Then Nganga Dzimba we Bahwe turned away; holding his small shoulders stiffly, his back straight, he began to walk to the hut of Great Mother.
“Leave the enclosure!” Nhungaza ordered.
Amador and Ribeiro followed Cavalcanti as he started toward the opening in the earth embankment.
“There is one thing to thank God for.”
“Senhor?”
“Blaer and Vlok failed to enlist them.”
It was near the end of July 1645, seven weeks since João Fernandes Vieira had left his hideout in the woods. Rebels had killed some Hollanders at engenhos and outposts in valleys behind Recife, and one squad reported the bludgeoning of three Jews, but nothing suggested the start of a victorious advance. And worse, from the north came reports that Jakob Rabbe and his Tapuya had massacred dozens of Christians.
João Fernandes’s headquarters had been established on a hill thirty miles west of Recife, the slopes and surrounding lands overgrown with a tangle of thorny reeds — tabocas, hence the name, Monte das Tabocas. The governador, disappointed by the failure of Cavalcanti’s mission to Ganga Zumba, confessed, on their return four weeks ago, that he’d not been optimistic. “The Lord of the Devil possesses the peça horde. We will not liberate them until Christ the Redeemer again rules Pernambuco.”
The governador’s animosity toward the Dutch was motivated to a large extent by religious zeal. Thus, when he learned that a great apostate lurked in the woods near Monte das Tabocas, João Fernandes immediately dispatched Amador with six men to capture him.
Amador and his squad had no difficulty apprehending the offender: He was Manuel de Moraes, a Jesuit turncoat who had gone over to the Dutch a decade ago, throwing off his cassock and embracing Protestantism. He had sailed to Holland, where he had married twice. Two years ago, he’d fled back to Pernambuco, abandoning his second wife and children. Amador found de Moraes engaged in his newest occupation: brazilwood logger.
Immediately Manuel de Moraes was ushered into João Fernandes’s presence, de Moraes cried out: “My confession! I am guilty of lust, Governador — I will offer every penance, every suffering, for my liberation!”
“Manuel de Moraes, you are in the presence of Christians,” the governador said. “Your sad appeal moves us.”
“João Fernandes, I know these heretics,” de Moraes said. “Give me hope to redeem myself at your camp. Make me serve in whatever way you deem fit for so great a sinner.”
“Then, pray to our Lord for forgiveness, Manuel de Moraes, and pray, too, for our victory upon this hill of thorns, where I will fight the first battle in this war!”
De Moraes sank to his knees and began to pray fervently, his fingers locked together, his knuckles white.
João Fernandes studied him sympathetically. “My friends, a sinner is brought down in our camp. Surely a miraculous portent for the next triumph our Lord will witness at this battle site?”
Amador quietly slipped out of the tent. He had not believed a word the Jesuit-turned-logger uttered.
Monte das Tabocas rose two hundred feet above ground level and offered a good vantage point in all directions. To the west and south of the hill flowed the Tapicura River; on the eastern side lay an old track used by brazilwood loggers. Thickets of tabocas encircled the hill at different levels and grew on the lands surrounding it. A gallery forest edged the Tapicura River; beyond this lay half a mile of open, level ground, then the first tangle of tabocas, which formed a natural barrier near the foot of the hill. A Dutch advance was anticipated from the direction of the river. With no cannon and limited powder for their muskets, the insurgents could only delay a crossing by the enemy. Their intention was to do this for as long as possible, then fall back with the Hollanders, pursuing them into the tabocas, where ambuscades would be waiting.
The contingents of Henrique Dias and Felipe Camarão had failed to make the rendezvous, having been trapped in the caatinga, which was drought-stricken despite the heavy rains at the coast. Runners reported that a third of the men with Dias and Camarão were dead and the survivors would not reach Pernambuco for another week. João Fernandes had convinced only a handful of planters to join the insurgents; most awaited the outcome of the first clash between the governador’s ragtag army and the Dutch. Still, there were one thousand soldiers at Monte das Tabocas, representing every group in the captaincy — Portuguese, native, mameluco, mulatto, and slave, the latter in the majority.
Once the Dutch had accepted that a full revolt was imminent, they concentrated their forces near Recife; vastly superior to the patriots in experience and armament, they were under the command of Colonel Hendrik Haus. On August 2, 1645, a column of four hundred Dutch soldiers and mercenaries and three hundred natives and slaves, with Colonel Haus and his two bloodthirsty adjutants, Blaer and Vlok, located João Fernandes’s camp at Monte das Tabocas.
At daybreak, August 3, the Pernambucans were in position at the trees beside the Tapicura River and in the first thickets of tabocas. The patriots had been cheered to see a cloudless sky, but found little else to encourage them. Scouts had reported every Dutchman and most of their natives armed with muskets, and the Hollanders’ wagons loaded high with munitions and supplies. The rebels had some two hundred pieces, with less than ten rounds per man.
No sooner had it become light than the Hollanders started firing across the river, sustaining their fusillade for forty minutes, until the early-morning air lay heavy with smoke. The men concealed between the trees began to fall back. With ensigns aloft, drumbeat and trumpet blast, the Dutch force began to ford the river.
Amador, the Cavalcantis, and 120 men were hidden in the tabocas, one of three ambuscades, the others off to the left and right of their position. They heard the rattle of musketry at the river and saw their comrades beginning to retreat across the half-mile of level ground between the trees and the reed thickets.
Amador crouched next to Affonso Ribeiro, who was resting on his side, his belly heaving as he breathed.
“If only Dias and Camarão were here,” Ribeiro said. “How the heretic blood would flow at that river!”
Amador turned his head in Ribeiro’s direction. If gunpowder was in short supply at the camp, fiery cachaça wasn’t: Ribeiro was pale and shaky this morning.
Amador looked at Fernão and Felipe Cavalcanti, a dozen feet away. During the weeks since their return from Ganga Zumba, Fernão had made one trip to Santo Tomás. The High Council at Recife had decreed that the wives and children of suspected insurgents must leave their homes. Some had gone into hiding in the forest, where they were suffering dreadful privations, but Fernão Cavalcanti had told his family to ignore the order, and the Hollanders had made no move to enforce it.
The patriots from the positions opposite the river were falling back step by step. Unable to expose their ambuscades, those hidden in the tabocas watched helplessly as men were shot down by a Dutch battalion that was advancing out of the trees. When the enemy officers saw the Pernambucans retreat in three directions into the tabocas, they ordered their troops to follow.
“Fire!” commanded Fernão Cavalcanti. Forty muskets roared alongside an eighty-yard passage cut through the tabocas, and twenty Hollanders were killed or wounded by the volley.
“Portugal! For Dom João! For our Lady of Victories!” Cavalcanti shouted.
His cries were taken up by half his men, who burst out of cover to fall upon the Dutch.
Ribeiro flung down his musket and took his machete from its scabbard. “Better a blade for the blood of the heretic!” he bellowed, and charged through the thicket.
A trumpet sounded: A second Dutch battalion was advancing beyond the trees and hurrying to support those ambushed in the tabocas.
Amador and other musketeers moved to direct their fire at the men on the open ground.
“Vlok!” a rebel shouted, indicating an officer in the enemy’s front line. “The devil Vlok himself!”
Amador had just fired. His mouth fell open at the sight of the Hollander id
entified as Jan Vlok: tall, big-limbed, blond hair, ruddy complexion, orange sash, Vlok bore a striking likeness to Segge Proot. Amador started to reload, but he had no opportunity to fire at Vlok, for the Pernambucans fighting within the tabocas were calling for help.
“Senhor! Senhor!” Affonso Ribeiro shouted a warning to Cavalcanti, whose back was to a Hollander bearing down on him. Cavalcanti swung around with a clash of steel as his sword met his attacker’s weapon. Another Hollander leapt toward him. “Fernão Cavalcanti!” the man cried. “A thousand florins for the head of this rebel!”
Wielding his machete with both hands, Ribeiro fought his way toward Cavalcanti. A Hollander’s sword ripped through his leather jerkin. “Three sons, heretic! You killed three lovely boys!” With a mighty swipe, Ribeiro’s machete cut deep into the man’s side. “Portugal! Oh, Portu —” The words died as the point of another Hollander’s sword punctured his throat.
Ribeiro’s intervention saved the senhor de engenho’s life; Felipe Cavalcanti and others had leapt to Fernão’s side as more enemy pressed into the passage. The main body of the ambuscade was already abandoning these tabocas to make a new stand at reeds just below the foot of Monte das Tabocas. The Cavalcantis and Amador — with those men who’d fired their last rounds at the Hollanders on the open ground — reached this rearguard position fifteen minutes later.
Amador despairingly took his issue of powder and lead, enough for only three rounds.
Governador João Fernandes and his chief of staff, Antônio Dias Cardoso, who’d come secretly from the Bahia to train the rebel army, had observed the first engagements from the summit of the hill. After driving the men of the ambuscades out of the tabocas, the Hollanders had been pulled back to the open ground, where reinforcements were coming up to fill their ranks. The governador sent orders for the rebels to retake the outer tabocas.
Padre Manuel de Moraes, in a borrowed cassock, accompanied the officer sent down the hill to organize the counterattack. Wherever the fight was thickest, de Moraes was there, not with exhortations alone, but swinging an ax and felling heretics with all the energy he had recently devoted to brazilwood logging.
But the rebel counterattack was repulsed, and again they were driven to the reeds at the foot of the hill. Here they resisted briefly before being forced farther up the slope toward the third and last barrier of tabocas below João Fernandes’s headquarters.
It was 1:00 P.M., six hours since the Dutch had crossed the river; both sides were exhausted and there was a lull in the battle. The Hollanders had lost ninety men in the ambushes, twice that many wounded, and another forty lay on the open ground beyond the trees. The patriots counted one hundred — one-tenth of their force — dead or out of action. However, at the governador’s tent, Cavalcanti, Cardoso, and other rebel leaders realized their situation was desperate: They had six small barrels of powder, their last reserve.
The officers were therefore more than a little surprised to hear the governador say, in a voice filled with optimism, “Gentlemen, we must attack.”
“Attack!” Cardoso looked stunned. “Twice already we’ve been thrown back to this hill.”
João Fernandes addressed Cavalcanti: “Fernão, I own fifty peças here. They’ve remained loyal and obedient since I took the field. As God is my witness, I’ll give every peça who storms the enemy lines his freedom. Fernão, you have thirty men from Santo Tomás. Will you promise the same?”
“What difference will it make? Peças with sticks and knives against the best troops of Europe?”
Nevertheless, it was decided to order the slaves to charge the Hollanders, and the owners of twenty-two other slaves also agreed to liberate them for this service.
“My slaves . . . will you fight for Pernambuco today?” João Fernandes exhorted them. “Will you fight for the good Jesus and the liberties all men cherish?”
“Yes, our Father, we will fight,” said a huge, bare-chested ’Ngola.
“Every slave here will be freed.”
The slaves greeted this indifferently.
“Do you understand my offer?”
The ’Ngola spoke again: “We hear your words, our Father. We will fight.”
João Fernandes seemed disappointed. “I solemnly swear, peças, you will be freed.”
The big African nodded.
“What is your name?”
“Moses Pequeno,” the ’Ngola replied.
“Then lead these men, Little Moses. Chase the Dutch out of the tabocas and you will be liberated.”
The slaves carried clubs and hardwood spears, hoes and scythes, but as they readied themselves for the charge, men came forward with offers of machetes, knives, a few swords. De Moraes moved among the slaves and told them to take courage from the sight of a mighty sinner whom the Lord had preserved in battle against these heretics. The governador presented the slaves with a silk banner and an old drum, which was handed to a Hottentot.
At 3:00 P.M., an hour after the slaves had been assembled, they began to descend the hill.
“Play the drum!” Moses Pequeno ordered.
The Hottentot thumped out a monotonous beat.
“Death to the Hollanders! Death to our masters’ enemy!” Moses Pequeno cried.
“Death to the Hollanders!” The chant was taken up through their ranks as the 102 slaves passed the last line of Pernambucan defenders on Monte das Tabocas. Then Moses Pequeno gave a bloodcurdling yell, broke from the upper thicket of tabocas, and ran toward the enemy.
The Dutch musketeers had seen the slaves climbing down the hill. Their volleys brought down twenty Africans, but the others did not stop their charge. They tore into the Hollanders’ ranks, with clubs rising and falling, spears and blades jabbing and slashing. So swift and so savage was the assault that it broke the enemy’s advance positions and sent the survivors fleeing back to the third thicket of tabocas. The slaves split into three squads and stormed into the openings between the next reed barrier, where two bloody contests had already been fought this day.
The slaves’ unexpected success brought a general advance by the rest of the rebel force. Within half an hour, the ground lost between the foot of the hill and the third thicket was won back. There the Pernambucans were halted, and the Dutch regrouped on the level ground beyond. But it was growing dark, with the sky clouding over, and the Hollanders’ fourth assault was ill-prepared. The rebels inflicted heavy casualties upon the enemy flanks and forced them to retreat all the way back to the trees from where they had begun their advance that morning.
A blustery storm broke over the hill of thorns, the prelude to a night of wet and muddy misery for the men entrenched there. The last powder was distributed to the sentry posts. Scouts were sent to reconnoiter the Dutch positions: They reported the passage of men in both directions across the river.
Before sunrise, Amador and Felipe Cavalcanti were sent out with another party of scouts. They worked their way through the tabocas in a westerly direction until they reached a place where they could cross the Tapicura River and not be seen by Dutch lookouts. They headed along the opposite bank toward the enemy camp. First they saw a group of men struggling with a wagon bogged down in the mud; they crept closer, reaching the trees where the enemy had retreated the previous evening. Half an hour passed before they were convinced that they were not mistaken: The forest was deserted. The Dutch army had withdrawn!
Soon they were running across the open ground shouting wildly, “Victory! Victory, patriots! The Dutch have gone . . . fled back to Recife!”
The report was rushed up the hill to the governador, who immediately came down from his camp with Fernão Cavalcanti and Cardoso. Just beyond the last thicket of tabocas, João Fernandes halted beside the body of one of his soldiers:
“You are free, Moses Pequeno — free with the good Jesus, who gave us this triumph!”
The governador turned to the drummer and four of thirty-nine slaves who had survived the decisive charge. The Hottentot stood wet and bedraggled, with a weary loo
k on his face.
The governador seized him in a fierce embrace. He kept his hand on the tall Hottentot’s shoulder. “From this day on, you are a free man!” he announced.
The Dutch had withdrawn to an engenho three miles from Recife, with more than half of the seven hundred soldiers and their native levies killed or wounded. Replacements arriving from Recife and Mauritsstad were few in number, for the towns anticipated an assault by the rebels. At Mauritsstad the guns of forts built by Count Maurits had been sited to defend the settlement from attack by sea. To open a field of fire inland, the High Councilors ordered houses and other structures to be torn down, the count’s gardens cleared, and many stately old palms uprooted. Within a week the defenders had destroyed Mauritsstad, the splendid capital of New Holland.
Jan Vlok wanted revenge. For ten days after the battle of Monte das Tabocas, he fumed and fretted at the engenho where Colonel Haus had his headquarters.
Vlok sought out Johan Blaer, who had the same reputation for cruelty, and together they bemoaned the inactivity forced upon them by Haus, whose concern was to avert a siege of Recife. Haus’s scouts reported that a force sent by sea from the Bahia had landed in the south of the colony. The governor-general of Brazil, Antônio Telles da Silva, still issued proclamations in support of the truce between Holland and Portugal, claiming, further, that these regiments were to aid the Dutch in suppressing the rebellion. But Haus’s spies confirmed a joyous meeting between André Vidal de Negreiros, commander of the Bahia troops, and João Fernandes. After their harrowing march through the caatinga, the contingents of Henrique Dias and Dom Felipe Camarão had also met up with the insurgents. Haus doubted that the Dutch land forces could withstand these combined units; only at sea did the Hollanders still have superiority, with their coastal fleet already dispatched to destroy the vessels that had transported the troops from the Bahia.
Then, on August 14, Captain Jan Vlok proposed a mission conceived by Blaer and himself:
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