The Spice Trade: Focus on Indonesia

1. THE SPICE TRADE:
Focus on Indonesia
By: Iwan Syahril
12/3/2008

2. Rasa Sayange
Rasa sayange
Rasa sayang-sayange
Hey, lihat dari jauh,
Rasa sayang-sayange

3. 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?

4. Nutmeg & mace

5. Cloves and cinnamon

6. Why so important?
• Flavoring food.
• Preserving food.
• Perfumes and cosmetics.
• Medicine.
• Magical spells and rites.
• Embalming.

7. • “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.”

8. 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.

9. Map of Maluku: Ternate, Tidore, Banda

10. 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.

11. 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.

12. Spices changed the world!

13. A video