Germans participated in almost every aspect of early modern European colonialism as soldiers, administrators, merchants, bankers, settlers, missionaries, scientists, etc. ey provided what Bouda Etemad called ‘the tools of empire’,1 namely, the manpower essential for controlling colonial territories. German military participation in early modern European colonialism begins with the Iberian conquest of America, but its scope there was very small. e total number of Germans who came to Spanish America by 1550 has been estimated at 200-300, compared to 50,000-60,000 Spaniards in the same period.2 e most signi cant German participation in the conquest of America in terms of responsibility and in uence was the administration of Venezuela by the rm of the Welser family of Augsburg between 1528 and (o cially) 1556.3 A er the abdication of Charles V in 1556, and especially a er the establishment of the Inquisition in America in 1569, Spanish America was closed to non-Spaniards, with the sole exception of Jesuit missionaries.4 In Portuguese Brazil, too, the number of Germans was small and the country was closed to non-Portuguese during the seventeenth and most of the eighteenth centuries.5 A er 1750, both Spain and Portugal began inviting foreign experts to their American possessions as part of their reform e orts. In

the military sphere, the most signi cant contribution was that of Johann Heinrich Böhm, a veteran of the Prussian Army, who in 1767 was entrusted with the reorganization of the Portuguese forces in Brazil according to Prussian military principles and is considered the founder of the Brazilian Army.6