The Expansion of tolerance

Catholics in the Dutch zone with the bishop of Bahia, the nearest major
stronghold in the Portuguese zone of Brazil; the consequence of which was
to deny the Catholic community under the Dutch all access to episcopal
guidance and authority in social as in theological matters, and heighten the
effect of the lack of Catholic higher education and a Catholic press. 7 The one
major change in the picture initiated by Johan Maurits after arriving in the
colony was his permitting the presence, most of the time at any rate, of
the mendicant orders in New Holland, retaining only the ban on the Jesuits,
though even this was not consistently adhered to, being interrupted in 1639
when a number of Carmelites, Benedictines, and Franciscans were rounded
up on grounds of the threat to security, confined for a time to Fort Oranje
on the off-shore island of Itamaracá, and then deported to the Caribbean.
Toleration of the Catholic faith, then, was only partial, especially with
regard to denying access to the Catholic hierarchy outside Dutch Brazil.
Then, in addition, one must bear in mind that there was no provision under
the rules of 1629, and no formal toleration was ever instituted for the
practice of the Lutheran faith, despite the large number of Lutheran soldiers
and sailors in the Company’s service in Brazil as in its other conquests.
Nor was there any provision for tolerating Dutch Protestants who were
Frans Post, Franciscan cloister in Brazil (after 1660). The buildings of the regular clergy
remained a feature in the landscape of Dutch Brazil.
21