Fort Orange
is situated 60 km north of Recife (Pernambuco). In this area starting in 1516 the
Portuguese founded a trading factory (feitoria). Itamaracá was one of the captaincy of
Portuguese Brazil, it was a small one, but prosperous, sugar-planting was well
established, it also produced tobacco, brazilwood and flax.
The Brazilan North East was the more rich part of the Portuguese
colony of Brazil, it was the main objective of the Dutch West India Company (WIC) when it
decided to attack the Portuguese possession in Latin America. Recife and Olinda were the
main Portuguese settlements in Pernambuco.
A Dutch fleet of 67 ships, 1170 guns and 7000
men under Hendrick Corneliszoon Loncq arrived at Pernambuco on February 1630 and soon they
attacked the Portuguese defenses. By the evening of 16 February 1630 the Dutch were in
possession of Olinda;
by the 3rd of March all Portuguese resistance was over and the Dutch were
masters of Recife,
Olinda and the island of Antonio Vaz.
In the following year, in 1631, the Dutch decided to
occupy also the Island of Itamaracá. This attempt was not crowned by success, the Dutch
were repelled, but returning to Recife the Lieutenant Colonel Steyen Callenfels determined
that a fort with 33 cannons had to be constructed near the Canal of Santa Cruz, that
separates the island from the continent, this was the main way of access to the productive
areas. To dominate the entrance of the Canal meant to control the maritime access to the
rich interior. In May 1631, the Dutch built a fort named
Oranje, on a little island off the southern tip of Itamaracá, at the southern
entrance of the Santa Cruz canal, this fort was garrisoned by 366 men under the command of
the Polish captain Crestofle d'Artischau Arciszewski. The original project of the fort was
of the Dutch engineer Pieter Van Bueren. The first Dutch fort was initially a earth-wooden
one, a square form with 4 bastions at its corners.
Fort Oranje, Barleus.
In June
1633 the whole island of Itamaracá was occupied by Sigismund von Schoppe, he gave his
name to the small settlement the Dutch founded there. On 12 January 1640, on the waters
near Itamaracá , a Spanish-Portuguese fleet under the command of Dom Fernão de
Mascarenhas, Conde da Torre, consisting of 87 ships and about 5000 men had a series of
fights against a Dutch fleet formed by 41 ships and 2800 men and commanded by admiral
Loos. The fight lasting 5 days where a great deal of gunpowder was used by both
sides. The battle ended without a decisive victory, in fact the Dutch lost two ships (one
sunk and one driven ashore), moreover admiral Loos was killed in the first day of fight.
On the Iberian side a big ship was lost and also 9-10 small vessels. Strategically the
advantage was with the Dutch.
Fort Oranje, Barleus.
During the
Johan Maurits of Nassau government in Brazil, the "moradores" of Itamaracá
elected representatives for a legislative assembly that took place in Recife from 27
August to 4 September 1640.
During the revolt that
had been in the year 1645, the Dutch were able to repulse a Portuguese attack against the
island of Itamaracá that was done in September 1645 (20-24 September).
In 1649 the fort was rebuilt of stone.
When Recife surrendered to the Portuguese forces, in
January 1654, the Capitulation of Taborda included also the places as Itamaracá
(Paraíba, Rio Grande do Norte, Fernando de Noronha
and Ceará) that still were in Dutch hands. The news of the Dutch surrender reached the
garrison of fort Oranje in Itamaracá with an escaping Dutch official, Claes
Claeszoon, the garrison without waiting to be attacked embarked in what shipping was
available and fled to the West Indies.
Reoccupied by the Portuguese the fort was renamed
Fortaleza de Santa Cruz.
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