[Sca-cooks] world's oldest clove tree, BBC article

[Terry Decker]

The history is a little more complex than that.  The Portuguese had traded 
with the Banda since 1512, but the Bandanese were fairly war-like and not 
interested in the "benefits" of Christianity,so when the Dutch showed up 
around 1600, the Portuguese did not have a strong enough foot-hold on the 
islands to hold them.  The Dutch established a fort on Bandaneira and 
reinforced it in 1609 in opposition to the English on Ai and Run.  The 
Bandanese didn't like the Dutch expansion, so they held a meeting with the 
Dutch admiral, then killed him and 40 of his key men.

The Dutch spent the next few years trying to push the English out of the 
islands.  In 1621, they turned their attention back to the Bandanese, taking 
total military control of Bandaneira and Lonthar.  The Dutch then forced the 
Bandanese to sign an impossible treaty and when they couldn't adhere to the 
terms, Governor Coen solved the Bandanese problem with military force 
including Japanese mercenaries.  Japanese mercenaries apparently were known 
in parts of Asia from around the 14th Century, but the Portuguese made 
serious use of them from some time in the 16th Century.  The Banda campaign 
was possibly the last hurrah for the mercenaries for the Shogun banned the 
practice in 1621.

"The Japons are not suffered to land in any port in India (Asia) with 
weapons; being accounted a people so desperate and daring, that they are 
feared in all places where they come."  -- Sir Edward Michelbourne, English 
privateer, early 17th Century.

While many of the Bandanese were killed, a number of survivors fled to other 
islands.  Captured Bandanese were sold into slavery with an estimated 1,000 
being kept to tend the nutmeg.

The Dutch history of brutality was a reason why various native populations 
initially looked favorably on the Japenese invaders at the start of WW II in 
the Pacific.

Bear


> Actually the article that was linked does mention nutmeg and that the 
> Dutch killed the males on that island. I hand't realized that they were 
> that brutal, but I'm not surprised.
> "On the Banda Islands, to the south - the world's only source of nutmeg - 
> the Dutch used Japanese mercenaries to slaughter almost the entire male 
> population."
>
> I do have that book here at home, but haven't read it yet. I guess it 
> needs to move up in my priority list. :-)
>
> Nathnls-Nutmeg-rev (4K) 11/ 1/09 A Review of "Nathaniel's Nutmeg" by 
> Johnnae llyn Lewis, CE.
> http://www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD-BOOKS/Nathnls-Nutmeg-rev.html
>
> Stefan