History Research Seminar Mapping Colonial Interdependencies in Dutch Brazil: European Linen & Brasilianen Identity

History Research Seminar, co-sponsored by the Amsterdam School for Historical Studies 

Dr. Carrie Anderson, Middlebury College, Fulbright Scholar, UvA, 2018-2019

15:00-17:00 Seminar, Followed by Drinks

Thursday 25 October 2018

VOC Zaal, Bushuis (Kloveniersburgwal 48)

University of Amsterdam

Abstract: In Dutch Brazil, the Brasilianen were essential allies to the West India Company. To maintain this critical alliance, the Dutch presented them with gifts of linen, a fabric in high demand. Representations of Brasilianen wearing linen garments were pervasive and include an image on Joan Blaeu’s 1647 map of the Brazilian Captaincies of Rio Grande and Paraíba. Traditional interpretations of these linen-clad Brasilianen prioritize a center/periphery model; in contrast, I argue that these pictured linens document the interdependencies between the WIC and the Brasilianen, a position supported by digital maps plotting Dutch/indigenous exchanges.

Carrie Anderson is an Assistant Professor of Art History at Middlebury College in Vermont. Her current book project, Gift Exchange in the Early Modern Netherlands: Imagining Diplomacy at Home and Abroad, repositions Dutch inter- and intracultural diplomacy within the array of texts, images, and objects that shaped the practice.