4:00 P.M.

November 1, 2001

Spices of  Life, Death and History

by Richard Moersch M.D.

Assembly Room, A. K. Smiley Public Library

James VI, King of Scotland ,and son of Mary, Queen of Scots, succeeded to the English throne upon the death of his cousin, Queen Elizabeth in 1603 and reigned over the beginnings of the British Empire — an empire that would eventually color half the world a vivid pink in the atlases of colonialism. The first of the Stuart monarchs, he became James I, King of England, Scotland, Ireland, France and Puloroon. This tiny bit of rock, two miles long and a half mile wide, more commonly called simply Run, was the first colony of the English and for years a source of both great wealth and deadly warfare. Today you might have trouble even finding it on good maps.

To understand this story, we should look at the Banda Islands — of which Run was a part, and the Molucca Island group of which Banda was a small part, and go back in time four hundred and twenty years. The first of the Europeans to penetrate to this area were the Portugese. Prince Henry the Navigator had founded his school in the early fifteenth century primarily in the hopes of finding an alternative route to the source of the spices that had become the most important item of trade throughout Europe.This trade was dominated by the Venetians and the riches engendered there are still apparent in the splendor at the head of the Adriatic. The Venetians, in turn, dealt with merchants in the Middle East who kept their sources secret, while the point of origin lay even further over the horizon in southeast Asia. The principal spices were Pepper, Cloves, Nutmeg and Mace, the latter coming from the outer layers of the nutmeg. The two most highly valued were the clove and the nutmeg. Cloves had been an important item of asian trade for centuries, known as the “black rose” of the caravansaries along the Silk Road. Salted and pickled it flavored vinegar while courtesans used it to sweeten their breath. Rubbed on the forehead, it was thought to cure colds and when smeared across the eyelid was believed to improve eyesight. Taken internally, cloves were thought to stimulate the appetite and clear the bowels; downed with milk, they were expected to enhance the pleasures of sexual intercourse. Nutmeg was even more prized, utilized as a hallucinogen and as an aphrodisiac. Its value soared even higher when sixteenth-century physicians proclaimed it the most effective medicine in the fight against the plague. The real value of these shriveled bits of bark at~4 bud was indicated by the estimate that they rose in value 100% every time they changed hands and they were passed along by merchants and traders many, many times on their long trip from Mollucan waters to European cities.

The Portugese ships gradually pushed further and further south around the great bulge of Africa, seeking a route to the riches of the Spice Islands that would cut out the Arabian middlemen. In 1488 Bartholomew Diaz finally rounded Africa’s southern cape and ten years later Vasco de Gama reached the western coast of India. It should be appreciated that although the waters of the Indian Ocean were as unknown and fearfUl to the Portuguese as those of the Atlantic were to Columbus, they had been utilized by the Arabs for centuries and it was, in fact, Muslim sailors under duress who guided the Portuguese to India. The other main player in the search for spices was Spain and one of the reasons for Columbus’ strike west across the Atlantic was an attempt to out-fox the Portuguese. The conflict between the two European sea powers was so dangerous that in 1493 Alexander VI, the Borgian Pope — and a native of Valencia— proclaimed the Treaty of Tordisillas, which divided the world into two parts, giving Portugal the eastern hemisphere and Spain the west. Where this arbitrary line came down in far-off Asia was unclear and led to much warfare in years to come.

A second factor in the Portuguese push to the Indies was religion. This was a combination of the fanatical drive to bring salvation to heathens and the ignorant, and a belief that the Garden of Eden lay in the East. Added to this were the tales of the extraordinary Prester John, thought to be a wealthy Christian King dwelling in the East. Salvation and trade both drove the explorers and when Vasco de Gama returned in 1499 with a cargo that paid his expedition’s cost sixty times over the race was on.

The Portuguese purchased spices in India at enormous profit, but realized that these came from much further east and elected to probe further looking for the ultimate source. By the summer of 1511, a Portuguese fleet commanded by Alfonso de Albuquerque had reached Malacca, the golden trade port on the Maylasian peninsula, where all goods passed through the narrow sea between there and the huge island of Sumatra. The Portugese were intent on seizing control of the spice trade and that meant the siege and capture of Malacca. Among those aboard were Fernao de Magalhaes (who would later alter his name to that which we anglicize as Ferdinand Magellan) and his companion Francisco Serrao. These two adventurers had actually been here two years previously when members of a party led by Diego Lopes de Sequeira in a reconnoiter of the area. The small and greedy party on that earlier probe had been welcomed with enthusiasm by the Malays and had filled the holds of their ships with spices, but quickly fell afoul of the established Arab traders and this combined with their insensitivity to local customs and manners doomed the Portuguese. With half the party ashore and those on the ships asleep, Malay prahus quietly surrounded the little fleet and attacked suddenly. The battle on sand and in the surf was ferocious and many of the Portugese still alive were trapped ashore as the fleet withdrew. Two of the Malay prisoners were executed by crossbow shots to the brain and left behind with a note pinned to their bodies. It said: “Thus the King of Portugal avenged the treason of his enemies.” It might have been more meaningful had anyone there been able to read the Portuguese. Magellan twice saved Serrao’s life during the ugly fighting.

Though not an old city, Malacca was the most important trading port at this juncture of the Indian Ocean and Southeast Asia. Ships from Arabia and China met here to trade cargoes and the Sultan, Paramesvara, had visited the Chinese emperor with an entourage of over 500, bearing lavish gifts . The present ruler, Mahniud Shah, dressed for display in a black velvet suit with gold braiding and a red sash, was carried about on the back of an elephant, beneath a white umbrella — all of this proceeded by a noisy band of fifes, drums and gongs. This was the magnificence faced by the ragtag but well-armed forces of Albuquerque that summer of 1511, determined to avenge the humiliation of two years before, and fated to open up route to the riches of the East to Europe.

Two factors had changed during the two years the Portuguese were licking their wounds in India: a quarrel had arisen between the sultan and his prime minister over a woman they both desired, leading to the execution of the latter and a schism among the Malays, and Hindu and Muslim traders had come to believe that their future might be better served by alliance with the invaders than with the sultan. One of the Indian traders secured the release of the captive seamen left behind two years before, and with these safely aboard the fleet from (3oa, Albuquerque rejected all attempts at negotiation and laid siege to the wealthy port. The battle lasted ten days, pitting the superior gunnery and armor of the invaders against elephants and numbers of the Malay forces. The fighting was vicious and herojc on both sides, but the forces rallying behind the cries of “Santiago” overwhelmed the defenders in the end and the looting began, carefully sparing the warehouses of the alien traders. Albuquerque immediately ordered two of his ships to provision and head further east in search for the source of the spices, while he proposed to head for Goa and then home in the Flora de Ia Mar, a three-masted galleon capable of carrying six hundred people and five hundred tons. The overloaded ship and its magnificent cargo was struck by a storm off Sumatra however, and went to the bottom, the richest treasure ever lost at sea. Albuquerque and his officers survived on one small boat, fending off drowning crewmen with lances.

A month before the departure of the ill-fated treasure ship, two small galleons commanded by d’Abreu and Serrao and navigated by Malay pilots slipped south through the straits between Malaysia and Sumatra searching for the Spice Islands. They wandered for nearly three thousand miles through Indonesian waters, enchanted by the azure sea and palm-fringed islands — an image they took home with them and which forever after was the European picture of the South Seas. The following year they reached Ceram, in the Moluccas, avoided the feared cannibals and abandoned one leaky ship, trading for a Chinese junk. From there they finally achieved Banda, sailing into the port of Neira under the plume of the volcano Gunung Api. This was the source of all the nutmeg and mace in the world — literally their “pot of gold”. Even when paying the inflated prices demanded by the otherwise friendly natives, they could expect a profit of 1000% upon return home.

After a month of negotiating and loading, the little flotilla headed west on the shifting monsoon. Within days a furious storm separated the ships and Serrao and his junk were cast up upon an uninhabited island, the beginning of his strange saga. Warned by his Malay crew of the pirates known to frequent the area, he laid plans, and when they appeared within a few days his ambush succeeded and he captured the freebooters and their ship. Offered a choice between the sure death of abandonment or joining him, the pirates swore allegiance and the two-crewed junk reached the safe haven of Ceram in less than a week. The reports of the captive pirates, combined with previous reports of the fall of Malacca, cowed the natives and he was given a festive welcome. His small coterie of well-armed Portuguese soon became the mainstay of the local army and their success against neighboring tribes soon reached the ears of the rival sultans of Ternate and Tidore, twin islands three hundred miles to the north and between them the only source of that other great spice, the clove. Both beseeched the intrepid Serrao to join them, and he elected Ternate, convoyed there by a ceremonial fleet.

Serrao was the first European to see these lush and beautiful islands and soon realized that their enormous wealth might be not only a boon to his native land but also a source of personal enrichment and a sybaritic lifestyle. Destiny appeared to have presented itself and Serrao decided to remain there rather than rejoin his compatriots — who still considered him lost at sea — in Malacca. Eventually, the sultan did send word, adding that all cloves would be sent west via the Portugese and requesting that the latter send engineers to help with the construction of additional forts needed in the ongoing wars with Tidore, only a mile away across the sparkling waters. Greed overcame the anger his superiors felt toward Serrao, the Portugese established trading stations on Temate where their renegade soldier was now confidant to the sultan and overlord of the island, the first European colonial outpost in the exotic East. Finally, the contented Serrao sent messages via traders back to his old companion Magellan, now unhappily an outcast in Lisbon, urging him to return to the South Seas and the Spice Islands.

Magellan performed many bold and difficult tasks for King Manuel but was cursed with a violent temper and a disregard for tact that cost him the expected rewards of his deeds. Humiliated and disgraced in Lisbon, he made his way to Seville, by now the principal Spanish port for colonial trade and exploration. Armed with the letters from Serrao and with maps suggesting that the Spice Islands lay within that half of the world ceded by the Pope to Spain by the Treaty of Tordesillas. In retrospect, the width of the Pacific Ocean was grossly underestimated, but Charles I, grandson of Ferdinand and Isabella, was enthusiastic and agreed to finance the eastward journey from the royal treasury.with the stipulation that Magellan not violate the territory of “his dear and well-beloved uncle and brother, the King of Portugal”, the contract was awarded in March, 1518, and fifteen months later the five ship fleet headed down the Guadalquivir to the ocean.

Two years later the two remaining ships finally arrived in Moluccan waters. The voyage had been a tale of horror. Mutineers had siezed one ship in Patagonia and sailed back to Spain, a second wrecked attempting passage of the Straits of Magellan and a third scuttled after the Pacific crossing. Magellan himself had been dead eight months; he had unwisely involved himself in a quarrel between two chieftains in the Phillipines while trying to set up a trading post and was killed, along with many of his men, attacking Lapulapu, head of the island of Mactan. Humabond, the chief he was aiding, later turned on the survivors and they were fortunate to escape in tatters. Months of wandering among the islands between Borneo and the Philippines followed, the Spanish remnant entertained on some islands and attacked on others, while they in turn became pirates themselves, seizing lesser junks for food and wealth. A prisoner captured in such a raid said that he knew of Serrao and with his help as well as that of local pilots, the ragtag fleet reached the islands of Ternate and Tidore. The chief pilot, a Greek named Francisco Albo, took sightings showing they were indeed in Portugese waters, west of the line of demarcation, but this was ignored. The Spaniards, knowing Temate to be the island Serrao had opted for, anchored off Tidore, thinking an ally might be more likely there.

Within hours of dropping anchor an elegant, silk-draped prahu was rowed out to the ships bringing Tidore’s sultan, Almanzor, who welcomed them with open arms — and the news that Serrao, toward whom they had been pointing for over two years, had died only a short time before their arrival. Later evidence suggested that he had been poisoned, as was Bolief, the Sultan of Ternate. Those responsible were not known, but the end result was the establishment of a small Spanish outpost only miles from that of the Portugese at the far end of the known world. The one ship, the Victoria that completed the circumnavigation , returned to Seville with a cargo of spices worth ten thousand times what it would have cost there, more than enough to make the trip a financial success!

The small Spanish presence on Tidore did alarm the Portugese, who constructed a forbidding fortress on Ternate. When a second Spanish fleet, including the Victoria showed up in 1527 she was sunk by gunfire from the fort, the few survivors swimming to Tidore. Subsequent invasion of that island led to the death of most of the survivors. Meanwhile, peace was settling over Iberia. The papal lines were redrawn and King Charles, short of funds and about to marry a Portugese princess, renounced all claim to the Moluccas in exchange for 350,000 cruzados.

Problems continued for the Portugese however, as they had to contend with rival contenders for power on Ternate following the death of Bolief. The Queen Mother and the brother of the late king were vying for control as regents while two young princes were kept locked up in the Portugese fortress. The oldest prince was poisoned and subsequently an important local chieftain was executed in a sorry ending to a dispute over the death of a Chinese merchant’s pig. The dreadful farce led to the beheading of Darwis, the ex-king’s brother and a prolonged siege of the fortress.

The Portuguese held on, the Spanish withdrew from the Moluccas and there was a long period of relative prosperity under an enlightened Governor Galvao, but he was eventually recalled and the black comedy resumed. Captain Mesquita, who had a virulent hatred of Muslims, lured Sultan Hairun of Ternate into the fortress on a pretext, killed him and placed his severed head on a pike as a symbol of european power. Sultan Baab, who replaced his father, placed the fort under siege for the next five years. The Portugese authorities, aware of the colossal blunder, had Mesquita brought back in chains, but the damage was done. Meager reinforcements were sent to Ternate but the siege remained and trade vanished. Baab finally agreed to lift the siege if Mesquita was turned over for punishment. Under orders from Lisbon, Mesquita was chained in the hold of a ship bound for Tenate. This placation went awry though when the ship was attacked by Javanese pirates and the prisoner killed. The siege continued til the eventual surrender of the fort and the island on July 15, 1575, sixty-three years after the arrival of Serrao.

The Portuguese era was over, but some trade continued under the watchful eye of Sultan Baab. The harbinger of the future was the arrival, on November 3, 1579, of the second circumnavigation fleet, commanded by Francis Drake aboard the Golden Hind. He remained only a few days, loading seven tons of cloves on board before heading for London. The riches he returned with whet the appetites of the next great group of traders.

While the Iberian powers struggled for control of the spice trade new rivals geared up in northern Europe. The tidy papal division of world trade had little meaning for Tudor England and merchants were already looking for other routes to the Spice Islands. The “Mystery, Company and Fellowship of Merchant Adventurers for the Discovery of Unknown Lands” was formed in 1553 and within months had dispatched a three vessel fleet into icy arctic waters north of Siberia looking for a shorter passage to the Moluccas and one that might avoid both the Portuguese as well as tropical diseases. Within weeks of departure, however, the ships were separated in ice storms; one made for shore, abandoned their vessel and hiked overland to Moscow where they were treated elegantly by Ivan the Terrible before returning to London. The other two were discovered trapped in ice five years later all aboard frozen stiff.

The next attempt from London did not occur for twenty-nine years and followed the return of Drake from his great voyage. He was asked to take command of an expedition, but demurred, preferring the life of a freebooter. The merchants then turned to Edward Fenton, another explorer of the North and asked him to try the Portuguese route. In 1582 they headed south, but Fenton came to the whimsical view that they would go instead to St. Helena where he would be a self-crowned king. The crew revolted and the expedition headed back to England, Fenton in a psychotic stupor in his cabin. In 1591 a third major attempt was made but did not achieve Indonesian waters, reaching only as far as Ceylon, from where it returned with a hold full of pepper and less than a quarter of the crew still alive.

The press to compete in the trade continued nonetheless and on December 31, 1600 Queen Elizabeth signed the royal charter of “The Company of Merchants of London trading into the East Indies”. It was destined to become the largest created in history. Despite this, she was still worried about confrontation with now-united Spain and Portugal and was, in fact, engaged in peace talks with Philip II of Spain. The result was that the “First Fleet” under the command of James Lancaster did not sail until June 1602.

Five ships had been purchased and were carefully stocked with goods to be traded for spices, food for twoy~s, gifts for foreign potentates and finally 26 merchants to be left behind to set up trading posts in the Indies. The fleet looked grand as it sailed downriver but on reaching the Thames estuary the wind dropped and it took two months to leave England’s shores. .The journey south was a slow but uneventful one and they restocked at the Cape of Good Hope. The worst mishap was when the Captain and First Mate of the Ascencion were both killed by the musket-shot salute at the burial of two other crew members. Sixteen months after leaving London they reached Achin, a port on the northern tip of Sumatra. There they made good friends of Alauddin, the local ruler with jeweled ornaments and pistols as well as a letter from Queen Elizabeth. Sailing onward to Bantam on Java’s northern shore, they loaded the ships to the gunwales with spices and turned for London. Two years and seven months after sailing they returned home with cargo that paid for the trip a hundred times over. They had also left behind merchants and sailors with orders to explore further east.

After the departure of the main fleet, ten men in a small pinnace headed for the Banda Islands. Fighting the prevailing winds, they were pushed southward and later violently to the north, eventually being cast up on the beach of Run, the smallest of the Bandas, where they were taken in and promised access to the nutmeg crop .Thus ended the voyage of the first fleet to the Spice Islands.

The Dutch had long festered under the rule of Spain and were grateful to the English for their support in the wars of independence. They were also determined however to become the trading leaders of the world and hence bad an uneasy alliance with their fellow Protestants across the channel. They were, in fact, a step ahead of the English in the race to dominate the spice trade. Holland’s East India Company was completing its second trip to the East Indies at the time Queen Elizabeth was signing the papers of the British company. The Dutch were careful on these early trips, avoiding the remaining Portugese and establishing a trading post in northern Java. In 1599 two of their ships reached Banda while another two loaded up on cloves at Ternate. Both returned without incident and the second voyage was even more successful, Jacob van Neck returning to Amsterdam with over a million pounds of spices. The Commander and his men were led through the streets of Amsterdam by a band of trumpeters while all the church bells rang out in celebration. Other ships had returned to Banda and the Portuguese had been ousted from the central deep-water port of Ambon, today the capital of the Moluccas.

Meanwhile, important discussions were going on in Amsterdam among the Heeren XVII - the Lords seventeen - regarding basic imperial policy. The early trips had been courteous and soft, but the Dutch felt that the only way to maintain dependable supplies of spices and low prices was to be a dominating monopoly. This approach was voted and the Dutch rule became and remained harsh and tyrannical.

Policy established, the Dutch now threw themselves into the spice trade. When the next three British fleets arrived in the Moluccas they found the Dutch established everywhere and unwilling to let others in on the trade. The one English toehold was the flyspeck of Run which the Dutch did not consider valuable enough at the time to risk war. They had cleared the tattered remnants of the Portugese out of Banda, Ambon and Tidore and had shifted their main storage base out of malarial Bantam to a healthier area near present-day Jakarta. Organization and consolidation were Dutch specialties and the isolated trading posts were slowly but steadily turning into the Dutch East Indies. By the time of the return of the Fourth Fleet to London, fourteen such collections had reached Amsterdam.

The London merchants were determined to overcome the Hollandic advantage and William Keeling was dispatched on April Fool’s Day, 1607 with orders to establish posts throughout the area as well as bringing back cloves and nutmeg. This quixotic character led a rather leisurely voyage east marked by shipboard performances of Shakespearean plays — Hamlet and Twelfth Night —as well as fishing expeditions and elephant hunts. When he finally reached Banda he sailed right past the tiny British enclave on Run and into the large harbor at Neira. The Dutch welcomed him and even invited him to a feast, but were chillier when they discovered that he had met with the natives, bringing gifts from King James I. With fine maimers and lavish promises Keeling continued to purchase nutmeg from the growers, but before he could hoist sail two groups of Dutch ships appeared with nearly a thousand soldiers, under the command of Peter Verhoef, who bad orders to take over the islands by treaty or by force.

Keeling was made to feel most unwelcome and withdrew his single ship, the Hector, to Run, while the Dutch started construction of an imposing fort to awe the Bandanese. The local headmen were understandably angered by this new fort on their land and invited Verhoef and his aides to a negotiating conference. When the Dutch came shore, they were lured further into the groves and into a trap, where all 42 officers were massacred, their heads displayed on lances. The remaining Dutch rushed the fort to completion and then launched brutal attacks ashore as well as a blockade of the islands. When peace was restored, Banda - except for Run and Al - were now Dutch territory, the beginning of the Dutch East Indies. Keeling, his ship loaded with nutmeg, headed west with the monsoon, bound for London. The year 1609 thus ended with the Dutch firmly in control of the nutmeg and clove trade in the East Indies while the English had a profitable toehold on the tiny island of Run.

A diversion should now be made in this year to enter another aspect of our tale of the spice trade. Just as the English had attempted the Northeast Passage as a shortcut to the riches of the east, so had the Dutch East India Company, having sent three voyages north of Siberia in search of a viable route. It was on the last of these that the greatest of the polar navigators, William Barents, died while marooned on Novaya Zemleya. The Amsterdam merchants were understandably reluctant to try again but fearful of ceding any advantage to the English, they hired the British explorer Henry Hudson for a final attempt. He convinced these directors that the arctic seas would be open above 74 degrees north, aided by the testimony of a local pundit, Petrus Plancius, who said that the weak sun at the north pole for the five months of summer was enough to melt the ice. The Council of Seventeen still hesitated until it became known that the King of France was willing to finance such a voyage. A contract with Hudson was drawn up providing him with the sixty ton Half Moon and specific orders to sail the Northeast Passage. In early April Hudson sailed north, his crew a mixture of quarreling English and Dutch sailors and his cabin full of charts describing what little was known of the Northwest Passage.

By July they had reached Newfoundland, and using charts of the English navigator George Weymouth, which had been spirited out of England, sailed south past Cape Cod to Chesapeake Bay, and then north to Long Island and the mouth of what we now know as the Hudson River. Their meetings with the Indians were marked by desultory trading, the introduction of alcohol to the natives and recurring warfare. The area of Manhattan he described as “the finest for cultivation that I ever in my life set foot upon”.

The brief return trip ended for Hudson when he dropped anchor at Dartmouth rather than returning to Amsterdam. The Dutch ordered him to return, but the English issued an “Order in Council” forbidding him to leave. Within a year, Hudson headed west across the Atlantic once more, this time as an agent of King James, his mission the same. On this voyage Hudson took his ship into Hudson Bay where he was forced to overwinter in James Bay. It was here that mutiny overtook him, as he was seized and placed in a small boat with his son and six supporters, never to be seen again. The search for a northern route to the Indies died as well.

A diversion should now be made in this year to enter another aspect of our tale of the spice trade. Just as the English had attempted the Northeast Passage as a shortcut to the riches of the east, so had the Dutch East India Company, having sent three voyages north of Siberia in search of a viable route. It was on the last of these that the greatest of the polar navigators, William Barents, died while marooned on Novaya Zemleya. The Amsterdam merchants were understandably reluctant to try again but fearful of ceding any advantage to the English, they hired the British explorer Henry Hudson for a final attempt. He convinced these directors that the arctic seas would be open above 74 degrees north, aided by the testimony of a local pundit, Petrus Plancius, who said that the weak sun at the north pole for the five months of summer was enough to melt the ice. The Council of Seventeen still hesitated until it became known that the King of France was willing to finance such a voyage. A contract with Hudson was drawn up providing him with the sixty ton Half Moon and specific orders to sail the Northeast Passage. In early April Hudson sailed north, his crew a mixture of quarreling English and Dutch sailors and his cabin full of charts describing what little was known of the Northwest Passage.

By July they had reached Newfoundland, and using charts of the English navigator George Weymouth, which had been spirited out of England, sailed south past Cape Cod to Chesapeake Bay, and then north to Long Island and the mouth of what we now know as the Hudson River. Their meetings with the Indians were marked by desultory trading, the introduction of alcohol to the natives and recurring warfare. The area of Manhattan he described as “the finest for cultivation that I ever in my life set foot upon”.

The brief return trip ended for Hudson when he dropped anchor at Dartmouth rather than returning to Amsterdam. The Dutch ordered him to return, but the English issued an “Order in Council” forbidding him to leave. Within a year, Hudson headed west across the Atlantic once more, this time as an agent of King James, his mission the same. On this voyage Hudson took his ship into Hudson Bay where he was forced to overwinter in James Bay. It was here that mutiny overtook him, as he was seized and placed in a small boat with his son and six supporters, never to be seen again. The search for a northern route to the Indies died as well.

The Dutch, their route to the Indies intact, were intrigued by the report of the fertility and beauty of Manhattan and placed a small colony at the tip of the island. They were there for the trade only, but because of fears of the English, an exact duplicate of Fort Belgica at Neira Island in the Bandas was constructed, to be called “Fort Nieu Amsterdam”. It was while work on the fort was proceeding that Governor Peter Minuit arrived and purchased the island from the Indians for sixty guilders. A successful trading post from the start, it will reappear again in the course of history.

In the same year that Hudson left on his first western voyage, King James extended the royal grant to the English East India Company to one “in perpetuity” and new funds flowed into its coffers. With royal pomp, the sixth fleet left in April, 1610, under the command of Henry Middleton. His orders were to go to the Bandas and exploit the hatred for the Dutch by presenting gifts to the native chiefs. Unfortunately, greed intruded and he was also told to seek out new markets for British woolens on the way. This led to his stopping at Aden, at the tip of the Arabian Penninsula, after rounding Africa. The fortifications there appeared formidable and the local Pasha described as mad, so Middleton moved on to Mocha, where his new and large ship went firmly aground. There they were lavishly entertained by Regiv Aga, the local governor. The elaborate welcome continued for a fortnight, after which the captain and his crew were suddenly seized and placed in irons. The seven chief officers were chained together by the neck. An unsuccessful attempt was made to seize a sister ship lying to in waters nearby. Eventually, they were told by the Aga that The Pasha of Sana’a was responding to the orders of the Sultan in Constantinople to arrest all Christians. They then were marched into the mountains of Yemen to Sana’a where they were imprisoned for a month and then unexpededly released. Returned to Mocha, they were again imprisoned but finally escaped, refloated the ship and headed east . New conflict arose with the seventh fleet, which had now overtaken them; Middleton was accused of private trading. When they finally reached Java, the command ship was rendered worthless by shipworms and Middleton died soon after. None of the fleet made it back to London.

By 1612 two things were quite apparent: The Dutch dominated the spice trade in the East Indies and the London merchants — as well as the British crown — were more determined than ever to share in the enormous wealth engendered by this trade. Three men were to play leading roles in the struggles of this decade. John Jourdain had served as a factor and merchantman in Java since 1607, but was convinced that success would come only by becoming more active in the Bandas. He urged this course to the directors in London and with their approval headed for Amboyna in 1613 to confront the Dutch. Upon reaching the port of Hitu, he introduced himself to the governor and offered to buy nutmeg and cloves from the Hollanders, thus avoiding a trading war that would drive up the price. This offer was rejected and the English party humiliated and driven off with much abusive language. An even more hostile greeting awaited him at Ceram and he reluctantly withdrew to the English post on the island of Java. There the news was worse yet as two rival groups representing the sixth and eighth fleets were engaged in open warfare and with little or no trade. This was the sad result of a policy that each fleet was a separate institution and would benefit from the financial returns of their particular voyage only. Unsuccessful at resolving the quarrel, he headed for London but within a week met the considerable force of the tenth fleet, heading for Java. Turning about, he accompanied General Best and his fresh forces there. After a fair amount of head-knocking, all the British traders were united and placed under command of Jourdain.

The second of the three major players was Nathaniel Courthope, a trusted friend of Jourdain and his match in courage and stubbornness. Little is known now of his early years, but he had joined the East India Company as a factor in 1609 and had served them at several posts in Indonesia, apparently with distinction. In October, 1616 he was given command of two ships, the Swan and the Defence and ordered to Run to increase the British presence there.

The principal opponent of these English traders was Jan Pieterszoon Coen whose heroic statue still postures in the port of Hoorn. Arriving in the East Indies in 1607, he rose rapidly through the ranks, committed to a policy of absolute control of the spice trade without subtlety or compassion. Humorless and bloodthirsty, he returned great quantities of spices to Amsterdam and by 1618 was appointed governor-general. The battle lines were drawn.

Courthope had established a thorny presence on Run, erecting forts overlooking approaches from the east and by the spring of 1617 the British merchants seemed a permanent fixture, more a competitor than an annoyance to the Dutch. Trouble soon arose however; the Swan, on a voyage to Ceram, was waylaid by a Dutch ship and captured, while the Defense ‘s anchor cable was mysteriously severed and the drifting ship’s crew taken prisoner, held on Lonthor. Months passed while Courthope waited for reinforcements; sails were finally sighted after a year’s time, but before their incredulous eyes shifting winds trapped the heavily-laden ships and they were seized by the Dutch and towed off to Neira, the English prisoners being thrown into dungeons. Still, Courthope held on, but matters were unravelling to the west. Repeated sea battles had been occurring off the shores of Java between the rival powers as first one side and then the other had the stronger fleet. On July 17, 1619 Coen surprised two English ships and rapidly gained the upper hand. During a truce to discuss surrender, a marksman fatally wounded the British captain: it was John Jourdain. Coen personally awarded the shooter fourteen hundred guilders and his thanks.. The small force on Run was now truly high and diy. Ironically, peace had been declared in Europe at this same time, and the two great trading companies were united as partners; No word of this reached the far-off Moluccas for months however!.

In mid-October 1620 Courthope was overtaken by Dutch ships while sailing in a small prahu and in the ensuing melee, he was shot while frying to escape by swimming. Nearly four years had passed since he had raised the flag on Britain’s first colony. Word of the European peace reached the island two months later.

Jan Coen

With the English as junior partners now, as a consequence of the terms of the peace accord, Coen embarked upon his master plan for control of the spice trade: the elimination of the native growers and their replacement by colonists and slaves from outside. In February, 1621 an armed fleet of 1600 Europeans, plus Javanese convicts and Japanese mercenaries landed at Neira. The fighting was fierce but the invaders stormed the heights and soon had control of the islands. The Bandanese melted into the forests, work was started on new forts and the nutmeg rotted on the ground. Guerrilla warfare spread, villages were torched and the culmination was the capture of most of the orang kaya or headmen . Forty-five of these were systematically tortured and then beheaded and quartered. Over a thousand others were deported to Java. Word of the carnage eventually reached Amsterdam and the Lords Seventeen gave Coen an official rebuke — along with three thousand guilders for his conquest of the islands.

The English were technically allies and a small contingent remained on Run, but a force from Neira sailed to Run and the group there, lacking the will of Courthope , quickly surrendered. Coen allowed an even smaller remnant to remain there in poverty, part of the new alliance.

One final hostility remained: on Ambon, to the north, a small British trading post lingered. Fifteen men, including a barber/surgeon looked after a dwindling business. In 1622 they had petitioned London to cease operations but no answer had been received. In February, 1624 a Dutch soldier stationed at the main fort in Amboyna, the capital, became suspicious of questions asked by a Japanese mercenary and the latter was seized, imprisoned and tortured, after which he said that this small group of English traders were planning a mutiny. The English were all summoned tothe fort, made prisoners and then subjected to elaborate torture by fire and water. Within days all were broken and confessed to a variety of purported plots. The crushed and savaged lot were condemned to death, along with the Japanese and the beheadings took place on February 25, all proclaiming their innocence to the end. The East India Company eventually received a bill for the bloodstained velvet used to cover the executioner’s block.

When news of the horrific tragedy finally filtered back to England, there was an enormous public outcry. Hollanders living in Britain were attacked and the ambassador was recalled. The eventual compensation decided upon was the return of the island of Run. Unfortunately, when they made the first reconnaissance of the island they found that all the nutmeg trees had been chopped down on Coen’s orders.

Run was, however , British and visits were made there in 1636, 1638,1648 and 1662, basically to establish sovereignty. European affairs then intruded again when the English passed the Navigation Act, favoring the English Navy. This led to war with the Netherlands, after which a new set of colonists were sent out to Run. Later that year Holland’s Admiral de Ruyter torched the British fleet in the Thames and when word of that reached the Indies, the Dutch took the island again. This time though it was done peaceably and the settlers were taken back to Java with consideration for their welfare. Thus when there was peace in Europe, war raged in the Indies and forty years later the reverse was true.

In 1667 the end of hostilities led to the Treaty of Breda. One of the principal conditions of that treaty was that the British gave up their interest in the island of Run in return for the Dutch island of Manhattan in North America. Each side thought that they had the better of the trade!

Epilogue

Although the Dutch East India Company continued to reap enormous profits from the spice trade in the ensuing decades, the dreams of a world monopoly gradually faded. Cloves were transplanted in Zanzibar and Chinese traders began to participate, often in an illegal manner. Furthermore, Coen’s policy of eliminating the native planters and replacing them with Dutch colonists and attendant slaves led to a gradual deterioration of the nutmeg and mace harvest. The culmination came in August of 1810 when an English invasion overwhelmed the Dutch ; this was purportedly to secure the Bandas against Napoleon. At that time thousands of trees were uprooted and replanted throughout the British Empire. The islands were returned after Waterloo but never again reached the levels of wealth achieved before. Finally, Gunung Api, the volcano dominating Banda, eimpted repeatedly and an earthquake and hurricane destroyed most of the groves.

In the 1930s Banda was used as a penal colony for Indonesian leaders rebelling against the Dutch and a decade later was occupied by the Japanese army. American bombing nearly leveled the town of Neira, and by the time that Indonesia obtained its independence, the Banda Islands were a remote backwater.

In the last twenty years a charismatic leader, Des Alwi, descendant of native chieftains but London educated, has attempted to restore the nutmeg trade, replanting large groves and training local people in their culture. The entire crop is marketed through Catz BV of Rotterdam, who control 100% of the world production. Thus, the basic Dutch idea of a market monopoly has come to pass.