Ebook Nathaniel's Nutmeg: Or the True and Incredible Adventures of the Spice Trader Who Changed the Course of History, by Giles Milton
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Nathaniel's Nutmeg: Or the True and Incredible Adventures of the Spice Trader Who Changed the Course of History, by Giles Milton
Ebook Nathaniel's Nutmeg: Or the True and Incredible Adventures of the Spice Trader Who Changed the Course of History, by Giles Milton
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Review
"This is high adventure -- pirates and cannons and pieces of eight ... A work of prodigious research, and a fascinatingly seminal tidbit of New York history". -- New York Newsday
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From the Back Cover
The tiny island of Run is an insignificant speck in the middle of the Indonesian archipelago, remote, tranquil, and now largely ignored. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, however, Run's harvest of nutmeg turned it into the most lucrative of the Spice Islands, precipitating a fierce and bloody battle between the all-powerful Dutch East India Company and a small band of ragtag British adventures led by the intrepid Nathaniel Courthope. The outcome of the fighting was one of the most spectacular deals in history: Britain ceded Run to Holland but in return was given Manhattan.A brilliant adventure story of unthinkable hardship, savagery, the navigation of uncharted waters, and the exploitation of new worlds, Nathaniel's Nutmeg is a remarkable chapter in the history of the colonial powers.
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Product details
Paperback: 400 pages
Publisher: Penguin Books; Reissue edition (July 1, 2000)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0140292608
ISBN-13: 978-0140292602
Product Dimensions:
5.1 x 1 x 7.7 inches
Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review:
4.1 out of 5 stars
114 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
#137,881 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
You should be aware of a couple of things before reading “Nathaniel’s Nutmeg: Or, The True and Incredible Adventures of the Spice Trader Who Changed the Course of History.†First, despite the title, this book has little to do with Nathaniel Courthope and his reputed adventures. In fact, Courthope doesn’t even appear in the narrative until page 202 in chapter 7, and then only as a peripheral character. Chapter 10 concentrates on his four-year ordeal from December 1616 to October 1620 fending off Dutch attempts to physically wrest control of the tiny but valuable nutmeg-producing island Run from the British. Second, Courthope’s purported role in changing the course of history is rather circuitous and certainly debatable. In short, in 1667, the British and Dutch signed the Treaty of Breda, “one of the most significant documents in history,†according to author Giles Milton, which swapped British claims upon Run for the future rights to Manhattan. “In exchanging a tiny island in the East Indies for a much larger one on America’s eastern seaboard, England and Holland had sealed the destiny of New York.â€Perhaps a more accurate title for this book would be “Tough Nuts: The East India Companies and the Anglo-Dutch Rivalry for Control of the Spice Trade.†It is difficult to exaggerate the value and influence of the spice trade to Western Europe in the early seventeenth century. Clove, mace and especially nutmeg are finicky plants. They grow naturally in only a few places on earth. Four hundred years ago nutmeg was only found on a few tiny islands between present-day Indonesia and Australia, an archipelago so minuscule that they don’t appear on large modern maps of the region. The most bountiful natural forest of nutmeg plants grew on Run, an island just two-miles long and half-a-mile wide. It was once, yard-for-yard, the most valuable piece of real estate in the world. “Run was the most talked about island in the world,†according to Miles, “a place of such fabulous wealth that Eldorado’s gilded riches seemed tawdry by comparison.â€Why? Because all sorts of fabulous (and clearly fraudulent) attributes had been ascribed to the nut, including the ability to ward off the dreaded plague. “Nutmeg … was the most coveted luxury in seventeenth-century Europe, a spice held to have such powerful medicinal properties that men would risk their lives to acquire it.†Indeed, in the early 1600s nutmegs were rarer and more valuable than gold or diamonds. A spirited and violent contest erupted between the Dutch and the British for access to – and ultimately unabridged control over – the islands that produced this invaluable commodity.Milton tells the story of this rivalry almost exclusively from the British perspective. Both nations chartered an “East India Company†(London in 1600, Amsterdam in 1602) possessing the exclusive right to trade with the Spice Islands. Each regarded the claims of the other as invalid. Swashbuckling merchant captains – British and Dutch alike – raided native villages, burned down rival warehouses, bribed local chieftains, plundered spice-laden cargo ships, and unilaterally claimed sovereignty over nutmeg-producing islands. It was all quite a messy business, to say the least. Trade missions to the East Indies were known for their squalor and mortal danger. It was fully expected that half of the crew would be killed during the expedition, while the other half could expect to return barely clinging to life. But for many, it was all worth the risk. The riches to be had in the event of a successful trip were incredible. The markup on nutmeg prices between Run and London could be over 60,000%. An illiterate sailor could return with a small pouch of nuts and literally retire on the proceeds.The war for control over the Spice Islands raged for decades, with the Dutch emerging more-or-less victorious. From their regional headquarters at Bantam, a port city 50 miles west of modern-day Jakarta, the Dutch East India Company dominated the major plantations in the region, including the nutmeg-producing Banda Islands, having ambushed and killed the heroic Nathaniel Courthope to take control of Run in 1620.The aggressiveness of the Dutch would prove to be, in the end, a little too aggressive. In 1623, on the clove-producing island of Amboyna, the Dutch commander reacted violently to a rumor (false, as it turned out) that the small cadre of English traders on the island were plotting to seize the local stronghold of the Dutch East India Company, Fort Victoria. All eighteen Englishmen on the island were arrested, tortured and eventually executed, some by having their arms and legs blown off with gunpowder. Understandably, this caused an uproar in England. “There was only one possible way for the Dutch to atone for the Amboyna Massacre,†Milton writes, “and that was to hand back the tiny island of Run.†(It seems to me there were many other ways for the Dutch to atone for the incident!)The British and Dutch East India Companies eventually learned to “play nice†with one another. By the end of the seventeenth century, the Spice Islands had lost much of their value after the British had successfully developed spice farms on Sri Lanka and Singapore. The wooded island at New York would prove to be a much better long-term investment than Run.
Milton definitely did his homework and researched the book very well. It is quite interesting in places and there are even some tense moments that keep you reading. However, it does get a little redundant here and there as innumerable ships go back and forth between Europe and these particular "spice islands," in this case mostly in a mad, violent dash for mastery over an area that yielded primarily nutmeg, cloves and such. I think we probably raise the bar too high these days, demanding from writers only the most tense, intriguing, and mystifying history tomes. So I'm probably expecting too much from Milton by my mild dissatisfaction. For what it is, the book is quite interesting and well researched.
Finely written and as the subtitle says, incredible but true. These long forgotten facts about the fervor of colonization and the madness accompanying the nutmeg trade, the panic to grab up all the spice islands because spices in the 1600s were more valuable than gold, literally, not figuratively, grab hold of the reader and won't let him go until the end.
It could have been anybody's Nutmeg, Choosing Nathaniel (who didn't show up till two thirds in the book)was as good as choice as any.What I liked was a well told tale of the history of those timesand revealing stories of the MANY players named in this book..
This book gives an excellent, albeit summary, account of the incredible spice trade that existed in the 16th and 17th century. At the heart of the conflict were two major combatants, England and Holland. At stake was the richest trade in the world, the exotic spices that came from the tiny, primal islands below China and India - the "spiceries" as they were called.This tiny collection of exotic islands, inhabited by stone-age cultures and lush forests, became the grand prize of the day, offering nearly unbelievable riches and a horrifying catalogue of dangers. Nearly all the grand exploration of the time had as its primary goal the discovery of faster routes to these islands, and countries seemed in a nearly constant state of war over them.The author does a good job of describing this long-ago world. He also is good at describing the kind of near hysteria that gripped kings and queens of the day. Literally, the control of these islands, and the trade routes, could bring a country to global dominance. Countries and men leapt at the chance to go there, despite the fact that life expectancy for European's established in these outposts was short (most died very quickly of dysentery or malaria), and the chances of surviving the ocean voyage in the first place was not good.Eventually, Holland won the contest. Brutal ruthlessness was the key to success. While no country proved deficient in these qualities, Holland, through the Dutch East Indian Spice Company, relentlessly and without a trace of mercy showed the severest hand. They were no slouches in the slave trade, either.A very engaging account - brief but very well researched. I recommend it.
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