Gostar disso:

1. Introduction 2. The Union of the Crowns: the new policies toward Brazil 2.1. The appointment of D. Francisco de Souza 2.2. Plan for the economic integration of the south of America 3. The role of São Paulo in the Spanish-Dutch conflict 3.1. The conflicts with the Law Countries during the Twelve Years’ Truce 3.2. Resumption of the war with the Law Countries and its consequences for the town of Sao Paulo 3.3. The change in legislation due to fear of the Dutch

1. Introduction

Historiographers have studied in depth the consequences of the Dutch incursions into and invasion of the north and northwest of Brazil for both the Spanish Empire and the Netherlands. The purpose of this paper is to show that the war between Spain and the Netherlands also affected the south of Brazil and it forced Spain to adopt measures that altered the policy of the Spanish Crown regarding Sao Paulo.
Even long before the founding of Sao Paulo, the Spanish Crown started to develop a strategic program to reach the ports of Santa Catarina and Sao Vicente, thus joining the Pacific and the Atlantic. This strategy included all the land to the east of Peru and, following a more or less straight line, stretched from the Andes to the Parana high plains.
The development of this program, fostered not only by the Union of the Crowns, but also by the Twelve Years’ Truce between Spain and the Netherlands, changed dramatically in the 1620’s with the resumption of hostilities. Instead of continuing to favour open communication between Sao Paulo and Potosi, preventative defence measures were applied for fear of an immediate Dutch invasion towards Peru through Sao Paulo.
In this paper I will analyse two moments of great importance in regard to the Spanish policy: first, its implementation, with the division of Brazil and the appointment of Francisco de Souza as Governor of the South and Superintendent of the mines; and second, the change in the policy when, in 1639, after the invasion of the Jesuit missions by Raposo Tavares and in answer to the arguments by the Jesuit Ruiz de Montoya, the Crown announced a law prohibiting any communication by land between Sao Paulo and the Indies.

2. THE UNION OF THE CROWNS: THE NEW POLICIES TOWARD BRAZIL

2.1. The appointment of Francisco de Souza

The death of Joao III and the combination of circumstances that led to the union of the Crowns favoured Spain’s expansionist plans. All the problems with the borders between Spain and Portugal of previous years disappeared with the union. Until then the Portuguese Crown had tried to close communication with Peru, but now the Spanish Crown wanted it wide open, while at the same time closing the Brazilian coast to potential foreign invasions. Furthermore, there was the new possibility of going inland in search of the much dreamed-of gold and silver mines to increase the already immense treasures of the Castilian Indies. This could now be done without fighting.
Years before the union, Spain’s concern about defending its Indies was evident, and even more so if we keep in mind the turbulent years after the death of Joao III and the lack of concern shown by young king Sebastiao regarding Brazil.
Spain’s concern with defence was inherent to the conquest itself. We could even say that there was no attempt at conquest without a plan for how to defend what was won. It seems that the great interest in founding cities around the entrance to the Plata6 was not only for economic reasons, such as the problems that the illegal commercial traffic was starting to cause to the Crown ; rather, it was an attempt to follow up a defence plan that Spain wanted to implement along the entire coast of Brazil.8
Perhaps the best way to illustrate this point is by presenting the years in which the fortifications and fortresses along the Brazilian coast were built, since a large number of them were built during the union of the Crowns: in the north, in the state of Para, Fort Presepio, where the capital, Belem, originated, was built in 1616; in Macapa, Sao Jose was built between the end of the 16th century and the beginning of the 17th century; in Maranhao, Sao Luis dos Franceses, which was conquered, rebuilt and renamed as Sao Felipe in 1615; Santa Maria, in 1614; in Ceara, Sao Sebastiao, which gave origin to the capital, Fortaleza, was built in 1611 at the mouth of the river Ceara, Nossa Senhora do Amparo in 1612, and Nossa Senhora do Rosario in 1613. In Rio Grande do Norte, Reis Magos was built in 1598 at the mouth of the river Potengi; in Paraiba, Santa Catarina do Cabedelo was built in 1617 and Santo Antonio, also around 1617.
In Pernambuco, Sao Jorge was built in 1590 and Forte do Mar in 1608. In Bahia, Monte Serrate was built in 1586, Santo Antonio da Barra in 1598, Santa Maria and Sao Diogo in 1614, Sao Joao and Sao Bartolomeu in 1614 and Sao Marcelo in 1623. In Espírito Santo, Sao Marcos and Sao Miguel were built at the beginning of the 17th century. In Rio de Janeiro, Santa Cruz was built in 1580, Sao Tiago in 1601, Sao Januario in 1601, Santa Margarida in 1601, Sao Mateus in 1613 and Santo Antonio in 1613.
And in Sao Paulo, in addition to the two oldest forts that we know, that is, Sao Joao da Bertioga and Sao Felipe from 1547, we find Santo Amaro da Barra Grande, built in 1584.
The focus of this paper is the south of Brazil, but the conquest of the north cannot be neglected: the campaigns in Sergipe and Paraiba (1584-1591) , Rio Grande do Norte (1597-1599), Ceara (1604-1611), Maranhao (1614), Para (1617-1619) and, at the same time, the attempts to go to the hinterland through Sao Paulo starting in 1590 clearly demonstrate the interest that the Empire had in its new colony.
At the same time as the conquest in the north, Spain made clear its desire to discover mines in the south, taking a line of action which would open a path from Sao Paulo to Asuncion and Potosi. The path which was known to and used by the Spanish Crown to get to Potosi by land rather than via Nombre de Dios and the Pacific was the one that started in Buenos Aires and went up to Tucuman and Salta, reaching the forts in the Andes and Potosi. This was an extremely difficult path to travel and it was necessary to transport everything, including water.
After the union, the straight path from Sao Vicente or Santa Catarina, so often travelled in the past, before it was closed by Tome de Souza , could now not only be opened, but the exceptional location of Sao Paulo could also be taken advantage of. What previously served as a lookout to keep people from going to Sao Vicente now facilitated passage through the country and the sertao. Sao Paulo was the only Brazilian town in the area which was not coastal and, at the same time, it was only a few degrees below the parallel of the Potosi mines.
While the war against the Law Countries was taking place in Europe, in 1606 the Council of the Indies studied a proposal by Diogo de Quadros, provedor das minas de Sao Vicente, to develop the town of Sao Paulo and the Captaincy of Sao Vicente.
The proposal resulted from the need that existed, even then, to organize the work in the mines. The idea was to explore the silver. There were already miners in Brazil, but specialized technicians from Germany were also requested to maximise profits: “that two German officers with experience in gold mines be sent to him because Spaniards do not know as much about mining gold as the Germans”.
Since Sao Paulo’s population was very poor and could not pay the indigenous labor, the Provedor asked that what was being done in Peru also be done in Sao Paulo, that is, that African slaves be imported and that a similar system to that of the mita be adopted, having “some Indians come from the Captaincies of Rio de Janeiro and Espirito Santo so that they can work in shifts, like they do in Peru, with orders that their loads not be too heavy, that they not be forced to walk long distances and that they not be treated as slaves, and that the Indians necessary for this service be brought from the villages that the Jesuits are in charge of, making sure that they are treated well” .
Attached to the original document with Provedor Quadros’ proposal was the opinion of D. Francisco de Souza, Brazil’s former Governador geral. D. Francisco supported the Provedor’s petition. In his opinion, it was necessary to count on the indigenous labor, so he suggested that arrangements be made in order to solve the difficulties that were being created by Sao Paulo’s Camara. The former Governador geral’s plan was appealing to the Crown since, if it worked, the Crown would save a considerable sum of money from not having to buy African slaves. The plan comprised two parts and it was fashioned after the Peruvian system. On the one hand, they were to go to the interior and bring the Indians to Sao Paulo; on the other, they were to take advantage of the Indians that were already in Sao Paulo doing housework .
The Crown was completely in favour of D. Francisco’s plan, so D. Francisco de Souza was sent back to Brazil in 1609 with even greater powers. The colonial government and administration was to be divided into two areas, north and south, and D. Francisco would not only be the Governor of the South of Brazil, he would also be the Superintendent of the mines (not only those in the south, but all the mines in Brazil already discovered or to be discovered). Furthermore, two sets of laws were passed, one in 1609 and the other in 1611, concerning issues related to the Indians’ work and freedom. Everything was leading to Sao Paulo becoming another Potosi, just as the new Superintendent of the Brazilian mines had planned. It was just a matter of time and luck.

2.2. Plan for the economic integration of the south of America

One of the first consequences of the policy of the Spanish Crown at the beginning of the 17th century was that the Crown started to pay attention to the suggestions it was receiving regarding the integration of the entire Plata-Parana basin and the Potosi region.
In 1607, two events closely linked to the development of Sao Paulo and its inhabitants took place almost simultaneously. The Society of Jesus took measures to turn an itinerant system of teaching catechism with hardly any fruit into a systematically organized effort: the Guaira mission. In the same year, Hernandarias de Saavedra, Governor of Rio de la Plata, presented to the Council of the Indies two proposals which hearkened back to the old Spanish Crown desire to make the south into one region. Since 1604 the Governor of Rio de la Plata had wanted to open the way to the Uruguay River, Rio Grande and Santa Catarina, “where there are large numbers of Indians who we can bring to the knowledge of our holy Catholic faith, which is what matters most, and where we have also heard there are also large quantities of gold”, so he first proposed the establishment of a communication axis between Potosi and Santa Catarina and the foundation of several cities along the way: “…establishing a village on the Uruguay River the sea is very near and the port of Santa Catalina, which is said to be excellent, and establishing as well the village that I have told Your Majesty about, between Asuncion, Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Peru and Tucuman there is an excellent open path from Potosi to Santa Catalina, sea port…” .
There were many advantages to this plan and this road, and the Governor described them in a subsequent letter: the natural bay of the Santa Catarina harbor allowed a great number of ships with greater drafts to go in and out without any risks . This path was much easier to follow, shorter and could be travelled by carts; furthermore, “the navigation from the port of Santa Catarina to Spain is also short and less stormy than the one used now to transport silver”.
In addition to that, he proposed a closer relationship between the province of Guaira and the city of Sao Paulo. This relationship would consist of, on the one hand, reopening the road and establishing contact and, on the other, of putting the Jesuits in Sao Paulo in charge of indoctrinating the Indians.
One of the key locations east of Peru was Guayra, where the Crown, in view of the difficulties it had experienced trying to take possession of the territory, had let the Jesuits start their reducciones. D. Francisco de Souza and the Jesuits in Sao Paulo managed to attract the Guayra Indians to Sao Paulo. The Jesuits sent caciques who lived in Sao Paulo to encourage the Indians to go to Sao Paulo with them. This co-optation was not a Jesuit initiative only; it had the legal support of the Crown, which, through the son and successor of D. Francisco, who died in 1611, was trying to put into effect the plans that D. Francisco had drawn years before in order to bring the Indians from their home towns to where the mines were, as they had done in Peru. A letter from D. Antonio de Añasco, teniente general de gobernador and juez visitador, to the Governor of Buenos Aires dated 14-11-1611 stated that the chief of the Paulistas, Pedro Paes de Barros, was coming with thirty-two Portuguese men and many Tupi Indians and was bringing “a commission from the Governor of Sao Paulo, D. Luis de Souza”.
In the first years of the 17th century, the city of Sao Paulo was a laboratory to test and verify the consequences of a comprehensive policy coming not from Castile’s Crown, but from the Union of the Crowns. In fact, due to its location, Sao Paulo was the only city in Portugal’s Crown which, geographically speaking, naturally formed part of Castile’s sphere of influence. All the other cities (except for Santa Catarina and Cananeia) were quite far from the Indies of Castile Crown.
What followed was a great dispute between Spaniards and Paulistas. Once the borders had been eliminated, the Spanish were not able to keep the Indians within their territory. The Guayra Indians, in turn, attracted by what they heard about Sao Paulo and by the promises made by the Paulistas and the Tupi Indians, left the reducciones on the banks of the Parana river to go with them. In 1610, for example, more than 3000 Indians left and in 1612, according to the letter from Bartolome de Torales to the Governor of Rio de la Plata, thirteen caciques and more than 900 Indians left with paulista Sebastiao Prieto, “who lured them away with gifts”. For Torales, this was an obvious sign of the fact that the Jesuits were not fulfilling their duties and, since “the fathers of the Society of Jesus could not stop the Indians from leaving”, he was twice forced to go after them to take them back to the surroundings of the Piqueri river, where the Spanish Jesuits had their missions and the Indians could render their services to the Spaniards.
The problem for the Spanish population lay in the fact that, if the Indians left for Sao Paulo, the Spanish towns founded near the Jesuit reducciones would not have any labourers to perform the services to which they had the right according to the law regarding the encomiendas: “thus, it is the case that for two years the people of this town have been very worried and upset because the Portuguese have come and have taken more than three thousand men to Sao Paulo, causing great damage to this city”.
The Iberian union thus turned into the economic union of the south, connecting the Sao Paulo area with the Parana basin and moving Indians around from place to place, the way they did in Potosi. D. Luis de Souza, D. Francisco´s son, Governor “of Sao Paulo, Brazil” was the person in charge of making it work.

3. THE ROLE OF SAO PAULO IN THE SPANISH-DUTCH CONFLICT

3.1. Conflicts with the Low Countries during the Twelve Years’ Truce

During the Truce´s years, zeelandian settlers established around the mouths of Amazon an Orinoco rivers in 1613 , and, in 1615, Spilbergen attacked the Spanish Peru squadron . In both Spain and the Law Countries there were parties for and against the truce, but the Council of Portugal and some portuguese advisers of the King on colonial affairs “preferred war to an ‘improved’ truce” . Spanish Crown become to worry about the dutch movements in the brazilian coast.
Starting in 1615, the reports that the Council of the Indies received made it clear that Dutch policy was focusing on Brazil. On 24-05-1615, the President of the Council received a series of warnings regarding the Indies where he was informed that Dutch intentions were:
a) to establish population points in America and, more specifically, to explore the Amazon river ;
b) to authorize the Captain of the Vlissingas Navy and his son to found a settlement along the banks of the Viapoco to “go along the Amazon river” and, in order to do that, to start a company with “the burgomaster of Vlissingas, Juan de Moor, two men from the Admiralty, one of them named Angelo Lenne and the other Sir of Lodestyn, through whom I have recieved approval from Holland to establish said colony and populate it”;
c) to force Teodoro Claesvis, an Anabaptist from Leyden, to move the colony and its population from “the banks of Caena with everything he had there to the banks of Surenana, and most of them are with Indian women”; and
d) to send Juan Peeter to explore the Viapoco river, based on the reports from an Englishman who founded a settlement there, so that they could obtain reliable information about the existence of the “great town of Manoa, which is so famous” ;
The information they had in Lisbon and Madrid about that territory was that “there were pearls, and many signs of silver mines and other riches, and that the air is very haelthy; suffice it to say that in all Brazil there is no place comparable to this… . It was bordering territory, included in the limits marked by Tordesillas and, theoretically, the north belonged to the Spanish, the south to the Portuguese. The Dutch wanted to occupy this territory and use it as a wedge to break up the Iberian Union. They argued that “these regions had never been under effective Spanish or Portuguese control so that their own activity there was permitted under the truce terms” .
At the same time, to increase the tension, there was a report that a betrayal was being organized in Paraiba by the Captain of Paraiba himself, Francisco Ribeiro, “who has Jewish relatives in Holland” and who maintains correspondence with Dom Manuel, the son of the Prior of Crato, potential heir to the Portuguese Crown. The conspiracy was not without ramifications, as the report warned that a Franciscan friar, Frey Pedro da Anunciaçao, and a nephew of the Captain of Paraiba, Gabriel Ribeiro, were in the Netherlands to talk about the matter and organize a Dutch navy bound for Brazil.
Not only were the Dutch settling north of Ceara with plans to go in via the Amazon river, but, in addition to organizing a conspiracy with people loyal to the Portuguese heir, they also attempted attacks and contacts at different locations along the Brazilian coast, towards the south. Thus, for example, in Espirito Santo, the captaincy north of the one in Rio de Janeiro, the authorities were corrupted and fostered dealing with the Dutch; in other places, they traded wood (pau brasil) with the Indians without any problems, and every once in a while there were warnings that ships were being equipped in Armsterdam or Rotterdam, in a more or less organized fashion, to make incursions into the coast.
There were three main aspects to the defence strategy of the Crown: a) the inclusion of the Indians in the defence system, establishing that the population of the villages be comprised of Carijo Indians, from the village of Maruery, in Sao Paulo, “brought to the mines by D. Francisco de Souza through Father A. Santyago, from the Society”, with an Indian in charge as captain of the villages; b) the conquest of the north and defence of the coast, since, in Lisbon, a report from Captain Alexandre de Moura dated 24-10-1616 stressed the strategic importance of that enclave for the domination of the whole South Atlantic through the control of the triangle Lisbon-Seville-Guinea and the Indies: “…in order to take it away from the foreigners who are creating a new kingdom there, and it is a habitual stop for corsairs who recover there from their navigations and stay safely on the coast of Guinea, Brazil and the Indies, which is full of them” ; and c) the vigilation and control of the new Christians who were suspected of having contact with the dutchs, with an exhaustive list made and sent to the court .
It was no secret that, after the expulsion decree, many of the new Christians from Portugal had emigrated to Amsterdam, where they were creating a flourishing community. It was no secret either that several of these families of new Christians were settling in Brazil, in other locations in the Atlantic and even in Peru, where they went through Brazil, creating a booming commercial network. For the Crown, all these relationships were a real danger and directly threatened the foundations of the Empire.
The first measures against the Dutch incursions had been taken. The Twelve Years’ Truce was still, in theory, in effect and would not end until 1621. However, from then on the Dutch offensive would only increase, causing further difficulties for the Spanish with regard to their strategy for Brazil, and, more specifically, Sao Paulo.

3.2 Resumption of the war with the Law Countries and its consequences for the town of Sao Paulo
In a report sent to the Crown at the end of 1617 (“Relacion de lo que pareze por los ynformes que ha remitido la Casa de la Contratación de personas practicas sobre la población que los portugueses intentan hazer cinquenta leguas adentro del Rio Marañón”), information was included which abruptly changed the focus of the report: until this point the document dealt with the northern part of the country and, specifically, the Amazon river and what foreigners, especially the Dutch, meant in that area. However, Captain Domingo Gonsalez “says that the news he received a month before leaving Buenos Aires was that the Portuguese from Sao Paulo, which borders Paraguay, had come and plundered a village where “yerba” is picked, and after 20 days another piece of news arrived saying that people of war had gone out from Paraguay and they had fought and killed 150 Portuguese men, and the others had left”.
Why this change in Sao Paulo? How could control be lost to such a degree that, in a system mainly intended to foment mines worked by the Indians, a frontal attack on a Spanish city could be made? The answer to this question would take us away from our theme, and we would have to spend time analysing of the incursions of the bandeirantes paulistas in Paraguay; instead, we will concentrate on the relationship between these incursions and the Dutch and the Crown policy.
There came a moment, between the years 1612-1617, in which the Crown as well as the Portuguese of Sao Paulo realized that the hopes and dreams of mines in that region were little more than utopian. Thus the letter of Phillip III to D. Luis de Souza, son and successor of D. Francisco, dated 7-11-1617, is sufficiently eloquent regarding the disappointment of the Crown: “Taking into consideration that, throughout the years, and through the steps taken by D. Francisco de Souza, God rest his soul, and Salvador Correa de Sa by my order regarding the gold mines of that state, with very specific regulations and orders, they couldn’t be proven to exist, nor could any utility be derived from them”.45
In the same way, the Paulistas had already discovered that, though the indigenous workers could not be used in mines that did not exist, they were valuable, and it was much more profitable to have Indians available for work in Sao Paulo or in other places in Brazil, than to be concerned with hypothetical amounts of gold and silver that might possibly be discovered.
The report by Manuel Juan de Morales from Sao Paulo, although dated somewhat later (1636) lets us see what the intentions and interests of the Paulistas were–and allows us a glimpse of the answer to the question above. Manuel Juan had gone to Sao Paulo, according to his narration, in 1592 , together with D. Francisco de Souza, to seek gold. And as he himself affirmed, “in the past, the local inhabitants extracted some [gold])” but at the present time things have changed and “they do not want to go to the mines, and on the few occasions they do go and extract, they should not be expected to pay a fifth, and they sell an eighth of gold dust for seven tostones”. As we noted earlier, something happened between 1612, when there was still a determination to seek gold, and 1617, when the King himself expressed his disappointment. The explanation could lie with Morales: “Everything has stopped since they’ve tried to make Indians captive by bringing them in the way I told you…”. In other words, the Paulistas, also disappointed with the lack of mineral wealth, and with an exceptionally high population growth rate, realized that the Indians brought from the interior to Sao Paulo, even if they did not work in the mines, could be a source of riches—they could be sold or forced to work as slaves–with the added advantage of not having to pay the royal fifth on this “product”.
When the Twelve Years’ Truce ended, the Spanish Indies had the back door open by two paths which led precisely to the nerve center of the Empire: one to the north, by way of the Amazon, better-known and already frequented by the Dutch; the other by way of the south, which the Paulistas were using to reach the Jesuit missions. The goal of both paths was the rich mines of Potosi.
For this reason, the Dutch plan of attack could not be limited to the conquest of Bahia nor to that of Pernambuco . The Dutch had to have a much more aggressive plan of attack and a look at the chain of events is sufficient to come to the conclusion that a two-pronged attack on Potosí was intended, by way of the two paths that the Spanish themselves had opened, the Amazon and Sao Paulo.
On the Amazon, a year before the conquest of Pernambuco, word reached the Court by way of a letter dated 24-11 that “our people who went from Para looking for some Dutch ships that we heard had enter the Amazon river, and when they found them in an arm of the river called Tuquyn, the enemy had already entrenched themseleves with squads of soldiers in the interio”. When the Dutch dominated Pernambuco and, bit by bit, the whole northern coast, the entrance to the Amazon would be an open door.
In the south, the documents of the Archivo General de Indias , redacted mainly by the Jesuits and the Government Administration of Peru, Buenos Aires, and Asuncion, repeatedly affirm that since the entrance of Raposo Tavares’ Paulistas in 1628, Dutch and Jews had entered and explored the way that led to Potosi.
Bearing in mind that one of the defence guidelines of the Crown was that ignorance of the geography of those regions was one of its best defences, we can gain an idea of the effect on the Council of the Indies of information like the following: “since I have heard witnesses testify that they have seen Dutchmen in the town of San Pablo, I deem it necessary for the Governor to be in Villa Rica in order to close the way completely”. The same path that in 1553 the Governador-geral Tomé de Souza closed to Father Nóbrega and the Portuguese as a defence against the Castilians, and that, after the union, Spain had opened for economic motives, would now again have to be closed as a defence against the Dutch.
The information and descriptions that reached Spain in those days were unanimous in affirming that it was extremely easy to get to Peru from Sao Paulo: “I feel obliged to warn your Majesty that it is very easy for the Dutch and other enemies to enter this land and go on to Peru”. Not only because the road, by this time, was known and travellable, but because it lacked any means of defence
In the opinion of Provincial Trujillo, the conquest of Paraguay was one of the priorities of the Dutch, because once this region was in their power, they could reach Potos, either via Buenos Aires – “seizing it any earlier would not be very useful, and that is, I think, the reason why they have not taken it -or via Sao Paulo, because “if these men [the Dutch] establish a settlement in Villa Rica the enemies can also have easy access from Sao Paulo”.
This opinion was not exclusive to the Society of Jesus. The President of the Court of Charcas, don Juan de Lizarazu, sent a letter to the King on 10-8-1637 reporting “the great disadvantage that derives from the fact that they are opening their road to Peru the way they are, and that they have come less than eighty leagues from the town of San Lorenzo de la Varranca, in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, and I cannot see how it can be good for the way to Peru to be known by the Dutch and Jews, being all one and the same, since they are all friends and relatives”.
The Council of the Indies possessed a dossier of information about everything that had happened in the Jesuit missions since 1628 , the year Raposo Tavares invaded, but until 1638 no important resolutions were taken. The motive, apparently, was that the Count-Duke of Olivares had “many and important activities (…) [and] has not been able to do it [i.e., call a committee meeting]. At the same time, the Council of Portugal received information from the Proveedor da Fazenda do Estado do Maranhao, Jacome Raymundo de Noronha, who reported of imminent danger of invasion by the Dutch, who could arrive from Pernambuco in 15 days (the Dutch had conquered Pernambuco in 1630). He warned that all was poorly defended because the Governor had altered the defensive system, and the cannons and forts were in such a state that “if two Dutch ships came, they could seize and destroy it (…)”. Ceará had just been taken in the same year, “which only had 30 men and was taken by less than 60 Dutchmen, while all the defensors were killed or made prisoners”. Proveedor Noronha’s information is precise and clear. In his opinion, now that the exact course of the Amazon was known–the report is precise in detailing the distance in leagues from Lima, Cuzco, and the sierra of Potosi–and where its mouth was (because two Franciscans left Quito, and, losing their way on the river, ended up at its mouth in the Captaincy of Pará), it was absolutely necessary that Maranhao and Pará be defended because if they were lost, “it would not mean losing just those two captaincies but I understand we would run the risk of losing all America because they will be in the heart of her and they will be the owner of the most admirable and important rivers and navigations in the world are there”.
The Council saw that the situation was urgent. According to the information, the Dutch could penetrate at any moment by either of the two paths that led to Potosí through Brazil. And, even with the multiple problems facing the Crown simultaneously, the Council proposed to the King that “if the many activities of the Count-Duke do not allow him to be present in this meeting, Your Majesty could send two men of Your choice from the Council of Portugal to meet with two from this Council so that, having all the papers concerning this issue, we could ask Your majesty for your opinion”. The next meeting of the Council of the Indies dealing with the matter of the Paulistas would bring innovations in the laws, which, since 1611, had not been changed.

3.3 The change in legislation due to fear of the Dutch

At the same time that the Council of the Indies was trying to form a committee to find a way to deal with the Paulistas, the procurator of the Jesuit province of Paraguay, Father Antonio Ruiz de Montoya, arrived at the Court. Montoya wrote two pamphlets which produced an immediate effect on the Court.
The tone, the expression, and at times the narration of the facts by Montoya remind one of the text of the “Relacao feita pelos padres Justo Mancilla e Simao Masseta, quer ao rei, quer ao Provincial Francisco Vazques de Trujillo sobre os estragos causados pela grande Bandeira de Raposo Tavares as Missoes do Guairá nos anos 1628-29. Cidade do Salvador. Bahia de Todos os Santos. 10-X-29”. Mancilla and Masseta were two Jesuits who appealed to the Governor General of Brazil in Salvador to take measures against the excesses of the Paulista invasion. The measures taken were paliative and half-hearted, and the Governor himself seems to have profited from the sale of slaves by the men of Sao Paulo. Both of these men prepared reports which were sent to the King and the Provincial of the Society. The two documents by Montoya were closely linked to those of his fellow Jesuits.
Of the several evils caused by the Paulistas, in Montoya’s view, the one that “is cause for reflection” was the grave danger implied by the fact that new Christians were helping the Dutch–who by this time had a solid base in Pernambuco–and could help them to reach Peru: “…that Sao Paulo is private property, but a large part of it is populated by bandits and criminals from all of Brazil, and that many of them are new Christians who have become indomitable, not knowing either the divine or the human Majesty, being suspect in the faith by their behaviour and by communicating with the Dutch heretics, and we can fear that they will let the Dutch enter and open the way towards the provinces of Peru, putting them in evident danger, especially after said rebels have already set foot in Brazil” .
To give greater weight to his arguments, Montoya appealed to the testimony of the Governor of Paraguay who, by letter, had already shown his concern for a possible Dutch invasion, helped by the incursions of the Paulistas, and, moreover, warned of the danger if Paulistas and Dutchmen should make friends with the Indians of the region: “… and it can be feared that they might get to that town, because the Governor of Paraguay warns that the people from Sao Paulo are 80 leagues from Chiriguana, so if they join forces (which could be easily done by attracting them with flattery and freedom of conscience), with their intervention it will be easy for the Dutch to take hold of that kingdom”.
For Montoya, the people of Sao Paulo were no longer trustworthy, because as a result of the development policy of the last thirty years the city had experienced considerable population growth, so much so that it had grown from 400 to 1,500 inhabitants. Father Montoya warned the Crown that all this had clearly “stirred up feelings in those parts, putting the West Indies at risk, persistently desiring to take them from the Crown of Castile and hand them over to the rebel Dutch”.
At the end of his report, Montoya again struck just the right chord to catch the attention of the Count-Duke (I have put the Jesuit’s suggestion to the left below and to
the right the Crown’s legal text):

“The fifth and last point, on which the fulfilment of everything that has been said so far depends, as well as the closing of Peru (which is very flat) is that somebody trustworthy and zealous for God’s work be sent from here (…) In doing so, two objectives will be achieved. First, Your Majesty will have a clear conscience, having freed so many free people from such captivity, and sent them back to their land. Second, you will secure Peru, which the enemies of Christ are trying to hand over to rebels; as Brazil and Peru are neighbouring territories and there is an open road, it is very easy to enter the imperial town of Potosi, from where the people from Sao Paulo have already taken Indians captive. As eye witnesses of that road, we will talk about it and clearly demonstrate that it exists.
As the Lord is our witness this is our opinion in the Lord, and we think it is the answer to what we have been asked (…) Our intention is not to cause death or blood-shed, but to sincerely tell the truth, and so we ask and beg of all the people and justices involved in executing what Your Majesty and the Royal Council of the Indies might order.
Antonio Ruiz
de Montoya “That it be promulgated by the Crown of Portugal that the Portuguese from Brazil cannot go over the demarcation line that exists between that Crown and the Crown of Castile, nor can they enter Castilian territory to reduce, hire or take Indians in any way nor for any reason whatsoever on pain of death or loss of possessions; the Council of the Indies will demand the same thing of our gentlemen. No one shall be able to seek or “reduce” Indians beyond the limits of the Crown of Portugal in all Brazil without specific and express written authorization from the Governor; and the Governor shall only give it in very specific circumstances, being fully aware of the consequences and to very trustworthy people (…) And since these incursions into the demarcations of the kingdom of Castile coming close to Peru are motives for concern, I ask you to make sure that these incursions are prevented and the future and that the people who have already entered be expelled”.
Dated in Madrid, on 16 September 1639. I, the King (…)

The years 1637-8 seemed, for Philip IV and Olivares, very hopefull. Olivares waited good news from the movements, by land and sea, against the Dutch .The Spanish Crown was planning an offensive attack and, according to the results, to offer an “aceptable truce”. Olivares wanted to offer Breda and 3 or 4 million guilders in exchange for the Dutch zone of Brazil .
The negotiations for peace or for a truce were not successfull. In 1639, the Spanish Crown organized an “armada”, in Lisbon and in La Coruña, with two simultaneous aims: recovering northern Brazil and destroying the dutch navy in the Law Countries . The war operations were a disaster for Spain.
When Montoya arrived Madrid with his pamphlets, the Spanish Monarchy “ceased to be the formidable force and imposing entity that it had been in Europe and the wider world for so long” . This was the situation when Father Montoya warned of the danger–not only to the faith but, mainly, to the unity of the Empire—of the Dutch arrival in Potosi, helped by new Christians, by means of “a wide-open, very easily accessible path”.
The Crown, which had given no other law to deal with the Indian affair since 1611, and which, as a reading of the law shows, was interested in opening the sertao and the way to Peru, certain of finding silver and gold mines, issued the law of 1639 which closed the path between Sao Paulo and Peru, and named a bishop, a governor, and an Inquisition tribunal in Rio de Janeiro to control the south of the country and, principally, Sao Paulo and the port of Sao Vicente. The law did not enter into effect for the simple reason that, one year later, in the midst of the general crisis facing the Crown, it had to choose between maintaining the union with the Catalans or the Portuguese, for both began a struggle for independence. Portugal seceded at the end of 1640. The taking of Pernambuco and northern Brazil (to aggravate the situation the Netherlands took Angola in the same year) was now a subject to be broached with Portugal. And, to Spanish eyes, the two countries were dangerous enemies at her back.
The danger was real and the Dutch exploited the situation with a maritime attack. In 1642 a Dutch fleet set sail for Pernambuco, where it received help from Count Maurice of Nassau, Governor of the Dutch possessions in Brazil and, in 1643, launched an attack on Valdivia in Chile. The Spanish counterattack forced the Dutch to retire to Brazil, but did not end the danger because, among other things, the Dutch reached an agreement with Portugal that permitted to contrive new plans of attack, using as bases not only the island of Madeira, but Sao Vicente and Sao Paulo as well.
The change in policy and relations between Portugal and the Law Countries helped, to a degree, to diminish the danger that the Dutch represented. Portugal began a struggle against the Dutch who, in 1653, were expelled from Brazilian territory. After that, the Paulistas no longer represented a real menace to the Empire. Their “wars” were of a shorter and more immediate scope, directed at the Jesuit missions in the south of the country and the outskirts of Santa Cruz de la Sierra. The Crown would arm the mission Indians and use them to shortly resolve the problem of the Portuguese aggressions originating in Sao Paulo. By the end of the XVII century the discovery of the longed-for mines, not along the Peru Road, but more towards the northwest, in what came to be called Minas Gerais, would divert the interest of the Paulistas, who would gradually forget Peru. The Crown, for its part, would have to renounce its old dream, a dream motivated by the desire to find more silver mines and which had motivated every possible effort to establish an open route between Potosi and Sao Paulo. A dream that came close to becoming a nightmare, and an open route that, before the separation of the two Crowns, had to be closed to prevent the Dutch from arriving at the gates of Potosi, the center vital to the Spanish Indies and important to the whole Empire.

ABBREVIATIONS

ABNRJ Anais da Biblioteca Nacional do Rio de Janeiro
AMP Anais do Museu Paulista
AGI Archivo General de Indias, Sevilla
AGS Archivo General de Simancas

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