Nutmeg European Influence

Commodities and spices of Indonesia attracted many European countries to step into the commodities trade and harvest in Indonesia. Through this involvement, the impact still remains apparent and unchangeable. Back then, nutmeg was the most desired luxury good in European in 16th and the 17th centuries. Nutmeg was literally more valuable than gold and this motivated the Europeans to search sea route to Asia, more specifically, the Spice Islands (“A Bloody Splice of Nutmeg’s History”). European influence on the Indonesian society actually started out as a positive impact. When the Portuguese arrived in the Spice Islands as the first Europeans to come to Ternate, they introduced new methods for harvesting cloves. Portuguese made the Malukans separate the cloves from branches and leaves, dry
At least 10 years were needed before cloves could be harvested from the replanted young tree, which left the inhabitants with no choice but to move away or die of starvation. Onghokam, a historian from the University of Indonesia, says that the raiding missions, Hongi, struck great fear in the population and represented the “most notorious, blackest age” in the history of VOC (“History of Indonesian Clove Trade”). In 1652, Dutch once again introduced the policy of ‘extirpatie’, the eradication of all spice trees in Maluku in order to control the production and to maintain high prices in Europe. Any clove trees that were not owned by the company were uprooted and destroyed by fire, and death penalty was handed out to anyone caught with a clove tree or seeds. It left a huge aftermath even after Dutch left; Bandanese people still remembers the days’ pain and suffer through dances that represent the last people of Banda and rituals that represents brotherhood in order to resist the pain of the memory of the Dutch (BBC, “The Spice Trail”). European countries, especially Dutch’s simple need of spices turned to uncontrollable