1647 Joan Blaeu Plan of Mauritiopolis and Recife, Brazil

Establishing Dutch Territorial Claims in Brazil.

This is Joan Blaeu and Georg Marcgrave's 1647 map of the environs of Mauritiopolis and Recife, the main Dutch colonial foothold in Brazil during the impactful tenure of Dutch Governor Johan Maurits van Nassau-Siegen (1604 - 1679). The map was issued to promote Maurits' leadership and incontrovertible Dutch claims in the region.

A Closer Look

The map frames the mouth of the Rio Capibaribe and its surrounding forests and wetlands; to the east, a thread of barrier islands protects the coastline from the open sea. Along the inner barrier islands can be seen a complex of Dutch forts, linked by causeways, and centered on the walled cities of Recife and Mauritiopolis. Inland, amidst a confusion of twisting rivers and swamps, an array of settlements and villas is marked and labeled.

Mauritiopolis was established by the Dutch under the command of Johan Mauritz in 1637 as part of the West India Company's efforts to wrest the sugar-producing colony from the Portuguese. Following the capture of Pernambuco and Olinda by Hendrick Corneliszoon Loncq, the Dutch were calling their new possession Nieuw Holland - in spite of continued Portuguese resistance, leading to mutual scorched-earth campaigns which crippled sugar production for years. Dutch governance of the colony passed to Johan Maurits van Nassau-Siegen in 1637. Rather than the capture and use of Portuguese strongholds, his strategy was to raze the works of the Portuguese and to construct instead settlements designed to capitalize on Dutch strengths, such as their famed facility with sea-level architecture and fortifications. The structures presented in the map dramatically highlight that strategy. The evidence of Dutch development in the area was not a frivolous boast: they were presented as a legal statement of possession by the Dutch, replacing the Portuguese claims.

Experts on Hand

Mauritz brought with him an entourage of artists, such as the painter Frans Post, and naturalist-mathematician Georg Marcgrave. The design of the city is sometimes credited to Post, as indeed is the engraving itself. The mathematician Marcgrave is the better candidate for the mapping of the broader area, but Elizabeth Sutton cites WIC surveyor Cornelis Golijath as having produced the plan of Mauritiopolis presented here, and it is possible that he was the ultimate author of the map. The view reflects the late 1630s, when the Dutch maintained the upper hand in Brazil. But the 1640s saw a resurgence of Portuguese influence, and following the WIC's removal of Mauritz in 1644, the Dutch in Brazil collapsed under Portuguese offensives. After their surrender in January of 1654, the Dutch no longer held territory in Brazil.

Publication History and Census

This view was engraved by the Blaeu firm for inclusion in Caspar Barlei's Rerum Octennium in Brasilia, which Blaeu published in 1647. The book is well represented in institutional collections. While we see only three listings of the separate map in OCLC, it does appear on the market from time to time.

Cartographers

Joan (Johannes) Blaeu (September 23, 1596 - December 21, 1673) was a Dutch cartographer active in the 17th century. Joan was the son of Willem Janszoon Blaeu, founder of the Blaeu firm. Like his father Willem, Johannes was born in Alkmaar, North Holland. He studied Law, attaining a doctorate, before moving to Amsterdam to join the family mapmaking business. In 1633, Willem arranged for Johannes to take over Hessel Gerritsz's position as the official chartmaker of the Dutch East India Company, although little is known of his work for that organization, which was by contract and oath secretive. What is known is his work supplying the fabulously wealthy VOC with charts was exceedingly profitable. Where other cartographers often fell into financial ruin, the Blaeu firm thrived. It was most likely those profits that allowed the firm to publish the Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, sive, Atlas Novus, their most significant and best-known publication. When Willem Blaeu died in 1638, Johannes, along with his brother Cornelius Blaeu (1616 - 1648) took over the management of the Blaeu firm. In 1662, Joan and Cornelius produced a vastly expanded and updated work, the Atlas Maior, whose handful of editions ranged from 9 to an astonishing 12 volumes. Under the brothers' capable management, the firm continued to prosper until the 1672 Great Amsterdam Fire destroyed their offices and most of their printing plates. Johannes Blaeu, witnessing the destruction of his life's work, died in despondence the following year. He is buried in the Dutch Reformist cemetery of Westerkerk. Johannes Blaeu was survived by his son, also Johannes but commonly called Joan II, who inherited the family's VOC contract, for whom he compiled maps until 1712.   Further Details...

Georg Marcgrave (Georg Marggraf; September 20, 1610 – August 1644) was a German naturalist, astronomer, and surveyor. His work was included posthumously in Willem Piso's Historia Naturalis Brasiliae, a foundational work in the natural history of Brazil. He was born in Liebstadt near Dresden. Little is known of his early years, but his later studies of medicine, botany, mathematics, and astronomy took him as far afield as the Universities of Leipzig, Basel, and Leiden. He left academia for adventure, joining the Dutch expedition to Brazil in 1637, for which he was named astronomer. Once there, he entered the service of Governor (1604 - 1679) and traveled throughout Dutch territories in Brazil, undertaking studies in his various fields; for our purposes, the most relevant were his geographical observations and maps, which would inform much of the Dutch cartography of the region. He left Brazil in 1643 for São Paulo de Loanda, in Africa, where he died of fever in 1644. His notes and drawings were brought back to Europe, where their posthumous acceptance would impact both geographical and naturalist works.   Further Details...

Cornelis Bastiaensz Goliath (1617 - Fall 1660) was a Dutch cartographer, surveyor, and colonial administrator active in the first half of the 17th century. Goliath was born in Schiedam, South Holland, the eldest of 5 children of sea captain and herring fisherman Bastiaen Jacobsz and Maertgen Cornelisdr. His father joined the WIC as captain of the Neptunis and participated in the conquest of Recife, Brazil. It is likely that Cornelius was on this voyage, where he may have picked up some cartographic trains from the cartographer and fellow passenger Johannes van Walbeeck. Both father and son settled in Brazil in 1634, where despite being just 17, he worked as a cartographer under Admiral Johan Cornelisz Lichthart. In 1635, after the Dutch conquest of Porto Calvo, he was awarded with the position of commis (Customs Officer). When the Portuguese retook Porto Calvo later in the same year, Cornelius' father died in the combat and Cornelius himself was taken prisoner to San Salvador, Portuguese capital in Brazil, then to Lisbon, then released to the Netherlands. He returned to Brazil in 1637 on a reconnaissance mission (read spy) anticipating the captain of Johan Maurits to conquer San Salvador. During this map he composed at least two maps, which certainly must have been a great help to the planned attack, which nonetheless failed. Cornelius remained in Brazil, establishing himself at the cartographic institution of Recife. Over the subsequent two years, he produced detailed maps of most parts of Dutch Brazil. Also from this period a hydrographic manuscript atlas survives in the Netherlands National Archives. He attempted to return to the Netherlands in 1641, but the ship was captured by pirates between Madeira and Lisbon and Cornellius is among those taken to Algeria's as a prisoner and sold into slavery. Despite being a slave, he manages to produce an excellent map of Algiers, which in 1642 is set to Johan Maurits. Goliath is eventually released and is back in Schiedam in 1643. A year later, he marries Margareta Droochbroots in Rotterdam. By this time, he has become a sea captain with his own ship, de Oranjeboom, which makes at least one voyage to Recife, returning with a cargo of sugar and wood. Perhaps exhausted after such an adventurous life ,he returns to the Netherlands to settle in 1648 to settle on the Zeeland island of Walcheren. There is services as a bailiff and secretary in Oostkapelle, and works on the side as an engineer. Still, excitement would follow him. ON a trip to Middleburg in 1656 two men attempted to murder him, though he manages to fight them off with his rapier, killing one, and landing himself in legal trouble for doing so. Figuring he better leave town for a while, he volunteers for an administrative position in the colony of Essequibo (Guyana), which had been recently taken over by the cities of Middelburg, Vlissingen, and Veere. He seems happy there, and produced several maps, but in the fall of 1660, word reached Holland that he died in Cumana, near the mouth of the Orinoco.   Further Details...

Source

Barlei, Casparis, Rerum Octennium in Brasilia ... Historia, (Amsterdam: Blaeu) 1647.    

Condition

Excellent. Trimmed to close to neatline, but no loss.

References

OCLC 164925175.