The original spice island — nutmeg trees that once controlled world trade, Dutch VOC forts, and the most remote diving in the Banda Sea
Banda Neira is the main inhabited island of the Banda Islands — a tiny volcanic archipelago in the Banda Sea that was for two centuries the only source of nutmeg and mace in the world, making it the most strategically valuable real estate on earth. The Dutch VOC massacred the Bandanese population in 1621 and established a plantation system (perken) that turned the islands into a spice monopoly enforced by the world's most powerful trading company. Today the colonial forts, nutmeg plantations, and crystal-clear Banda Sea — one of the world's top dive spots for pelagic species — draw travelers…
The Banda Islands were the world's only source of nutmeg until the Dutch East India Company broke the monopoly in the 19th century by transplanting trees to other colonies. Portuguese traders arrived in 1512 seeking the source of the nutmeg trade; the Dutch arrived in 1599 and fought the English for control for decades, famously exchanging Manhattan (then called New Netherland) for Run Island in the 1667 Treaty of Breda — they got the nutmeg monopoly, England got New York. Governor-General Jan Pieterszoon Coen's 1621 massacre of the Bandanese killed an estimated 14,000 of the 15,000 indigenou…