Back in the Seventeenth Century, this humble spice was so rare and hailed in such high regard by the Dutch and English crowns, it was revered as the most valued commodity on the planet. Worth more than gold by weight, nutmeg was responsible for these two empires embarking in a race to the only source in the world where the exotic spice could be found, The Bandas. A far flung uncharted part of today’s Indonesia, these islands were (and still are) anything but easy to get to. The intrepidly and spice possessed explorer couldn’t simply board a 747 seated in business class, pop a sleeping pill and drink a bottle of wine only to emerge from one’s perfect slumber as the cabin lights were illuminated for the initial descent announcement by the captain. The sojourns these two empires took to control this island chain and the global supply of nutmeg meant that ships had to embark on an expedition, one so dangerous and crazy that it could only be compared to the Great Space Race of the 1960s. The journey to the Bandas could take half a year and there was danger around every corner. Many expeditions met untimely demise. Disease, starvation, cannibals, shipwreck and even Japanese mercenary samurai soldiers were just a few of the dangers that scuttled these intrepid journeys to the Far East. But the quest for power and money can control a person’s, and an empire’s, soul.

The Dutch ended up controlling all the island in the Banda chain save one, the tiny island of Run. Three mere kilometers in size and volcanic, the local tribe had sworn allegiance to the English Crown, which more than ruffled the feathers of the Dutch who, in classic Dutch colonialism, simply had to “have it all.” In 1667, after 30 some years of battle, a treaty was struck in the Dutch town of Breda. In an imperial land swap of sorts, the English would relinquish control of Run. The Dutch would finally take control over all of The Bandas, and the global supply of nutmeg. In exchange for Run, the Dutch would hand over a small island in The New World that the English had taken a liking to. The island contained a small Dutch trading post on it and was generally thought of as completely useless. In what is possibly the largest blunder in all of real estate in the history of humanity, the Dutch acquired a tiny island in the Banda Sea in exchange for Manhattan.”

Now, the English, being English, made sure to uproot some nutmeg plants to accompany them on their way back home. Along their journey to the Motherland, they made sure to plant nutmeg at various colonies with English outposts including; Penang Malaysia, India, Sri Lanka, Zanzibar, and Grenada. Naturally, the exoticism and value of the once allusive nutmeg spice fell out of favor as nutmeg came to grow around the world. That said, the quest that possessed two of the largest empires ever, had connected spice trade routes, and subsequently the planet. Now commerce between the East and West was not exclusively conducted by land as it had for centuries via The Silk Road, but by sea. Despite all the obvious shortcomings of colonialism, the Great Spice Race was a dramatic shift in the interconnectedness of humanity.