A quiz question · medium
Why did the Dutch East India Company destroy the population of the Banda Islands in 1621?
The Bandanese kept selling to other buyers despite exclusive contracts. Coen's force killed, enslaved, or deported nearly all 15,000 islanders and rebuilt the islands as slave-worked plantations.
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The Banda Massacre of 1621, When the Dutch East India Company Emptied the Nutmeg Islands In 1621 Jan Pieterszoon Coen led a VOC force against the Banda Islands — then the world's only source of nutmeg — to enforce a monopoly the islanders kept breaking. Of a population of some 15,000, most were killed, starved, enslaved, or deported; 44 leaders were executed by Japanese mercenaries. The islands were repopulated as slave-worked plantations. One of them was later traded for Manhattan.
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