八十年战争时期，西班牙哈布斯堡王朝对尼德兰采取了宗教、经济和军事等多方面的镇压与限制，促使尼德兰开始到欧洲之外的地方进行冒险和商业投资。17世纪，尼德兰已经成为大西洋世界一支令人生畏的力量，并逐渐将其势力范围扩张到非洲和美洲。在此过程中活跃于大西洋的尼德兰西印度公司与西班牙、葡萄牙进行了多场战争，其中主战场是当时世界上最大的制糖地——巴西。1624年，为争夺巴西，尼德兰和葡萄牙开始了为期30年的战争。此后，尼德兰一度占领半个巴西，但最终却出于种种原因失去了巴西，其中一个不可忽视的原因是尼属巴西水手所起的作用。本文将以尼属巴西水手为研究对象，从微观视角再现尼属巴西水手从应征到应征后的海陆活动，进一步澄清那段历史的真实面貌，透视尼德兰人失去巴西的深层历史动因，表明尼属巴西水手糟糕的待遇、微薄且不稳定的工资、恶劣的工作环境是尼属巴西衰落的重要内部原因之一，从而拓展对尼德兰海外扩张的理解并引发相关思考。
During the Eighty Years’ War，the Dutch started ventures and made investments outside of Europe as a result of Habsburg Spain’s military，economic，and religious suppression and constraints. In the seventeenth century，the Dutch Republic emerged as a formidable power in the Atlantic world，and gradually expanded its sphere of influence to Africa and the Americas. At the time，the West India Company（WIC），which was active in the Atlantic Ocean，fought many wars with Spain and Portugal. The main theater of the West India Company was Brazil，the largest sugar producing area in the world at that time. In 1624，the Dutch and Portugal began a thirty-year War for Brazil. Afterwords，the Dutchmen once occupied half of Brazil，but eventually lost Brazil due to various reasons，one of which cannot be ignored was the role played by the Dutch Brazilian sailors. This research takes the Dutch Brazilian sailors as its research subjects，reenacting their recruitment procedures and on-the-water and on-land actions to further illuminate the historical context of that time period and uncover the fundamental causes of the Dutch losing Brazil. The study demonstrates that one of the key internal causes of the Dutch Brazil’s decline was the terrible treatment of Dutch Brazilian sailors，their meagre and unstable wages，their unfavourable working conditions，which deepens our understanding of the Dutch overseas expansion and prompts pertinent thought.
