THE SPICE TRADE: Focus on IndonesiaBy: Iwan Syahril 12/3/2008

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Mollucas/Maluku: The original spices islands

• What do you know about the spices islands?

• What made the spices islands so famous and important in the past?

Nutmeg & mace

Cloves and cinnamon

Why so important?

• Flavoring food. • Preserving food. • Perfumes and cosmetics. • Medicine. • Magical spells and rites. • Embalming.

• “He who controls the spice, controls the universe.”

• No man should die who can afford cinnamon.”

• A few nutmeg nuts could be sold for enough money to enable financial independence for life.”

• “A pound of nutmeg = 7 fat oxen.”

The arrival of Europeans in the Spices Islands

• Portuguese arrived in 1512 and became the major player in the clove market. They could not monopolize the spice trade.

• Dutch arrived in 1599, better organized than the Portuguese and tried to monopolize. – Run exchanged for Manhattan. – The Banda massacre. – Uprooting all clove trees in Ternate and Tidore.

Map of Maluku: Ternate, Tidore, Banda

Spice monopoly ended

● French smuggled clove seeds and planted them in their colonies.

● Dutch was involved in wars: Anglo-Dutch, Napoleon.

● British briefly occupied spice islands, and transplanted them in their colonies.

● Less heavy spices in European food.

What does it mean for Indonesia?

● Loss of freedom. ■ Colonized by the Portuguese, the Dutch, the

British, the Japanese. ● Exploitation.

■ Our wealth and hard work is not for us. ● Introduction to Christianity. ● Tipping the balance of power.

■ New alliances, new frictions.

Spices changed the world!

A video