Daniel Guerin Spranger, or Quijrijn Spranger, Gerrit Spranger (born ) was a Dutch Jewish entrepreneur who was the commander of the colony of Cayenne, now in French Guiana, between 1656 and 1664. The island of Cayenne had earlier been abandoned by the French. Spranger established good relations with the indigenous people and founded plantations of sugarcane and other tropical plants. In 1664 the French returned in force, and Spranger ceded the colony on the best terms he could get. In 1676 the Dutch again captured Cayenne, and later that year the French again regained control. Spranger seems to have been among the Dutch prisoners shipped back to France in 1676. Life Early years (1610–56) Daniel Guerin Spranger was born in Holland around 1610. He obtained a contract to provide supplies to the army of Maurice de Nassau in the conquest of Brazil, and spent sixteen year in Dutch Brazil engaged in colonization schemes. He developed extensive trade between Brazil and Amsterdam. When the Portuguese army recovered possession of Brazil in 1654 all the Jews, Portuguese and Dutch, were expelled from the country. Cayenne (1656–64) Spranger obtained a grant from the States General of the Netherlands and established a Dutch colony on Cayenne Island around 1656. Spranger found that the French had abandoned the island. The Jews brought slaves with them, established friendly relations with the indigenous people, and began producing sugar for export. The colony came under the control of the Dutch West India Company. This company looked for suitable colonists, and in particular for Jewish settlers who had experience in tropical products. Several other groups of Jews from Brazil joined Spranger, who introduced sugar cane and indigo which proved very successful. According to Jacques Dutertre in his Histoire générale des Antilles, "under Spranger's administration, the island of Cayenne was reputed an El Dorado." In 1658 Spranger made an agreement for prospecting for minerals with commander Balthazar Gerbier, baron Douilly. On 12 September 1659 David Nassy, a refugee from Dutch Brazil, was given a grant by the company's Amsterdam chamber for a Jewish colony separate from the colony around the city of Cayenne. The group of Jewish colonists, mostly refugees from Brazil but some from Amsterdam, were refused permission to disembark on Cayenne by the Protestant governor, Jan Classen Langedijk. He would only let them establish a colony in a swampy area on the mainland. There were about 35 Protestants