The monarchies of the Iberian Peninsula—Spain and Portugal—formed large multicontinental empires in the 16th century, which lasted until the beginning of the 19th, when independence movements divided them into various nations in the Americas. The functioning of these political constructs depended to a great extent on the capacity to create channels of communication that allowed information to be frequently and reliably transmitted and received. In turn, the progressive development of information policies was linked to the strengthening of the powers of monarchs and those close to them, which implies that one of the elements affirming the state during the modern era was its capacity to administer communication among its various agents. This was made concrete through the development of diplomacy and intelligence systems, including espionage. More than marginal and isolated actions, the use of spies and infiltrated informers in rival states was a recurrent instrument throughout the period and counted on the knowledge and agreement of the Iberian kings and their ministers. Although it is a research field that is still little visited, there has been a growth in research on the modern period, showing that societies were thirsty for information and looked for it to calculate ways of defending and strengthening the Portuguese and Spanish kingdoms.
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Spies and Espionage in the Iberian Atlantic
Adriano Comissoli
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The Insurrection of Pernambuco and the Surrender of the Dutch in Brazil (1645–1654)
Hugo André Flores Fernandes Araújo
The Dutch West Indies Company (WIC) occupied the heart of Brazil’s sugar economy between 1630 and 1654, benefiting from the lucrative Atlantic trade based on African slave labor. The changes that occurred with the end of the Iberian Union, with D. João IV acclaimed king of Portugal in 1640 and the signing of a truce with the United Provinces in 1641, created a favorable scenario for the organization of a plan to retake the Portuguese territories. The Luso-Brazilians of the northern captaincies were in debt, and, discontented with the WIC’s administration, they took advantage of the changes to articulate a revolt to expel the Dutch from Brazil.
This movement was designed to be a definitive strike against the WIC, seeking to retake the occupied territories in a few months. However, adverse factors turned the revolt into a war that lasted almost nine years. The Luso-Brazilian forces that began the revolt were not made up of professional soldiers, and the men were often poorly equipped and suffered from a lack of supplies. The revolt had the veiled support of the general government of Brazil and the Portuguese king, who provided troops, ammunition, and money that were used to maintain the army and bribe Dutch officers. The wars that took place on both shores of the Atlantic during this period directly influenced the course of the revolt. The Portuguese reconquest of Angola in 1648 was a heavy blow to the main source of slaves that the WIC used in Brazil, while the defeats suffered during the First Anglo-Dutch War (1652–1654) weakened the ability of the Dutch to maintain maritime control in northeast Brazil. The deterioration caused by the prolonged war, the successive defeats, and the weak support of the WIC and the United Provinces to their forces in Brazil led the Dutch to capitulate in 1654, in the face of a naval blockade carried out by the fleet of the General Brazil Company.
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War, Military Forces, and Society in Colonial Brazil
Miguel Dantas da Cruz
War played a crucial role in the political and administrative development of colonial Brazil. The adoption of different government solutions, from the initial naval expeditions and proprietary captaincies to the establishment of a general government, were, in part, a response to the military challenges the Portuguese faced in the New World. In the 17th century, the leading municipalities in Brazil expanded their political prominence and reinforced their autonomy precisely when they assumed the commitment to feed the troops and pay for the army’s wages.
War and military conflicts also played an important role in the formation of the colonial society in Brazil. There was a natural overlay between the hierarchical structure of the military institutions created in, or transplanted to, the colony and the hierarchical society the Portuguese established in America. The armed forces consolidated the social status of local elites; while they provided opportunities for the more marginalized groups of blacks, mixed-race, and Indians—active participants in the defense of Brazil from the outset—they also helped colonial administrators organize society along racial lines.
Regulars, militias, ordenanças, and other military units filled different functions in the territory. They often took part in different military operations in a territory that was hardly suitable for large-scale operations, prolonged siege warfare, or coordinated deployment of mass infantry formations. In Brazil, similarly to other colonies in America, a distinct kind of warfare emerged, marked by a synthesis of European, Indian, and African military knowledges. It was called Guerra Brasílica, and it was both admired for its effectiveness and disparaged for not fitting nicely in traditional European military orthodoxies and for being undisciplined and supposedly “uncivilized.” The negative imageries attached to military campaigns in Brazil persisted in the minds of colonial administrators for a long time, underpinning the territory’s undeserving military status (when compared with India and North Africa)—a status that the colony seldom escaped.
