Banda Islands Massacre

May 1621

Jan Pieterszoon Coen, the VOC's ruthless governor-general, ordered the near-total depopulation of the Banda Islands to secure a Dutch monopoly on nutmeg. Villagers were massacred or deported, ringleaders beheaded by imported Japanese samurai. The surviving population was replaced with enslaved laborers on plantations. The nutmeg trade became Dutch, bought at one of the most appalling prices in colonial history.