Sustainable spices

Content

Introduction
Dutch spice trade - a long history
The roots of KIT
Further reading

Introduction
The history of the Royal Tropical Institute is inextricably bound up with the gathering of information about spice trade. Both the collections of KIT library and the Tropenmuseum hold pieces that are proof of centuries-old trade of spices and herbs. The depot of the museum contains hundreds of models of proas especially made for the tourist industry at the beginning of the 20th century. They were made of cloves - one of the spices that made the Dutch search for fortune in the East during the 17th and 18th centuries, the period of the Dutch East India Company. 

When doing a literature search on spice trade in KIT’s library you will find hundreds of books with publications even dating back to 1817 at the stacks. Looking in the bibliographies and references of these books, one will find authors referring to (historic) archives, marine records, journal logbooks, diaries and letters of centuries and centuries ago. Drawings and paintings illustrating spice trade and maps showing spice routes are even older proof of the trade in spices than the published manuscripts. In this section you will find only a glimpse of the enormous number of interesting books and documents available at KIT on historical spice trade worldwide. 

For those who do not have much time to scroll down and prefer to go through spice history with seven-league strides without too much reading, this spice timeline provides an overview of the highlights. Or, listen to the podcast: when cinnamon moved markets (start at: 15:18) in which Tom Standages' book An edible history of humanity is discussed and spices are referred to as being the Internet of the ancient world.

Dutch spice trade - a long history 
Jack Turner (2004), author of Spice - the history of a temptation takes the reader back to around 1720 BC where he says the history of trade began with a house fire in Syria. Almost 3700 years later archealogists found a small ceramic vessel in the ruins containing a handful of cloves (October 2004, Geographical). Cloves find their origin in tropical Southeast Asia. For Turner these cloves found in the Syrian desert make the first piece of evidence for ancient and enduring traffic. Spice drove trade for centuries. European explorers were to find new spice routes and the Age of discovery was mainly stimulated by the demand for spice (Turner 2004, Welch 1994).

The Dutch presence in the East began in 1596. In June of that year the first Dutchman, Cornelis de Houtman set foot ashore at Bantam, the most important harbour for pepper of Western Java. Commercial companies (Voorcompagnieën) had been established in the Republic of the Netherlands. These companies started expeditions to get those lucrative spices from the spice islands, e.g. Sumatra, Java, and the Moluccas. Cornelis de Houtman had been sent for pepper and other spices by order of the Company of the Far East in 1595. This expedition became historically known as The First Dutch Expedition (in KIT’s Tropenmuseum this story is shown on the capitals and strips near the glass elevator on the ground floor of the museum). After this expedition many more followed by eight different commercial companies. They competed each other. Mainly Portugal – former monopolist of the lucrative spice trade in the Indies – benefited. The States General, the Dutch parliament, watched with envy, after which councillor Johan van Oldenbarnevelt and viceroy Prince Maurits decided to force all commercial companies to join and collaborate in one large company. This is how the Dutch East India Company was established on 20th of March 1602. It received the monopoly on the trade with the Indies. In this region, the Company was now allowed to close treaties with foreign rulers, build fortresses, make war, and install local governments.

The roots of KIT
The Dutch East India Company was foremost interested in trade. The company did not undertake scientific related initiatives that were not directly of practical use. A lot was left to the initiative of the company’s servants. The company did however, systematically collect information on all kinds of subjects to support trade activities but this was mainly meant for internal use. A trend arose to also collect knowledge and information in a scientific way for a broader public. In the Republic interest in exotic flora and fauna attracted wide attention. Botanical sciences flourished in the wake of the worldwide trade activities of both the Dutch East and West Indian Companies of the 17th and 18th centuries. Unknown exotic plants were exported to The Netherlands for research. Collections were made and glasshouses built. The Hortus Botanicus in Amsterdam, for example, became the most important knowledge centre of tropical plants in Europe. Similar to these were the activities of the Colonial Museum – predecessor of what later became the Royal Tropical Institute-. The collection of the colonial museum started at the attic of the house of the secretary of the Dutch Society for the promotion of trade: Dr. F.W. van Eeden, grandfather of the famous Dutch writer. Dr. van Eeden initiated a collection of tropical products and ethnological objects. The attic soon became too small and in 1865 the collection moved to pavilion Welgelegen in Haarlem to the home minister. In 1871 F.W. van Eeden jr. succeeds his father as sectary of the colonial museum which was until then only open to members of the Dutch society for the promotion of trade. In 1871 the directors decided to open the collection for the general public. Under van Eeden jr’s management and that of his successor Dr. J.M. Greshoff, the Colonial museum becomes a centre of science and practice. Greshoff leads the Colonial Museum from 1901-1909. In 1910 by Royal decree the Colonial Institute was founded with its headquarters now in Amsterdam. In 1945 the institute’s name changed into Royal Society Indonesian Institute because the former name was no longer in accordance with the changing relationships between the Netherlands and the overseas territories. Five years later, due to the changed political relationships with Indonesia, Surinam and the Dutch Antilles, the institute’s name turned into its current name: the Royal Tropical Institute – the working area encompasses more than the previous colonies.

Also to date KIT is still linked to the spice industry. The focus however has shifted from collecting scientific botanical information to interest into the way how spices are grown and produced. Sustainable spice production has an important social component in it as mostly poor small-scale farmers are involved in primary production. Promoting sustainable production of spices might therefore contribute to poverty alleviation, which is part of KIT’s overall mission. Over the last couple of years KIT has been involved in several spice projects, including supporting the development of a sustainable ginger spice chain from Sierra Leone (e.g. Sustainable procurement from developing countries, KIT bulletin 385), studies into opportunities of sustainable spice supply from Africa and Tanzania (see also: Sustainable production and supply section), investing in a sustainable chilies venture in Mozambique through the Annona sustainable investment fund and KIT’s involvement in the sustainable spice trade workgroup of  the Dutch Sustainable Trade Initiative.

For more information about the Institute's history, please visit the KIT 100 years website.

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Further reading
The reading list Herbs & Spices provides an overview of contemporary published documents available at KIT’s library. It contains historic pieces varying from descriptions of the spice trade of the Roman Empire and books about the middle ages and the early renaissance to the much cited work of Prof. Abdul Sheriff: Slaves, spices & ivory in Zanzibar: integration of an East African commercial empire into the world economy, 1770-1873 (1987). Professor Sheriff gives the reader a detailed overview and understanding of Omani Zanzibar’s changing place in the world economy. Slave trade, spice production and trade, the demand for luxury goods like ivory impacted Zanzibar’s strategic position to trade. Prof. Sheriff’s work is much quoted in (historical) literature. The spice trade of the roman empire, 29 B.C. to A.D. 641 (Miller, 1969) describes the ancient trade routes following from the botany that fixed the sources of spices. The exciting and uninhibited trade under Roman empire laid the foundations of European relations with the East (excerpt front inside flap).

If you are interested in further historic reading, please click on the literature list: KIT and the history of spices that contains centuries old written and printed documents. Also listed is a famous piece to be found in KIT’s library collection: the Amboinsch Kruidboek - The Ambonese book of spices (Amsterdam 1750-1755) written by Georg Everhard Rumphius (1627-1702), a German in service of the Dutch East India Company. He probably joint expeditions in the Moluccas to maintain and guarantee the spice monopoly. He was promoted a merchant at Ambon where he became fascinated by nature. He began describing Moluccas’ flora and fauna. His observational work and systematic descriptions of nature resulted in this illustrious book on the spices of Ambon.

For those who want to learn more about the procurement of spices, mainly pepper, from India by the Portuguese in the early Modern period the following paper presented at the XIV International Economic History Congress in Helsinki in 2006 might be of interest. International Consortiums, Merchant Networks and Portuguese Trade with Asia in the Early Modern Period (Prakash, 2006). And, in The spice trade and its importance for European expansion (2000), Doz. Udu Pollmer explains that we tend to underestimate the historical importance of spice trade. He takes the reader on an interesting journey to illustrate how spices like saffron, nutmeg, pepper and incence-related spices as well, have contributed to the historical development of Europe and the establishment of intercontinental trade.

Enjoy the reading and learn more about the history of spice trade.

References

De geschiedenis van de VOC
Gaastra Femme S.
Haarlem | 1982 | 10e geheel herziene druk | Zutphen | 2009

Indonesia. Peoples and histories
Taylor J.G.
Yale University Press | New Haven & London | 2003

De Nederlandse koloniën. Geschiedenis van de Nederlandse expansie 1600-1975
Van Goor J.
Den Haag | 1993

The spice trade of the roman empire, 29 B.C. to A.D. 641
Miller Innes J.
Clarendon | Oxford | 1969

The spice trade and its importnace for European expansion
Pollmer U, Doz.
Migration & Diffusion | Vol. 1 | Issue 4 | 2000

International Consortiums, Merchant Networks and Portuguese Trade with Asia in the Early Modern Period
XIV International Economic History Congress | Helsinki | 2006

Slaves, spices & ivory in Zanzibar : integration of an East African commercial empire into the world economy, 1770-1873
Sheriff Abdul
London | 1987

An Edible History of Humanity
Standage T.
Thorndike Press | 2009

Adventures in the spice trade
Turner J.
Geographical UK | 2004

The spice trade : a bibliographic guide to sources of historical and economic information
Welch J. M.
Greenwood Press | Westport, Conn.| 1994

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