History
Prior to the coming of the Europeans, the Banda Islands not only produced nutmeg and mace but were also a trading center, and trade goods from other locations moved through the islands, where the main trade goods were cloves, bird of paradise feathers, and slaves. The Bandanese were also the only
long-range traders in the Spice Islands, and they voyaged as far as Malacca. For centuries traders carried nutmeg from these remote islands to Asian markets, and a few nutmegs made their way to Europe.
After Vasco Da Gama reached India in 1498, the Portuguese moved fast, and in 1511 they burst into the East Indies and conquered Malacca. They wasted no time, and in 1512 they reached the Banda Islands and
filled their ships not only with nutmeg and mace but also with the cloves that were traded through the Banda Islands [Burnet, p. 35]. Distracted by hostilities elsewhere, the Portuguese did not return until 1529. The Portuguese sought to build a fort, but the Bandanese
resisted so effectively that the Portuguese gave up and thereafter were infrequent visitors to the Bandas. Though the Portuguese claimed a monopoly of nutmeg, in fact they ruled with a light hand and were for the most part content to let native traders bring nutmeg to Malacca, where the Portuguese purchased it. The Bandanese also resisted not only the Europeans but also the Christianity they brought with them; consequently, no serious attempt was made to Christianize the Bandanese, and they were left as a free trade port. This
freedom is what eventually attracted the Dutch.
In 1599 (or 1598 according to some authorities) the Dutch first visited the Banda Islands and peacefully traded for nutmeg and mace [Milton, 137-39]. In 1602 (or 1605) the Dutch came back and persuaded some of the head men to sign a contract stating that the Bandanese would trade nutmeg only with the Dutch; since this contract was in Dutch, which the Bandanese did not understand, they did not know what they were signing and signed it only to be agreeable [Keay, p. 238, Milton, p. 145, Bown, p. 11]. In 1609 the Dutch returned, noted that the Bandanese had broken the contract since they had traded with many besides the Dutch, and demanded that the Bandanese obey the agreement. The Bandanese refused in a spectacular way by massacring 30 Dutchmen, including the leader of the expedition. The Dutch responded by blockading the island to prevent food imports, which the islands depended on. This blockade proved effective, and the Bandanese were forced to sign an agreement that required not only that all trade would be with the Dutch (though the Bandanese were trading with others on the outer islands even as they signed the agreement) but also that gave the Dutch sovereignty over the Bandas; this was the first acquisition of territory by the Dutch. The Dutch built two forts to enforce this agreement. (The latter portion of this paragraph is based on Keay [pp. 239-40], Milton, [pp.158-61, and, Bown [pp. 11-14]. These authorities differ in detail; I have constructed a plausible, composite version.)
The English, however, established themselves on the most distant island of Run. The Dutch found the Bandanese uncooperative, i.e., they would not trade the nutmeg for the trade goods that the Dutch offered, e.g., heavy woolens, damasks, velvets, and unwanted manufactured goods, when it was steel knives, rice, calicoes, copper, medicines, and Chinese porcelain that they
desired [Bown, p. 10]; the Bandanese instead traded surreptitiously with the English and any other traders who could evade the Dutch. In 1621, the Dutch decided that to enforce their nutmeg monopoly and get the most out of it, the Bandanese would need to be eliminated. The process is described by Keay [p. 242], starting with the main island Banda Neira:
After some preliminary goading [by the Dutch], a supposed call to arms by the Bandanese became the signal for the Dutch assault. Villages were razed, possessions burnt, and the entire population--men, women and children--either rounded up or dispersed. A few escaped to the other islands, some died in the hills, some were mown down in the forests, and some jumped to their death from the cliffs. Most were deported and then sold into slavery in Java.
The other islands were treated similarly. For additional detail, see Burnet [pp. 104-105]. It is estimated that of the 15,000 islanders, about a thousand survived somewhere in the Banda Archipelago [Keay, p. 242]. The architect of this genocide, Jan Pieterszoon Coen, the governor general of the VOC, i.e., the Dutch East India Company, in Asia, is known to history as "the butcher of the Bandas" [Shaffer, pp. 156]. Having completed the first phase of the work, the Dutch went on to perfect their monopoly with a second phase, described by Keay [p. 242].
To provide the VOC with nutmegs and mace in reliable quantities and at fixed prices, the now empty islands were divided into sixty-eight perken, or plots, each perk being leased to a [Dutch] perkenier, or plot-holder, along with twenty-five [imported] slaves to work it.
Due to this monopoly, a nutmeg could be sold in Amsterdam for 120 times what it cost in the Banda Islands [Keay, p. 243]. The Dutch were able to maintain their monopoly for some
two centuries, though they sometimes needed to take unusual measures. For example, in 1735 the Dutch reduced their overhang of nutmeg by burning 1,250,000 pounds of nutmeg in Amsterdam [Turner, p. 291]. The Banda Islands effectively lost their monopoly on nutmeg when in
1817 the British transplanted nutmeg trees to Ceylon, Grenada, Singapore, and other British colonies.
The devastation of the idyllic Banda Islands at the hands of the Dutch recalls the words of Eduardo Galeano when reflecting on Latin American history, "Places privileged by nature have been cursed by history" [quoted by Shaffer, p. 226].
The irony of the Dutch empire in the East Indies was that Holland was a land devoted to toleration, liberal values, and freedom. (Remember, before the Pilgrims came to Massachusetts, they took refuge in Holland when they were not welcome in their home country of England.) Yet in the Banda Islands and throughout the East Indies the Dutch ruled through force and dictatorial power. In other words, the golden age of Dutch culture was largely built on actions inconsistent with that golden age [Bown, pp. 16-17]. Learning this is quite a blow to someone like me who has for twenty years been an out-of-control admirer of the Dutch in the 16th and 17th centuries. Apparently this incongruity resulted because the East Indies were so far from the scrutinizing gaze of those back in Europe [Bown, p. 37].
A curious importance attaches to the tiny island of Run, which is the westernmost of the Banda Islands; it is about ten miles west of the main island, Neira. The Island of Run is only a square mile in area (two miles long by half a mile wide) [Milton, p. 373], but it was covered with nutmeg trees in 1616 when it was claimed by England; the islanders, who hated the overbearing and bossy Dutch, eagerly signed their island away to the English in return for protection from the Dutch [Milton, pp 272-74]. This microscopic island became the first English overseas possession, and James I styled himself the King of England, Scotland, Ireland and Pulo Run [Keay, p. 240, Milton, p. 273]. ("Pulo" means island in the Malayan language.) In 1620, the Dutch, to protect their monopoly of nutmeg trees, overran Run and threw out the English; as for the Bandanese, the Dutch killed or enslaved every man and exiled the women and children. Moreover, the Dutch made sure that the English did not return and re-establish production by chopping down every nutmeg tree and leaving a barren, uninhabited island [Burnet, p. 105, Keay, p. 242]. (See the appendix on the controversial question of whether the English in 1667 traded Run to the Dutch for Manhattan.)
Run has since recovered somewhat. There are no cell phones or cars on Run, and there is electricity only for several hours each evening when a generator is fired up.
Pictures below show backyard nutmeg trees on Run and the village of Run.
The Spice
The pictures above show the vermilion web that covers the seed; this is the mace, which is scraped off, flattened, and dried to produce the spice; when dried the mace is yellow or amber. (Watch this
video to see how to remove the mace. Once you pull the partially split fruit apart, you can remove the seed much as you do from an avocado, except that it's easier.) Once the mace is removed, the seed is dried, e.g., in the sun for 6-8 weeks, during which time the nutmeg, which is the kernel inside the seed, shrinks so that it rattles inside the seed. The dried seed is broken apart to release the nutmeg. A large nutmeg will be 1.25 inches long and 0.75 inches in diameter.
Nutmeg and mace are said to taste so much
alike that one can be substituted for the other in a recipe. See this
site for nutmeg recipes.
Be aware that nutmeg quickly
loses its spiciness when ground, so you should buy the entire nutmeg and practice just-in-time grating when you use it. In addition, deadly aflatoxins can be avoided by buying the nut whole; if you buy the powder, it is
possible that diseased nutmegs have been ground up to disguise their unsuitability. You can buy whole nutmegs at
Amazon; the reviews are mixed. You can also get them at Penzeys Spices either
on-line at at their store at 1293 Mass Ave in Arlington, which is their only store in Massachusetts. I took the picture below at the Arlington store; a silver dollar provides scale.
Nutmeg is much less prominent in our culture than it was a couple of hundred years ago. For example, it was so well known to everyone that the following math problem appeared in the pre-Civil War textbook. Elements of Algebra, by D.H. Hill, president of mathematics at Davidson College in North Carolina, quoted by Craven [p. 295]. This shows the deep antagonism between North and South and how every occasion was used the belittle the other side.
A Yankee mixes a certain number of wooden nutmegs, which cost him 1/4 cent apiece, with a quantity of real nutmegs, worth 4 cents apiece and sells the whole assortment for $44; and gains $3.75 by the fraud. How many wooden nutmegs were there?
(Note: This problem reflects poorly on Southern scholarship since it gives unnecessary information, namely the figure of $44. The answer is that there were 100 wooden nutmegs.) Recall that Connecticut is nicknamed "The Nutmeg State." To fully understand the insult implied by this problem, be aware that it was an
urban legend that unscrupulous Connecticut traders would start with a piece of wood and whittle a "wooden nutmeg," a term that later came to mean any type of fraud. (A curiosity: My mother's maiden name is Davidson, and there is a family tradition that one of her ancestors founded Davidson College. I have never seen any proof.)
Miscellany
Do not feed nutmeg to your dog since high levels can
poison it. Symptoms include seizures, tremors, central nervous system problems, and death. Therefore, no egg nog for the pooch.
Humans can also be adversely affected by excessive nutmeg. Protracted nutmeg abuse can lead to liver cancer [Turner, p. xx]. A single large dose can also cause problems, as explained by Krondl [p. 217n]:
According to Paul Gahlinger, the author of Illegal Drugs, "eating twenty grams of ground nutmeg can produce very severe physical and psychological effects varying with the person." Prolonged nausea is replaced by silly feelings and giggling, and then a feeling of euphoria accompanied by hallucinations. Motor functions may be confused and speech incoherent. He goes on to say, "the after-effects are usually quite unpleasant: aching bones, sore muscles, painful eyes, runny nose, tiredness, depression and headaches."
Nutmeg is rumored to be one of the top secret ingredients of both Coca Cola and Vicks VapoRub [Keay, p. 1, Turner, p. 310]. Among the ingredients of the Calvin Klein perfume Obsession are nutmeg and cloves [Turner, p. 221].
Nutmeg is so important to the economy of the Caribbean island of Grenada that a nutmeg is featured on its flag, which was adopted when Grenada gained its independence from Britain in
1974. (The nutmeg is the yellow thing with a red spot in the green triangle on the left.) Go to this
site to purchase a tee-shirt that features this flag. (This site also sells bibs, infant bodysuits, hoodies, and other products that depict this flag.
Travel Tip
Your travel tip is to get away from it all by journeying to the home of the nutmeg, the Banda Islands, which have been called "one of the remotest locations imaginable" [Keay, p. 2]. (Just try to find them on a world map.) Your only competitors for hotel rooms will be vulcanologists and divers. Due to the isolation of these islands, their coral reefs are unspoiled [Krondl, p. 212], and they are popular destinations for advanced
scuba divers who are willing to dive from boats and contend with strong currents. Below is a map of the dive sites in the Bandas. Alternatively,
sail through the maze of islands and passages. This
site shows a number of sailing vessels you can choose from; the second picture below shows the
Calico Jack, which accommodates ten guests. The next photo is a view from the metropolis, Banda Neira City, to the other islands. Also, you will want to climb
Gunung Api, provided that it's not erupting. The remaining pictures depict the level of hustle and bustle you will encounter and illustrate the setting where you will escape from Internet connectivity. Good news! There is an airport on Banda Neira.
Medieval Europeans were not so far off the mark when they thought that spices grew in paradise [Krondl, p. 212].
You can picture yourself retracing the steps of one recent
traveler, "Meandering through the nutmeg gardens, listening to the booming of the fruit pigeons, and exploring the ruins of old Dutch forts." You can see the remains of a fort in the third picture just above.
That tireless traveler and scientist, Alfred Russel Wallace, co-discoverer of the theory of natural selection, visited the Banda Islands three times in 1857, 1859, and 1861. He praised the "dense and brilliant green vegetation" and "...water so transparent, that living corals and even the minutest objects are plainly seen on the volcanic sand at a depth of seven or eight fathoms" [p. 219]. (A fathom is
six feet.) He also noted the "ever-smoking volcano" [p. 219] and commented on the "....inexhaustible fire whose dense and sulphureous smoke for ever issues from the bare and desolate peak" [p. 220]. He concluded, "It is only when actually gazing on an active volcano that one can fully realize its awfulness and grandeur" [p. 220].
Rick
Appendix: Did the English Trade Run to the Dutch for Manhattan?
As explained above, in 1616 the head men on Run signed an agreement that gave sovereignty of the Banda Islands to England. This agreement gave the English a whiff of a title to Run. In my original draft of this e-mail I included the following sentence: "To completely extinguish the English claim to the island of Run, in 1667 the Dutch traded another seemingly insignificant island to the English for Run. The island traded away by the Dutch for Run was Manhattan. [Burnet, pp. 95, 104, 105, 108]." This "fact" can be found in many sources, e.g., not only Burnet but also
Wikipedia, Milton [pp. 363-64], Bown [pp. 100-101], and Shaffer [p. 148]. As you might guess, writers delight in dancing up and down on this story of how Run was traded for Manhattan. Some historians, however, castigate this as an oversimplified misinterpretation. An alternate interpretation appears in Keay [p. 245], who discusses the Peace of Breda, which ended the Second Anglo-Dutch War (1665-1667) in
favor of the Dutch:
Among other concessions in this Peace of Breda, the Dutch relinquished various claims in north America, including that to New Amsterdam and its island of Manhattan, while the English relinquished all their rights in the Spice Islands, including those to now depopulated Pulo Run. Run was not exchanged for New York, as New Amsterdam now became; its transfer just happened to be part of the same settlement.
Turner [p. 40n] supports Keay's view by pointing out that at the end of the war Manhattan had been occupied by the English and Run had been in the hands of the Dutch for decades, so all the treaty did was to accept the existing conditions; this is called an
uti possidetis treaty. If you would like to decide this spat among historians for yourself, I suggest that you inspect the terms of the treaty in the even-handed discussion on the Oxford Public International Law
website; you can find shorter treatments in the
Encyclopedia Britannica or in Israel [p. 774]. Under any interpretation, however, the British can't be congratulated on canny negotiating since during the negotiations they offered to
return Manhattan to the Dutch in exchange for the English sugar factories in Surinam that had been seized earlier in the year by the Dutch; the Dutch turned down this offer.
The conclusion I come to is that Keay is correct--the British getting New York and the Dutch getting Run were just two clauses among many in the treaty. The Dutch might be criticized for giving up New York (as well as New Jersey, Delaware, and Pennsylvania) in a treaty in which they were largely calling the shots since they were in a stronger position than the British, but this had nothing to do with Run.
On 4 June 2004 Christie's sold two
broadsides (one in English and one in Dutch) that published the Treaty of Breda, which included signatures of the seven principals along with the original seal impressions in red wax. You could have picked this set up for $77,675.
Note added on 19 Jul 2017: Later reading clarifies this issue. It turns out that one of the "core principles of Restoration-era English imperialism" was the expulsion of the Dutch from North America; this aimed to solidify the English possessions on the continent and strengthen the English carrying trade. In fact, one of the preliminary actions of the Second Anglo-Dutch War was that in 1664 English forces took New Netherlands from the Dutch. Therefore, even though for the English this war was "a financial and political disaster," they did manage to hang onto Manhattan, thus achieving a major English war goal that had nothing to do with Run. (This paragraph is based on Richter, pp. 247-49, 255, quotations from pp. 249, 255.)
References
Bown, Stephen R., Merchant Kings: When Companies Ruled the World, 1600-1900, Thomas Dunne Books, 2009. For a description of the book, see the e-mail of 9 Oct 2015.
Burnet, Ian, East Indies, Rosenberg, 2013. For a description of the book, see the e-mail of 9 Oct 2015.
Craven, Avery, The Coming of the Civil War, second edition, University of Chicago Press, 1957. This is a standard work in American history. I had access to this book in hard copy.
Israel, Jonathan, The Dutch Republic: Its Rise, Greatness, and Fall 1477-1806, Oxford, 1995. This is a standard work in Dutch History. I had access to this book in hard copy.
Keay, John, The Spice Route: A History, University of California Press, 2006. For a description of the book, see the e-mail of 9 Oct 2015.
Krondl, Michael, The Taste of Conquest: The Rise and Fall of the Three Great Cities of Spice, Ballantine Books, 2007. For a description of this book, see the e-mail of 9 Oct 2015.
Milton, Giles, Nathaniel's Nutmeg: Or, The True and Incredible Adventures of the Spice Trader Who Changed the Course of History, Penguin Books, paperback, 2000 (first published in hardback in 1999). This is a well-written and highly entertaining popular book that focuses on English exploration and the history of English involvement in the island of Run; this is a useful perspective since most books focus on the early winner of the spice race, the Portuguese, or the late winner, the Dutch, rather than the loser, the English. Of the sources I have consulted, this book has the most thorough treatment of the Banda Islands. I had access to this book in hard copy.
Richter, Daniel K., Before the Revolution: America's Ancient Pasts, Belknap Press, 2011. I had access to this book in hard copy.
Shaffer, Marjorie, Pepper: A History of the World's Most Influential Spice, Thomas Dunne Books, 2013. For a description of this book, see the e-mail of 16 Oct 2015..
Turner, Jack, Spice: The History of a Temptation, Vintage Books, paperback, 2005 (first published in hardback in 2004). For a description of this book, see the e-mail of 9 Oct 2015.
Wallace, Alfred Wallace, The Malay Archipelago: The Land of the Orang-utan and the Bird of Paradise, A Narrative of Travel with Studies of Man and Nature, Dover Publications, 1962. This is a reproduction of the tenth edition, which was first published in 1869. For a description of the book, see the e-mail of 22 Oct 2015.
