001 Review – Nathaniel’s Nutmeg

The full title of the book is: Nathaniel’s Nutmeg: How One Man’s Courage Changed the Course of History.  With such an apparently narrow focus, I deferred reading it until now.  In fact, the book describes the history of the spice trade from an English perspective.

The Eastern Islands of what is now Indonesia were once the only source in the world for nutmeg, cloves and mace.  Until the Portuguese arrived in 1511, these spices reached Europe by a mostly overland route, passing through the hands of numerous merchants of South Asia and the Middle East.  The Venetians had the monopoly over the last stage, from the Levant to Europe.  So it was not until the Portuguese built ships which could sail around the South coast of Africa that the spices began to arrive in Europe in such large quantities that people other than royalty could have access to them.

There were many surprises for me in this book.  One of them was the effect of supply on price.  In economics class, I was taught that low supply equals high prices.  But the bigger supply of spices caused demand to surge and drove prices through the roof.   I guess people didn’t know that they wanted the spices until they tried them.  The writer says that there was a big demand for nutmeg for use in medicine, too.

The English entered into the spice trade about a hundred years after the Portuguese, but a few years before the Dutch.  For some reason which is not stated in the book, the English were able to defeat Portuguese and Spanish ships with astonishing ease.  On some voyages, English captains were able to defeat multiple ships from those countries.  The Dutch were a different matter.  Although the started later, they poured much greater resources into the spice trade.  Where the English sent single ships, the Dutch sent fleets.  The English established ‘factories’ (trading houses) in native cities while the Dutch built forts.  The Dutch also sent thousands of soldiers, hired Japanese mercenaries and even tried to bring farmers to settle the islands.  The Dutch sought to monopolise the spice trade and were determined to drive the English out from the start.  In addition to their material advantage, they also worked as part of the company whereas the English tended to trade as individuals and frequently worked against each other.

The writer makes much of the fact that the native rulers and peoples much preferred to deal with the English merchants and hated the Portuguese and later the Dutch.  I think the reason for this is that the English never held much power there and circumstances forced them to get along with the locals instead of dominate them.  There are a few examples cited where an English captain bombarded native cities or where dozens of native Americans were shot for sport as a ship passed along the North American coast.

We don’t actually meet the Nathaniel from the title until more than half way through the book and he doesn’t reach the spice islands until two thirds through.  His actions ultimately had an effect on the course of world history, but he didn’t live to see it happen.

There is an uncomfortably long description of the brutal treatment meted out to a group of Japanese mercenaries and the innocent English inhabitants of Neira Island by a paranoid Dutch Governor.   The book relates many acts of brutality committed by Ottoman governors, Indian potentates, Javanese sultans, English captains and native tribesmen.  But the story of the torture and execution of these innocent men made my blood boil.  It’s a disturbing vision of what can happen when someone has much power and answers to nobody.  If that episode was typical of Dutch rule, I can now better understand why the people of Indonesia helped the Japanese during the Second World War and evicted all the Dutch as soon as they gained independence.

Another question raised in my mind by the book is why the Chinese or the Japanese never saw fit to control the Spice Islands for themselves.  There was opportunity for the Chinese under Cheng Ho, and even before that Chinese mercenaries were active in Java.  Even during the period covered by this book, there were Chinese merchants living in Bantam and Jakarta.  Japanese pirates and mercenaries were also active in the region and particularly feared by all.  Such valuable and easily defended islands would have been easy for an East Asian emperor to confiscate.

The main interest in the book for me was to learn more about how the people who lived in Indonesia at the time were. There are some mentions of the sultans, headhunters and the residents of the Spice Islands, but the book is mostly about the European experience.  On page 272 of the book, an English captain describes the people of Run as “peevish, perverse, diffident and perfidious people and apt to take disgust upon small occasions”.  I know some expats who still hold that view, but I’m sure they’re more complex than that.

Overall, the style is easy to read, but the bits about the torture were upsetting for me.