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This is meant as an article about climate, but I found this very interesting - and surprising, to me.
Our Planet Is Heating Up. Why Are Climate Politics Still Frozen?
In 1621, the Dutch East India Company—the Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, or V.O.C.—arrived at the Banda Islands with a formidable navy. The global spice market was fiercely competitive, and a number of European powers had already sailed to this Indonesian archipelago and tried to strong-arm the locals into accepting various treaties. The V.O.C. had recently sought a monopoly on the spice trade with the islands, home to the precious nutmeg. Nutmeg, valued for its culinary uses and its medicinal properties—rumor had it that it could cure the plague—had long been traded across vast networks that traversed the Indian Ocean and linked Africa and Eurasia. At one point, a handful of the seeds could buy a house or a ship. But the V.O.C. couldn’t secure a deal. The islands lacked a central authority; instead of kings or potentates, they merely had respected elders.
Frustrated, the Dutch turned to a military tactic of extortion they called brandschattingen—threatening an enemy with arson—and swiftly delivered on the threat, torching the villagers’ houses, food stores, and boats. Dutch forces captured and enslaved as many of the Bandanese as they could, and murdered the rest. Soon after the massacre, the V.O.C. became, by some measures, the largest company in human history, worth more than ExxonMobil, Apple, and Amazon combined. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2...sm-environment
This is meant as an article about climate, but I found this very interesting - and surprising, to me.
Our Planet Is Heating Up. Why Are Climate Politics Still Frozen?
In 1621, the Dutch East India Company—the Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, or V.O.C.—arrived at the Banda Islands with a formidable navy. The global spice market was fiercely competitive, and a number of European powers had already sailed to this Indonesian archipelago and tried to strong-arm the locals into accepting various treaties. The V.O.C. had recently sought a monopoly on the spice trade with the islands, home to the precious nutmeg. Nutmeg, valued for its culinary uses and its medicinal properties—rumor had it that it could cure the plague—had long been traded across vast networks that traversed the Indian Ocean and linked Africa and Eurasia. At one point, a handful of the seeds could buy a house or a ship. But the V.O.C. couldn’t secure a deal. The islands lacked a central authority; instead of kings or potentates, they merely had respected elders.
Frustrated, the Dutch turned to a military tactic of extortion they called brandschattingen—threatening an enemy with arson—and swiftly delivered on the threat, torching the villagers’ houses, food stores, and boats. Dutch forces captured and enslaved as many of the Bandanese as they could, and murdered the rest. Soon after the massacre, the V.O.C. became, by some measures, the largest company in human history, worth more than ExxonMobil, Apple, and Amazon combined. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2...sm-environment
Another thing they did is to burn all the nutmeg plants in islands they don't control, and outright murder their European competition. Muslim, Chinese and other traders had been doing deals with the Bandanese for centuries, but they were content with exchanging spice for stuff that the Bandanese actually wanted.
That's the Dutch Golden Age - a rich seafaring mercantile nation. They had there own stock market, insurance networks, monopolies, pension programs, and a fleet of some 15,000 ships....Dutch settlements all over the world. They also specialized in the atlantic slave trade.
Another thing they did is to burn all the nutmeg plants in islands they don't control, and outright murder their European competition. Muslim, Chinese and other traders had been doing deals with the Bandanese for centuries, but they were content with exchanging spice for stuff that the Bandanese actually wanted.
Thank you for adding this - I had wanted to put it in, but I didn't want to make the post too long. I found that really shocking.
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