The Dutch–Portuguese War was a global armed conflict involving Dutch forces, in the form of the Dutch East India Company, the Dutch West India Company, and their allies, against the Iberian Union, and after 1640, the Portuguese Empire. Beginning in 1598, the conflict primarily involved the Dutch companies and fleet invading Portuguese colonies in the Americas, Africa, and the East Indies. The war can be thought of as an extension of the Eighty Years' War being fought in Europe at the time between Spain and the Netherlands, as Portugal was in a dynastic union with Spain after the War of the Portuguese Succession, for most of the conflict.
Portuguese galleon fighting Dutch and English warships
Portuguese Goa in the late 16th century.
Dutch seizure of a Portuguese carrack traveling from St. Thomé (India) to Malacca (Malaysia).
Battle for Malacca between the VOC fleet and the Portuguese, 1606.
The Dutch West India Company or WIC Dutch pronunciation: [ʋɛstˈɪndisə kɔmpɑˈɲi] was a chartered company of Dutch merchants as well as foreign investors, formally known as GWC. Among its founders were Reynier Pauw, Willem Usselincx (1567–1647) and Jessé de Forest (1576–1624). On 3 June 1621, it was granted a charter for a trade monopoly in the Dutch West Indies by the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands and given jurisdiction over Dutch participation in the Atlantic slave trade, Brazil, the Caribbean, and North America.
The West India House, headquarters of the Dutch West India Company from 1623 to 1647
Reinier Pauw, Portrait by Jan Anthonisz. van Ravesteyn
Willem Usselincx, co-founder of the Dutch West India Company
The Zwaanendael Colony along the Delaware