CHAPTER IX
EXPULSION OF THE DUTCH
Four years before Maurice's retirement Portugal broke loose from Spain, and that part of Brazil which had escaped conquest by the Dutch promptly threw off the Spanish yoke. In Europe Holland and the new Portugal were naturally in alliance, but the former was not magnanimous enough to stop her aggressions in Brazil, and the latter was too weak to resent them. Among the Brazilians dissatisfaction began to brew as soon as Maurice left. The prohibition of religious processions, the severe financial crisis among planters who were unable to pay off the heavy mortgages which they had given when they purchased confiscated plantations, the low price of sugar, and the impulse to national feeling given by the news of the success of the mother country in achieving independence all co-operated.
The opportunity brought forth the man. The head of the rebellion was John Fernandes Vieira, who is the great creator of the Brazilian nationality. A native of Madeira, he ran away as a boy to seek his fortune in Brazil. Engaged at first in menial employments, his honesty and capacity soon enabled him to strike out for himself as a sugar planter. When the Dutch attacked Pernambuco in 1630 he took up arms, and only surrendered when Bom Jesus fell. Convinced that further resistance was useless he returned to his business and within ten years was the richest man in the colony. Though a devoted Catholic and a patriotic Portuguese, he was one of Maurice's most trusted advisers. When the Prince departed John Fernandes thenceforward devoted his life to the expulsion of the Dutch.
The first revolt occurred in Maranhão, where the small Dutch garrison had to abandon that captaincy as early as 1644. In Pernambuco John Fernandes organised a formidable conspiracy, and letters were despatched to the new Portuguese king asking his aid. John IV. did not dare to comply openly, for such action might have involved him in a war with the States-General, but the governor-general at Bahia was as unscrupulous as he was patriotic, and secretly afforded the conspirators every facility in his power. The celebrated chiefs of the guerrilla fighting of 1630 to 1635, Vidal, Camarrão, and Dias, were only too anxious to have another chance, and gathered their bands in the wilderness. Arms were obtained from Bahia, and in 1645 the insurrection broke out. The first move was to have been the massacre of the principal Hollanders, but the plot was discovered and the conspirators fled for their lives to the interior. At a place called Tabocas John Fernandes gathered a motley crew of a few hundred together. Only three hundred of his followers had muskets, but they were protected by marshy ground in front, and the hill was surrounded by almost impenetrable cane-brakes. There on the 3rd of August the Dutch troops to the number of a thousand found and attacked the Brazilians. The bulk of the population was standing aloof, his camp was full of mutiny, nevertheless John Fernandes stood firm. The Dutch charged confidently, but they could not use their firearms to advantage, and the Brazilians showed the traditional valour of their race in the use of pike and sword. The Dutch were not able to dislodge the rebels, and after losing three hundred and seventy men they retreated to Pernambuco, leaving the insurgents with all the moral prestige of victory.
The whole province rose; the troops, which had come from Bahia ostensibly to aid the Dutch in pacifying the province, went over en masse to the patriots; the Dutch garrisons in the outlying towns were everywhere attacked and everywhere retreated. A few grudgingly paid mercenaries were not the material with which to defend such an empire. Within a few months the Dutch were expelled from the interior and shut themselves up in the fortified seaports waiting for re-enforcements. The Indians and guerrillas spread fire and destruction through Itamarica, Parahyba, Rio Grande do Norte, and Ceará. In spite of this sudden success the position of the patriots was very critical. Without the aid of regular troops they could hardly hope to make head against the Dutch so soon as the latter received adequate re-enforcements. The news of the insurrection aroused great indignation in Holland. The house of the Portuguese ambassador was surrounded by an infuriated mob, and his government had to disavow the rebellion. Willing as John IV. might be to help the Brazilians, he dare not. By the middle of 1646 an able commander, von Schoppke, arrived from Holland with a fine army. At first John Fernandes and the militia did not dare meet him in the field. The provincials hovered about the Dutch columns, cutting off detachments, and burning sugar plantations in the line of march. John Fernandes set the example by ordering the destruction of his own property.
In 1647 Barreto de Menezes, an able professional soldier, arrived in Brazil bearing a secret commission from the Portuguese king. The bickering and despairing provincials made no difficulty about recognising it, and Barreto at once began uniting the scattered militia bands and the few regulars who had clandestinely come up from Bahia.
A few miles south of Pernambuco the low hills encroach on the coast-plain, leaving only a narrow pass between themselves and the marshes. Schoppke made a sortie along the coast road with the largest part of his force,—about four thousand men,—and there at the hills of Guararapes found the patriot army, numbering two thousand two hundred. Encamped across the level ground they barred his way, with the evident intention of giving him battle, and there on the 18th of August, 1648, was fought out the question whether Brazil should be Dutch or Portuguese. The defeat of the patriots would have meant the hopeless collapse of the rebellion and the giving up by poor little Portugal of the last vestige of her claim to Brazil. Success meant that they might prolong the war for years and finally tire out Holland, or give the Portuguese government a chance to do something by negotiation.
The battle began with the Dutch taking possession of the higher ground whence their artillery inflicted some damage, but when they charged down the hill, attempting to outflank and surround the Brazilians, there ensued a confused and desperate struggle with cold steel. The regulars proved no match for these farmers, who were fighting for their homes and religion. The Dutch battalions broke and fled up the hill, followed by the Brazilians. Then the Dutch reserve came into action and the battle rolled back to the low ground, where the result was decided face to face and man to man. Some of the braver of the Dutch imprudently went through the Brazilian lines into the marshes, where they suffered terrible slaughter at the hands of the reserve. More than a thousand Hollanders perished, with seventy-four officers. Thirty-three standards remained in the hands of the Brazilians, and the remnants of the Dutch army fled to the shelter of the walls of Pernambuco. The cowardice shown by many of his troops is the only excuse offered by the Dutch general for this shameful defeat suffered at the hands of a militia inferior not only in equipment and artillery, but in numbers and advantage of position.
The descendants of the victors at Guararapes have never forgotten that it was a Brazilian and not a Portuguese triumph. The Brazilians proved to their own satisfaction that their resources were sufficient to defend their institutions, and it has been well said that on that day the Brazilian nation was born.
The parsimonious merchants whose money was invested in the Company made a half-hearted effort to retrieve this unexpected reverse, but re-enforcements were sent out so grudgingly that a similar sortie next year was even more overwhelmingly defeated at the very same place. Even then the Brazilian hopes of ultimate success would have been small if at this very juncture the world-power of Holland had not received its first great check by the breaking out of the war with Oliver Cromwell. With English fleets sweeping the North Sea and Blake's cannon thundering at the Texel, the States-General had no forces to spare on far-away Brazil. The patriots kept the Dutch shut up in Pernambuco and were undisputed masters of the rest of the province. So long as communication by sea remained open the Dutch, however, could maintain themselves indefinitely. Re-enforcements might come at any time from Holland and the negotiations by Portugal were uncertain, and might, indeed, lead to Brazil's being exchanged for an advantage elsewhere.
John Fernandes steadfastly maintained the siege, urging his followers not to lay down their arms so long as a Dutchman remained in Brazil. The pusillanimous Portuguese king did not dare help the Pernambucanos, and neither was he honest enough to abide by the treaties he had made with Holland, giving up all claim to North Brazil. Matters remained in this anomalous position until 1654, when John Fernandes by a single audacious stroke cut through the tangle made by complicated and timid European diplomacy.
In the fall of 1653 the annual Bahia fleet sailed from the Tagus, convoyed by powerful men-of-war. The Dutch had no naval force on the South American coast able to cope with it. When the Portuguese fleet hove in sight of Pernambuco, the Brazilian commanders from their fortified besieging camp just to the south of the city entered into communication with the Admiral. John Fernandes begged the latter to lend him some cannon for a few days and meanwhile to blockade the port. The patriot leader saw that the isolated garrison of mercenaries would have no heart to hold out for long. The Portuguese Admiral refused, saying, truly enough, that he had no instructions to aid the insurgent Brazilians, and that he did not care to risk his head by precipitating a war between Portugal and Holland. Fernandes answered that with or without his aid the assault would be made, and the Admiral yielded to his natural feelings and lent the Brazilians some big guns. John Fernandes planted them where they commanded an outlying fort he knew to be vital to the city's defences. Schoppke was compelled to retire within the central city; the Brazilians made successful night assaults on several positions, and drew their lines closer and closer until the place was untenable. On the 26th of January, 1655, the Dutch general signed a capitulation, surrendering not only Pernambuco, but all the other places held by the Dutch in Brazil. His twelve hundred troops were given safe passage home, and all resident Hollanders were allowed three months to settle their affairs before leaving.
Thus ended the Dutch dominion in Brazil. Four provinces, three cities, eight towns, fourteen fortified places, and three hundred leagues of coast were definitely restored to the Portuguese Crown. A gigantic commercial speculation had failed before the obstinate resistance of a few farmers animated by a love of country and religion. Twenty-five years of bloody warfare or sulky acquiescence in alien rule had welded the Portuguese colonists along the Brazilian coast into a nation. Directly from the Dutch they had learned little or nothing. Rather were the traits which have ever since been the cause of Brazil's industrial backwardness intensified.
The characteristics of the leaders in the Pernambuco war of independence epitomise the races of Brazil. Vidal is the type of a high-class Brazilian—generous, jealous, spendthrift, proud, intelligent, quick at expedients, and not too scrupulous in his use of them. Camarrão, the Indian, perished before the final victory as if to show symbolically that his race had not the stamina to hold out in competition with white or black. Dias represents the negro—unsurpassable in fidelity and personal courage, and needing only leadership to show transcendent military qualities.
John Fernandes was a curious mixture of the mediæval and modern. His wealth did not make him cautious where his country was concerned; he had been honoured with the intimate confidence of those whom he fought; he was grave, silent, reserved, strongest when others were most discouraged; no feeling of vanity ever interfered with his purposes; if another man could do a piece of work better than he, he stepped aside; when success was in sight he imperturbably let showier men have the glory. Religious faith and feudal loyalty were the mainsprings of his nature; nevertheless in war he was cautious, indefatigable, and calculating. In crises he struck like a sledge-hammer, though he could wait patiently and uncomplainingly for an opportunity. His was not a pride that disdains artifices. He conspired secretly and subtly, and with all his apparent moderation of character he blindly and unreasoningly hated everything Protestant and non-Portuguese. On the hill at Tabocas his battle-cry was: "Portuguese! At the heretics! God is with us!" When the Dutch made their last desperate charge, and it seemed as if all was up with his band of insurgents, he refused to flee, but stood beside the crucifix, calling on the Virgin and the saints, and exhorting his companions to die rather than yield to the unbelievers. When the Dutch gave back he fell on his knees and intoned a hymn. With each new victory gained he vowed a church to the Virgin. When desperate over the hesitation of the Admiral in the last scene of the war, his final argument, made in all sincerity, was that failure to expel the Dutch meant exposing thousands of Catholics to the temptation of denying their faith by a renewal of the heretic rule, and that for himself, rather than share the responsibility for the murder of thousands of souls, he would lead his Brazilians to certain death.
Relentless to his enemies, to his friends and dependents he was kindness itself. It is related that a Portuguese, landed with hardly clothes enough to cover him, and seeking a protector, was directed to Fernandes. The latter was mounting his horse to go on a journey. To the man's offer of allegiance and appeal for help, he answered: "I am going to my house ten miles away and have no leisure now to relieve you, but follow me thither on foot. If you are too weak to walk, take this horse I am on. If you are faithful you shall have support as long as my means hold out; if they fail, and there should be nothing else to eat, I will cut off a leg and we will eat it together." This was said with so grave a face and severe a manner that the poor Portuguese thought he meant to repulse him. But on inquiry he found that Fernandes rarely smiled and that literally all that he had was at the service of his adherents.
