The Spice Trail (2011) s01e02 Episode Script
Nutmeg and Cloves
The world loves spice.
The exotic ingredients in so many of our favourite dishes have revolutionised the way we eat.
But the search for these amazing tastes now found in every kitchen cupboard, changed the course of history.
This is a journey to find out how spices shaped our modern world.
I will visit some of their exotic birthplaces and travelled the globe to discover just how these spices made it to our tables.
I will be meeting the people whose lives depend on them, and following the trail of the first Spice explorers.
Empires built and destroyed, immense fortunes made, countless lives lost during one of the most exciting periods of discovery in the history of the Western world.
And all in the name of spice.
Go There are two spices that pushed the boundaries of exploration further than they had been pushed before.
They troop the world map again and sparked a war of horrifying brutality in one of their most remote corners of the world.
These spices are cloves and nutmeg.
In 16th century Europe these spices were treasured as exotic foods and medicine, thought to ward off the plague.
But there were also the ultimate status symbol, a kind of medieval bling.
At small sack of nutmeg like this But the problem back then it was finding these spices.
The only source of nutmeg and cloves was on a tiny cluster of remote islands surrounded by a treacherous seas on the other side of the world.
Their mysterious and far flung locations accounted for their astronomical price.
I'm heading east, to find the home of these spices, and the respect within the archipelago of 17,000 islands we now call in Denise year.
I'm starting on the island of Djerba.
Its capital Jakarta was an important hub for those searching for the route to the Spice Islands.
Even with modern day transport there's no direct, reliable way of getting there.
So I'm going for the more traditional This boat will follow the trail of the Europeans to eastern Indonesia.
And the Banda Islands.
In the 17th century, two European nations entered the Spice race with a vengeance - the Dutch and the Europeans, who would never have seen anything like it before.
This is Banda Neira, the capital of the Banda Islands.
It is where the Dutch discovered the source of their precious nutmeg.
A secret closely guarded by Arab and Asian traders for centuries.
Today these islands produce up to 500 tons of not make a year.
Look at these trees! Many flute.
You see this nutmeg? And everything is in fruit.
This man is a fifth-generation nutmeg farmer with over 200 trees.
Oh my goodness, look! You see this is open.
So this is a ripe not make? And can you use this part of the fruit? Can you knew was that for anything? This fruit is used for jam.
Syrup, and nutmeg can be.
You see that red colour, that is the mace.
So that is the casing that goes around the nutmeg.
Inside is the nutmeg.
And that is for cooking, for medicine.
everything.
The Dutch, the English, 100 years before they came here.
made them a fortune.
Many money! And you had to hundred trees! Show me how it works.
He is an exception to the rule here because he actually owns the land his trees grow on.
But he has to bury a hefty 30% tax to the government for the privilege.
You see how I pick this full stop --.
Is this right? You didn't give me a chance! Hang on, I think I've got it.
Yes! Let's see what we've got.
Mine was only little.
But look at these! They are magnificent.
It is like opening a jewellery box.
It is beautiful.
How do I take it off? Oh, like that.
Look at your beautiful Banda not make.
And then this, that is for the jam.
That is for syrup.
And for Candy! Nutmeg is a pernickety little plant that requires specific conditions to grow, and these islands provide all it needs.
It likes warm humid weather, well-drained fertile soil and an annual rainfall of more than 150 centimetres.
The rich volcanic soil, the hot sun and frequent downpours here in the Banda Islands produced what many people still consider to be the highest quality off all the world's nutmeg.
Once the that make is picked, there's a lot of hard work still to be done before it is ready for market.
During harvest season the women of Anne Begg get together to separate the float, the mace and the nutmeg was catching up on all the local gossip.
And having a bit of a laugh.
Just like that? You always open it? And then that his partner? Then I made a discovery.
The women told me what I thought was not make was actually the shiny outer casing.
A third layer, hiding Actually, you have got these multi- layers.
You have got the outside, the mace, and inside the shell sits the nutmeg.
It is amazing, that this funny little thing was worth indescribable amounts of money, and made all those mad men sail all the way around the world.
It is really interesting, because it seems like after the Dutch came here, and turned everything into nutmeg farms, it really has gone back to the old style.
So, all the women here have the pala trees in the mountain, they go and collect the nutmeg.
How many trees do you have? That's a lot of trees.
But even 150 trees are not enough to sustain a family, which is why most people have other jobs, and why we have to work flat She's telling me that if I continue to work so slowly, she's going to cut my salary.
We haven't even Am I married? Yes.
Poor man.
Baby? Me, no.
You, four? Five children?! How do you sleep? It has been a fun, noisy morning, and then inside for me into the importance of nutmeg to the families of Banda today.
But the story of nutmeg is not all It is a dark story with a brutal ending.
There is evidence of the Dutch colonists are all around the island, and of the Dutch East India Company.
It was one of the world's first corporate empires, and its initials soon became a symbol of fear and hatred for the people of When you walk around here, all the colonial architecture is Dutch.
It looks pretty, but the Dutch legacy is one of horror.
The most fearsome Dutch governor was a man who arrived here in 1607.
His name was Jan Petersen Coen, and his coming heralded an era of Dutch brutality which started with the mass murder of all the tribal chiefs of this island.
Ins 1621, Governor General Coen hired Japanese mercenaries to execute the Highland chiefs.
Their bodies were impaled on bamboo poles as a warning to anyone who dared oppose him.
This was the beginning of his master plan of domination by extermination - a form of systematic genocide.
By the end of the massacre, the's appellation was reduced from 15,000 to just 1,000 people.
And then, Governor General Coen we populated the island with slave workers from Java.
All in the name of nutmeg.
It is a story that's still fresh in the minds of the people of Banda.
Some of the massacred chiefs are buried here.
Two of Banda's leaders are on a rare visit to the sacred site.
The people of the village want to start preparing the rituals they perform to honour the dead chiefs.
But first they need to ask permission from the ancestors.
Can you tell me why the people of Banda today are so determined to remember the massacre? There is our memory from a long, long time ago.
We still remember They killed 44 of our people.
In Holland, they said Jan Petersen Coen was a hero.
He brought a lot of gold.
But our people say he is a bad man.
He's In this village, everyone is getting ready for the performance of a centuries-old ritual, to keep the memory of the murdered chiefs alive.
After the massacre, the Dutch restricted the army numbers of Banda to just five.
These young men represent what was left of their ravaged army.
Every single item of this eclectic costume is connected to the trade in nutmeg.
The helmet - a gift from Europe.
The textiles - from Indian traders.
And these gold flowers are a symbol of how the people here were left Today, the islanders have regained their voice, and also some control over their nutmeg.
These predominantly Muslim islands are ruled from Jakarta, and the government has returned the nutmeg trees to the people.
But the islanders are still campaigning to regain full control of their land as well.
I have come to one of the oldest nutmeg forests on the island.
Some of the trees in this former Dutch plantation date back hundreds of years to the time of the Dutch masters.
After the massacre of the tribal chiefs, and indeed most of the population of Banda, Governor General Coen set about turning the islands into a giant series of nutmeg farms, run by imported slaves, and overseen by ruthless Dutch masters.
This glorious, wild- looking Forest was one of those plantations, and the reason I can say that with such confidence is this magnificent tree.
It is a wild Almond, and the Dutch planted these to give shade to the nutmeg trees.
There's this huge pigeon that lives on these islands, a massive thing, with dark green wings.
And they eat the wild almonds.
They're also partial to a spot of nutmeg.
And their droppings scattered and nutmeg seeds all over the forest.
So, it is a very, very important spreader of these all-important trees.
They are responsible probably for planting more trees than any English, Dutch or local farmers have ever done.
Some seedlings were smuggled off the islands, spread around the world, and grown in tropical regions like the Caribbean and India.
As a result, Banda lost its monopoly on nutmeg, and the price plummeted.
Today, the industry in Banda is just enough to keep the locals going, and even the children join in, I foraging for windfalls.
It is like a nutmeg treasure hunt, isn't it? No good.
It is green, I'm learning.
What about that one? But that's a good one, isn't it? No? Maybe? No good.
No, that's a Look what I've found.
It's mine.
Look at that one.
Is that good? You can eat at one, can you? Shall I try? Just when I found my perfect not make, I get trumped by the perfect garment.
-- almond.
Those pigeons know what they're doing! Up to now, I have been on the main Banda Islands, that were occupied by the Dutch.
But there was one piece of nutmeg real-estate the Dutch had not seized, a tiny island, taken over by their bitter rivals, the English.
The English were in this part of the world for the same reason as the Dutch, to make a fortune from nutmeg.
They set up a company to rival the Dutch East India Company, called the English East India Company, which was to become the engine that launched the British Empire.
And this was their first target, 10 miles west of Banda.
This almost inaccessible tiny speck in the ocean was to become the first ever English colony.
It is the island of Run.
You have no idea how lucky we are.
This stretch of sea can be absolutely brutal, and you can see it is low tide at the moment, because this bit of land is very exposed, and there are waves breaking on that Reef.
The reefs have been the ruin of many English ships.
The man the company chose to win this island for the Crown was an unlikely hero.
Captain Nathaniel Courthope was a swashbuckling, fearless adventurer, and also a bit of a thief.
He had purloined ã600 from the company, been punished for the crime, and was ready to redeem himself on the island of Run.
When Captain Nathaniel Courthope arrived in 1616, he was warned to heed the following advice.
On your arrival, show yourself courteous and affable, for they are a peevish, perverse, diffident and perfidious people, and apt to take disgust upon small occasions, and are, being moved, more cumbersome than Wasps.
Wow! I'm looking forward to this welcome.
It is so shallow here, wasn't having to watch for the reef.
Are you going to try and go round that way? All sand here, by the look of things.
Well done.
Welcome.
Today, I found the reception to this particular English visitor anything but peevish and diffident.
Captain Nathaniel Courthope's negotiations with the locals, in broken English and sign language, were to change the course of history.
By offering them protection against the hated Dutch, he persuaded them to hand over control of the island to the English crown.
When news reached King James, he was so ecstatic that he changed his title to king of England, Scotland, Ireland and Run.
You're the leader, you're very The pact with the islanders gave England an exclusive export deal with the island.
Captain Nathaniel Courthope sent flotillas packed with spices directly to England.
All this happened under the noses of the infuriated Dutch and they set out on a four-year campaign of ferocious battles to destroy him.
In the end, the Dutch tricked captain Nathanael called hope into an ambush at sea.
He fought for his life but he was outgunned and out manned and was finally shot.
The story goes he threw himself overboard and was never seen again.
The English-born in the Dutch side was finally removed.
-- English forum.
There's little sign that the English were every here.
Just these few crumbling rather unloved ruins.
But there is no monument, nothing that remembers the brave but futile stand against the Dutch.
But neither is there a memorial to the many islanders who died in a bitter battle between two of foreign nations to control the trade of nutmeg.
With captain Nathaniel Corfe hope out of the way, the Dutch were in control of the trade.
But the story does not end there.
To uncover the next chapter, I need to travel 100 miles across the sea to the seat of Dutch power in the 17th century.
The island of Ambon.
Despite their stranglehold on the region and the trade, the Dutch were obsessed with the idea that someone somewhere was plotting to oust them.
These crumbling walls are all that remained of the once- mighty Dutch fort where many of the Dutch bigwigs holed up, protected by heavily armed soldiers.
A handful of English men also lived on the island.
At the time it numbered just 18, a motley band of merchants and sailors, a barber and a tailor.
All were actually broke and desperate to leave.
There were hardly a threat to anyone, yet such was the Dutch plan aware that they believe that this little band of bankrupts had a conspiracy to overthrow them.
So the Dutch governor had been thrown in chains, horribly tortured for many days, until they confessed to a conspiracy that none of them had any notion of.
And in early 1623, every single one of them was beheaded in front of a baying crowd.
Government Le General Coen's master plan of domination by extermination was well on track.
Finally, to add insult to injury, the Dutch sent the English the bill for the cost of the blood stained velvet from the executioner's block.
After the massacre at the Forge, it was all out war between the Dutch and the English, and the locals were stuck in the middle.
Today, Ambon is a busy seaport where residents enjoy it all the trappings of modern life whilst retaining a strong links to the island's past.
At the height of Dutch will come at any rebellious islanders who dared to resist were tortured and many were executed.
The memory of his brutality is still an open wound and is remembered by the Ambonese today.
We were walking through Ambon, and heard all this kerfuffle.
So obviously we had to come and look.
This is the ancient ritual called beating and brooms.
Two teams of men, both armed with strips of palm leaves, compete against each other.
This wasn't quite the jolly sort of exotic festival I was expecting! It looks indescribably brutal but is actually a show of brotherhood, as all the men of the Village have come together to test their ability to withstand pain.
Possibly the most disturbing thing I have ever witnessed.
Actually making me feel quite sick.
So is the man with the most wounds, he is the strongest? He gets the best girlfriend? gets the best girl! The Dutch control to the nutmeg trade until the middle of the 17th century here but had not bargained on the resilience of the local people.
And it is that that gave them the patience to bide their time until they could once again take control of their nutmeg.
The final chapter in our story of that make is taking me back to England's first colony, that tiny island of A run.
Unlikely though it seems, it was from here it that an huge shift in global power was about to begin.
In 1620, after the death of Captain Nathaniel Courthope, England lost to this island to Holland.
Almost 50 years passed before England's King Charles the second took his revenge.
He sent a fleet across the Atlantic in retaliation and took a Dutch held Ireland called New Amsterdam.
Two years later, the two sides got together to try to establish some sort of peace.
But it looked impossible.
The English were demanding their Ireland back and the Dutch were refusing.
That looked like deadlock until one bright spot said, look, why not just hang on to the Ireland's you already have? So the English reluctantly said, OK, we will keep New Amsterdam, the Dutch can have RUN.
So the English turn their backs on the Spice Islands, renamed New Amsterdam, New York, and a whole new period of colonisation began.
While the English may have focused their attentions on another part of the globe, the Spice Islands remained a highly desirable target for other European powers.
Any spice explorers did not come all this way just for once buyers.
They also came in search of the other most highly desired spice of the time - the equally exotic companion to nutmeg.
Cloves.
It was treasured for its flavour and as a wonder drug and even as an aphrodisiac.
To find out more about this spice I'm heading 300 miles north and across the equator, to the original home of cloves.
The island of Ternate.
The story of the European quest for this spice starts even earlier than nutmeg but was fuelled by the same ambition - to cut out Arab and Asian middleman and control the source of the spice itself.
And the first explorers to this part of Indonesia were not the Dutch, it was the Portuguese.
When they arrived here they found ancient kingdoms at war with one another.
The Portuguese had come for cloves and the rival kingdoms wanted weapons.
It was a perfect match.
Ternate is one of a string of volcanic islands that used to be the only places on earth were you could find close.
Each is ruled by a sultan and rivalry between the main island Ternate and its neighbour, Tidore, was fierce.
So when the Europeans first arrived, both sultans were keen to get them on site because an alliance with these rich and well on strangers would give them the upper hand.
It was the Sultan of Ternate who won the day and the Portuguese Trade, and gave them a monopoly over cloves for over half a century.
The intent, NOS tickling aroma of cloves, pervades everything.
These are the dried flower buds from the trees.
It feels like the entire island is made of cloves.
In the 16th century, Ternate was the most prosperous trading port in the whole of Indonesia.
And the Sultan was hugely powerful.
Europeans arrived with weapons and luxury trinkets in the hope of winning his favour.
Even today no one does anything on this island without the permission of the Sultan.
I don't have any canons or fancy goods to trade, but if I'm going to get under the skin of this island I need to request an audience from the Sultan.
When the early European traders arrived, protocol demanded that they present themselves to the Sultan before any negotiations could begin.
Today I have secured an invitation to the Palace so that I can do the same.
Crikey! I was not expecting this.
So if I was a Portuguese or Dutch or English trader, I would be feeling a little overwhelmed by now.
Before I entered the palace, it has been suggested nicely but firmly, that I changed to something more suitable to meet at King.
I definitely wasn't expecting this.
It is quite difficult to turn it in a collar like this.
I now how Elvis must have felt.
Ternate has the longest surviving Islamic Sultanate rain in the whole of Indonesia.
The Sultan has decided to award me one of his highest honours and adopt me as an honorary citizen of Ternate.
But then the Queen gives me as sash emblazoned with the word, Princess.
Not just a citizen, I am now loyalty.
Mrs Kate Humble.
With minute title comes certain responsibilities.
I am now an emissary of cloves for Ternate to the world.
Should I now will be something of an ambassador for turn it in my own country? Yes.
I will make sure I do nothing to bring the good name into disrepute.
But I did not come here to dress in sequence and hobnob with royalty, I'm here to see exactly what drew the European explorers here in the The Sultan gave me an introduction to one of his courtiers, whose family have been farming cloves for generations.
They live at the foot of Mount Gamalama.
Walking through the woods here is like walking through the exotic section of the supermarket.
Nutmeg! There are papaya trees, banana, cocoa, clove trees.
They come up two there are trees on the slopes of the volcano.
It was a good hour and a half, really steep climb.
And then, their working day begins.
Look at them.
They're so pretty.
The aromatic shade of these majestic trees is the perfect place to escape the scorching heat of the day.
The flowers must be picked before they blossom.
It is when the buds are beginning to turn pink that they have the most fragrant.
It is amazingly labour-intensive.
The two of us are doing the beginners' picking, the lower branches.
But they go all the way up to the top.
Traditional method of harvesting cloves has not changed since the time of the Portuguese.
It involves a complicated matrix of ropes and branch pulling to dislodge the top most flowers and reach the buds on Back in the village, everyone pitches in with the next stage of the clove harvest.
Basically, we are stealing the cloves, that the local phrase for doing this, for separating the cloves from the stalks.
You kind of pinched the stalks together and put them in your hand and snap them back, and that breaks all the cloves off the stalk.
We have a walnut tree at home, it had the most fantastic crop of walnuts this year.
So, just before I came to Indonesia, we picked a whole load, and we pickled them.
And one of the things that you use in Pickering walnuts is cloves.
But I just had no idea of the amount of labour involved in getting one little clove.
It is funny, they have become so ordinary to us, and yet, when you see it like this, and you see that an entire family, an entire community, relies on the little things that I was sticking in my walnut pickle, it just makes you appreciate them a Everywhere I walk around this island, I come across cloves lining the streets, drying in the sun.
This is one Sakae cloves, I think their way about 20 kilos.
And it took all of us, five or six of us, just about it any hour.
Quite satisfying, though.
Three days, in the sun.
So, this will live here for three days.
As well as the buds, the stalks are in demand, and their most prominent use is in one of The number one use 4 cloves today is to flavour cigarettes.
Crushed stalks are mixed with tobacco to create this hugely popular cigarette.
It is such a massive business that multinationals like Marlboro are now part of this lucrative trade.
Watching these women work is absolutely dizzying.
It looks almost like I'm seeing them speeded-up 10 times, but that's actually the speed that they're working.
Lisa has been working here for 16 years, and, like all the other women, she will do about 400 cigarettes in one hour.
And not a single one of these women spoke.
I sort of want to have a go, and I sort of don't.
I have not rolled a cigarette for six years at least.
Like that? So, push it in like that.
And then down Stop? These women have three months of training to be able to do this.
Even with your help, it is a disaster.
Let's try another one.
Come on, please work.
What do you think? Go on, fit in the special hole.
Yes! Despite the fact that most of the country's clove crop goes up in smoke, Indonesia is still one of the largest producers It is now a global trade whose roots go all the way back to the Portuguese adventurers who changed it for ever.
When they came here, they enjoyed several years of good But then, they turned nasty, and demanded total domination.
It was from this Portuguese fort that a series of horrifying events took place, and it started when the Portuguese kidnapped the Sultan.
So, in 1570, they killed him.
As you can imagine, the islanders were up in arms.
They rushed to this Ford, but they couldn't take the Portuguese on at war, because the Portuguese had guns, and they didn't.
So instead, the people of Ternate blocked off all of the exits to the fort, and the Portuguese were under siege for five years.
Finally, starvation forced them to surrender.
It was the end of the Portuguese In a village near the palace, young children are learning a war dance.
The Sultan's head of music is Either late 1,500s, after the murder of the Sultan and their embarrassing forced surrender, Portuguese influence dwindled.
The new sultan was only too willing to bring another foreign power to his shores.
So who stepped into the breach? It was the Dutch who took over the clove trade from the Portuguese.
The Dutch arrived here in a 1599, eager to take over another highly lucrative trade, but in a highly unorthodox way.
Cloves also grew on the Dutch controlled island of Ambon.
To dominate the market, they decided to limit it, therefore pushing up the price in Europe.
If pop would keep its cloves, but every single tree on The Sultan would not have let them just cut the trees down, so they had to be a bit sneaky about it.
They told the people that the Europeans did not just one cloves, they wanted whole branches, and they wanted the bark and the roots, so that one by one, the clove trees of Ternate started to die.
Apart from this one, which was a little sapling being kept in the Sultan's Palace.
Even today, it serves as an appropriate reminder, because the Dutch are not here, but the clothes are.
The people here believe that every single clove tree on the island descends from this very tree.
Being here during the harvest month, I have seen how cloves permeate The women of the village are preparing a special Thanksgiving meal, called salamat pagi.
I have been placed on coconut duty.
This is the most fantastic tool.
Am I doing this right? This was what we needed on the coconut shy.
And of course, cloves play a central part in this feast.
They're mixed with the coconut to create a delicious rice dish.
They go in there? Everything, like that? I think this might be some lemon grass.
No-one is going to go hungry today.
Like that.
I wonder if my work.
Can I do in a one? It looks like the volcano out here.
It is amazing.
It is a sculpture.
So, this one is a symbol of the people, and this is the My time in Indonesia is almost over.
It has been an emotional and sometimes horrifying journey.
But all along I have been welcomed and given a glimpse into how nutmeg and cloves continue to shape the lives of the people here.
And I have become a princess.
I did not get to It is astonishing to think that these tiny islands, which barely
The exotic ingredients in so many of our favourite dishes have revolutionised the way we eat.
But the search for these amazing tastes now found in every kitchen cupboard, changed the course of history.
This is a journey to find out how spices shaped our modern world.
I will visit some of their exotic birthplaces and travelled the globe to discover just how these spices made it to our tables.
I will be meeting the people whose lives depend on them, and following the trail of the first Spice explorers.
Empires built and destroyed, immense fortunes made, countless lives lost during one of the most exciting periods of discovery in the history of the Western world.
And all in the name of spice.
Go There are two spices that pushed the boundaries of exploration further than they had been pushed before.
They troop the world map again and sparked a war of horrifying brutality in one of their most remote corners of the world.
These spices are cloves and nutmeg.
In 16th century Europe these spices were treasured as exotic foods and medicine, thought to ward off the plague.
But there were also the ultimate status symbol, a kind of medieval bling.
At small sack of nutmeg like this But the problem back then it was finding these spices.
The only source of nutmeg and cloves was on a tiny cluster of remote islands surrounded by a treacherous seas on the other side of the world.
Their mysterious and far flung locations accounted for their astronomical price.
I'm heading east, to find the home of these spices, and the respect within the archipelago of 17,000 islands we now call in Denise year.
I'm starting on the island of Djerba.
Its capital Jakarta was an important hub for those searching for the route to the Spice Islands.
Even with modern day transport there's no direct, reliable way of getting there.
So I'm going for the more traditional This boat will follow the trail of the Europeans to eastern Indonesia.
And the Banda Islands.
In the 17th century, two European nations entered the Spice race with a vengeance - the Dutch and the Europeans, who would never have seen anything like it before.
This is Banda Neira, the capital of the Banda Islands.
It is where the Dutch discovered the source of their precious nutmeg.
A secret closely guarded by Arab and Asian traders for centuries.
Today these islands produce up to 500 tons of not make a year.
Look at these trees! Many flute.
You see this nutmeg? And everything is in fruit.
This man is a fifth-generation nutmeg farmer with over 200 trees.
Oh my goodness, look! You see this is open.
So this is a ripe not make? And can you use this part of the fruit? Can you knew was that for anything? This fruit is used for jam.
Syrup, and nutmeg can be.
You see that red colour, that is the mace.
So that is the casing that goes around the nutmeg.
Inside is the nutmeg.
And that is for cooking, for medicine.
everything.
The Dutch, the English, 100 years before they came here.
made them a fortune.
Many money! And you had to hundred trees! Show me how it works.
He is an exception to the rule here because he actually owns the land his trees grow on.
But he has to bury a hefty 30% tax to the government for the privilege.
You see how I pick this full stop --.
Is this right? You didn't give me a chance! Hang on, I think I've got it.
Yes! Let's see what we've got.
Mine was only little.
But look at these! They are magnificent.
It is like opening a jewellery box.
It is beautiful.
How do I take it off? Oh, like that.
Look at your beautiful Banda not make.
And then this, that is for the jam.
That is for syrup.
And for Candy! Nutmeg is a pernickety little plant that requires specific conditions to grow, and these islands provide all it needs.
It likes warm humid weather, well-drained fertile soil and an annual rainfall of more than 150 centimetres.
The rich volcanic soil, the hot sun and frequent downpours here in the Banda Islands produced what many people still consider to be the highest quality off all the world's nutmeg.
Once the that make is picked, there's a lot of hard work still to be done before it is ready for market.
During harvest season the women of Anne Begg get together to separate the float, the mace and the nutmeg was catching up on all the local gossip.
And having a bit of a laugh.
Just like that? You always open it? And then that his partner? Then I made a discovery.
The women told me what I thought was not make was actually the shiny outer casing.
A third layer, hiding Actually, you have got these multi- layers.
You have got the outside, the mace, and inside the shell sits the nutmeg.
It is amazing, that this funny little thing was worth indescribable amounts of money, and made all those mad men sail all the way around the world.
It is really interesting, because it seems like after the Dutch came here, and turned everything into nutmeg farms, it really has gone back to the old style.
So, all the women here have the pala trees in the mountain, they go and collect the nutmeg.
How many trees do you have? That's a lot of trees.
But even 150 trees are not enough to sustain a family, which is why most people have other jobs, and why we have to work flat She's telling me that if I continue to work so slowly, she's going to cut my salary.
We haven't even Am I married? Yes.
Poor man.
Baby? Me, no.
You, four? Five children?! How do you sleep? It has been a fun, noisy morning, and then inside for me into the importance of nutmeg to the families of Banda today.
But the story of nutmeg is not all It is a dark story with a brutal ending.
There is evidence of the Dutch colonists are all around the island, and of the Dutch East India Company.
It was one of the world's first corporate empires, and its initials soon became a symbol of fear and hatred for the people of When you walk around here, all the colonial architecture is Dutch.
It looks pretty, but the Dutch legacy is one of horror.
The most fearsome Dutch governor was a man who arrived here in 1607.
His name was Jan Petersen Coen, and his coming heralded an era of Dutch brutality which started with the mass murder of all the tribal chiefs of this island.
Ins 1621, Governor General Coen hired Japanese mercenaries to execute the Highland chiefs.
Their bodies were impaled on bamboo poles as a warning to anyone who dared oppose him.
This was the beginning of his master plan of domination by extermination - a form of systematic genocide.
By the end of the massacre, the's appellation was reduced from 15,000 to just 1,000 people.
And then, Governor General Coen we populated the island with slave workers from Java.
All in the name of nutmeg.
It is a story that's still fresh in the minds of the people of Banda.
Some of the massacred chiefs are buried here.
Two of Banda's leaders are on a rare visit to the sacred site.
The people of the village want to start preparing the rituals they perform to honour the dead chiefs.
But first they need to ask permission from the ancestors.
Can you tell me why the people of Banda today are so determined to remember the massacre? There is our memory from a long, long time ago.
We still remember They killed 44 of our people.
In Holland, they said Jan Petersen Coen was a hero.
He brought a lot of gold.
But our people say he is a bad man.
He's In this village, everyone is getting ready for the performance of a centuries-old ritual, to keep the memory of the murdered chiefs alive.
After the massacre, the Dutch restricted the army numbers of Banda to just five.
These young men represent what was left of their ravaged army.
Every single item of this eclectic costume is connected to the trade in nutmeg.
The helmet - a gift from Europe.
The textiles - from Indian traders.
And these gold flowers are a symbol of how the people here were left Today, the islanders have regained their voice, and also some control over their nutmeg.
These predominantly Muslim islands are ruled from Jakarta, and the government has returned the nutmeg trees to the people.
But the islanders are still campaigning to regain full control of their land as well.
I have come to one of the oldest nutmeg forests on the island.
Some of the trees in this former Dutch plantation date back hundreds of years to the time of the Dutch masters.
After the massacre of the tribal chiefs, and indeed most of the population of Banda, Governor General Coen set about turning the islands into a giant series of nutmeg farms, run by imported slaves, and overseen by ruthless Dutch masters.
This glorious, wild- looking Forest was one of those plantations, and the reason I can say that with such confidence is this magnificent tree.
It is a wild Almond, and the Dutch planted these to give shade to the nutmeg trees.
There's this huge pigeon that lives on these islands, a massive thing, with dark green wings.
And they eat the wild almonds.
They're also partial to a spot of nutmeg.
And their droppings scattered and nutmeg seeds all over the forest.
So, it is a very, very important spreader of these all-important trees.
They are responsible probably for planting more trees than any English, Dutch or local farmers have ever done.
Some seedlings were smuggled off the islands, spread around the world, and grown in tropical regions like the Caribbean and India.
As a result, Banda lost its monopoly on nutmeg, and the price plummeted.
Today, the industry in Banda is just enough to keep the locals going, and even the children join in, I foraging for windfalls.
It is like a nutmeg treasure hunt, isn't it? No good.
It is green, I'm learning.
What about that one? But that's a good one, isn't it? No? Maybe? No good.
No, that's a Look what I've found.
It's mine.
Look at that one.
Is that good? You can eat at one, can you? Shall I try? Just when I found my perfect not make, I get trumped by the perfect garment.
-- almond.
Those pigeons know what they're doing! Up to now, I have been on the main Banda Islands, that were occupied by the Dutch.
But there was one piece of nutmeg real-estate the Dutch had not seized, a tiny island, taken over by their bitter rivals, the English.
The English were in this part of the world for the same reason as the Dutch, to make a fortune from nutmeg.
They set up a company to rival the Dutch East India Company, called the English East India Company, which was to become the engine that launched the British Empire.
And this was their first target, 10 miles west of Banda.
This almost inaccessible tiny speck in the ocean was to become the first ever English colony.
It is the island of Run.
You have no idea how lucky we are.
This stretch of sea can be absolutely brutal, and you can see it is low tide at the moment, because this bit of land is very exposed, and there are waves breaking on that Reef.
The reefs have been the ruin of many English ships.
The man the company chose to win this island for the Crown was an unlikely hero.
Captain Nathaniel Courthope was a swashbuckling, fearless adventurer, and also a bit of a thief.
He had purloined ã600 from the company, been punished for the crime, and was ready to redeem himself on the island of Run.
When Captain Nathaniel Courthope arrived in 1616, he was warned to heed the following advice.
On your arrival, show yourself courteous and affable, for they are a peevish, perverse, diffident and perfidious people, and apt to take disgust upon small occasions, and are, being moved, more cumbersome than Wasps.
Wow! I'm looking forward to this welcome.
It is so shallow here, wasn't having to watch for the reef.
Are you going to try and go round that way? All sand here, by the look of things.
Well done.
Welcome.
Today, I found the reception to this particular English visitor anything but peevish and diffident.
Captain Nathaniel Courthope's negotiations with the locals, in broken English and sign language, were to change the course of history.
By offering them protection against the hated Dutch, he persuaded them to hand over control of the island to the English crown.
When news reached King James, he was so ecstatic that he changed his title to king of England, Scotland, Ireland and Run.
You're the leader, you're very The pact with the islanders gave England an exclusive export deal with the island.
Captain Nathaniel Courthope sent flotillas packed with spices directly to England.
All this happened under the noses of the infuriated Dutch and they set out on a four-year campaign of ferocious battles to destroy him.
In the end, the Dutch tricked captain Nathanael called hope into an ambush at sea.
He fought for his life but he was outgunned and out manned and was finally shot.
The story goes he threw himself overboard and was never seen again.
The English-born in the Dutch side was finally removed.
-- English forum.
There's little sign that the English were every here.
Just these few crumbling rather unloved ruins.
But there is no monument, nothing that remembers the brave but futile stand against the Dutch.
But neither is there a memorial to the many islanders who died in a bitter battle between two of foreign nations to control the trade of nutmeg.
With captain Nathaniel Corfe hope out of the way, the Dutch were in control of the trade.
But the story does not end there.
To uncover the next chapter, I need to travel 100 miles across the sea to the seat of Dutch power in the 17th century.
The island of Ambon.
Despite their stranglehold on the region and the trade, the Dutch were obsessed with the idea that someone somewhere was plotting to oust them.
These crumbling walls are all that remained of the once- mighty Dutch fort where many of the Dutch bigwigs holed up, protected by heavily armed soldiers.
A handful of English men also lived on the island.
At the time it numbered just 18, a motley band of merchants and sailors, a barber and a tailor.
All were actually broke and desperate to leave.
There were hardly a threat to anyone, yet such was the Dutch plan aware that they believe that this little band of bankrupts had a conspiracy to overthrow them.
So the Dutch governor had been thrown in chains, horribly tortured for many days, until they confessed to a conspiracy that none of them had any notion of.
And in early 1623, every single one of them was beheaded in front of a baying crowd.
Government Le General Coen's master plan of domination by extermination was well on track.
Finally, to add insult to injury, the Dutch sent the English the bill for the cost of the blood stained velvet from the executioner's block.
After the massacre at the Forge, it was all out war between the Dutch and the English, and the locals were stuck in the middle.
Today, Ambon is a busy seaport where residents enjoy it all the trappings of modern life whilst retaining a strong links to the island's past.
At the height of Dutch will come at any rebellious islanders who dared to resist were tortured and many were executed.
The memory of his brutality is still an open wound and is remembered by the Ambonese today.
We were walking through Ambon, and heard all this kerfuffle.
So obviously we had to come and look.
This is the ancient ritual called beating and brooms.
Two teams of men, both armed with strips of palm leaves, compete against each other.
This wasn't quite the jolly sort of exotic festival I was expecting! It looks indescribably brutal but is actually a show of brotherhood, as all the men of the Village have come together to test their ability to withstand pain.
Possibly the most disturbing thing I have ever witnessed.
Actually making me feel quite sick.
So is the man with the most wounds, he is the strongest? He gets the best girlfriend? gets the best girl! The Dutch control to the nutmeg trade until the middle of the 17th century here but had not bargained on the resilience of the local people.
And it is that that gave them the patience to bide their time until they could once again take control of their nutmeg.
The final chapter in our story of that make is taking me back to England's first colony, that tiny island of A run.
Unlikely though it seems, it was from here it that an huge shift in global power was about to begin.
In 1620, after the death of Captain Nathaniel Courthope, England lost to this island to Holland.
Almost 50 years passed before England's King Charles the second took his revenge.
He sent a fleet across the Atlantic in retaliation and took a Dutch held Ireland called New Amsterdam.
Two years later, the two sides got together to try to establish some sort of peace.
But it looked impossible.
The English were demanding their Ireland back and the Dutch were refusing.
That looked like deadlock until one bright spot said, look, why not just hang on to the Ireland's you already have? So the English reluctantly said, OK, we will keep New Amsterdam, the Dutch can have RUN.
So the English turn their backs on the Spice Islands, renamed New Amsterdam, New York, and a whole new period of colonisation began.
While the English may have focused their attentions on another part of the globe, the Spice Islands remained a highly desirable target for other European powers.
Any spice explorers did not come all this way just for once buyers.
They also came in search of the other most highly desired spice of the time - the equally exotic companion to nutmeg.
Cloves.
It was treasured for its flavour and as a wonder drug and even as an aphrodisiac.
To find out more about this spice I'm heading 300 miles north and across the equator, to the original home of cloves.
The island of Ternate.
The story of the European quest for this spice starts even earlier than nutmeg but was fuelled by the same ambition - to cut out Arab and Asian middleman and control the source of the spice itself.
And the first explorers to this part of Indonesia were not the Dutch, it was the Portuguese.
When they arrived here they found ancient kingdoms at war with one another.
The Portuguese had come for cloves and the rival kingdoms wanted weapons.
It was a perfect match.
Ternate is one of a string of volcanic islands that used to be the only places on earth were you could find close.
Each is ruled by a sultan and rivalry between the main island Ternate and its neighbour, Tidore, was fierce.
So when the Europeans first arrived, both sultans were keen to get them on site because an alliance with these rich and well on strangers would give them the upper hand.
It was the Sultan of Ternate who won the day and the Portuguese Trade, and gave them a monopoly over cloves for over half a century.
The intent, NOS tickling aroma of cloves, pervades everything.
These are the dried flower buds from the trees.
It feels like the entire island is made of cloves.
In the 16th century, Ternate was the most prosperous trading port in the whole of Indonesia.
And the Sultan was hugely powerful.
Europeans arrived with weapons and luxury trinkets in the hope of winning his favour.
Even today no one does anything on this island without the permission of the Sultan.
I don't have any canons or fancy goods to trade, but if I'm going to get under the skin of this island I need to request an audience from the Sultan.
When the early European traders arrived, protocol demanded that they present themselves to the Sultan before any negotiations could begin.
Today I have secured an invitation to the Palace so that I can do the same.
Crikey! I was not expecting this.
So if I was a Portuguese or Dutch or English trader, I would be feeling a little overwhelmed by now.
Before I entered the palace, it has been suggested nicely but firmly, that I changed to something more suitable to meet at King.
I definitely wasn't expecting this.
It is quite difficult to turn it in a collar like this.
I now how Elvis must have felt.
Ternate has the longest surviving Islamic Sultanate rain in the whole of Indonesia.
The Sultan has decided to award me one of his highest honours and adopt me as an honorary citizen of Ternate.
But then the Queen gives me as sash emblazoned with the word, Princess.
Not just a citizen, I am now loyalty.
Mrs Kate Humble.
With minute title comes certain responsibilities.
I am now an emissary of cloves for Ternate to the world.
Should I now will be something of an ambassador for turn it in my own country? Yes.
I will make sure I do nothing to bring the good name into disrepute.
But I did not come here to dress in sequence and hobnob with royalty, I'm here to see exactly what drew the European explorers here in the The Sultan gave me an introduction to one of his courtiers, whose family have been farming cloves for generations.
They live at the foot of Mount Gamalama.
Walking through the woods here is like walking through the exotic section of the supermarket.
Nutmeg! There are papaya trees, banana, cocoa, clove trees.
They come up two there are trees on the slopes of the volcano.
It was a good hour and a half, really steep climb.
And then, their working day begins.
Look at them.
They're so pretty.
The aromatic shade of these majestic trees is the perfect place to escape the scorching heat of the day.
The flowers must be picked before they blossom.
It is when the buds are beginning to turn pink that they have the most fragrant.
It is amazingly labour-intensive.
The two of us are doing the beginners' picking, the lower branches.
But they go all the way up to the top.
Traditional method of harvesting cloves has not changed since the time of the Portuguese.
It involves a complicated matrix of ropes and branch pulling to dislodge the top most flowers and reach the buds on Back in the village, everyone pitches in with the next stage of the clove harvest.
Basically, we are stealing the cloves, that the local phrase for doing this, for separating the cloves from the stalks.
You kind of pinched the stalks together and put them in your hand and snap them back, and that breaks all the cloves off the stalk.
We have a walnut tree at home, it had the most fantastic crop of walnuts this year.
So, just before I came to Indonesia, we picked a whole load, and we pickled them.
And one of the things that you use in Pickering walnuts is cloves.
But I just had no idea of the amount of labour involved in getting one little clove.
It is funny, they have become so ordinary to us, and yet, when you see it like this, and you see that an entire family, an entire community, relies on the little things that I was sticking in my walnut pickle, it just makes you appreciate them a Everywhere I walk around this island, I come across cloves lining the streets, drying in the sun.
This is one Sakae cloves, I think their way about 20 kilos.
And it took all of us, five or six of us, just about it any hour.
Quite satisfying, though.
Three days, in the sun.
So, this will live here for three days.
As well as the buds, the stalks are in demand, and their most prominent use is in one of The number one use 4 cloves today is to flavour cigarettes.
Crushed stalks are mixed with tobacco to create this hugely popular cigarette.
It is such a massive business that multinationals like Marlboro are now part of this lucrative trade.
Watching these women work is absolutely dizzying.
It looks almost like I'm seeing them speeded-up 10 times, but that's actually the speed that they're working.
Lisa has been working here for 16 years, and, like all the other women, she will do about 400 cigarettes in one hour.
And not a single one of these women spoke.
I sort of want to have a go, and I sort of don't.
I have not rolled a cigarette for six years at least.
Like that? So, push it in like that.
And then down Stop? These women have three months of training to be able to do this.
Even with your help, it is a disaster.
Let's try another one.
Come on, please work.
What do you think? Go on, fit in the special hole.
Yes! Despite the fact that most of the country's clove crop goes up in smoke, Indonesia is still one of the largest producers It is now a global trade whose roots go all the way back to the Portuguese adventurers who changed it for ever.
When they came here, they enjoyed several years of good But then, they turned nasty, and demanded total domination.
It was from this Portuguese fort that a series of horrifying events took place, and it started when the Portuguese kidnapped the Sultan.
So, in 1570, they killed him.
As you can imagine, the islanders were up in arms.
They rushed to this Ford, but they couldn't take the Portuguese on at war, because the Portuguese had guns, and they didn't.
So instead, the people of Ternate blocked off all of the exits to the fort, and the Portuguese were under siege for five years.
Finally, starvation forced them to surrender.
It was the end of the Portuguese In a village near the palace, young children are learning a war dance.
The Sultan's head of music is Either late 1,500s, after the murder of the Sultan and their embarrassing forced surrender, Portuguese influence dwindled.
The new sultan was only too willing to bring another foreign power to his shores.
So who stepped into the breach? It was the Dutch who took over the clove trade from the Portuguese.
The Dutch arrived here in a 1599, eager to take over another highly lucrative trade, but in a highly unorthodox way.
Cloves also grew on the Dutch controlled island of Ambon.
To dominate the market, they decided to limit it, therefore pushing up the price in Europe.
If pop would keep its cloves, but every single tree on The Sultan would not have let them just cut the trees down, so they had to be a bit sneaky about it.
They told the people that the Europeans did not just one cloves, they wanted whole branches, and they wanted the bark and the roots, so that one by one, the clove trees of Ternate started to die.
Apart from this one, which was a little sapling being kept in the Sultan's Palace.
Even today, it serves as an appropriate reminder, because the Dutch are not here, but the clothes are.
The people here believe that every single clove tree on the island descends from this very tree.
Being here during the harvest month, I have seen how cloves permeate The women of the village are preparing a special Thanksgiving meal, called salamat pagi.
I have been placed on coconut duty.
This is the most fantastic tool.
Am I doing this right? This was what we needed on the coconut shy.
And of course, cloves play a central part in this feast.
They're mixed with the coconut to create a delicious rice dish.
They go in there? Everything, like that? I think this might be some lemon grass.
No-one is going to go hungry today.
Like that.
I wonder if my work.
Can I do in a one? It looks like the volcano out here.
It is amazing.
It is a sculpture.
So, this one is a symbol of the people, and this is the My time in Indonesia is almost over.
It has been an emotional and sometimes horrifying journey.
But all along I have been welcomed and given a glimpse into how nutmeg and cloves continue to shape the lives of the people here.
And I have become a princess.
I did not get to It is astonishing to think that these tiny islands, which barely