Book Review
Nutmeg Wars 
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Book Review
Nutmeg Wars
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The magic fruit Only 18 men survived Magellan's expedition around the world , but they returned to Spain with about a ton of cloves, enough to make them wealthy for life. In later years an Englishman spent 3000 pounds on cloves and sold them on the London market for 36,000 pounds. In the Banda Islands, 10 pounds of nutmeg cost less than one English penny; in London, it sold for more than 2 pounds ten shillings, a mark up of 60,000 per cent. A small sackful, says the author, was enough to set up a man for life, buying him a house and a servant to boot. A thousand years ago only the richest could afford nutmeg, cloves, pepper, and cinnamon.. During the 16th century London's leading doctors pf physic claimed that nutmeg cured everything form plague to the ‘body ‘flux' (a strain of dysentery) which was killing thousands. Nutmeg, it was claimed, was also a powerful aphrodisiac. Venice had the monopoly until the Portuguese sailed East in 1511. They started with two small forts on the islands of Tidore and Amboyna and seized Malacca.. The battle for spices began when Drake and the British fleet which broke the sea power of Spain and Portugal. In 1579 Drake reached Ternate, established contact with Sultan Ala-Udin of Achin, resulting in the Sultan sending a message to "Saultana" of England. In 1599 the Dutch made their claim sailing to Banda, with its rich fields of nutmeg. In 1603, a Dutch East India Company (VOC) trading post was founded at Banten. In 1604 its rival, the English East India Company, sent an expedition which visited Ternate, Tidore, Ambon, and Banda. In 1616 the English reached Run The sailors were brave men, sailing in ships of 600 tons and taking 2 years to the spice islands and back, many dying of scurvy, dysentry and the "body flux," the result of having nothing to eat but putrid meat . Violent storms wrecked one out of three ships. Their captains traded as well as committed acts of piracy. |
| Brutal and savage The spice wars were brutal and savage. The Europeans killed and destroyed without mercy, locals and rivals alike. Prisoners were tortured and killed. Milton observes, "the voice of conscience is never loud in the journals of sixteenth century mariners..." If the Japanese kempeitai (gestapo) and their water torture was savage just read this passage on the treatment of prisoners by the Dutch "First they hoisted him up by the hands with a cord on a large dore, where they made him fast upon staples of iron, fixd on both sides at the top of the doreposts, haling his hands one from the other as wide as they could stretch. Being thus made fast, his feete hung some two foot from the ground, which also they stretched asunder as far as they would reach and made them fast." This being done they bound a thick piece of canvas about his neck and leaving an opening at the top. Then, "'hey poured the water softly upon his head until the cloth was full, up to the mouth and nostrils, and somewhat higher, so that he could not draw breath but he must suck in all the water." This was continued for hours until water "came out of his nose, cares and eyes; and often as it were stifling and choking him, at length took away his breath and brought him to a swoune or fainting". At this point the torturers had to act quickly. Releasing the cloth from his face and neck "they made him vomit up the water" and as soon as he was breathing again 'they triced him up.' There was a brief discussion as to whether they should continue the torture. All agreed that it was necessary, whereupon 'they hoisted him up againe as before, and then burnt him with lighted candles in the bottome of his feete, untill the fat dropt out the candles; yet then applyed they fresh hghts unto him. They burnt him also under the elbowes, and in the palmes of the hands, likewise under the arme-pits, until his inwards might evidently be seene' And the Dutch "pissed and *** on our heads.. " complained one of their prisoners. And like the Japanese during the Japanese occupation "the heads and quarters of those who had been executed were impaled upon bamboos and so displayed" 
And neither were the English squeamish about torture. Here
is an account by Edmund Scott of the East India Company about his treatment
of an arson suspect "First, I caused him to be burnt under the nayles of his thumbes, fingers, and toes with shapre hotte iron, and the nayles to be torne off... Then we burned him quite thorow the handes, with rasps of iron tore out the flesh and sinews... " and so on ad nauseum Today Banda, eight hours by ferry from Amboyna and Run, ten miles away are forgotten islands. The cause of cruelty, avarice and double dealing lost their glory when in 1810 the British dug out the nutmeg trees o start up plantations in Penang, Singapore, Ceylon, and Bencoolen. In Penang Acheen Street and the mosque and the area around, now threatened by plans for "development," are reminders of the power of the Sultan of Aceh and the booming spice trade. Nothing remains of the immense Brown nutmeg estate of Glugor. Pepper Estate on Mount Erskine is now but a cobweb of narrow crooked roads threading their way through a housing estate. The clove holdings that still cling to the hills on the road to Balik Pulau have now to compete with intruding durian clones. # K L Chai Nathaniel's Nutmeg by Giles Milton Sceptre 1999 |
| ______ INDEX Point to the article that you want to read, and CLICK Index Page Baba Sayings Barbers Clan Enclaves Jetty Village Luang Prabang Nutmeg Wars PORR Headache |
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The BOOKSHOP , Chow Thye Road, stocks Penang Sketchbook as well as books previously reviewed in The Penang File such as : Tan Sooi Beng: Bangsawan ; Machiko Katayama; The Philosophy of Ikebana ; Dato J J Raj Jr: The War Years and After ; Lim Kean Siew: The Eye Over the Golden Sands ; Lim Kean Siew: Blood on the Golden Sands ; Malaysia Nature Society, Penang branch: Nature Trails of Penang Island . Lim Kean Siew: The Beauty of Chinese Tixing Teapots and the Finer Art of Tea Drinking ; Said Zahari: Dark Clouds at Dawn ; Eric Lawlor ; Friends of the Botonical Gardens: ; T N Harper: The End of the Empire and the Making of Malaya. (Telephone 228 2252)
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| ____________________ The Penang File Issue 24 |