Norwegians in Brazil in the Seventeenth Century: Forgotten Connections Through Dutch Brazil
When did the historical relationship between Norway and Brazil really begin?
Most accounts of Norwegian-Brazilian relations point to 1842 as an important starting point. That year, the Norwegian ship Nordstjernen arrived in Rio de Janeiro from Ålesund carrying what is described as Norway’s first official export of stockfish to Brazil. On its return voyage, the vessel carried Brazilian sugar and coffee.
This marked the beginning of a direct commercial relationship that would grow considerably over the following decades. Norwegian cod became deeply embedded in Brazilian food traditions, while Brazilian coffee increasingly found its way into Norwegian homes.
But 1842 may mark the beginning of direct trade, rather than the beginning of the entire story.
If we look two centuries further back, into the maritime world of the seventeenth century, a much less familiar connection emerges.
Norwegians were already moving through Dutch maritime networks that extended across the Atlantic and reached Brazil. Norwegian sailors worked aboard Dutch vessels, migrants from Norway travelled to the Netherlands in search of work and training, and Norwegian timber supplied an economy that helped make the Dutch Republic one of the great maritime powers of its age.
At least one individual Norwegian life can already be connected directly to Brazil.
These links do not mean that Norway and Brazil had bilateral relations in the modern sense. Norway was then part of the kingdom of Denmark-Norway, while Brazil remained a Portuguese colony.
What they do show is that historical connections between Norway and Brazil can be traced back to the seventeenth century through the Dutch Atlantic world.
The Netherlands as the bridge between Norway and Brazil
To understand this story, we first need to look north rather than west.
During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Norway and the Dutch Republic were closely connected by commerce, migration and seafaring.
Dutch and Frisian ships regularly called at Norwegian ports, particularly to purchase timber and other forest products.
Norway possessed vast woodland resources. The Dutch Republic, meanwhile, had become one of Europe’s leading commercial and maritime powers but lacked sufficient domestic timber resources to sustain its extraordinary expansion.
Norwegian timber, planks, beams and other materials therefore became part of a much larger Dutch maritime economy.
But commodities were not the only things moving across the North Sea.
Norwegians also migrated to the Netherlands in search of employment. Some learned trades. Others entered maritime service and became part of a labour market stretching far beyond Europe.
For some, the Netherlands was not the final destination.
Their journeys continued into the Atlantic world.
And one of those destinations was Brazil.
Dutch Brazil and the West India Company
In 1630, the Dutch West India Company — the West-Indische Compagnie, or WIC — conquered part of Pernambuco in northeastern Brazil.
Dutch control in the region lasted until 1654.
Recife became the main centre of Dutch power in Brazil. During the governorship of Johan Maurits of Nassau-Siegen, known in Brazil as João Maurício de Nassau, Recife and the newly developed Mauritsstad became an important administrative, commercial and maritime centre in the Dutch Atlantic world.
Ships connected the Netherlands with Brazil, West Africa, the Caribbean and other Atlantic territories.
Soldiers, sailors, merchants, craftsmen and labourers from different parts of Europe moved through these networks.
Among them, we begin to find people connected to Norway.
Jakob Jensen: a Norwegian who travelled to Brazil in the seventeenth century
One of the clearest Norwegian cases identified so far is Jakob Jensen.
Norwegian historian Margit Løyland discusses him in her book Hollendartida i Norge 1550–1750, which examines the period of particularly intense Norwegian-Dutch connections.
According to Løyland, Jensen left Norway for the Netherlands early in the seventeenth century to learn the blacksmith’s trade.
Like many other Norwegians who found themselves in the Netherlands, he later went to sea.
But his journey did not end there.
Jensen travelled to Brazil as a soldier in Dutch service.
According to Løyland, he remained in Brazil for approximately ten years before eventually returning through the Netherlands and back to Norway.
His life therefore gives us a remarkably tangible route:
Norway → Netherlands → Brazil → Netherlands → Norway
This is what makes Jensen’s story particularly significant.
The relationship between Norway, the Netherlands and Brazil was not limited to abstract flows of goods or shipping.
People themselves travelled these routes.
Jakob Jensen is therefore one of the clearest human traces currently known of a Norwegian moving into the Dutch Atlantic world and reaching Brazil during the seventeenth century.
Løyland’s account points back to the nineteenth-century Norwegian historian Ludvig Daae and his 1880 work Nordmænds Udvandringer til Nederland og England i nyere Tid.
Yet many questions remain unanswered.
Which ship carried Jensen to Brazil?
When did he arrive?
Where exactly did he live or serve?
What did his military service involve?
Was he formally employed by the Dutch West India Company?
And which original records lay behind the later historical accounts of his life?
Tracing those answers further back into Dutch and Norwegian archives is one of the next steps in the research.
Henrick Swenssen: a possible link between Norway, the WIC and Brazil
Another archival lead brings the story much closer to a specific Norwegian locality.
Dutch records connected with the West India Company include a sailor named Henrick Swenssen.
He appears in an Amsterdam record dated 9 January 1647.
The available information identifies him as:
Name: Henrick SwenssenPlace of origin: “Bragenis”Ship: d’ValckOccupation: bootsgezel — a seaman or deckhandOrganisation: West-Indische Compagnie, the Dutch West India Company
“Bragenis” is very likely a Dutch spelling or transcription of Bragernes, now part of the city of Drammen in southeastern Norway.
This interpretation is strengthened by other Amsterdam documents in which the form “Bragenis” is explicitly associated with Norway.
We may therefore be looking at a named sailor from Bragernes serving the WIC in 1647.
Here, however, it is essential to distinguish between what has already been established and what remains under investigation.
Swenssen’s connection to the WIC is documented. His direct connection to Brazil still needs to be verified in the complete Amsterdam record.
His name, origin as “Bragenis”, occupation, ship d’Valck and association with the West India Company are present in the surviving registration.
The next task is to examine the full original document and establish whether Brazil appears explicitly as his destination, place of service or part of his voyage.
If that can be confirmed, the result would be especially significant:
a documented Bragernes–WIC–Brazil connection dating to 1647.
It would link a named individual from what is today Norway directly with the Dutch Atlantic system that included Dutch Brazil.
Recife and Pernambuco at the centre of an Atlantic network
For an international reader, it is useful to think of seventeenth-century Recife not simply as a Brazilian port, but as part of a much larger Atlantic system.
During the period of Dutch Brazil, ships connected Pernambuco to the Netherlands and to other parts of the Atlantic world.
Those ships needed sailors.
Colonial armies required soldiers.
Ports and vessels required timber, rope, iron, food and countless other supplies.
The Dutch maritime expansion depended in turn on European trading networks that reached as far north as Norway.
This does not make Norway a colonial power in Brazil.
But it does demonstrate how Norwegian local history could become entangled with events taking place thousands of kilometres away in northeastern Brazil.
Norwegian timber, Dutch ships and Brazil
People are only one part of this story.
The other begins in the forests.
Norway was an important supplier of timber to the Dutch Republic.
Trees were felled in Norwegian forests, moved along rivers, processed at sawmills and shipped from ports to Dutch markets.
The Drammen region is particularly interesting in this context.
Its forests, waterways, sawmills and ports — including Bragernes, Strømsø and Kobbervik — formed part of an economy deeply connected to overseas trade.
At the same time, the Dutch Republic was one of the world’s foremost shipbuilding and maritime powers.
Its shipyards produced vessels that sailed across the globe.
Including to Brazil.
This raises one of the most intriguing questions of the project:
Could Dutch ships sailing to Brazil have been built or repaired with Norwegian timber?
At present, there is not enough evidence to say that a specific cargo of Norwegian timber was used in a particular WIC vessel bound for Brazil.
That distinction matters.
We know that Norwegian timber reached the Netherlands.
We know Dutch and Frisian ships collected timber at Norwegian ports.
And we know Dutch vessels crossed the Atlantic to Brazil in large numbers.
What remains to be established is whether Norwegian customs and trading records can be connected to particular shipyards, vessels and Atlantic voyages in Dutch archives.
This is one of the central research questions of the Brazil–Netherlands–Norway: 400 Years project.
From Norwegian forests to the Atlantic world
Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of this history is the way it changes scale.
In Norway, the story may begin with something very local:
A forest.
A sawmill.
A harbour.
Or a young man leaving home in search of work in the Netherlands.
But follow those traces further, and a much larger world appears.
The Dutch Republic was not merely a trading partner of Norway. It was one of the major hubs of the seventeenth-century global maritime economy.
For some Norwegians, the journey continued far beyond Amsterdam.
Jakob Jensen shows that one such route led all the way to Brazil.
Henrick Swenssen shows how a man probably originating in Bragernes could enter the maritime structure of the Dutch West India Company.
And there are likely other names still buried in Dutch and Norwegian archives that have never been examined from this perspective.
What we know — and what remains to be discovered
Jakob Jensen: A Norwegian who, according to Margit Løyland, travelled to the Netherlands, later went to sea and then served as a Dutch soldier in Brazil, where he reportedly remained for approximately ten years.
Henrick Swenssen: Recorded in Amsterdam in 1647 as a bootsgezel from “Bragenis”, probably Bragernes, aboard the WIC ship d’Valck. His direct connection with Brazil still requires confirmation from the complete archival document.
Norwegian sailors: Norwegians participated in Dutch maritime labour networks during the seventeenth century.
Norwegian timber: Norway was an important supplier of timber to Dutch markets.
Dutch Brazil: The Dutch West India Company conquered part of Pernambuco in 1630, with Recife becoming the centre of Dutch power in northeastern Brazil.
The larger question: How many people, ships and material flows can ultimately be traced from Norway through the Netherlands to Brazil?
Did the story really begin in 1842?
The year 1842 remains an important milestone in the history of relations between Brazil and Norway.
The voyage of Nordstjernen from Ålesund to Rio de Janeiro, carrying Norwegian stockfish and returning with Brazilian sugar and coffee, represents a logical starting point for the history of direct commercial relations between the two countries.
But it may not be the beginning of the entire story.
The seventeenth-century evidence shows that people originating in Norway were already participating in Dutch maritime networks reaching Brazil roughly two centuries earlier.
This does not mean that Norway and Brazil maintained bilateral relations in the seventeenth century.
It means something different — and perhaps more surprising:
Norwegians were already part of the Atlantic world connecting Norway, the Netherlands and Brazil nearly 400 years ago.
And we may only be beginning to uncover that history.
Can you help us identify more Norwegian traces in Dutch Brazil?
Brasil i Norge is developing the research project Brazil–Netherlands–Norway: 400 Years, investigating sailors, timber, ports and other connections between Norway, the Netherlands and Brazil during the seventeenth century.
We would like to hear from historians, archivists, museums, universities, maritime researchers, local historians, genealogists, cultural organisations and other institutions working with or interested in this history.
Perhaps you know of a Norwegian recorded in Dutch maritime archives.
Perhaps your research involves the Dutch West India Company, Dutch Brazil, Pernambuco, Recife, early modern migration, timber trade or shipbuilding.
Perhaps an overlooked document in a local archive contains another piece of the story.
Or perhaps your institution would like to follow or contribute to the project as we approach 2030, the 400th anniversary of the WIC conquest of Pernambuco.
We are currently bringing together individuals and institutions interested in sharing sources, contributing expertise, supporting further research or developing future collaborations.
Contact:
Rodrigo Braz Vieira
Brasil i Norge
Frequently asked questions
When did relations between Brazil and Norway begin?
The year 1842 is an important milestone in direct commercial relations, when the Norwegian vessel Nordstjernen sailed from Ålesund to Rio de Janeiro carrying stockfish and returned with Brazilian products. Earlier human and commercial connections through the Netherlands, however, can be traced back to the seventeenth century.
Were there Norwegians in Brazil in the seventeenth century?
Yes. Norwegian historian Margit Løyland describes Jakob Jensen, a Norwegian who travelled to the Netherlands and later went to Brazil as a soldier in Dutch service.
Who was Jakob Jensen?
Jakob Jensen was a Norwegian who, according to Margit Løyland, travelled to the Netherlands early in the seventeenth century to learn the blacksmith’s trade. He later went to sea and travelled to Brazil as a Dutch soldier, reportedly remaining there for about ten years.
What was the relationship between Norway and the Dutch Republic in the seventeenth century?
Commercial and migratory links were extensive. Norwegian timber was exported to Dutch markets, while Norwegians travelled to the Netherlands for work and participated in Dutch maritime labour networks.
Did Norwegians serve the Dutch West India Company?
Records associated with the WIC contain people linked to Norway. One example is Henrick Swenssen, recorded in Amsterdam in 1647 as a sailor from “Bragenis”, probably Bragernes, aboard the WIC ship d’Valck. His direct connection to Brazil remains under investigation.
Was Norwegian timber used in ships that sailed to Dutch Brazil?
Large quantities of Norwegian timber were exported to the Netherlands, but the project has not yet documented a specific Norwegian timber shipment being used in a specific WIC vessel sailing to Brazil. Establishing such a connection is one of the questions under investigation.
Sources and further reading
Løyland, Margit. Hollendartida i Norge 1550–1750. Oslo: Spartacus, 2012. Particularly pp. 124–125.
Daae, Ludvig. Nordmænds Udvandringer til Nederland og England i nyere Tid. Christiania, 1880.
Stadsarchief Amsterdam. Notarial record dated 9 January 1647 concerning Henrick Swenssen, “Bragenis”, d’Valck, bootsgezel, West-Indische Compagnie.
Open Archieven / Stadsarchief Amsterdam. Additional Amsterdam material in which the geographical form “Bragenis” is associated with Norway.
Brazilian-Norwegian Chamber of Commerce. Historic Landmarks of the Brazil–Norway Relationship 1822–2022.
Brazil–Netherlands–Norway: 400 Years. Ongoing research project examining Norwegian sailors, timber, ports and connections between Norway, the Netherlands and Brazil in the seventeenth century.
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