How Nutmeg and Mace Come From the Same Fruit

The Process took a deep dive into the complex history of nutmeg, noting that it comes from a small fruit of the Myristica fragrans tree, which also yields the spice mace. The fruit comes in three parts: the flesh, the membrane (mace), and the seed (nutmeg).

It is the only plant on Earth that produces two completely different spices from a single fruit: Nutmeg and Mace. One was traded for the island of Manhattan; the other is a crimson web so delicate it must be peeled by hand.

In the 16th century, this fruit was only available on the Indonesian Banda Islands. This crop ultimately led to the massacre of the Bandanese people who refused to share their resources with the Dutch East India Company.

Europeans believed nutmeg cured the bubonic plague....The Dutch East India Company arrives and wants something no one had demanded before - a total monopoly. Every last seed. The Bandanese refused.In 1621, Governor-General Jan Pieterszoon Coen launched a military assault on the islands. Population before the attack: roughly 15,000. Survivors:barely one thousand.

This violent colonialism also led to the British acquisition of Manhattan Island through the 1667 Treaty of Breda.

The English had held one tiny island - Run. In1667, the Treaty of Breda settled the dispute. England ceded Run to the Dutch. Inexchange, the Dutch gave up a swampy outpost on the other side of the world called New Amsterdam. Today, we call it New York City.

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