Pepper (33 page)

“… many of the pepper gardens in ruins, the people restless, and in many cases unwilling to commence cultivation,”
William Marsden,
The History of Sumatra
, p. 452.

“… Wee are by Sicknesse all become uncapable of helping one another & ye great Number of people that came over not above thirty men [are] well,”
John Bastin,
The British in West Sumatra (1685–1825)
, p. 12.

“Our people dayly die & now we are in worse Condition then ever,…”
Ibid., p. 13.

“We are sorry to hear ye Sickly Condition you are in though are little better or Rather worse our Selves.”
Ibid., p. 15.

“At our first Settlement here, you Promised at all time to Stand by & assist us, when ever any Occasion required it.”
Ibid., p. 16.

“… 74 dozen and a half of wine [mostly claret], 24 dozen and half of Burton Ale and pale beer, 2 pipes [each 105 gallons] and 42 gallons of Madeira wine, 6 Flasks of Shiraz [a Persian wine], and 164 gallons of Goa [toddy]…”
See A. G. Harfield,
Bencoolen: A History of the Honourable East India Company's Garrison on the West Coast
(Barton-on-Sea: A&J Partnership, 1995) pp. 69–70.

“so much Insolence and Cruelty with respect to those under him, and Rashness in his management of the Malayan Neighbourhood, that I soon grew weary of him…”
Cited in Bastin,
The British in West Sumatra,
p. xxii.

“I treat them as a wise man should his wife, am very complaisant in trifles, but immoveable in matters of importance.”
Ibid., 43.

Collett's day in Benkoolen started with a good breakfast of bread and butter and Bhoea tea, a popular black tea from China, at about seven o'clock.
Ibid., p. 44.

“… families in upstream villages planted pepper and maintained the pepper gardens. Men cleared the jungle forests for the gardens, and women planted and harvested, as well as sold pepper in local markets.
See Barbara Andaya Watson, “Women and Economic Change: The Pepper Trade in Pre-Modern Southeast Asia,”
Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient
(Brill, 1995). This fascinating article describes how the pepper trade affected the traditional agricultural role of women in Sumatra.

“… bind their subjects to plant 2,000 pepper vines annually, and to give their assistance to the English officials to see that the terms were enforced.”
See John Bastin,
The Native Policies of Sir Stamford Raffles in Java and Sumatra
(Clarendon Press, 1957) p. 75.

“… the scarcity of rice such as was never known here before has forced People to quit their Habitations…”
See Bastin,
British in West Sumatra,
p. 62.

“… encreasing the investment of pepper is the material point in view for the interest of the Company,”
Ibid., p. 69.

“The People of Manna and Laye [Lais] Residencies have really been remiss [in cultivating pepper], and as the mallays are a stubborn, ignorant people, it is very Difficult task to make them sensible of their Interest.”
Ibid., p. 64.

“natural indolence of the natives,”
Marsden, p. 131.

“In the northern countries of the island, where people are numerous and their ports good,”
Marsden, p. 130.

The British did attempt to attract the Chinese to Benkoolen
,… See Farrington, “Bengkulu: An Anglo-Chinese Partnership” for a brief discussion of the English East India Company's efforts to establish Benkoolen as an alternative to Batavia.

“This country being very thinly inhabited”
Bastin,
British in West Sumatra
p 67.

Pierre Poivre
was part of a group of French Enlightenment botanists in the mid-eighteenth century who advocated forest conservation and other measures. He spent part of his career on Mauritius, which was a center for early conservation activities. See Richard Grove's
Green Imperialism: Colonial Expansion, Tropical Island Edens, and the Origins of Environmentalism, 1600–1860
(Cambridge University Press, 1995).

“It will be pretty obvious that the population is for the time as effectually enslaved to the local Resident as the Africans of the West [Indies]…”
Raffles, as quoted in John Bastin,
British in West Sumatra
, p. 155.

“Of the desolating effects of this system I can hardly convey to your Honble. Court anything like an adequate idea,”
Ibid., p. 155.

Raffles abolished slavery in West Sumatra and set up a system of “free” pepper cultivation, although natives who didn't grow pepper still had to pay an annual tribute of two dollars, a huge sum of money, or they had to deliver fifty pounds of pepper to Company storehouses.
Ibid., p. xxx, and see Bastin's
The Native Policies of Sir Stamford Raffles in Java and Sumatra
for Raffles's efforts to change the pepper plantation system in Sumatra.

“Mallayans, at work or play are never dressed till their naked daggers are in their girdles
…” Charles Lockyer, “
An Account of the Trade in India
: containing rules for good government in trade,… with descriptions of Fort St. George,… Calicut,… To which is added, an account of the management of the Dutch and their affairs in India.” London 1711. Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO), Gale, New York University, Gale Document Number CW106401529.

“What saves him is the large proportion in his make-up of humanitarian principle,”
Emily Hahn,
Raffles of Singapore
(Doubleday, 1946) p. 13.

“Now as to Mr. Raffles's physical features I noticed that he was of medium build, neither tall nor short, neither fat nor thin,” The Hikayat Abdullah,
Abdullah Bin Abdul Kadir, annotated translation by A. H. Hill (Oxford University Press, 1970) p. 75.

“creatures of the sky, the land and the sea; of the uplands, the lowlands and the forest; things which fly or crawl; things which grow and germinate in the soil; all these could be turned into ready cash,”
Abdullah Bin Abdu Kadir,
The Hikayat Abdullah
, p. 76.

“abounding in precious metals.” The Asiatic Journal,
London, [Monday], February 01, 1819; p. 215, Issue 38, Empire, 19th Century UK Periodicals, Gale, Cengage Learning, Gale Document Number CC1903193162.

“Sumatra should undoubtedly be under the influence of one European power alone and this power is of course the English.”
Cited in Bastin,
Essays in Indonesian and Malayan History,
Singapore, 1961, p. 164.

“our view opened up on one of the finest countries I have ever beheld…”
Lady Raffles,
Memoir of the Life and Public Services of Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles
(London: F.R.S. &c., 1830) p. 318.

“Neither on this nor on the preceding day was there a vestige of population or cultivation; nature was throughout allowed to reign undisturbed; and from the traces of elephants in every direction, they alone of the animal kingdome seemed to have explored the recesses of the forest.”
Ibid., p. 317.

“The most important discovery throughout our journey was made at this place; this was a gigantic flower, of which I can hardly attempt to give any thing like a just description.”
Ibid., p. 316.

Rafflesia.
See
Rafflesia of the World
, by Jamili Nais, (Kota Kinbalu: Sabah, Malaysia; in association with Natural History Publications: Borneo), 2001, for beautiful pictures and a wealth of details about the world's largest flower.

“Compared with our forest-trees, your largest oak is a mere dwarf.”
Lady Raffles,
Memoir of the Life and Public Services of Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles
, p. 317.

“
…
enter into a conditional treaty of friendship and alliance with the Sultan of Menangkabu, as the lord-paramount of all the Malay countries,…”
Ibid., 388.

“The Dutch possess the only passes through which ships must sail into this Archipelago, the Straits of Sunda and of Malacca
 …
and the British have not now an inch of ground to stand upon between the Cape of Good Hope and China; nor a single friendly port at which they can water or obtain refreshment.
…
”
Ibid., p. 306.

“In many respects
 …
the commercial policy adapted by the Dutch, with regard to the Eastern Islands,…”
Ibid., p. 75 (from a letter written in 1811 by Sir Raffles to Lord Minto).

“conceived it of primary importance to obtain a post which should have a commanding geographical position at the southern entrance of the Strait of Malacca,…”
Ibid., p 375.

“… imagination reeled to think of all the works in Malay and other languages, centuries old, which he [Raffles] collected from many countries, all utterly lost.” The Hikayat Abdullah,
Abdullah Bin Abdul Kadir, annotated translation by A. H. Hill (Oxford University Press, 1970) p. 195.

“rendering an acceptable service to Great Britain, and were in fact promoting a great national object.”
“Spice Planters,”
The Asiatic Journal
, (London, English), Thursday, July 01, 1824; p. 92, Issue 103, Empire, from 19th Century UK Periodicals, Gale, Cengage Learning, Gale Document Number CC1903144628.

“The factory of Fort Marlborough, and all the English Possessions on the Island of Sumatra, are hereby ceded to His Netherland Majesty;…”
Bastin,
The British in West Sumatra,
p. 190.

“… the Bencoolen planter is as effectually ruined as if every tree in his possession were torn up by the roots.”
Ibid.

“… Against this transfer of my country I protest.…”
A. G. Harfield, p. 499.

Six: The Dutch Terror

“Do not let yourself be afraid of the strength of the kafir [infidels],…”
Anthony Reid,
Heaven's Will and Man's Fault
, p.13 (Flinders University of South Australia, 1975).

“… to die a shahid [martyr] is nothing. It is like being tickled until we fall and roll over…”
Ibid., p. 16, excerpted from the verse epic
Hikayat Perang Sabil,
translated by James Siegel from “The Rope of God.”

“Your Honours should know by experience that trade in Asia must be driven and maintained under the protection and favour of Your Honours' own weapons,…”
Coen quoted in C. R. Boxer's
The Dutch Seaborne Empire 1600–1800
(Hutchinson & Co., 1965) p. 96.

“I believe there are nowhere greater thieves.”
William Dampier,
A New Voyage Around the World,
1698, Volume I, p. 317, New York Public Library, Rare Books and Manuscript Division.

By 1621, the total market for pepper in Europe was about 7.2 million pounds.
See C. H. H. Wake, “The Changing Patterns of Europe's Pepper and Spice Imports, ca. 1400–1700,”
Journal of European Economic History,
Vol. 8, 1979, p. 390.

Each company was supposed to provide for the defense of their common interests, obliging the English to help pay for Dutch forts, a stipulation that was almost guaranteed to sink the agreement.
Historian Vincent C. Loth examines the 1619 treaty in “Armed Incidents and Unpaid Bills: Anglo-Dutch Rivalry in the Banda Islands in the Seventeenth Century,”
Modern Asian Studies,
Vol. 29, No. 4 (Oct., 1995), pp. 705–740,
http://www.jstor.org/stable/312802

“could not pretend to a single grain of sand of the Moluccas, Ambon or the Banda Islands.”
Coen's infamous quote is published in Femme S. Gaastra's
The Dutch East India Company
(Walberg Press, 2003) p. 40, and appears in many other secondary sources.

“if you, gentlemen, want great and notable deeds in the honour of God and for the prosperity of our country, so relieve us from the English.”
Ibid, p. 43.

“… there is no profit at all in an empty sea, empty countries, and dead people.”
Quote cited in Holden Furber,
Rival Empires of Trade in the Orient, 1600–1800
(University of Minnesota Press, 1976) p. 48.

The Dutch immediately suspected that Keeling had instigated the attack against the Bandanese
 … Vincent Loth's “Armed Incidents and Unpaid Bills,” p. 711.

“sitteth as queen between the isles of Banda and the Moluccas. She is beautified with fruits of several factories, and dearly beloved of the Dutch.”
This quote is attributed to a man named Captain Fitz-herbert in
The Voyage of Sir Henry Middleton to Bantam and the Maluco Islands,
edited by Bolton Corney (The Hakluyt Society, 1855) p. vi.

“softly upon his head until the cloth was full, up to the mouth and nostrils, and somewhat higher;…”
This quote from a widely circulated pamphlet about the killings in Amboyna titled “A True Relation of the Unjust, Cruell, and Barbarous Proceedings Against the English at Amboyna in the East-Indies by the Neatherlandish Governour and Councel there,” helped fuel outrage over the executions in Ambon. London, 1624, Early English Books Online (EEBO) ProQuest LLC.
http://eebo.chadwyck.com
.

The executions outraged the English, who had planned to quit the Bandas and the Moluccas
 …
before the killings took place. They left soon after.
D. K. Bassett, “The ‘Amboyna Massacre' of 1623,”
Journal of Southeast Asian History,
Vol. 1, No. 2 (Sept., 1960), Cambridge University Press,
http://www.jstor.org/stable/20067299
. Even today, the underlying reasons for the executions aren't clear. This intriguing article describes how, in the years leading up to 1623, the English East India Company was not optimistic about its business prospects in the Spice Islands and finally decided to leave only one month before the Englishmen were beheaded by the Dutch. David Kenneth Bassett, who was one of the leading historians on European trade in Southeast Asia in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, argued that Dutch Governor Van Speult, a “humane and reasonable man,” did have reason to believe that the English were conspiring to overthrow the garrison in Ambon, no matter how implausible.