Dutch–Portuguese War

The Dutch–Portuguese War (Dutch: Nederlands-Portugese Oorlog; Portuguese: Guerra Luso-Holandesa) was a global armed conflict involving Dutch forces, in the form of the Dutch East India Company, the Dutch West India Company, and their allies, against the Iberian Union, and after 1640, the Portuguese Empire. Beginning in 1598, the conflict primarily involved the Dutch companies and fleet invading Portuguese colonies in the Americas, Africa, and the East Indies. The war can be thought of as an extension of the Eighty Years' War being fought in Europe at the time between Spain and the Netherlands, as Portugal was in a dynastic union with Spain after the War of the Portuguese Succession, for most of the conflict.

However, the conflict had little to do with the war in Europe and served mainly as a way for the Dutch to gain an overseas empire and control trade at the cost of the Portuguese. English forces also assisted the Dutch at certain points in the war (though in later decades, the English and Dutch would become fierce rivals). Because of the commodity at the center of the conflict, this war would be nicknamed the Spice War.

Portugal repelled Dutch attempts to secure Brazil, Mozambique and Angola, but the Dutch disrupted the Portuguese trading networks in Asia, where they captured Malacca, Ceylon, the Malabar Coast, and the Moluccas. In Africa the Dutch conquered the Portuguese Gold Coast.

Portuguese resentment at Spain, which was perceived as having prioritized its own colonies and neglected the defense of the Portuguese, the weaker member of the union, was a major contributing factor to Portugal shaking off Spanish rule in the Portuguese Restoration War. Moreover, the Portuguese claimed that the Iberian Union was a reason for the attacks on their colonies by the Dutch.