The Banda Islands and the nutmeg
A people destroyed to secure a monopoly on one spice
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Jan Pieterszoon Coen carried out the killing on behalf of the VOC, the world's first publicly traded company, which held the right to wage war, make treaties and build forts. The motive was monopoly pricing: as long as any Bandanese could sell to the English, the price stayed down. The islands were then worked with imported enslaved labour. It is among the cleanest historical cases of the joint-stock company exercising state power, and an argument that recurs in every later debate about corporate accountability.
For children
Nutmeg grew on only ten small islands in Indonesia, and in Europe it was worth more than gold. In 1621 the Dutch trading company arrived with soldiers to secure the entire supply. Of some fifteen thousand people on the islands, a few hundred survived. It was a company, not a state, that did it.
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Part of Terra Saga — the story of Earth on a timeline. terrasaga.org