Curayoa) were, unlike the French and English islands, especially
well placed for this purpose. They established a sugar colony in
Guiana. But their main venture in this region was the conquest of
a large part of Northern Brazil from the Portuguese (1624); and
here their exploitation was so merciless, under the direction of
the Company of the West Indies, that the inhabitants, though they
had been dissatisfied with the Portuguese government, and had at
first welcomed the Dutch conquerors, soon revolted against them,
and after twenty years drove them out.

On the mainland of North America the Dutch planted a single
colony--the New Netherlands, with its capital at New Amsterdam,
later New York. Their commercial instinct had once more guided
them wisely. They had found the natural centre for the trade of
North America; for by way of the river Hudson and its affluent,
the Mohawk, New York commands the only clear path through the
mountain belt which everywhere shuts off the Atlantic coast region
from the central plain of America. Founded and controlled by the
Company of the West Indies, this settlement was intended to be,
not primarily the home of a branch of the Dutch nation beyond the
seas, but a trading-station for collecting the furs and other
products of the inland regions. At Orange (Albany), which stands
at the junction of the Mohawk and the Hudson, the Dutch traders
collected the furs brought in by Indian trappers from west and
north; New Amsterdam was the port of export; and if settlers were
encouraged, it was only that they might supply the men and the
means and the food for carrying on this traffic. The Company of
the West Indies administered the colony purely from this point of
view. No powers of self-government were allowed to the settlers;
and, as in Cape Colony, the relations between the colonists and