The influential and important Dutch West India Company had its headquarters in Recife. An important aspect of this colonization and one which will be embroidered on is that the Dutch also brought artists and scientists to Brazil. However, in 1649 the Portuguese won an important victory against the Dutch at the Battle of Guararapes. The Dutch eventually left Brazil in 1654 the colonized land became the property of the Portugal. 5.

             The history and reasons for the Dutch colonization of Brazil and the impact that it had on that country are best understood against the background of the economic status of Holland and the particular organizational skill and planning abilities that the Dutch showed. In the Seventeenth Century Holland was well organized in economic terms. They were also well aware of the economic wealth and trade viability of Brazil. A remark in the " dialogos da Grandezza do Brasil " ( 1618) states that the whole Brazil possesses more wealth than India. 6 The lucrative sugar plantations of Pernambuco and Bahia were central factors in the decision of the Dutch to invade Brazil in the 17th Century. 7 .

             The Dutch expanded on their success in the Baltic trade and extended their sphere of influence. This expansion was to continue and by the Seventeenth Century the Dutch set their sites on the American markets. With these goals in mind they created a powerful new company - the Dutch West India Company which was established in 1621. The ostensible reason for the establishment of the company was to trade with Brazil and the South American countries; yet there was also the underlying motivation to establish a powerful international trading monopoly. The Brazilian prospects of trade in sugar, dye wood and salt were extremely inviting to the Dutch merchants. .

             An important factor leading to the Dutch decision to invade Brazil was that Dutch enterprise was ". trapped in a vice of Iberian power, bureaucracy, and trade restrictions.