Banda was so rich at the time, people used to joke that when you shake a nutmeg tree golden guilders would fall down. Initially the Dutch traded amicably with the Bandanese, but in the late 17th cenutry they tried to imposes a trade monopoly which incited a war with the proud Bandanese.

The Dutch even gave the British Manhattan Island for one small spice island. The Dutch, British and Portuguese battled endlessly to control the islands. They conquered the Banda islands which were the west’s first experiments in plantation colonialism. Many of the native Bandanese were slaughtered or enslaved by the Dutch during this period. Only the handful of volcanic islands here are ripe for growing cloves and nutmeg.īy the 1600s, spices were more widely available due to new sea routes, which were dangerous but profitable to the new Portugese traders. The Roman Empire’s spices also can from this remote site in East Indonesia. This luxury loaf contained cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg honey and brazil wood.Īs the world’s only source of nutmeg and mace, the Banda islands have attracted traders from China, Asia and the Middle East for over 30 centuries, ever since the Persians first traded cloves from Moluccas. In 1596 the Guild of Spice Breads was formed in Paris. Spices had value not only for their exotic and unique flavours but also their medicinal properties, balancing the “humours” of the body and as a symbol of extreme opulence and luxury. HistoryĬinnamon, nutmeg and mace made the tiny Banda Islands highly prized and their 17th Century Dutch colonists extremely rich, but at a severe price for the Bandanese. They are called the spice islands for their crops of nutmeg, cloves and mace. The sea crossing from Flores north east to the Spice Islands in Eastern Indonesia is more than six hundred miles. History: Rare spices prove to be rich pickings, and inevitable slavery and warfare between natives and greedy European traders commences When: 30 centuries of rich trade erupted into native v colonialist warfare in the 17th century

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