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Germany: Sovereign Hegemony · 27 files · Atr 13 · Col 6 · Hyp 3 · Fin 2 · Prx 3
Atrocities?Mass killing, terror, and organized violence with named perpetrators.

Aceh and the Banda Islands

Spice monopoly enforced by extermination

The Dutch East India Company secured its nutmeg monopoly by depopulating the Banda Islands, and later fought a decades-long war to subdue Aceh. Trade dominance rested on organized violence against whole populations.

Damage
VOC monopoly violence depopulated Banda and waged long war on Aceh.

Lives lost
Banda near-depopulation; Aceh war deaths in the tens of thousands (order-of-magnitude)

Value lost
Nutmeg monopoly and Acehnese resource control

Record Points

  • In 1621 VOC forces under Jan Pieterszoon Coen killed or enslaved almost the entire population of the Banda Islands.
  • Survivors were replaced with enslaved laborers to run nutmeg plantations for the company.
  • The monopoly was enforced by destroying spice trees outside VOC control across the region.
  • The Aceh War from 1873 lasted decades and killed tens of thousands in a brutal pacification campaign.
  • These campaigns show commercial monopoly and mass violence as two sides of the same policy.

Perpetrator(s)

Netherlands

Victims

IndonesiaAcehBanda Islands

Citations