Recapture of Bahia

Part of the Eighty Years' War and the
Dutch-Portuguese War

The Recovery of Bahía de Todos los Santos, by Fray Juan Bautista Maíno, Museo del Prado.

Date	1 April – 1 May 1625
Location	Salvador da Bahia (present-day Brazil)
Result	Spanish-Portuguese victory

Belligerents

Iberian Union

United Provinces
English and French volunteers

Commanders and leaders

Fadrique de Toledo

Willem Schoutens

Hans Kyff

Strength

12,000 men
52 ships

3,000 to 5,000 men
18 ships

Casualties and losses

At least 71 killed and 64 wounded

Unknown killed or wounded
1,912 captured
12 ships sunk
6 ships captured
260 guns captured

Iberian Union

The recapture of Bahia (Spanish: Jornada del Brasil; Portuguese: Jornada dos Vassalos) was a Spanish-Portuguese military expedition in 1625 to retake the city of Salvador da Bahia in Brazil from the forces of the Dutch West India Company (WIC).

In May 1624, Dutch WIC forces under Jacob Willekens captured Salvador Bahia from the Portuguese. Philip IV, king of Spain and Portugal, ordered the assembly of a Spanish-Portuguese fleet with the objective of recovering the city. Sailing from the port of Lisbon, under the command of Fadrique Álvarez de Toledo y Mendoza, who was appointed Captain General of the Army of Brazil, the fleet crossed the Atlantic Ocean, and arrived at Salvador on April 1 of 1625. The town was besieged for several weeks, after which it was recaptured. This resulted in the expulsion of the Dutch from the city and the nearby areas. The city was a strategically important Portuguese base in the struggle against the Dutch for the control of Brazil.

On December 22 of 1623 a Dutch fleet under the command of Admiral Jacob Willekens and Vice Admiral Pieter Heyn consisting of 35 ships, of which 13 were owned by the United Provinces, while the rest belonged to the WIC, sailed from Texel carrying 6,500 men en route to Cape Verde, where they arrived after being scattered by a storm. There Willekens was revealed that his objective was the capture of the city of Salvador da Bahia, on the coast of Brazil, in order to use its port as a commercial base to ensure the Dutch trade with the East Indies. In addition they would control much of the sugar production in the region, as Salvador was a major center of its production in the area. These intentions to invade Brazil were soon reported to the court of Madrid by the Spanish spies in the Netherlands, but Count-Duke of Olivares did not give them credit.

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Wikipedia