From 1630 to 1654, the Dutch controlled large stretches of the the northern Brazilian coastline, and set up embryonic colonies there. However, in OTL, they were forced to abandon them after years of conflict with the Portugese
What if the Dutch had been more successful and had managed to hold their colonies into the 18th and 19th centuries, or even expand over all of present-day Brazil? How would the history of Latin America (and Europe) look? Would Dutch Brazil (or whatever it ends up being called) have fared better than its OTL counterpart (I seem to remember reading that the Portugese were historically worse than average at colonial government)?
Any thoughts?