The Expansion of tolerance

Stuart B. Schwartz, in his contribution, emphasizes that religious toleration
in Dutch Brazil was not exclusively the domain of the Dutch. By using
Iberian Inquisitorial documents, he stresses the widespread approval of
tolerance at grassroots level, with Spanish and Portuguese planters, soldiers,
and even some of the clergy accepting an individual’s preference to follow
his own path to salvation. This liberal attitude towards the individual
experience of religion was transferred to Portuguese Brazil, resulting in
interconfessional friendships and even marriages in the period when the
Dutch controlled the colony. The importance of sugar for the prosperity
of Pernambuco required constant interaction between the Dutch, the
Portuguese, and the native population, and this co-operation rather than
their various backgrounds determined their identities. Even Johan Maurits,
himself a zealous Calvinist, had close connections with several Catholic
priests.
Both articles presented here were first delivered as papers at the ‘Dutch
Brazil’ symposium held in June 2004 at the Universiteit van Amsterdam,
in commemoration of both the fourth centenary of Johan Maurits’s birth,
and the 350th anniversary of the end of Dutch rule in Brazil. Both authors
extensively revised their papers for publication. The conference was
organised by the Centre for Latin American Research and Documentation
(CEDLA) and the Amsterdam Centre for the Study of the Golden Age, and
their efforts were once again combined to prepare this publication.
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