Natal Brazil ‘Your Excellency should know that this fort has been entrusted to my custody by Her Catholic Majesty and I will hand it over to her alone.’ So wrote Pero Mendes de Gouveia, the Portuguese governor of the captaincy of Rio Grande do Norte, when he was surrounded by Dutch invaders in December 1633. After reading the note, Baltazar Bigma, the Dutch lieutenant colonel, ordered a voracious attack on the fortress of Ponta Negra.