In November 1614, Jan Pieterszoon Coen was made director general of the Dutch East India company’s commerce in Asia. Coen, a Calvinist, was a ruthless man who demanded strict adherence to contracts forged with Asian rulers. He gained commercial monopolies by supporting these rulers against their indigenous rivals or other European powers, and through his iron fist the Dutch gained control of a large portion of spice trade via heavy military and naval investment. Coen justified his liberal use of force as ‘there’s no trade without war; there’s no war without trade’ (quoted by Goodman, 2010, p. 61). Under Coen’s leadership, the Dutch gained control of the pepper of Java, cloves from the Moluccas and nutmeg from the Bandas.
As Coen worked to control the spice trade, the English did everything in their power to keep a piece of the action for themselves. The first major confrontation between the Dutch and English came in Jacatra, Java. Sir Thomas Dale was sent from England in 1618 to break up Coen’s growing monopoly. In a pitched battle, the undermanned fleet of Coen was able to hold its own for a while but was forced to flee to the Island Ambon. While he was away, the sultan of Bantam also decided to enter the fray, forcing the English to withdraw, and laying siege to the Dutch fort. When Coen returned in 1619, he pushed the Bantams back out of Jacatra and burned the city to the ground. On its ashes he built the new Dutch city of Batavia, which became the headquarters of the Dutch East India Company in Southeast Asia.
While the English and Dutch were battling over Jacatra, another battle was raging between them on the tiny Banda Island of Run. There, Captain Nathaniel Courthope, 39 English defenders and their native allies were trapped in a small fort under siege from the Dutch. Courthope and his supporters held out for 1540 days before he was killed and the remaining English retreated. The Dutch subsequently went on a rampage – killing or enslaving all adult Bandanese men, exiling their dependents and chopping down every nutmeg tree they could find.
In January 1621, Coen decided to make a full-scale conquest of the Banda Islands under the guise that the locals had been disregarding previous commercial agreements. Using Japanese mercenaries, the Dutch took the island of Lonthor by force but suffered fierce local resistance that was supported by English-supplied cannon. In response, Coen and the Dutch massacred thousands of inhabitants, replacing them with slaves from other islands and deporting some 800 inhabitants to Batavia. Only about 1000 of the original 15,000 on the island survived. The violence was so extensive, and the international condemnation so great, that Coen even drew a reprimand from the Dutch East India Companies directors.
At this point, Coen thought the best future strategy would be to colonize the East Indies with Dutch settlers, who would handle the trade. To sell his plan to his directors, he travelled back home in 1623. Everything was looking good until he was hit with another scandal, the so-called ‘Amboyna massacre’. In 1623, a group of Englishmen from a small settlement at Cambello in Ambon Island (north of the Bandas) were taken into custody by the Dutch factors, questioned, grievously tortured and sentenced to death. They were suspected of working with the locals in a plot to take over the Dutch settlement. While Coen was not directly involved, he was held morally responsible by the English as the leader of the Dutch East India Company and roundly condemned. Since the English and Dutch governments were now on friendly terms, he was temporally forbidden to return to Batavia and it wasn’t until 1627 that he was able to go back, dying of dysentery in 1629.
It took until 1654, after years of fruitless negotiations, that the Dutch finally paid 300,000 guilders in compensation to the descendants of the Amboyna massacre. During the interim, the Dutch continued to do everything in their power to safeguard their interests. All cultivation in Ambon and the Bandas became regulated under the strict supervision of the Dutch East India Company , which could then control the world supply of cloves and nutmeg. The Dutch East India Company divided up into parcels the conquered land in the Bandas that were given in hereditary tenure to Dutchmen, who exploited the land with slave labour. In Ambon, the Dutch made agreements with local chiefs who for 10% of the profits forced the locals to harvest its cloves for sale.
Adapted from: Hancock, J.F. (2021) Spices, scents and silk: Catalysts of world trade. CABI.
Literature cited: Goodman, B. (2010) The Dutch East India Company and the tea trade. Emory Endeavors in History 3, 60–68.
Figure: Jan Pietersz Coen by Jacob Waben (1602 – 1634). Westfries Museum – Wikimedia Commons
Catalysts of trade and exploration 