frequent successes in plundering Portuguese ships, the Dutch began to rethink the extent of their commitment to holding Brazil The Dutch regime in Brazil was governed by Johan Maurits van Nassau-Siegen (1637–44), who attempted to diversify agricultural production, extend the sugar zones, and institute mechanisms of nominal self-rule among the colony’s European inhabitants, including the Portuguese In late 1640, Portugal revolted against Spanish domination, a few months after a Catalan revolt prompted largely by intensifying fiscal demands of Madrid In December 1640, the Portuguese rebels threw off Spain’s rule and named the duke of Braganza as King João IV In June 1641 the newly independent Portuguese Crown and the Netherlands signed a 10-year truce, though through the 1640s the Dutch continued to assault and chip away at Portuguese power in the Americas By the late 1640s, as the costs of holding Dutch Portugal continued to rise, the Dutch leadership decided to cut the country’s losses and withdraw its forces, a withdrawal completed in 1654 During the period of Dutch rule in northeast Brazil, the WIC imported an estimated 26,000 African slaves After their withdrawal from Brazil, the Dutch remained a major player in the transatlantic slave trade Elsewhere in the Americas, the Dutch also decided to cut their losses rather than pour more blood and treasure into enterprises they accurately calculated they were bound to lose In the Treaty of Breda of 1667, the Dutch relinquished New Amsterdam to the English (renamed New York) but gained formal title to Suriname on the north coast of South America, as well as several islands in the Lesser Antilles, including Curaỗao, St Eustatius, Saba, and St Maarten, the latter island shared with the French Dutch sugar production in Suriname, their largest holding in the Americas, never approached that of the other sugar producing zones of the circum-Caribbean, a consequence of low Dutch population and the high cost of maintaining a viable sugar colony By 1700, there were approximately 8,000 African slaves in Suriname, a substantial proportion of whom escaped from the sugar plantations into the interior, where they established Maroon societies and mixed with the region’s indigenous inhabitants By the late 1720s, growing numbers of these “Bush Negroes” prompted the Dutch colonial state to launch a series of assaults on the interior, which nonetheless failed to defeat or dislodge the Maroon communities In 1749, the Dutch concluded a treaty of peace with a Bush Negro leader, one Captain Adoe, though a major slave uprising rocked the colony in 1763, while hostilities between Dutch planters and Dutch in South Africa 115 runaway slave communities continued through the rest of the 18th century See also sugarcane plantations in the Americas Further reading: Bakewell, Peter A History of Latin America London: Blackwell, 1997; Blackburn, Robin The Making of New World Slavery: From the Baroque to the Modern, 1492–1800 London: Verso, 1997 Michael J Schroeder Dutch in South Africa The year 1652 marks the beginning of the Cape Colony, which started with the founding of Cape Town by Dutch commander Jan van Riebeeck, who worked for the Dutch East India Company, known in Dutch as the Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC) The colony was situated halfway between the so-called Dutch East Indies and the Dutch West Indies The early 16th century saw the start of many European nations, such as Spain and Portugal, pursuing the sea route rather than the land route to India and establishing a colonial global empire outside continental Europe From the late 16th century, the Netherlands was a preeminent naval power The Dutch founded the VOC trading company as early as 1602 They reigned supreme at sea, and dominated global commerce by the second half of the 17th century This epoch coincides with the cultural flowering known as the Dutch golden age with such figures as the philosopher Baruch de Spinoza, the mathematician and physicist Christiaan Huygens, and the painter Johannes Vermeer In 1647, while exploring a route to India, a ship named Nieuwe Haerlem ran aground in Table Bay The survivors, including possibly the captain, Leendert Janszen, with some crew remained onshore for about a year to look after the shipment Only 12 months later, a Dutch ship returned Janszen and his crew to Europe Upon disembarking in Holland, Janszen wrote a feasibility report called Remonstrantie to the Council of Seventeen of the Dutch East India Company, in which he recommends the founding of a station where ships can resupply before sailing onto India Jan Anthoniszoon van Riebeeck was later appointed by the VOC to establish the station and eventually founded Cape Town in 1652, which soon opened South Africa to white settlement The town’s purpose was “to provide fresh water, fruit, vegetables, and meat for passing ships en route to India as well as build a hospital for ill sailors.” The development of Cape Town was slow at first, owing