“Colonel, give me twenty men and I’ll strike a blow against João Fernandes and the leaders of this rebellion,” he told Haus. “Let Johan Blaer ride to the plantations with a similar corps and the damage will be twofold.”
Haus had commanded Count Maurits’s guard and had shared the governor’s disdain for this vicious man, but, with few experienced officers, he’d been forced to accept Vlok’s commission. “What is your plan, Captain?”
“The High Councilors have ordered that women leave the engenhos, yet most maintain their houses as sanctuaries for rebels.”
Haus looked sternly at Vlok. “We are Hollanders, not savages. I don’t make war on women and children.”
“If the slightest harm came to them, Colonel, they’d be of no value,” Vlok said. “Let me go to the engenhos and carry the women safely to Recife. The enemy will hesitate to storm a city where their wives and daughters are held hostage.”
“Bring them in,” Haus said quietly. “Unharmed.”
Vlok and Blaer left camp the next morning, Blaer heading north and Vlok west by canoe along a river near Haus’s headquarters, the Capibaribe, a tributary of which led to Engenho Santo Tomás.
When the Dutch detachment marched up to the Cavalcanti house, Jorge and Padre Gregório Bonifácio met them outside.
“My brother is not at the engenho,” Jorge Cavalcanti said. He was sweating profusely under layers of cotton and silk.
“We do not seek Fernão Cavalcanti, though God grant that he were here.”
Some of Vlok’s soldiers were moving past Jorge and the priest, into the house.
“No rebels hide here. Only women and children.”
“What do you want from us?” Bonifácio asked weakly.
“The women and children — by order of the High Council.”
“Women?” Jorge drew himself up. “No, Vlok. No! They have no part in this uprising.”
“The wives and daughters of criminals. Yes, Senhor Jorge, your brother will hang at the end of a Dutch rope.”
“My wife is innocent,” Jorge said abruptly.
Vlok gave Jorge a studied look, from his well-groomed hair to his wide-topped spurred boots. “What good fortune Jorge Cavalcanti, to have found your brother’s lovely daughter waiting for you.”
“I warn you, Vlok.” Jorge moved his hand tremulously to the hilt of his long sword. “Do not speak this way. You . . .” Jorge tried to hold his shoulders stiffly, but he could not control the quake that spread along his limbs. His lip quivered. “Vlok . . . heretic!”
Vlok’s face turned a deep red. He mumbled an incoherent oath and lunged to grab Cavalcanti’s coat and shove him backward. Jorge fell on a patch of sticky mud.
Vlok was standing with his hands on his hips, his laughter rising, when Dona Domitila and Joana came out of the house. Joana left Domitila’s side and began to cross toward Vlok and her husband.
“Make haste, Joana Cavalcanti! Your Spanish lord needs you!”
A sergeant came up to report to Vlok that the house and outbuildings had been searched. Six slaves were being driven out of the main building. “Fire it, Captain?” the soldier asked.
Vlok gazed admiringly at the Cavalcantis’ house. “No. Preserve it for a new owner.” The pleasure he showed as he surveyed the big house indicated whom he saw as future master of Engenho Santo Tomás. “But burn that to the ground,” he said, indicating the chapel.
Bonifácio ran toward the small building, gesticulating frantically at a soldier who was about to lop off with his machete the arms of an image of Santo Tomás, the patron and protector of the Cavalcantis’ valley. “No!” the priest cried out, arms upraised. He swayed toward the man, but lost his balance and fell. A native levy stepped up and clubbed him senseless.
Bonifácio was alone when he regained consciousness. He dragged himself ten feet across the ground to the armless statue of Santo Tomás and pressed it to his chest.
Gregório Bonifácio was holding the statue of Santo Tomás sixteen hours later, in the early morning of August 16, 1645, when he rode into the camp of João Fernandes. He was so exhausted, he had to be lifted out of his saddle.
Witnesses to Fernão Cavalcanti’s anger could not say with certainty what upset the senhor more: the desecrated image or the report that his family was being held hostage.
João Fernandes and the colonel from the Bahia, André Vidal de Negreiros, had not planned an immediate assault upon Haus’s camp, but word of the vandalism against the statue of Santo Tomás spread and a clamor rose for the blood of the heretics. The governador agreed that Fernão Cavalcanti should lead the vanguard. A march of twelve hours would take the rebel army, now with eighteen hundred men, to within striking distance of the Hollanders’ camp.
Amador was with Fernão Cavalcanti and Felipe and the sixty men who set off three hours in advance of the main force. Just after nightfall, they saw the glow of flames from an engenho below the south bank of the Capibaribe. They halted a mile from the buildings and sent scouts to investigate. The men returned forty minutes later with a sentinel from an enemy patrol that was raiding the engenho. The captive, a French Huguenot mercenary, was taken to Fernão Cavalcanti, who questioned him about the size of their squad and the main camp across the Capibaribe. The Frenchman told them that thirty men were at this engenho. At Haus’s headquarters, there were 270 Dutch soldiers and more than two hundred natives. The force was divided into two regiments, one of which would march to Recife the next morning with the women from the engenhos, the other to be led by Vlok and Blaer into the valleys to destroy Portuguese properties. The soldier described siege preparations at Recife and Mauritsstad, then swore he’d told all he knew.
“I believe him,” Cavalcanti said. The Frenchman showed relief. Cavalcanti nodded at a mulatto corporal. “Kill him,” he said.
“Capitão! For God’s sake, spare me! Mercy!”
Cavalcanti walked away. The Frenchman tried to follow him but was held back. Before he was killed, his executioners hacked off both his arms. “For the little Santo Tomás of Senhor Fernão,” they said.
At midnight the main force reached this engenho. The governador gave orders for the men to rest until dawn, but at 3:00 a.m. he changed his mind. “How can we halt while Portuguese women remain in the hands of the heretics?” he asked Fernão Cavalcanti. “There must be no rest, Fernão — not until the last Hollander is returned to his cold and watery hell!”
The Dutch were taken by surprise, and the rebels advanced to within a musket shot of the engenho where Haus and his men were billeted. Blowing a silver whistle, the Potiguara chief Dom Felipe Camarão led one hundred men on the first sweep along the edge of the campground. The natives tore into the enemy’s ranks and scattered them, the Hollanders running to cover in the engenho buildings, from where they began a steady exchange of fire with the patriots.
Haus and his officers were in the main residence of this old and substantial plantation, the property of a widow, Dona Ana Paes. The dwelling, mill, slave quarters, and outbuildings were sited similarly to those at Santo Tomás; the big house was also double-storied but was built upon stilts. Access to the first floor was by two narrow stairways, one at the front and the other at the back of the house; its elevated position made the house eminently defensible, but the Hollanders inside had devised an additional stratagem.
“Mother of mercies!” Amador cried, from his position atop an outcrop of rock, 150 yards from the front of the house: The shutters on many windows had been flung back. Dona Domitila, Joana, and eighteen other women stood at the open windows.
“Cowards!” he shouted. “Heretic sons of heretic bitches! Vlok! Jan Vlok! Do you hear me? I, Amador Flôres da Silva, will see you dead!”
“Forget words! Lead! Powder! To the other buildings!”
The exhortation came from Manuel de Moraes. Already this morning he had excited the men by passing through their ranks with the Santo Tomás and inviting them to touch it. Many swore that clear water was issuing from the splintered stu
mps, and felt cool upon their brows when they made the sign of the Cross.
As the rebels started to exchange shots with the Hollanders holed up in the mill and outbuildings, Amador left his post and scrambled toward the governador’s tent, two hundred yards behind the front positions. There he found Fernão and Felipe Cavalcanti.
“I beg that they be unharmed, João Fernandes, but I’ll never agree to end the battle,” Fernão was saying.
“My mother, my wife, my sisters,” his son said. “How I cherish them, João Fernandes. But what my father says is right: We can’t consider them above the conquest of heretics!”
“Friends, we dare not risk the lives of these brave women,” João Fernandes said. “We must call off the battle. With the women freed, I will give my word: the Hollanders can march to Recife.”
“To secure themselves there until a fleet comes from Europe?” Fernão said. “Never, my Commander. Never!”
“Fernão, we cannot storm the house,” João Fernandes repeated.
“There’s a woodpile just beyond,” Cavalcanti said. He was looking in the direction of the stack of timber as he spoke. “Send men to carry those logs across and build a fire under their fort.”
“The women, Fernão. You can’t do this.”
“Already I’ve sacrificed a son, Governador. If you refuse to give this order, I will.”
Amador stepped closer. “Give me ten men. I’ll take the wood across.” He looked at Cavalcanti. “Five years ago, senhor, your family saved my life. May God help me this day, I’ll return dearest Joana, the dona, all of them.”
Cavalcanti clasped Amador’s shoulders and nodded gravely.
Amador chose ten men: four mamelucos, three natives from Camarão’s regiment, and three slaves.
They reached the logs without incident. Here Amador decided they would charge across the fifty yards to the house together, allowing the Dutch the opportunity for only one fusillade.
The Hollanders had spotted the activity at the woodpile, and when Amador and his men raced into the open, several of them staggering with their heavy loads of timber, they came under rapid musket fire.
“Run!” Amador screamed. “Run!” He reached the space below the house with six others. A mameluco shot in the stomach crawled in, moaning with pain, from the open ground beyond.
As they piled the wood beneath the supporting beams, they heard the sound of the Hollanders’ feet on the boards above. They worked swiftly, two men using axes to split a log for kindling. Sparks flew when Amador scraped a flintstone, but he couldn’t get the fire started. Someone had the idea to hack strips off the dry beams above, and soon flames rose, the logs hissing and smoking.
Fernão Cavalcanti and João Fernandes had moved to a position opposite the house and watched as the smoke began to rise between boards on the first-floor verandah. The hostages remained at the windows.
A group of Hollanders and natives from an outbuilding to the right of the house attempted to reach the rebels in the space below the dwelling; caught in crossfire, six who survived fled back to shelter.
Fifteen minutes passed. A musket cracked sporadically, but most men had stopped shooting and were watching the blaze grow. João Fernandes became desperate. He saw several of his men glancing in his direction.
“Your orders, Governador,” a man cried out. “To advance!”
João Fernandes looked at Cavalcanti. “Fernão? They won’t stand idly by . . .”
“Nor I!” — Cavalcanti declared. He jumped up then, in full view of the enemy.
“Get down, Fernão! Come back!” Fernandes shouted.
But Cavalcanti was already walking toward the house, and moved forward resolutely, looking neither left nor right, where he knew Hollanders in the outbuildings had muskets trained on him. He kept his head up, his eyes on the windows.
Cavalcanti stopped twenty feet from the verandah. “Hendrik Haus!” he called out. “It’s Fernão Cavalcanti!”
Amador and his men waited for a response. There was none.
“Surrender, Haus! Now! Refuse . . . let one woman or child be hurt . . . and I promise you, at sundown not a single Hollander will be alive here. No quarter will be given.”
Hendrik Haus stepped onto the verandah. He held his heavy ivory-butted pistol with its barrel pointed toward his chest. In this way, the Dutch colonel indicated the surrender of his regiments.
Cheers came from the patriots in sight of the house, cries of “Victory!” and “Portugal!”
Amador stood up and started to move into the open.
“Hollanders!” one of the natives with his squad shouted.
Amador swung around. Through the smoke that swirled below the beams, he saw a Dutch soldier on the sharply angled steps at the back of the house. “Vlok! Jan Vlok! You know me, heretic!”
The huge blond Hollander wielded a long, heavy-bladed sword. “No, bastard, I do not!”
“Nineteen men at Santo Tomás. Five years ago, Vlok.”
Vlok sneered. “I remember.”
“Nineteen beheaded, Vlok. I was left for dead.”
“Nineteen?” The Hollander laughed. “Twenty! Your turn, Portuguese!” And he leapt to the attack.
Amador was not as expert a swordsman as Vlok, and his machete was a poor match for Vlok’s long blade, but he was possessed by a driving fury. For five minutes he kept Vlok constantly on the defensive as he slashed at him with the machete.
But suddenly Vlok forced Amador backward with a series of vigorous thrusts, until they were at the fire. “Burn!” the Hollander shouted. “Burn, Papist dog!”
The machete flashed through the air and struck the sword with an impact that almost jarred it from Vlok’s grip. Vlok stepped back, startled.
“Now, Vlok . . . come!”
Vlok’s movements became erratic. Amador parried the frantic thrusts. Vlok was unnerved, his face growing rigid with anger. Amador swung the machete again, with a violent upward motion. The blow tore Vlok’s sword from his grasp and flung it beyond his reach.
“Quarter!” Vlok shouted. “Quarter!”
“Yes, Vlok — quarter!” Amador said, and immediately drove his sharp blade between the Hollander’s ribs. Vlok sank slowly to the ground, all the time begging for mercy. When he was down, Amador placed a foot on his chest; then he drew the machete across Jan Vlok’s throat.
Three hours later, Amador stood on the front verandah of Dona Ana’s house. The boards near him were scorched and an acrid smell rose from the charred beams below, but the fire had been extinguished before it had spread out of control. On the open ground in front of the house, 240 Dutch prisoners were under guard. From a room behind him, Amador heard the voices of the rebel leaders and Dutch officers as they argued about terms of surrender.
Despite objections by João Fernandes and Cavalcanti, Johan Blaer and others guilty of persecuting the Pernambucans were to be spared. Colonel de Negreiros pleaded that this war be conducted with fairness and humanity, and he guaranteed that Dutch prisoners would be safely escorted to Salvador. Hendrik Haus did not forget the natives who served him and asked the same conditions for them. In this instance, de Negreiros agreed with the Pernambucan patriots: The two hundred savages were guilty of treason, for they were the subjects of Dom João IV and had sided with the king’s enemies.
Camarão’s men waded into the prisoners with a ferocity that did not abate until every one of the two hundred traitors was dead, and most had been beheaded. They whooped with pleasure when they were given a grand salute by the governador, who doffed his plumed hat to them.
When Fernandes led his officers back into the house, Amador sat down on the verandah and rested his back against a wall. His eyes were closed. He realized that if he had had a mission in this war, the death of Jan Vlok had brought it to a close. He opened his eyes then and looked at the Dutch prisoners, silent and filled with terror as they undoubtedly envisaged a fate similar to that of their native Auxiliaries. But Amador knew that they were to be marched south, and here he
was on the verandah waiting to volunteer to lead this heretic horde through the sertão. Dear Jesus! He would get them to the Bahia and there his long journey would end! Then nothing would prevent his returning to São Paulo.
He saw Jorge Cavalcanti, dirty and disheveled, step out of the front door. Hand on hip, he paused several times to survey the captives. Amador watched him slowly wander to where the two hundred natives lay. Shaking his head from side to side, he walked deep in among the bodies, treading gingerly between the heads and trunks of those who’d been decapitated.
“Senhor! ” Amador screamed.
As Jorge stepped between the natives, one rose up with his last strength and stabbed Cavalcanti three times, mortally wounding him.
Amador thumped along the verandah to the front door, where he halted to yell out to Fernão Cavalcanti. Then he hastened to the side of Jorge.
One of Camarão’s warriors had seized the assassin and was beheading him.
Jorge was not yet dead. He opened his eyes, but only to glimpse his avenger as he raised the severed head. Jorge gave an awful cry, made several gasping noises, and then was still.
Amador saw Joana at a window, in the same black gown she had worn the day he returned to Engenho Santo Tomás. Dear Jesus, so young . . . the widow Cavalcanti. And before this, Segge Proot. As he thought of Joana and Segge, he felt a pang of sorrow, but it passed quickly.
Amador’s offer to escort the Dutch prisoners to the Bahia was accepted. On the forty-day march to Salvador, a vengeful Pernambucan murdered Captain Johan Blaer. At the Bahia, Amador took passage for Santos and on November 22, 1645 — six years after departing with Raposo Tavares’s contingent — he climbed the precipitous path between the crags of the Serra do Mar up to São Paulo de Piratininga.
It was dark when Amador reached the house of Ishmael Pinheiro. Tears of joy streamed down Pinheiro’s pockmarked cheeks when he recognized the companion of his youth and seized him in a tremendous embrace.
“Ishmael! My journey has ended! My friend, how many times was I reminded what a foolish venture you said it would be!”
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