Episode Details
Back to EpisodesThe Dutch East India Company —Nutmeg: The Spice They Traded Manhattan For (Part Two)
Description
What if the most valuable commodity on earth — more precious than gold, more coveted than silk — grew in just one place? Six tiny volcanic islands in the middle of the Indonesian sea, surrounded by reefs, monsoons, and men willing to kill to keep it that way.
This is the story of nutmeg. The spice in your kitchen cupboard that once drove empires to war, sent Samuel Pepys to the docks at midnight to buy from black-market sailors, and inspired the Dutch East India Company to commit atrocities so complete they nearly wiped an entire people from the earth.
And at the end of it all? The English walked away with one small island. The Dutch handed them something else in return — a modest patch of land on the eastern seaboard of North America. You may have heard of it. They called it Manhattan.
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