From 1630 onward, the Dutch Republic conquered almost half of Brazil's settled European area at the time, with its capital in Recife.

The governor, John Maurice of Nassau, invited artists and scientists to the colony to help promote Brazil and increase immigration.

[4] In 1621, the twelve-year peace treaty expired and the United Netherlands immediately chartered a Dutch West India Company.

As part of the Groot Desseyn plan, admiral Jacob Willekens led a GWC force to Salvador in December 1623, which was then the capital of Brazil and the center of a captaincy famous for its sugarcane.

In 1628, the seizure of a Spanish silver convoy by Piet Heyn in Matanzas Bay provided the GWC the funds for another attempt to conquer Brazil at Pernambuco.

[9][10] In the summer of 1629, the Dutch coveted a newfound interest in obtaining the captaincy of Pernambuco, the largest and richest sugar-producing area in the world.

[11][12] The Dutch fleet of 65 ships was led by Hendrick Corneliszoon Loncq; the GWC gained control of Olinda by 16 February 1630, and Recife (the capital of Pernambuco) and António Vaz by March 3.

[citation needed] In 1635, the Dutch conquered three strongholds of the Portuguese: the towns of Porto Calvo, Arraial do Bom Jesus, and Fort Nazaré on Cabo de Santo Agostinho.

In 1637, the GWC gave control of its Brazilian conquests, now called "Nieuw Holland," to John Maurice of Nassau, the great-nephew of William the Silent.

[16] His patronage of Dutch Golden Age painters to depict Brazil, such as Albert Eckhout and Frans Post, resulted in works showing different races, landscapes, and still lifes.

Most of the Dutchmen employed in the Dutch West India Company went back to the Netherlands after they were relieved of duty and did not stay to settle the colony.

Others who did not fit the vrijburgher or dienaren categories included Dutch who left the Netherlands to find a new life in Nieuw Holland as traders.

In 1643, Maurice of Nassau equipped the expedition of Hendrik Brouwer that unsuccessfully attempted to establish an outpost in southern Chile.

[16] In the spring of 1646, the Dutch sent a relief expedition to Recife consisting of 20 ships with 2000 men, temporarily forestalling the fall of the city.

In return, Zeeland obtained promises from the other Dutch provinces to support a second, larger relief expedition to reconquer Brazil.

[25] After the Dutch defeats at Guararapes, their surviving men, as well as other garrisons of New Holland, joined in the area of Recife in order to make a last stand.

The Dutch finally lost control of Recife on 28 January 1654, leaving to the Portuguese their colony of Brazil and putting an end to New Holland.

One was a Potiguara chieftain who came to be known as Dom Antônio Filipe Camarão, who was rewarded for his loyalty to the Portuguese by being made a knight of the Order of Christ.

On the Portuguese side, one name went down in history, Henrique Dias, who was awarded noble status by the monarch, but not the knighthood in the Order of Christ as promised.

The returnees attempted to litigate so as to regain the properties they had abandoned, which in this sugar-producing area included sugar mills and other buildings, as well as cane fields.

Both sides had practiced a scorched earth policy that disrupted sugar production,[1] and the war had diverted Portuguese funds from being invested in the colonial economy.

[34] Dutch artistic production in Brazil, particularly by Albert Eckhout and Frans Post left an important visual record of the local people and places in the early 17th century.

The Treaty of the Hague was signed on 6 August 1661, and it demanded that the Portuguese would pay 4 million réis over the span of 16 years in order to help the Dutch recover from the loss of Brazil.