebant, constituerent et stabilirent.'

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5 Robert Dudley made a voyage to Trinidad, Guiana, &c., in 1595. A narrative of this voyage may be found in Hakluyt's Collection, IV.56. [It was re‑edited, with two other accounts of the voyage by Mr. G. F. Warner for the Hakluyt Society in 1899. — Ed. E. H. R.] Dudley at a later time settled in Italy. The map appears in his book, Dell' Arcano del Mare, 2nd ed., 2 tom. (Firenze, 1661).

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6 Purchas's Pilgrimes, IV.1260‑5.

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7 A copy of this document, now in the Archivo General de Indias, is given in the Appendix to the British Case in the British Guiana-Venezuela Boundary Arbitration (to which reference will be made hereafter as Brit. Case Venez., app.), I.39‑40. Señor Jimenez de la Espada, in the notes to his Viaje del Capitan Pedro Texeira, p110, remarks that this paper was translated from a Portuguese original into very bad Spanish by Tomas Gracian Dantesco, son of the king's secretary, Diego Gracian.

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8 Spanish, Pedro Luis.

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9 Spanish, Juan Pedro Alás.

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10 In the Spanish original resaque, i.e. rescate. This word signifies buying for slaves prisoners of war otherwise condemned to death, a practice common to Spaniards, Portuguese, and Dutch.

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11 'Confirmado cierta compañia.'

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12 Spanish, Señor de Lodesteyn. Admiral Cornelis Geleynsse, of Flushing, and Jan Jansz Lodensteyn, burgomaster of Delft and director of the East India Company.

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13 Spanish, Juan Peeters.

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14 This is not a Dutch name: in the first instance (see above, note 9) it probably slipped into the text from the margin through a blunder of the copyist or translator. At the beginning of the second paragraph Alás is clearly distinguished from Jan Pieterse.

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15 It may be assumed from the narrative that he was a young man in 1615.

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16 Sent by the duke of Lerma to the council of the Indies, 27 June 1615. The text of the Spanish original from Seville may be found in Brit. Case Venez., app., I.41. Another copy exists in Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 28461, with the Portuguese heading untranslated and variants in the spelling of the Spanish.

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17 De Stoppelaar's Balthazar de Moucheron (1901), pp204‑7. This Willem Lodewycx sailed as commissary in Cornelis Houtman's first voyage to the East Indies, and was its historiographer. The ship 'De Moor' was probably named after Admiral Joost de Moor (brother of Jan), under whom Spilbergen first served.

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18 Of the part taken by Jan de Moor's company in the early colonization of Essequibo and other parts of Guiana and the West Indies see ante, vol. XVI pp663 et seqq. (October 1901).

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19 Ante, XVI.674 et seq. The colony of English and Dutch at Wiapoco is certified by Sancho de Alquiça in a despatch to the king, 13 June 1612. He says, 'There are forty houses of English and Flemings in the settlement, which I report to be on the river Guyapoco, and that there be eighty men in it, and they occupy themselves in sowing tobacco and cultivating it.' Alás writes, 'The said captain with eighty men resided [there] eight months and exported tobacco' (Brit. Case Venez., app., I.41).

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20 Amazon.

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21 Hydrogr. Depôt, Madrid, MSS. 1537‑1635, tom. 25, VIII doc. 74.

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22 Sloane MS. 3662.

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23 'The Dutch in Western Guiana,' ante, vol. XVI pp640‑75.

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24 Rawlinson MS. A 175, f. 356, the spelling of which is followed in the extract below. The date of this manuscript is probably about 1669 or 1670. Scott was appointed geographer to the king 29 Aug. 1668. The patent of Charles II, signed 'Arlington,' is in existence.

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25 Pepys' Miscellanea, vol. V f. 351.

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26 'Vuyler' is evidently the error of a careless copyist; there never was an Admiral de Vuyler. During the short-lived peace (1668‑71) De Ruyter lived quietly in his modest burgher house at Amsterdam, and at this very time Scott was also visiting Holland, gathering additional information for his contemplated history of America. 'The many booksellers of Holland,' he says in his intended preface, 'will doe me right to testifie my continuall inquisition.' He no doubt sought out the great seaman, who is described as 'friendly to strangers,' to learn what he could of his voyages to the West Indies.

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27 He is nearly always spoken of simply as 'Pieter Adriaansz.' In 1628 he, in company with Jan Pieterse (of the Alás narrative), highly distinguished himself in the capture of the Honduras galleons.

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28 Captain Matthias Matteson, of whom more below.

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29 Markham's Valley of the Amazons (Hakluyt Society), translated from Acuña's New Discovery, p129.

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30 Add. MS. 28461. The document bears the title 'Relação do que no Grande Rio das Amazonas novamente descuberto. Año de 1616.' It is signed 'O Capitão Andres Pereira,' and a marginal Spanish note states, 'Cuya relaçion es hecha por el Capitan Andres Pereira, que de órden del General que fué al dicho descubrimiento pasó á España á dar cuenta á S. M. de todo lo que acaeció en aquel viaje y expresa en la misma relaçión.' The original is in the Bibl. Nac. de Madrid.

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31 In the Spanish documents of the early seventeenth century the Dutch are sometimes called Olandeses, sometimes Flamencos (Port. Framengos). A comparison of a large number of passages has convinced me that though both terms are used generically to signify inhabitants of the rebel provinces, more frequently they have a limited and specific meaning, so that Olandeses indicates Hollanders and Flamencos Zeelanders. This would almost certainly be the case where, as above, the terms are used together distinctively.

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32 These vellas were the canoes in which the friendly Indians carried the colonists with their stores and necessaries from the 'Golden Cock' to the spot chosen for the settlement.

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33 Scott says, 'The sixth colonie was undertaken by one Captain Gromwegle [Groenewegen], a Dutchman. . . . He dispatched from Zealand, anno 1616, with two ships and a galliote. . . . He erected a fort on a small island 30 leagues up the River Dissekeeb . . .' (Brit. Mus. Sloane MS. 3662). See ante, vol. XVI p651.

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34 See Minutes of Proceedings of the Zeeland Chamber, 26 Nov. 1626, 1 July 1627, and 10 April 1628; also Purchas, vol. IV.1620‑4.

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35 Espada, Viaje del Capitan Pedro Texeira, commenting on this difficulty in his notes, writes (p111), 'En casos es muy dificil distinguir entre Holandés, Ingleses, é Irlandeses;' and again (p115), 'Estos Holandeses muertos por los Tapajos eran Ingleses para el P. Acuña.'

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36 See ante, vol. XVI pp640‑75.

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37 Rijk's Archief, at the Hague, W. I. C., O. C., vol. I. The XIX were the supreme council of the W. I. C.

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38 In Western Guiana (i.e. in the Essequibo and its dependent rivers) Jan de Moor and Co. retained the right of private trade for a long period (see ante, vol. XVI pp669‑670).

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39 'Relação sumaria das cousas de Maranhão pello Capitão Estacio de Sylveira, 1624' (Brit. Mus., Add. MS. 13977); Berredo, Ann. Hist. do Estado do Maranhão, §§ 489‑513.

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40 All of them no doubt inhabitants of the United Provinces, at that time full of French refugees. The English would be, as at Ginipape, residents at Flushing and Rammekens.

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41 Of the burning of this vessel in 1623 there are two other contemporary accounts, one by the Jesuit P. Luis Figueira in his 'Relaçam de varios successos acontecidos no Maranham e Gram Para assim de paz como de guerra contra o rebelde Olandes, Ingresses, e Franceses e outras nações,' printed in the appendix to Espada's edition of the Viaje del Capitan Pedro Texeira, p123. The other occurs in a manuscript in the British Museum (Sloane MS. 179B), of which a further account will be given hereafter. This last mentions the name of the captain.

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42 The full title of the work, as published and edited by Marcos Jimenez de Espada (Madrid, 1889), is El Viaje del Capitan Pedro Texeira aguas arriba del Rio de las Amazonas, 1638‑9. The learned editor, in his preface, gives convincing evidence as to the author­ship of the anonymous narrative and of its source.

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43 Padre de Rojas (op. cit. p80) says that the ship carried twenty pieces of artillery. He is evidently confusing this vessel of 1623 with the large vessel mentioned above, captured off the mouth of the Amazon by Teixeira in 1616, whose guns were afterwards mounted on the new fortifications of Belem. No ship so heavily armed would attempt to go some hundreds of leagues up a river. As a matter of fact we learn from the Sloane MS. 179B that Pieter Adriaansz's vessel carried only two heavy guns.

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44 Espada, in his notes to the Viaje, p110, asks, 'Pero quien era ese gran piloto Matamatigo?' but is quite unable to suggest any answer to his question. He is similarly puzzled about the reference to the Trapajosos (see pp111, 114‑15).

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45 See ante, vol. XVI p641.

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46 Bodleian Library, Rawlinson MS. A 175, f. 356.

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47 Spanish writers (i.e. Gumilla) call Raleigh Ralego, Keymis Keymisco.

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48 Viaje, p80. The 'Trapajosos' of this narrative (Acuña, 'Tapajosos') are the Tapajos of later times. Padre Laureano de la Cruz, in his Nuevo descubrimiento del Rio de Marañon (1653), calls them 'Estrapojosos;' also Rojas, p86.

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49 In De Laet's Jaerlijck Verhael, which contains complete lists of the ships employed on the various expeditions during the period 1624‑36, the name of the 'Goldne Haen' never appears. This confirms the probability that it was destroyed in 1623.

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50 Sloane MS. 179B; Padre Figueira's 'Relaçam,' in appendix to Espada's Viaje, p123; Berredo, §§ 505, &c.

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51 The translation is taken from the Hakluyt Society's volume Expeditions into the Valley of the Amazons.

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52 One explanation of this confusion is given in Scott's account of the expedition of 1616 (supra, p647; cf. p650). Another may be found in the existence of such firms as Courten & Co., described ante, vol. XVI pp658‑60, which comprised both English and Dutch partners.

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53 Viaje, p86.

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54 Some of the soldiers, if not all, returned to Quito with Teixeira.

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55 Sloane MS. 179B. It bears the title 'Journal du Voyage faict par les Pères de Familles envoyés par MM. les Directeurs de la Compagnie des Indes Occidentales pour visiter la Coste de la Guyane.' It will be referred to hereafter as the 'Des Forestes MS.'

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56 'Het Duifken.' According to the journal this vessel set sail homeward on the first day of 1624. In October of that same year its name appears in the list of ships equipped by the chamber of Amsterdam to sail to Brazil under Admiral Boudewyk Hendricksz (De Laet, Jaerlijck Verhaal, p23).

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57 It is curious how many of the pioneers of Dutch commerce at the beginning of the seventeenth century were of French extraction. To mention some of the more prominent — Balthazar de Moucheron, Pierre le Moine, Isaac le Maire, François de la Dale, Claude Prévost, Arnoult le Clerc, Balthazar de Gerbier were all well known.

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58 This man was, from our narrative, evidently thoroughly acquainted with the Amazon and the other rivers of the coast. He is, no doubt, identical with the Captain Janson, of Flushing, whom Raleigh encountered at Cayenne in 1617 and describes as having 'traded that place about a dussen years,' and whose knowledge of the navigation and honesty he commends. He may be the same as the Pieter Jansz of Flushing who was one of the four sailors who discovered the conspiracy against Prince Maurice in February of this same year (1623).

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59 'Pieter Jansz nous faisoit consommer le temps expres pour donner loisir a sonº chaloupe de traiter avec les Anglois et Hirlandois.'

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60 All these are clearly delineated on a carefully drawn map. See also the maps of De Laet, 1625, and D'Abbeville, 1654, nos. 6 and 9 in the atlas of British Guiana prepared for the Venezuelan Boundary Arbitration. As to the English settlements, one appears to have been established by a Captain North, another by Roger Freyre (or Frere).

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61 Of the 'corsair' Thomas Roe (Chillan-Ro) a previous notice is found in the Alás MS., 1615, showing that one at least of the English settlements had been in existence for several years. The words are, 'Un Tomas Rey tiene puesto un notable fuerte en la embocadura del Rio de las Amazonas de donde haze grandes y provechosas resagues.'

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62 'Qui nous dit, quil auoit bruslé le fort, que les Espagnols avoint faict au de la Corpray en l'Amasone.' Our knowledge of this fact rests solely on the authority of the Des Forestes MS.

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63 The 'Flying Dragon.' This was the real name of the yacht. Des Forestes calls it, probably from the colour of the figure-head, 'Le Draecken Verd.'

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64 Des Forestes is again the sole authority for these details. Netscher (Gesch. van Essequibo, &c.) thought that Captain Oudaen was sent out at a much earlier date. Berredo, § 530, names him Nicolas Hosdan.

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65 Oudaen.

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66 See Alás MS., supra, p643 sq. It is interesting to note how regularly a certain group of Flushing skippers frequented the Guiana coast. Jan Pieterse had been up the Amazon and on the Wiapoco before 1615. Pieter Adriaansz, in the 'Golden Cock,' had conveyed De Moor's colonists up the Amazon in 1616, and his vessel was burnt by the Portuguese in the mouth of that river in 1623. Pieter Jansz visited the Amazon and Wiapoco and other Guiana rivers in 1623‑4; but Raleigh had met him at Cayenne some years earlier (see above, p657, note 58). In 1625 Lucifer in the 'Arent,' and Van Stabels in the 'Vliegende Draeck,' carried Captain Oudaen and his settlers to Corupá, and afterwards visited all the rivers of Guiana as far as the Orinoco. In 1626 (De Laet, p78) Lucifer and Van Stabels again visited the Amazon, and later in the same year Jan Pieterse in the 'Leeuwin' is reported in that river (ibid. p91). All three took part in the expedition to Wiapoco in 1627. Next year, 1628, Van Stabels, in a ship called 'De Fortuyn,' took some colonists of Jan de Moor to the island of Tobago. He then joined the fleet of Admiral Pieter Adriaansz Ita, in which Pieterse was also sailing in the 'Leeuwin.' It was the gallantry of Pieterse that chiefly led to the famous capture by Pieter Adriaansz of the Honduras galleons, and it was Van Stabels who was commissioned by the Admiral to assist the 'Leeuwin' in carrying home the spoil from the Spanish admiral's ship.

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67 Jaerlijck Verhaal, p112.

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68 Jesse des Forestes speaks of this settlement as on the creek Okian.

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69 The three were probably spared because of their familiarity with the Indian tongue. The first-named Dutchman had evidently been a factor among the Indians of many years' standing, since he had almost forgotten his mother tongue. It may be assumed that Jan Hendricksz, of whom we shall learn more later, was not a Dutchman; it will be shown that he was in all probability a Swiss from Benken, near Zürich.

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70 Diogo Porse. The evidence of Gaspar Chillan has been already referred to. This early date of Purcell's surrender was unknown to Berredo, who has been followed by Southey, Da Silva, and other later writers in placing it in 1629.

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71 'Relação de alguas Cousas tocantes ao Maranhão e Gram Pará escrita pello P. Luis Figueira da Compa de Jesus, superior da residencia que o pe tem no dito Maranhão, 1631' (see Espada, app., pp122‑31). 'Entre os prisoneiros q ali avia era hum chamado Diogo Porse, Olandes de nação.'

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72 Op. cit.

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73 This is the first mention recorded of this man's name. Pedro da Costa (Favella) accompanied Teixeira on his famous voyage of 1637‑8, and was still active in 1686, after a long life spent in slave-raiding and exploration.

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74 The historians of the expeditions of Teixeira during the seven years between 1623 and 1630 are full of errors and confusion. The above narrative, drawn entirely from contemporary sources, may be regarded as furnishing an accurate and trustworthy account of what actually occurred during the period named.

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75 Rijk's Archief at the Hague, W. I. C., O. C. no. 57, Brazilie, 1642. Gideon Morris speaks of himself as a Zeelander. Barlaeus, Brasilianische Geschichte (1659), p630, makes mention of this man in these terms: 'In selbiger Insel (Marangnasia) hat auch einer mit Nahmen Gideon Mauris, ein Salzwerck bey Upamena gefunden.'

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76 Rijk's 'Archief at the Hague, 'Resolutie Boeck Kamer Zeeland,' 1640‑1, under dates 6 Feb. and 8 Feb. 1640.

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77 The capital of Dutch Brazil, which in 1640 extended over a vast extent of coast from the Rio Francisco to the Rio Real. Since this article was written two earlier papers of Gideon Morris have come into my hands. They are in the Rijk's Archief at the Hague, 'Secrete Notulen van de Vergadering van de Negentien,' 1629‑1645. These papers completely bear out the contention above, and show that even in 1631 Dutch trading in the Amazon had ceased. Gideon Morris was eight years a prisoner in the hands of the Portuguese, and his descriptions of Maranhão and Pará in 1631 and 1640 are among the earliest and most complete in existence, and are full of interesting detail. The titles of the two papers are: (1) 'Korte deductie ofte beschryvinge . . . . nopende de gelegentheid der plaatsen in Noort Brasil, genaempt Marian ofte Maranhon, Cameta, Gram Para en andere rivieren liggende int begrip der faemryck reviere van d'Amazones . . . met alle de gelegentheid ende omstandicheden, gelyck ick deselve gelaten hebbe den lest November 1631. Door Gedeon Morris de Jonge. Tot Middelbourg den 22 October overgelevert;' (2) 'Corte verhael wegen de Maranham overgelevert den 3 Febrero 1640 door Gedeon Morris ende Jean Maxwell.'

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78 'De conqueste van de Merenjohn wer verstaen Gran Pará en de reviere van de Amasonis, alsoo deselve onder een Gouvernement behooren, ende soo noedich de eene aende andere, dat de eene sonder de andere niet wel en connen bestaan.'

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79 'Hoe meniche onnoosele coloniers hebben sy mordadich om den hals gebracht . . . en wat is doch het begin van haer besit geweest niet anders dan een roof die sy van ons ende andere natien gerooft hebben . . . hier onder de Portugysen een groot getal sijn van de natien van de Arrowacus Tocheans en Wackeans die altermaele slaeven gemaeckt syn om onsent wille, om dat sy ons daer wy als colloniers in de Amasonis laegen hulp en bystand hebben gedaen . . . daer is doch den handel van zee-coyen verwe ende catoen daer voor deesen menichte scheepen goede reisen op gemaeckt.'


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