The Battles on the Pindaré were a series of naval battles between the Portuguese Navy and the naval forces of Dutch Brazil which occurred in Brazil from 1642 to 1645 during the Dutch-Portuguese War. The Portuguese and Dutch engaged in a naval war of attrition along the Pindaré, which divided the Portuguese colonies on the north bank from the Dutch colony of Lauerstad on the south bank, and the Portuguese were successful in establishing naval supremacy after destroying ten Dutch warships and several more fishing boats.
The first clash occurred when the Dutch caravel Arnhem sailed to the north bank of the river to reconnoiter the Portuguese naval base of Porto Pindaré, upon which the Portuguese caravel Sao Pedro sailed to destroy the Dutch ship just outside of Porto Pindaré's docks. After another Dutch caravel disembarked a raiding party on the north bank at the Battle of Porto Pindaré, the Sao Pedro sunk another Dutch caravel, followed by the caravel Pera, which was also targeted by a Dutch watchtower's cannons. The Portuguese went on to build the caravel Santa Teresa to reinforce their control of the Pindaré, and these two ships joined forces to sink another marauding Dutch caravel and then another caravel, the Haarlem. The Portuguese ships proceeded to bombard and destroy the Dutch docks on the south bank before sinking another caravel called the Arnhem, and the Portuguese galleon spawned a raiding party to burn down another Dutch dock at Bacuri. This raid was met with disaster in the Battle of Bacuri, during which the Portuguese landing party was massacred by a much larger Dutch army. However, the Portuguese control of the Pindaré enabled the establishment of a new colony at Alto Alegre do Pindaré on the south bank of the river, due west from Lauerstad. As the Dutch were forced on the defensive on land, the Dutch decided to launch a naval offensive against the Portuguese to cut off their reinforcement route. Their new frigate Aemilia sank the Santa Teresa before being destroyed by the combined firepower of the Sao Pedro and a nearby Portuguese watchtower, and the Portuguese were able to use their control of the Pindaré to support their land forces' victory at the Battle of Ambos Bancos, defending Porto Pindaré to the north while also massacring the Dutch army at Bacuri to the south. The Sao Pedro was torched by the Dutch forces who attacked Porto Pindaré, but the Portuguese built another caravel to protect the port after the Dutch attackers had been killed. This caravel was ambushed by three Dutch privateers, who destroyed the caravel, but came under heavy fire both from the Portuguese watchtowers and from a new Portuguese caravel, the Trinidad. The privateers were routed, chased down, and destroyed, and the Trinidad and a Portuguese frigate destroyed the Dutch fishing boats further down the Pindaré, depriving the nearly-destroyed colony of Lauerstad of its food supply. With the Portuguese firmly in control of the Pindaré, Lauerstad razed to the ground, and the Dutch armies in the area destroyed, the Dutch had no choice but to abandon their colony in 1645. Nine years later, the rest of Dutch Brazil surrendered to Portugal.