Have you ever thought that small things like pepper or cinnamon are not only delicious additions to food but also caused horrific crimes and opened the colonial era? That's right, spices, which you see in your kitchen every day, were once the cause of wars, massacres, and even slavery. They were not just spices but black gold that drove European empires into a bloody race for power.
Why are spices associated with blood, slavery, and war?
Let's take a look, in medieval Europe, pepper was used as money to pay taxes or dowries. Columbus initially sought India for spices but ended up getting lost in America. In America, the spice and herb industry is worth over $20 billion. Mexicans and Indians lead the world in spicy food. In Mexico, 90% of dishes contain chili. Before refrigerators, Europeans were addicted to spices like pepper, cinnamon, and cloves because they helped mask the smell of rotten meat. These are the facts about spices. Why are spices so valuable?
Imagine you are in medieval Europe around the 14th or 15th century. Life was not easy then. Food was bland, winters were freezing, and there were no refrigerators to preserve meat. Suddenly, spices appeared like a miracle. Black pepper, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg. These not only made food delicious but were also seen as a panacea. They helped preserve food, cure diseases, and more importantly, were a symbol of wealth. The price of black pepper in Venice in 1400 was 60,000% higher than the original price in Malabar, India.
Why are spices so expensive?
Simply because they do not grow in Europe. Pepper comes from the Indian coast, cinnamon from Sri Lanka, cloves and nutmeg from the Maluku Islands in Indonesia. To obtain them, one had to travel thousands of miles, across oceans, through deserts, facing pirates and harsh weather. Arab, Persian, and later Venetian traders controlled the silk and spice routes, inflating prices by dozens of times. But spices were not just for cooking; people believed that pepper stimulated digestion, cinnamon cured colds, cloves treated toothaches, and nutmeg was a health booster. Moreover, if you invited guests to a dish full of pepper or cinnamon, it meant you were incredibly wealthy.
Thus, spices became something that kings, nobles, and even commoners craved. But the price to obtain them was not just money but blood. Europe went crazy for spices but grew tired of buying them at exorbitant prices through intermediaries. So countries like Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, and England decided to seek their own sources of spices. Portugal was the pioneer of this hunt and did not hesitate to use force. In 1498, Vasco da Gama became the first European explorer to reach India by sea, rounding the Cape of Good Hope in Africa. He brought back black pepper, cinnamon, and ginger at prices 80% lower than buying from the Venetians.
This success made Portugal the spice kingpin. But don’t think they stopped at trading. They wanted to control the entire spice supply, leading to horrific crimes. In 1505, Portugal seized a crucial port in India. They wanted not only spices but also to impose religion and power. According to historians, during the attacks, thousands of Muslims and Indians were massacred to convert them and ensure trade monopoly. Next, they seized Malacca, the largest spice trading center in Southeast Asia, considered the throat of Asian trade. Here, they killed hundreds of local merchants and destroyed Muslim communities to control the route.
Even greater crimes were committed in the slave trade.
To operate the new spice plantations in Asia and America, Portugal began transporting slaves from Africa. Figures show that from 1500 to 1600, they brought over 200,000 African slaves to the colonies. Many worked on pepper, ginger, and sugar plantations. Sugar was also somewhat related to spices, and over 30% of them died on the way due to harsh conditions. Just for a delicious stick of cinnamon, millions of lives were ruined. If Portugal was brutal, the Netherlands took the crimes to a new level.
In 1602, they established the Dutch East India Company, the first multinational corporation in the world with the right to declare war and sign treaties with nations. Their biggest target was the Banda Islands in Indonesia, the only place in the world at that time where nutmeg trees grew, a spice worth 60 times more than gold. In 1621, Jean Peterson, admiral of the Dutch East India Company, led troops to attack Banda; the people agreed to sell nutmeg to the English, which angered the Dutch. The result was one of the most horrific massacres in history, the Banda massacre.
According to historians, the population of Banda at that time was about 15,000, and after the attack, only about 1,000 survived. The Dutch even displayed the bodies of 44 local leaders as a warning. The survivors were turned into slaves or expelled from the island. After the massacre, the Dutch imported slaves from India, Indonesia, and Africa to work on nutmeg plantations. Figures show that in just 20 years, the Dutch East India Company made a 1,000% profit from nutmeg and cloves, equivalent to billions of dollars today. But what was the cost? Thousands of lives and a culture nearly wiped out.
An even crazier story, in 1667, the Dutch exchanged Manhattan Island, now the center of New York, with the English for Rum Island, a tiny island but full of nutmeg. At that time, nutmeg was worth more than land in America. This shows how powerful spices were in shaping historical decisions. The English joined the spice race later but were no less fierce. In 1600, they established the English East India Company to compete with the Dutch and Portuguese. They targeted the Banda Islands and India but were often crushed by the Dutch.
One example is the Ambon massacre in 1623. The Dutch tortured and killed over 10 English merchants in Ambon, now Indonesia, on suspicion of plotting to seize the clove source. This incident sparked the Anglo-Dutch wars largely over spices. Not gaining much in Indonesia, the English turned to India. In 1757, they seized Bengal, the center of black pepper and cinnamon production. But their crimes here were even greater than those of the Dutch. To optimize profits, the English forced farmers to grow spices. The result was the Bengal famine of 1770, which killed 10 million people, about one-third of the region's population. This figure shows the brutality of the spice race.
For profit, the English were willing to let an entire region fall into disaster. It is estimated that the spice trade of the English in the 17th and 18th centuries brought in millions of pounds each year, equivalent to billions of dollars, tens of billions today. The costs were colonial wars and the suffering of millions of indigenous people.
Spices not only caused wars but also fueled one of the greatest crimes in history, the slave trade.
To operate spice plantations and related products like sugar and coffee, European empires needed cheap labor. As a result, they turned to Africa. From 1500 to 1800, over 12 million Africans were enslaved and transported to America and Asia. In the Caribbean, the English and Dutch established sugarcane plantations, where 80% of slaves died from work. In Indonesia, the Dutch brought slaves from Bengal, Java, and Africa to grow nutmeg and cloves. Figures show that in the Banda Islands alone, thousands of slaves died from harsh labor, disease, and torture. What were the living conditions of slaves like?
They were shackled, worked 16 hours a day, suffered from malnutrition, and were often beaten to death. According to records, the mortality rate of slaves on Caribbean plantations reached 50% in the first five years. All just to ensure a supply of spices for Europe with profits thousands of times higher. The spice race did not stop in the 17th and 18th centuries; it laid the foundation for modern colonialism in India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and many other regions becoming colonies of England, the Netherlands, and Portugal until the 20th century. Indigenous cultures were destroyed, resources were exploited, and millions were oppressed. For example, in India, the English controlled pepper production until 1947, leaving a devastated country.
From the 18th century, the value of spices decreased as they were grown in many places, but the legacy of the spice race remains, marked by economic inequality, ethnic conflicts, and unresolved historical wounds. Today, the global spice industry is worth tens of billions of dollars each year, with Vietnam being the largest exporter of pepper, accounting for 40% of the global market. But few remember that behind every peppercorn is a history full of blood and tears.
Spices, though small, have caused empires to clash and massacred indigenous people, trading millions of slaves. They are not just resources, not just ingredients in the kitchen, but also catalysts for colonialism, shaping the modern world with both beautiful and horrific aspects. The next time you sprinkle pepper on a dish or enjoy a fragrant cup of cinnamon tea, take a moment to think about how this pepper, this cinnamon stick once shook the world. They are proof that sometimes the smallest things have the greatest power, both good and evil.