Here Frans Post gives us an impression of what Dutch Brazil might have looked like. The artist visited the colony himself at the invitation of the Dutch governor general, Count Johan Maurits van Nassau-Siegen. When he returned to Haarlem in 1644, Post used his sketches to make these paintings. Dutch forces captured the Portuguese settlements in northeast Brazil in 1630. The area remained a Dutch colony until it was recaptured by the Portuguese in 1654. Apart from providing a strategic base from which to attack the Spanish treasure fleets, the Dutch West Indies Company (WIC) also gained numerous sugar plantations. This was when the Dutch began using slaves and became involved in the slave trade. And to think that in 1623 the slave trade was held to be unethical.