Pedro Teixeira was part of
Francisco Caldeira Castelo Branco's expedition to found the city of
Belém. In 1617, he also led attacks against the Tupinambás, aiding an ongoing campaign by Portuguese settlers in Maranhão, with the goal of a clearing a land road between Belém and
São Luis. In 1620, when
Custodio Valente, the
Capitão-Mor in charge of
Pará left for Portugal. Teixeira, his adjunct, became interim governor of the Captaincy. During this period,
Bento Maciel Parente made an attempt to take the captaincy for himself by force, but facing resistance by Pedro Teixeira, left for Maranhão. Parente was later granted the position by the Governor of Brazil, and immediately gave orders for Teixeira to leave and lead another expedition against the natives. He also led several more campaigns and expeditions in the Amazon defeating the Dutch in their forts of
Orange and
Nassau, both in the
Xingu River, and on 23 May 1625 assaulted the shared Dutch and English fortress of
Mandiatuba(
Maniutuba?) on the
Xingu River, facing the forces of Dutch commander Nicolau Ouaden, who briefly fled to the
Island of Tucujus where he and the English commander Philip Pursell were killed by Teixeira's forces, in the same month he stopped a new attempt by the Dutch to occupy the islands in the
Amazon Delta and on 21 October 1625 he defeated the Dutch in the fort of
Taurege(
Tourege/Torrego), expelling the Dutch from their last holdings in the Amazon basin. In September 1629, Teixeira besieged the
English Fort of Taurege, where he defeated two enemy sorties and on 24 October 1629 the help that was sent to relieved the fort's forces, with the garrison led by James Pursell surrendering in the same day and being sent to
Belém. This earned a reprisal on 26 October 1629, led by the English Captain,
Roger North, who attacked Teixeira in the Fort of
Santo Antônio in Gurupá, where Teixeira triumphed and rebuked the English assault, North, defeated left to found the fort of
Camaú. == Amazon Expedition ==