Nathaniel's nutmeg (51 page)

No less diverting than His Excellency's official visit was the regular arrival of one or another of the local steam packets, bringing naturalists and wealthy Europeans in search of the exotic and unusual. All were delighted with what they found in this tropical archipelago, as testified in their numerous journals and diaries. 'A sail of two nights and a day [from Amboyna],' wrote the naturalist Henry Forbes, 'brought us to Banda. Coming on deck, before breakfast, we found ourselves slowly steaming in through a narrow winding entrance between thickly foliaged cliffs ... it was the most lovely spot we had yet visited. Fronting us as the steamer warped itself to the jetty lay the town as a cluster of white houses ... [and] from an elevated plateau, a battlement fort overlooked us, the scarlet of its Dutch ensign floating in the wind.'

Although the frivolity and heady excess of fin-de-siecle Banda provided the illusion of prosperity, many of the younger generation soon tired of the stagnant social life and lack of prospects and bought themselves one-way tickets to Holland, leaving the islands to their fate. With Dutch expenditure on the Bandas far outweighing revenue, they became an increasingly costly drain on resources and it was not long before the governor himself was withdrawn and the archipelago returned to an obscure provincial backwater seldom visited by Dutch officials. There were a few brief moments that reminded the world of the existence of these islands. In the 1930s, two prominent anti-colonialists, Mohammed Hatti, later vice- president of Indonesia, and Sutan Sjahrir, who served as prime minister, spent six years in exile on Neira Island; whilst in 1944 the Japanese bombed and then occupied the archipelago. Although they found the islands of little interest except as a rendezvous for shipping, their occupation did have one malign consequence: with few supplies reaching the islands, the locals were forced to cut down many of their remaining nutmeg trees and turn the land over to vegetable cultivation.

The end of the war brought tragedy to the Bandas. An American bomber raiding Japanese bases in the region appeared in the skies above Neira in the spring of 1945 intent on destroying the shipping anchored in the harbour. But one stray bomb scored a direct hit on the town of Neira, exploding directly above a wedding party and killing more than a hundred guests.

Today, the Banda Islands have once again retreated into obscurity — an archipelago so small and insignificant that it rarely features on a map of the region. Scarcely more accessible than in the days of Nathaniel Courthope, it requires patience and a good deal of luck to reach the islands. In the summer of 1997, the antiquated fourteen- seat Cessna plane that used to fly between Amboyna and Neira was flipped over by the monsoon winds and dashed to pieces on the airstrip. Now, the only way to reach the Bandas is on the KM
Rinjani
ferry, an eight-hour journey through the choppy waters which separate Neira from Amboyna.

Neira remains the 'capital' of the Banda Islands, home to a couple of stores, a fish market, two streets and two cars. A wander through the town reveals a Dutch church (the hands of its clock stuck at 5.03, the exact time of the Japanese invasion), a handful of crumbling villas and the former Dutch governor's residence which today lies empty and abandoned, its baroque chandeliers slowly shedding their crystal-glass finery. The only other 'sight' is the pentangle-shaped Fort Belgica which occupies a commanding position on a bluff of rock above the port — impregnable to all but volcanic boulders and Captain Cole's intrepid troops. The castle has recently received a much-needed face-lift but the restorers have been over- zealous in their work, rendering walls and installing doors. The ghosts that were until recently said to trudge its ramparts have been forced to flee to other castles in the archipelago — rambling, ivy-clad places where one can still scoop musket-shot from the sand-filled dungeons.

Unlike the central group of Bandas — connected to each other by prahus or native canoes — the outlying island of Run can only be reached by twin-engined powerboat. Even so, the journey is a treacherous one, especially when the monsoon whips up a storm and sends mountainous waves roaring through the ten-mile channel that separates Neira and Run. As our boat smashes its way through these waters in defiance of nature, we slowly catch a fragrance in the wind — the sweet, odoriferous scent of nutmeg blossom.

We land on the island's northern shoreline — the point at which Nathaniel Courthope landed 381 years previously — which is sheltered from the monsoon by the island's precipitous cliffs. A couple of fishermen glance at this newly arrived stranger while their womenfolk wander off to fetch us some coconut milk, but otherwise nothing stirs. The island's small wooden settlement is a soporific place; a village of swept alleys, tidy gardens and shaded verandas lined with flowerpots.

No one here knows anything of the extraordinary history of their island, even though they are forever turning up coins and musket-shot in their vegetable plots. Nor are they aware that their home - just two miles long and half a mile wide — was once considered a fair exchange for a very different island - Manhattan - on the far side of the globe.

Yet they are unmoved when told of the cruel blow that fortune has dealt them, happy to see out their days on this unknown and unspoiled atoll. For although their flickering televisions allow them a glimpse of America through reruns of
Cagney and Lacey
and
Starsky and Hutch,
they will tell you that the view from their windows is infinitely more magnificent than Manhattan's glittering skyline.

For there on the cliffs, high above the translucent sea, the willowy nutmeg tree is once again setting its roots, bursting into flower each spring and filling the air with a heady, languorous scent.

Bibliography

Nathaniel's Nutmeg
has been drawn largely from original journals, diaries and letters. A brief glance at this bibliography will reveal the author's indebtedness to Samuel Purchas who collected the writings of East India Company adventurers and trans­cribed them into his monumental
Purchas His Pilgrimes.
The 1625 edition is now extremely rare and even the twenty-volume 1905 reprint is only to be found in specialist libraries.

The Hakluyt Society is the other source for original writings but most of these volumes are also long out of print. They can be found in the British Library's Oriental and India Office Collections, along with many original manuscripts.

Those wishing to delve further into the letters written by overseas factors, or to read the official Company documents, will need to turn to the East India Company archives and Colonial State Papers - a task not for the lighthearted since they run to forty-five volumes. The relevant editions are listed below.

The two standard works on the Dutch East India Company are K. J. Johan de Jonge's thirteen-volume
De Opkomst,
a collection of journals written in old Dutch; and Franfois Valentijn's
Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indien.
Full details are to be found below.

Contemporary journals and diaries

Borough, Stephen, in Hakluyt's
The Principall Navigations,
1599.

Chancellor, Richard, in Hakluyt's
The Principall Navigations,
1599.

Courthope, Nathaniel, in
Purchas His Pilgrimes
(vol. 1).

Davis, J.,
Voyages and Works of,
Hakluyt Society, 1880.

Dermer, Thomas, in
Purchas His Pilgrimes-,
see also I. N. Phelps Stokes,
The Iconography of Manhattan Island,
1922.

Downton, Nicholas,
Voyage to the East Indies,
ed. Sir William Foster, Hakluyt Society, 1939; see also
Purchas His Pilgrimes
(vol. 1).

Drake, Sir Francis,
The World Encompassed by Drake,
Hakluyt Society, 1854; see also
New Light on Drake,
ed. Z. Nuttall, Hakluyt Society, 1914.

Finch,William, in
Purchas His Pilgrimes
(vol. 1).

Fitch, Ralph, in
Purchas His Pilgrimes
(vol. 2).

Fitz-Herbert, Sir Humphrey, in
Purchas His Pilgrimes
(vol. 1).

Floris, P. W,
His Voyage to the East Indies in the Globe,
ed. W. H.

Moreland, Hakluyt Society, 1934; see also
Purchas His Pilgrimes
(vol. 1).

Hakluyt, R.,
The Principall Navigations,
1599.

Hawkins, William, in
The Hawkins Voyages During the Reigns of Henry VIII, Queen Elizabeth, and James I,
ed. C. Markham, Hakluyt Society, 1878. (This is the journal kept by the William Hawkins who sailed with Edward Fenton.)

Hawkins, William, in
Purchas His Pilgrimes
(vol. 1). (This is the William Hawkins who lived in India.)

Hayes, Robert, in
Purchas His Pilgrimes
(vol. 1).

Hudson, Henry,
Henry Hudson the Navigator,
Hakluyt Society, 1860. See also
Purchas His Pilgrimes
(vol. 3).

Jourdain, John,
The Journal of,
ed.W. Foster, Hakluyt Society, 1905.

Keeling, William, in
Purchas His Pilgrimes
(vol. 1).

Lancaster, Sir James,
Voyages of Lancaster to the East Indies,
Hakluyt Society, 1877.

Michelborne, Sir Edward, in
Purchas His Pilgrimes
(vol. 1).

Middleton, David, In
Purchas His Pilgrimes,
(vol. 1).

Middleton, Sir Henry,
Voyage to Bantam and the Maluco Islands,
Hakluyt Society, 1855;
Voyage to the Moluccas, 1604-6,
ed. Sir William Foster, Hakluyt Society, 1943.

Roe, Sir Thomas,
Embassy to the Great Moghul
(2 vols), Hakluyt Society, 1899.

Saris, John,
Voyage to Japan, 1613,
Hakluyt Society, 1900; see also
Purchas His Pilgrimes
(vol. 1).

Willoughby, Sir Hugh, in Hakluyt's
The Principall Navigations,
1599.

Letters and state papers

Calendar of State Papers: Colonial
(vols 1-9), ed. W. Noel Sainsbury, 1860-93.

Chalmers, George,
A Collection of Treaties between Great Britain and Other Powers,
1770.

Collections of the NewYork Historical Society
(vol. 1), 1841.

East India Company,
Calendar of the Court Minutes of, 1640-79
(11 vols), ed. Ethel B. Sainsbury, 1907-38.

East India Company,
The Daum of British Trade to the East Indies ..., 1599-1603,
ed. Henry Stevens and George Birdwood, 1886.

East India Company,
The English Factories in India, 1618-1669
(13 vols), ed. William Foster, 1906-27.

East India Company,
Letters Received from its Servants in the East
(6 vols), ed. F. C. Danvers and William Foster, 1896-1902.

East India Company,
Register of Letters etc. of the Governor and Company of Merchants of London trading into the East Indies, 1600-1619,
ed. George Birdwood and William Foster, 1892.

East India Company,
Selected Seventeenth Century Works,
1968.

East India Company,
A True Relation of the Unjust, Cruel and Barbarous Proceedings against the English at Amboyna, 1624. The Answer unto the Dutch Pamphlet made in Defence of the Unjust and Barbarous Proceeding against the English at Amboyna, 1624. A Remonstrance of the Directors of the Netherlands and the Reply of the English East India Company, 1624.

A General Collection ofTreatys, etc.
(4 vols), 1732.

Reference works

Borde.A.,
Fyrst Boke of Introduction to Knowledge.
Early English Texts Society edition of 1870 (ed. F.J. Furnivall) contains Borde's
Dyetary of Helth.

Chaudhuri, K. N.,
The English East India Company 1600-40,
1965. Crawfurd, John,
A Descriptive Dictionary of the Indian Islands and Adjacent

Countries,
1856. Danvers, F.,
Dutch Activities in the East,
1945. Dodwell, H. H. (ed.),
Cambridge History of India,
vol. 4, 1929. Elyot, Sir Thomas,
The Castel of Helth,
1541.

Flick, Alexander (ed.),
History of the State of NewYork
(10 vols), 1933. Foster, W.,
England's Quest of Eastern Trade,
1933. Foster,W.,
Company,
1926. Gerard, J.,
Gerard's Herbal,
1636.

Hanna,Willard A.,
Indonesian Banda,
1978. Hart, Henry,
Sea Road to the Indies,
1950.

Jonge, Johan K. J. de.,
De Opkomst van het Nederlandsch Gezag in Oost

Indie
(13 vols), 1862-88. Keay,J.,
The Honourable Company,
1991.

Khan, Shafaat Ahmad,
The East India Trade in the Seventeenth Century,
1923.

Loon, Hendrik van,
Dutch Navigators,
1916. Masselman, George,
The Cradle of Colonialism,
1963. Murphy, Henry C.,
Henry Hudson in Holland,
1909. Parry, J. W.,
The Story of Spices and Spices Described,
1969. Penrose, Boies,
Travel and Discovery in the Renaissance,
1952. Phelps Stokes, I. N.,
The Iconography of Manhattan Island,
1922. Pinkerton, J.,
A General Collection of the Best and Most Interesting Voyages,
1812.

Powys, Llewelyn,
Henry Hudson,
1927.

Rink, Oliver,
Holland on the Hudson: An Economic and Social History,
1986.

Rosengarten, F.,
The Book of Spices,
1969. St John, Horace,
The Indian Archipelago
(2 vols), 1853. Valentijn, Francis,
Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indien
(5 vols in 8 bindings), 1724—6.

Van der Zee, Henri and Barbara,^
Siveet and Alien Land: The Story of

Dutch New York,
1978. Van Rensselaer, Schuyler,
History of the City of New York in the

Seventeenth Century,
1909. Venner, Tobias,
Via Recta ad Vitam Longam,
1637. Vlekke, Bernard,
The Story of the Dutch East Indies,
1946. Willson, Beckles,
Ledger and Sword,
1903. Wilson, F. P.,
Tlte Plague in Shakespeare's London,
1927. Wright, Arnold,
Early English Adventurers in the East,
1917.

Index

A

Achin 7, 39, 83-92 Achin, Sultan Ala-uddin of 7,

39-40, 85-92 Aden 203,204

Ai Island: description of 112-13; secret deal with English 156; English factory on 161,194, 254; deals with English for nutmeg 192, 254; Dutch defeated on 255-56; Dutch fort on 257, 262, 293; Dutch determination to regain control of 258; Castleton deserts islanders 261; Dutch regain control 262; English prisoners mistreated on 293-94 alcohol 80

Alexander VI, Pope: division of

world by 28, 42 Amboyna: Portuguese seize 23; Portuguese fort on 68, 107-8; Middleton at 106-8; Dutch at 107-8; clove trees 108, 319; Jourdain at 246-47; English escape to from Run 307; importance of 318—19; massacre of 318-42; Dutch castle on 319,321; unlikelihood of English campaign against 319; English factory on 320; Dutch fiscal

on 322, 325, 326, 327, 329, 330, 331,333,340,341; Japanese tortured on 322; English tortured on 324 32, 334; executions 337-39; reactions to massacre 339-42, 344; compensation for victims 356

Amsterdam 52, 139, 141, 166, 170

Amsterdam
60, 61, 64

Anglo-Dutch Wars 355-56, 357, 362

Arctic: passage to East Indies via 9-40

Ascension
72, 82, 92, 102, 105, 108, 130, 144

astrolabe 55

B

back staff 55

Baffin, William 67

Bali 64

Ball, George 252, 253, 254, 285,
286

Banda Islands: seventeenth-

century map of 4; Portuguese first visit 23; description 110—13; cloths wanted by 121; and Dutch 121, 136-45, 144-90, 347-50; localised wars 138; most productive period 348; setders, quality of

Banda Islands
continued:
349-50, 368; slaves on 349-50; English gain control of 366-68; decline of 368-70; natural disasters 368-69; nutmeg seedlings transplanted 368; and Second World War 370—71; present-day obscurity of 371—72; present-day means of reaching 372
see also under names of individual islands
Bantam: Houtman at 61, 62, 63; Lancaster at 92-94; reputation for loose women and lax morals 97-98; Middleton (Henry) at 105-6, 149,217; ransacked by Michelbome 114-20; Japanese at 116-19; damage caused by Michelbome's savagery 120; van Neck at 134-36; Middleton (David) at 148; Keeling at 154, 263; life in 230-32, 236; fires 233-34; Jourdain at 248-50, 251; decline of the English in 249; replaced as Eastern headquarters of Fast India Company 354 Barents, William 12, 165-66, 167,
168