Dutch sieges of Mozambique

The island of Mozambique was, for a short time, a preferred target for the Dutch East India Company, or V.O.C., in its war effort against the Portuguese in Asia. Almost immediately after its foundation, in 1602, the Company, backed by the Dutch state, adopted a strongly bellicose stance against the Portuguese and the Spanish, which represented an important change from the position of the smaller companies that preceded it, and which, formally at least, were only authorized to use force in self-defence. Between 1602 and 1609 - when a twelve-year truce between Spain and the Dutch Republic was signed, leading to a very brief cessation of hostilities between Dutch and Iberians in Asia - the V.O.C. sent five major fleets East. The radicalization of the stance against the Iberians dates from the second of these fleets, which put to sea at the end of 1603, under the command of Steven van der Hagen, who was explicitly ordered to inflict all the damage he could to Portuguese and Spanish interests in Asia. His prescribed route was intended to serve this purpose exactly: instead of sailing directly to the Indonesian Archipelago, as usual, he was instructed to follow the traditional Portuguese route to Goa, stopping in the way at Mozambique Island, the regular port of call for outward-bound Portuguese Indiamen; it was correctly assumed that, by doing this, he would meet with plenty of Portuguese ships to attack. During the stay of the fleet at Mozambique, some ships were indeed captured, but nothing was attempted against the Portuguese fortress in the two cases without success. The fleets of Paulus Van Caerden, in 1607, and of Pieter Willemsz Verhoeff, in 1608, followed the same route of that of Van der Hagen, and shared the same aggressive intents. Unlike van der Hagen, however, both Van Caerden and Verhoeff, when in Mozambique, decided to lay siege to the fortress. It should be noted that, in both cases, it was their personal decision, for the V.O.C. authorities in the Netherlands never expressed any interest in the conquest of the island. Also, in both cases the adopted method of attack was identical: the Dutch attempted do dug up a covered trench that would allow them to approach the walls of the fortress in order to mine them with explosives strong enough to breach them. In 1607, as in 1608, the Portuguese succeeded in preventing this by mounting pre-emptive raids which made it impossible for the Dutch to continue their digging works, forcing them to withdraw. After 1608, Dutch fleets returned to Mozambique Island in 1622 and in the 1630's, but no more attacks on the fortress were ever attempted.

Bibliography:
BOOY, A. de (ed.), De derde reis van de V.O.C. naar Oost-Indie onder het beleid van admiraal Paules van Caerden, uitgezeild in 1606, 2 vols., The Hague, 1968-1970. MURTEIRA, André, A Carreira da Índia e o corso neerlandês, 1595-1625, unpublished MAdissertation, Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas - Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 2006. OPSTALL, M.E. van (ed.) De reis van de vloot van Pieter Willemsz Verhoeff naar Azië, 1607-1612, 2 vols., The Hague, 1972. SANTOS, João dos, Etiópia Oriental e vária história das cousas notáveis do Oriente, Lisbon, 1999. SOUTO, A. Meyrelles do (ed.), "Hystoria dos cercos que os Olandezes puzerão à fortaleza de Mozambique o anno de 607 e 608…", in Studia, 12, Lisboa, 1963, pp. 463-548.

Author: André Murteira