Spices have an interesting and bloody history. While we often hear about the European conquests of the Americas and the rise of colonial empires spanning the globe, we don’t often consider that the root of Western conquest and dominance of the world can be traced back to a simple desire to make rotten meat taste better. The following 10 violent struggles reveal how far nations went for the coveted aroma of pepper, nutmeg, cinnamon, and more.
10 The Amboyna Massacre
The island of Ambon in the Moluccas was a rich hub of the spice trade shared between the English and Dutch. After several years of bloody conflict, the English and Dutch East India Companies agreed to peace in 1619, but Dutch ships continued to harass English merchant vessels, inflating the cost of pepper back in England.
In 1623, a Japanese mercenary employed by the English was spotted by the Dutch, probing fortifications with suspicious questions. Dutch merchant‑governor Herman van Speult concluded the English were planning a strike. Under torture, the Japanese revealed a supposed English plot, and several Englishmen were also captured and subjected to the same fate. The English presence on the island numbered fewer than 20 men, while the Dutch boasted 200 European troops, 300 native soldiers, and a contingent of Japanese mercenaries—making any English offensive wildly unrealistic.
Nevertheless, van Speult pressed on. He forced chief English factor Gabriel Towerson to confess to the alleged conspiracy under duress, then ordered the beheading of ten Englishmen and nine Japanese mercenaries. Those who freely admitted to the plot were allowed to leave. The condemned men smuggled out notes protesting their innocence, writing, “tortured with that extream (sic) Torment of Fire and water, that Flesh and Blood could not endure it, and we take it upon our Salvation, that they have put us to Death Guiltless.” The executions, steeped in dubious legality, sparked a surge of anti‑Dutch sentiment among an outraged English public, straining Anglo‑Dutch relations for generations.
9 Vasco da Gama’s Campaign Of Terror
In 1502, Vasco da Gama commanded the third Portuguese expedition to the Indian Ocean, leading a fleet of twenty ships to wrest control of the spice routes from Muslim powers. The Portuguese had previously erected a factory in Calicut, mistakenly believing they possessed a monopoly over the region’s spice trade. After seizing a vessel bound for Jeddah, the Portuguese were massacred by enraged Muslim traders. In retaliation, they destroyed twelve Muslim ships and bombarded Indian ports, yet they still craved revenge and monopoly.
Bestowed the title Captain‑Major by the Portuguese king, da Gama arrived near Cannanore (modern‑day Kannur, India) and immediately embarked on a campaign of terror along the Arabian coast, raiding coastal settlements. He soon spotted the Meri, a Gujarati or Egyptian vessel carrying Muslim pilgrims back from Mecca, including many of Calicut’s wealthiest citizens. The Portuguese fired warning shots at the defenseless Meri.
Da Gama negotiated with a wealthy passenger named Jauhar Al Faquih, who first offered money, then his own wife, his nephew as collateral, and finally four ships’ worth of spices. He even pledged to smooth relations between da Gama and the Zamorin of Calicut. Da Gama, however, demanded everything. After stripping the ship of treasure—and twenty children he vowed to turn into friars at the Church of Our Lady at Belém—he initially offered five ships’ worth of food in return, then ordered his men to set portions of the Meri ablaze. When the pilgrims managed to extinguish the flames, da Gama returned to reignite them. The pilgrims offered even more wealth and jewels, but da Gama remained relentless, seeking vengeance for the earlier Portuguese deaths in Calicut.
The Portuguese confined the pilgrims below decks, stoking fires with gunpowder charges for days while preventing the ship’s escape, ultimately sinking it and killing nearly four hundred souls. Da Gama then pressed closer to Calicut, where his men captured and dismembered thirty fishermen, leaving their bodies floating for families to discover.
8 Banda Islands Massacre
Nutmeg was a wildly popular spice in 15th‑century Europe, prized for flavoring and for masking the taste of poorly preserved meat. It was also believed to cure the plague, prompting women to wear nutmeg satchels around their necks for protection. In Asian markets nutmeg cost a penny, yet could fetch two pounds and ten shillings on London streets—a profit margin of roughly 68,000 %.
The sole source of nutmeg lay in the Banda Islands of the East Indies, where local sultans kept a neutral stance toward the spice‑crazy European merchants. The Dutch coveted control of these islands, then dominated by the Portuguese. In 1612, the Dutch East India Company swept in and seized the archipelago.
The Dutch imposed a draconian protection regime: banning nutmeg export, drenching trees in lime to render them infertile before shipment, and imposing the death penalty on anyone caught stealing, cultivating, or selling nutmeg. When the indigenous population rebelled against these oppressive rules, company head Jan Pieterszoon Coen ordered a full‑scale massacre.
The Dutch executed every Bandanese male over fifteen, employing quartering and beheading. Village leaders were decapitated and their heads displayed on poles outside settlements. Within fifteen years, the population plummeted from roughly fifteen thousand to just six hundred.
One island, Rum, briefly escaped Dutch domination thanks to British protection, but after several failed attempts at military seizure, the Dutch finally took control—trading the seemingly insignificant island of Manhattan for Rum. Nutmeg helped make the Dutch East India Company the world’s richest corporation until 1770, when French horticulturist Pierre Poivre smuggled nutmeg to Mauritius, breaking the monopoly. A 1778 tsunami destroyed half the Banda nutmeg trees, and the British captured the remaining trees in 1809.
7 Battle Of Diu
The Battle of Diu, fought in 1509, stands as one of history’s most decisive naval engagements, turning the Indian Ocean into a Portuguese lake. An international coalition of Ottomans, Egyptians, Gujaratis, Calicutis, Venetians, and Ragusan forces united to expel the Portuguese interlopers and preserve established trade routes through the Red Sea and Arabian Gulf.
The joint fleet, comprising ships of the Sultan of Gujarat, the Mamluk Burji Sultanate of Egypt, and the Zamorin of Calicut, received support from Ottoman, Venetian, and Ragusan vessels. In 1508, Mamluk admiral Amir Husain Al‑Kurdy surprised a Portuguese fleet, killing its commander, Lourenço de Almeida, son of Viceroy Francisco de Almeida. The following year, the viceroy sought revenge.
During the 1509 clash, the coalition fielded around one hundred ships, boasting superior firepower, tonnage, and manpower. The Portuguese, however, fought with just eighteen ships under Viceroy Francisco de Almeida, who held decisive advantages: superior artillery, well‑trained gunners, seasoned crews, and advanced armaments such as armor, arquebuses, and innovative clay grenades stuffed with gunpowder.
The coalition’s fleet consisted of hastily built Mediterranean war galleys, Indian dhows, and a couple of new Venetian ships. Their sailors were relatively inexperienced, mainly Greek and Turkish mercenaries armed with bows and arrows. In contrast, the Portuguese carracks and caravels were larger, possessed greater range, and featured powerful cannons that kept smaller vessels at bay. When the galleys and dhows attempted to close in, their low draft prevented boarding, while Portuguese guns rained down from above.
The coalition fleet was utterly destroyed, while the Portuguese lost no ships. The colors of the Egyptian Sultan and Admiral Amir Husain were captured and sent back to Portugal. No fleet would challenge Portuguese dominance in the Indian Ocean again until the English and Dutch arrived later. Some captured ships, including two Venetian‑built galleons, were kept as war booty; these galleons were later copied by the Portuguese, further cementing their stranglehold on Indian Ocean trade.
6 Conquest Of Malacca
Malacca was a prosperous trade hub ruled by a Muslim sultan purportedly descended from Javanese ancestors who seized the peninsula from the Kingdom of Siam centuries earlier. The city was cosmopolitan, sitting at the crucial junction between East Asia and the Indian subcontinent, and was divided into four districts representing the main trading groups: Chinese, Javanese, Gujaratis, and Bengalis.
The Malay peninsula first encountered the Portuguese when Diogo Lopes de Sequeira arrived in 1509, referring to the region as the Golden Chersonese. Prospects for profitable trade seemed promising after the Portuguese established a factory, but the Malaccan prime minister, urged by Muslim merchants, plotted to destroy the Portuguese fleet. A plan was hatched to invite Portuguese officers to a banquet, murder them, and seize their ships. A Javanese woman who had fallen in love with a Portuguese man swam out to warn the squadron, but the officers ignored her plea.
The Malays seized the factory and captured roughly twenty men, including chief factor Ruy de Araujo. Sequeira abandoned the prisoners and returned to Portugal, dispatching two ships to the Malabar coast to inform Viceroy Afonso de Albuquerque. De Araujo sent letters to Albuquerque complaining of forced conversion to Islam, prompting the viceroy to assemble a fleet of eighteen ships to rescue the captives and exact revenge on the Sultan of Malacca in 1511.
Negotiations dragged on for weeks. The Portuguese demanded the prisoners before signing a treaty; the Sultan demanded a treaty before releasing them. The Malays bolstered their defenses, but when Albuquerque set fire to boats and structures near the harbor, the Sultan relented and released the prisoners. Albuquerque, suspecting further treachery, was advised by de Araujo that control of the city hinged on a particular bridge linking its two halves. Plans were made to launch an attack on July 25, the feast day of Saint James the Greater, the viceroy’s patron saint.
The first assault on the bridge failed, though some cannons were seized and fires ripped through the city, including the royal palace. A second attack saw the Portuguese convert a tall junk into a siege ladder, scaling the bridge, defending it, while other troops used the diversion to land elsewhere. An attempt by the Sultan to deploy war elephants backfired; the Portuguese held firm, causing the elephants to panic, crushing their riders—including the hapless Sultan—and collapsing back through the Malaccan lines.
Eventually the Portuguese withdrew to their ships. A week later they discovered the Sultan had fled inland. The Portuguese seized a massive booty of gold, silver, jewels, silks, and spices, establishing a Portuguese administration over the city and constructing a fort from stone taken from local mosques and the tombs of former sultans.
5 Massacre At Bantam
Cornelius de Houtman, one of the first Dutchmen dispatched to break Spanish and Portuguese control of the spice trade, was by all accounts a decidedly unsavory character. He secured his post through personal connections, yet proved unpredictable, incompetent, and erratic. One of his ships sank, taking 145 sailors’ lives. He openly insulted local merchants, who, despite his demeanor, welcomed competition to the Iberian powers, and he brought ill‑advised cargo for the sweltering tropics, including heavy woolen cloth and blankets.
Discipline aboard his vessels had deteriorated, though a truce formed by the time the fleet reached Sumatra, where natives rowed out in dugout canoes to exchange rice, watermelons, and sugarcane for glass beads and trinkets. The fleet soon arrived at the wealthy port of Bantam, where de Houtman hoped to purchase spices at low prices. However, political turmoil had driven prices astronomically high.
De Houtman was incensed. As one crewman recorded: “It was decided to do all possible harm to the town. Bantam was bombarded with cannon fire, and all prisoners were put to death. The fighting paused briefly as the Dutch commanders debated the best way to dispose of the prisoners: stabbing them, shooting them with arrows, or bombarding them with cannons. Soon the attack resumed, with the local king’s palace hit by cannon fire and one group of prisoners tortured seemingly for the hell of it.”
Another crew member wrote, “After we had revenged ourselves to the approval of our ship’s officers, we prepared to set sail.” They then sailed to the port of Sidayu, where they were attacked by natives who boarded one of the ships, hacking twelve Dutchmen to death. The Dutch retaliated, pursuing the Javanese in rowboats and executing them, before sailing onward toward yet another massacre.
4 Madura’s Welcome Party
De Houtman, still fuming from the Bantam episode, arrived at the island of Madura off the Javanese coast. The locals, blissfully unaware of the prior carnage, prepared a warm welcome for the Dutch visitors. The local prince organized a grand parade with a flotilla of prau boats, slowly advancing toward the Dutch, centered by a magnificent barge for the prince.
As the prau boats neared, the Dutch grew paranoid, fearing an ambush or treachery. Opting for caution, de Houtman opened fire on the flotilla, killing everyone aboard the prince’s barge. Cannon fire sank most of the boats; the Dutch then lowered rowboats and concluded the massacre with hand‑to‑hand combat.
Only twenty natives aboard the flotilla survived de Houtman’s paranoid onslaught. The prince’s body was stripped of its jewels and dumped into the water. One sailor described the scene: “I watched the attack not without pleasure, but also with shame.” Despite their victory over the welcoming party, the Dutch fleet was in dire straits: tropical diseases ravaged the crew, factions formed behind competing commanders, and the ships were fouled with barnacles, riddled with shipworms, and baked dry by the scorching sun. Moreover, they had yet to secure any spices.
A dispute erupted with another commander, Jan Meulenaer, over whether to head to the Banda Islands or return home. The argument ended with Meulenaer’s suspicious death, apparently poisoned. De Houtman was arrested, though later released. Ultimately, the fleet decided to abandon the expedition, returning home empty‑handed, with two‑thirds of the crew dead from disease or misadventure, scant spices, and a trail of carnage. Yet, due to soaring spice prices back in Dutch markets during their absence, the meager loot they managed to acquire proved profitable.
3 The Dutch‑Portuguese War
During their struggle for independence from Spain, the Dutch chose to strike where it hurt most: disrupting Spanish and Portuguese trade routes across Africa, the Americas, and Asia. Both Portugal and Spain were under Habsburg rule, making them hated enemies of the Dutch. The Portuguese trading stations scattered throughout the Indian Ocean and Asia were especially lucrative, and the Dutch aimed to undermine them to fund their war effort.
Dutch merchants, seasoned in the Spanish‑Portuguese trade network, were expelled from Antwerp after its capture by the Spanish, taking valuable expertise with them. Between 1597 and 1602, sixty‑five Dutch ships set sail for Asia—about thirteen per year. In 1602, regional trade companies merged to form the Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oost‑Indische Compagnie, VOC). Though later famed for its trading empire, the VOC began as a war instrument, receiving government subsidies while accumulating massive debts.
From 1597 to 1609, the Dutch captured thirty Spanish and Portuguese ships in Asia, most of which were likely merchant vessels—averaging two to three captures per year. Portuguese voyages to Asia usually numbered five to ten annually. The Dutch attacks on Iberian shipping in Asia, alongside their efforts in Africa, Brazil, and the Caribbean, took an economic toll on their rivals.
Historians debate whether the Dutch assaults dealt decisive damage or merely slowed Portuguese growth. Some argue the period saw a boom for Portuguese shipping, citing successes against the Dutch in Brazil. Nonetheless, the conflict laid the groundwork for the Dutch maritime empire, which eventually eclipsed Iberian dominance.
2 Portuguese Conquest Of Ceylon
In the early 16th century, the Portuguese dominated the Indian spice trade and set their sights on the island of Ceylon—today’s Sri Lanka—renowned for its cinnamon. The island was divided among four kingdoms: Kotte, Sitawaka, Kandy, and Jaffna. The Portuguese employed tactics similar to those used on the Malabar coast, seeking a local ally to sign a commercial treaty and then using that ally as a foothold against rivals.
In 1518, Viceroy Lopo Soares de Albergaria landed near Colombo with a sizable fleet and erected a fort. After quelling initial resistance, he forced the king of Kotte to become a vassal of Portugal, unlike the “friend” status granted to rulers on the Malabar coast. An agreement was engraved on sheets of beaten gold, stipulating that the king would deliver 300 bahars of cinnamon, twenty ruby rings, and six elephants to the Portuguese.
The fort was reinforced the following year to withstand sporadic attacks from Muslim merchants upset by the Portuguese encroachment on the cinnamon trade. During one siege, Portuguese forces allegedly seized a nearby town, tied women and children to doorways, and set the city ablaze.
Over time, the Portuguese presence expanded despite resistance from local powers. By 1597, King Philip of Spain and Portugal also ruled Ceylon, though the kingdom of Kandy remained outside Portuguese control. Kandy forged friendly ties with the Dutch, and although the Kandians were later neutralized as a threat by the Portuguese, the Dutch eventually pushed the Portuguese off the island throughout the 17th century, seizing control of the lucrative cinnamon trade.
1 War Of Chioggia
Long before Atlantic powers circumnavigated Africa and entered Asian trade, the spice market was dominated by Mediterranean powers such as Venice and Genoa. These two maritime republics were fierce economic rivals, with Venice fearing Genoese attacks on its trading stations throughout the Levant and the Black Sea.
In 1378, Venice dispatched two fleets to harass Genoa: a smaller force under Vettor Pisani to the western Mediterranean and a larger fleet under Carlo Zeno targeting Genoese stations in the Levant. While Pisani’s fleet decimated a Genoese squadron off Italy, Zeno disrupted Genoese outposts in the east. The Genoese, initially surprised, soon rallied and capitalized on Zeno’s best ships being elsewhere.
In 1379, a Genoese fleet was sent to attack Venice directly, while the mainland faced harassment from Hungarians allied with Genoa. Pisani attempted to withdraw but was compelled by commissioner Michael Steno—who held senatorial authority over the admiral—to engage. The Venetian fleet suffered heavy losses. After reinforcements arrived, the Genoese launched an assault on the city, supported by Hungarian and Carrarese forces.
The Venetians closed the outer lagoon passages and erected formidable defenses, yet a gap near the island of Brondolo and the town of Chioggia remained. Chioggia lay separated from Venice by a lagoon of shallow waters and intricate channels, challenging for heavy Genoese vessels to navigate.
Pisani, previously imprisoned, was released and appointed commander‑in‑chief. He devised a clever tactic: during night raids, he sank vessels laden with supplies, blocking the route from Chioggia to Venice and the passage to open sea, effectively trapping the Genoese fleet.
For a year, Venice and Genoa engaged in a grueling siege of chicken. On New Year’s Day 1380, Zeno returned from his adventures, and the Venetians launched a vigorous attack. By mid‑year, the besiegers had no choice but to withdraw.
The war ended as both a victory and a defeat for Venice. Although forced to cede the island of Tenedos and recognize Genoa’s sovereignty over Cyprus, the conflict unified the city, preventing its collapse and enabling Venice to expand its trade routes across the Mediterranean and into the Indian Ocean—where it would dominate the spice trade until Western navigators rounded Africa.