The Making of a Torturer
The young Dutchman who arrived at Port Royal in 1654 carried with him more than the customary bitterness of colonial displacement—he bore a hatred so refined by personal loss that it would transform him into the Caribbean's most feared torturer of Spanish flesh. Born in Groningen, in the Netherlands, and relocated at an early age to a Dutch settlement in Brazil, the man who would become known as "Roche Braziliano" (which translates to "Rock the Brazilian") due to his long exile in Brazil had witnessed first-hand the systematic destruction of Dutch colonial ambitions by Portuguese reconquest.
Unlike other displaced colonists who sought merely to rebuild their fortunes, Gerrit Gerritszoon (as historians believe his real name was) had experienced something far more personal during the Portuguese retaking of Dutch Brazil between 1650-1655. When the Dutch colonies were retaken by the Portuguese, he was forced to leave, as the Dutch Republic could no longer send aid to these colonies because they became involved in a war with Great Britain. The abandonment by his homeland, the loss of his colonial life, and the humiliation of Portuguese victory had crystallised into an obsession that would make Spanish suffering his life's primary occupation.
The Caribbean offered the perfect stage for his transformation. Where Montbars had needed books to fuel his hatred of Spain, Braziliano arrived pre-forged by direct experience of Iberian conquest. His years in Brazil had taught him Portuguese, which proved invaluable in understanding Spanish captives, and more crucially, had shown him exactly how Catholic powers operated when they held absolute authority over Protestant lives.
