Giles Milton

Popular history about the first 60 years of the honourable East India Company, focusing on the Dutch-English conflict over supremacy in the spice trade originating from the Banda islands.

The title is a misnomer. The said Nathaniel (Courthope) only played a minor (and ineffectual, albeit heroic) role in the struggle over Run island (one of the smallest of the six Banda spice islands). In the end the writer makes a plea for celebrating Nathaniel for his heroic, but futile, resistance to Dutch supremacy over Run island and its inhabitants, because ultimately an exchange was agreed between New Amsterdam (present-day New York) and Run island. This exchange supposedly gave the British the better end of the deal (if we ignore the subsequent American war of Independence and loss of British suzerainty over their American colonies). This is a typical case of imposing logics that only make sense with hindsight, but hardly influenced the exchange at the time.

Moreover, Milton presents Nathaniel’s struggle as one of British loftiness over crude Dutch extractionism – civilization over suppression. While such a view is refreshing, when contrasted with the dominant narrative on the Dutch East India Company (VOC), it is equally misleading – the British Empire was hardly less dominating or extractionist than its Dutch version. And ultimately New York and its inhabitants rose against British Imperialism in the name of freedom and civilization. So in the long run Milton’s argument backfires.

Yet, the fact that Courthope struck a reasonable deal with the inhabitants of Run stands. What we do not know, but can reasonably suppose, is that the more inclusive and autonomous aspects of that deal would have fallen victim to the God of colonial Greed in the long run.

What I ultimately take from this book, is a better understanding of the initial failure of the East India Company, which almost ceased to exist in 1657 (one hundred years before the unexpected British victory at Plassey, Bengal, which secured the ascent of the British Raj). Ultimately it was the backing of King Charles II and an extension of the mandate of the East India Company, to include local rule, military empowerment and the use of force, that explain its success after 1657 (one could argue that the British finally managed to copy the lethal mix of powers that made the Dutch East India Company so successful). In light of these changes, one may wonder whether the inhabitants of Run would have been better off under British rule. Milton avoids such painful, reflective questions. Rather than probing the viciousness of both the Dutch and British colonial projects, Milton prefers a gung-ho, white-supremacist adventure narrative. Go and read Amitav Ghosh for a very different narrative on the Nutmeg’s curse!… (mehr)