Jaboat o dos Guararapes Brazil The expulsion of the Dutch from the Northeast of Brazil, after 24 years of occupation, from 1630 to 1654, fuels all sorts of myths in the national imagination. There are those who worship the Dutch, and in particular the Dutch governor-general between 1637 and 1644, Maurice de Nassau, as a “good colonizer”, a man concerned with development, arts and sciences in the colony.