Dutch colonies and Trade in Latin America

The Spanish and Portuguese had dominance over the Brazilian colonies until the Dutch began to challenge their dominance. The Dutch were very aggressive towards the Spanish and Portuguese simply because they wanted to take over the sugar trade. During the early 1600s, the Dutch fought hard with the Portuguese then finally in 1637, they took over the Portuguese trading station in Sao Jorge de Mina.
In 1624, the Dutch launched an attack on the Portuguese Brazil capitol port city of Salvador. The Dutch held this city for a year until The Portuguese and the Spanish reclaimed the city in 1625. Once the Dutch had lost, they turned north to the heart of the sugar trade in Brazil. In 1630, the Dutch succeeded in taking over Recife and Olinda in 1630.
The Dutch also had connections with the African slave trade which they pioneered during colonial times. The slaves replaced the Portuguese sharecroppers who were growing sugar on their landlord’s land.
Although the Dutch were making a lot of money through the sugar and slave trade, they could not keep up with the expenses of fighting off the Spanish and Portuguese by land and sea. In 1654, the Dutch withdrew themselves from Brazil while focusing a little more on the New Netherlands. During their rule in Brazil, the Dutch had imported 26,000 slaves and continued the transatlantic slave trade long afterwards.
During the 1700s, many slaves escaped into the interior of brazil and established Maroon societies. The Dutch referred to these slaves as the “Bush Negroes” led by Captain Adoe. The Dutch failed to reclaim the slaves they had lost so they ended up making a peace treaty with the Maroon Society in 1749.

Kilpatrick, William Heard. “THE DUTCH SCHOOLS OF NEW, NETHERLAND AND COLONIAL NEW YORK.” UNITED STATES BUREAU OF EDUCATION, 2012.