The Expansion of tolerance

Frans Post, Engraving of Dutch ships before the city of Sao Paolo in Luanda on the
African coast, published in Barlaeus’s Rerum per octennium in Brasilia (Amsterdam 1647).
The Dutch muscled their way into the slave trade in Luanda in 1641 at the expense of the
Portuguese, but could only maintain their favourable position until 1648.
great spectacle in Recife with horse races and equestrian competitions in
which Portuguese and Dutch gentlemen paraded together and competed for
the cheers and favors of the ladies as well as for various prizes. There were
theatrical performances, dinners, toasts, and drinking bouts to mark the new
political alliance. 32 While rivalry and competition between Portuguese and
Dutch or Catholic and Protestant participants in these events lay just below
the surface, politics overcame, at least momentarily, old animosities.
The era of goodwill did not last long. Dutch refusal to abandon the
Brazilian colony, the Dutch attack on Luanda in 1641, the withdrawal of
Johan Maurits and new demands on the West India Company’s debtors, all
contributed to increasing hostility between the Portuguese and the Dutch
which grew from primarily political and economic considerations. Johan
Maurits, however, remained an example of what was possible to achieve by
toleration, and because of that, he was a danger. A multi-confessional society
was a threat. Doña Margarida, the Vicereine of Portugal, warned in 1639 that
the faith of the settlers and converted Indians of Brazil was imperilled by
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