WEBVTT - Did the Dutch trade Manhattan for nutmeg? 0:00:00.320 --> 0:00:02.880 Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. 0:00:03.200 --> 0:00:07.560 It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know 0:00:08.200 --> 0:00:16.439 from House Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to 0:00:16.480 --> 0:00:20.000 the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W Chuck Bryant 0:00:20.000 --> 0:00:24.360 with this Atlanta Braves hat. How's it going, slugger? Yeah? 0:00:24.440 --> 0:00:28.680 Four braves? Oh yeah. The Yankees are doing terribly too. Yeah, 0:00:28.680 --> 0:00:30.400 it's a great way to start the season. Yeah, but 0:00:30.440 --> 0:00:32.280 at the same time, it's like, oh and four out 0:00:32.280 --> 0:00:34.239 of what a hundred and eighty nine. It's not like 0:00:34.240 --> 0:00:37.479 they don't have time to come back and six. But yeah, no, 0:00:37.640 --> 0:00:39.239 of course there's an a big deal. But you never 0:00:39.240 --> 0:00:41.839 want to start out like that. No, you really don't. But, 0:00:42.240 --> 0:00:46.520 as the GM pointed out in an article in Atlanta Magazine, 0:00:46.560 --> 0:00:48.920 still a lot of games to play. Uh. There, it's 0:00:49.000 --> 0:00:53.960 a rebuilding season. So they fired somebody, right, yeah, oh yeah. 0:00:54.000 --> 0:00:56.640 He basically said, like, if you're a fan, don't I 0:00:56.680 --> 0:01:01.200 hope go read it. Okay, I'm not kid. Even if 0:01:01.200 --> 0:01:04.240 that were true, they jams don't say that. He said it. 0:01:04.319 --> 0:01:07.600 He sounds like a straight shooter, right, Maybe he was 0:01:07.720 --> 0:01:09.480 drunk when he did this interview. I don't know, but 0:01:09.600 --> 0:01:12.640 that's what that's how I read it. And Matt Arnett's 0:01:12.680 --> 0:01:14.200 in it too, is a picture of him in front 0:01:14.240 --> 0:01:19.480 of the grocery. Oh really mad, So I guess we 0:01:19.520 --> 0:01:26.800 should stop talking like we're not being recorded right now. Um, chuck, uh, 0:01:26.800 --> 0:01:29.320 this is stuff you should know, as you know. And 0:01:29.600 --> 0:01:34.040 I propose that we begin in earnest now, so chuck 0:01:34.720 --> 0:01:41.920 back in. There was a guy, an entomologist who he's 0:01:41.920 --> 0:01:45.039 not an entomologist, but he did coin a term in 0:01:45.120 --> 0:01:48.440 an editorial that he wrote for the Journal of Insect Conservation. 0:01:49.120 --> 0:01:51.480 The guy's name is Michael Samways, and the term he 0:01:52.080 --> 0:01:57.120 coined is the homage scene. Okay, and the homage scene 0:01:57.240 --> 0:02:03.960 is this word that describes basically the um sweeping similarity 0:02:04.120 --> 0:02:10.359 and homogeneity that's come about around the planet um since 0:02:10.400 --> 0:02:14.240 the age of exploration. It's the reason why you have 0:02:15.120 --> 0:02:18.520 chili peppers as one of the basis of Thai cooking, 0:02:18.600 --> 0:02:22.720 even though chili peppers are from meso America, tomatoes from 0:02:22.760 --> 0:02:26.679 meso America from the basis of Italian cooking. Um. It's 0:02:26.680 --> 0:02:29.480 the reason why there are black people and white people 0:02:29.600 --> 0:02:32.640 in the United States. It's the reason why there's Asians 0:02:32.680 --> 0:02:37.360 in Mexican. In Mexico, it's the reason why the Irish 0:02:37.840 --> 0:02:40.840 uh entered a famine because they became too reliant on 0:02:40.880 --> 0:02:43.919 the potato, which is actually from the Andes. And it's 0:02:43.960 --> 0:02:46.639 the reason why there's old navy stores on every continent, 0:02:48.120 --> 0:02:52.360 well probably except maybe Antarctica, but I wouldn't be willing 0:02:52.360 --> 0:02:54.919 to bet too much against that. But the homogescene is 0:02:54.960 --> 0:02:57.600 this age that we're living in now where biologically it's 0:02:57.800 --> 0:03:00.360 like the earthworms in Minnesota. They're really from Europe, but 0:03:00.360 --> 0:03:03.880 they're destroying forests in Minnesota. It's all of this coupling 0:03:03.880 --> 0:03:09.520 together what um A geographer named Alfred Crosby called umu 0:03:09.919 --> 0:03:13.600 re stitching the seams of Pangaea, the super continent back 0:03:13.680 --> 0:03:17.000 together once again. And then one of my heroes, Charles c. Man, 0:03:17.600 --> 0:03:19.639 it's the basis of his book the follow up in 0:03:19.680 --> 0:03:23.440 f called It's all about the homogen scene. And like 0:03:23.480 --> 0:03:27.519 the world that Columbus inadvertently created, the big global stew 0:03:28.080 --> 0:03:33.040 thank you. Um So a lot of people attributed to Columbus, 0:03:33.960 --> 0:03:35.800 but you really need to go a little further back 0:03:35.840 --> 0:03:39.760 and you can place the responsibility for the homoges scene. 0:03:39.800 --> 0:03:42.840 The good, the bad, the ugly, the everything at the 0:03:42.960 --> 0:03:47.960 feet pretty much of one guy and Ottoman Sultan named 0:03:48.120 --> 0:03:51.960 Member the Second, who kind of changed the course of 0:03:52.080 --> 0:03:57.720 history when he overtook Constantinople. That was a pretty good intro. 0:03:58.880 --> 0:04:01.800 You just did like a many jazz hands that they 0:04:01.840 --> 0:04:05.920 were trembling. Yeah, you like try to stop yourself. Uh yeah. 0:04:06.200 --> 0:04:10.040 Age of Exploration. It was kicked off by Member the Second, Yeah, 0:04:10.080 --> 0:04:15.360 because he basically shut down UM trade routes through the 0:04:15.360 --> 0:04:17.640 Middle East. Yeah, the Silk Roads, the famous Silk Roads, 0:04:17.640 --> 0:04:20.240 which was huge. Well yeah, I mean think about it, 0:04:20.279 --> 0:04:23.240 like Europe got everything from the Middle East, or from 0:04:23.279 --> 0:04:27.760 Asia through the through the India, through Turkey, through the 0:04:28.160 --> 0:04:32.320 subcontinent UM. And this guy took control of Constantinople and 0:04:32.360 --> 0:04:34.839 effectively said, you know what, I'm kind of tired of 0:04:34.880 --> 0:04:39.480 your crusades, so any Europeans are barred from taking part 0:04:39.560 --> 0:04:42.440 in this trade. And that was that. That was huge 0:04:42.560 --> 0:04:44.320 because then they had to take to the sea. Yeah, 0:04:44.400 --> 0:04:46.080 but think about it, within like fifty years, all of 0:04:46.120 --> 0:04:48.119 a sudden they were like, okay, well let's just sail 0:04:48.200 --> 0:04:51.320 and see what happens. Yeah, and that changed everything. Well, 0:04:51.360 --> 0:04:54.120 did that kick off the age of expression? That that 0:04:54.200 --> 0:04:56.680 act is what made people say I'm gonna go get 0:04:56.680 --> 0:05:02.279 in my frigate exactly and just say frigate out of here. Sorry. 0:05:02.360 --> 0:05:06.560 Then the word play today is world class. Uh, yes, Josh, 0:05:06.600 --> 0:05:09.800 So they and I also found it interesting that it 0:05:09.839 --> 0:05:13.720 seems like almost every great discovery that happened because of 0:05:13.800 --> 0:05:16.320 that was in a big accident. Yeah, these dudes didn't 0:05:16.320 --> 0:05:19.680 know where they were. No, Well, Columbus cologne, Crystal Ball 0:05:19.720 --> 0:05:22.640 cologne is apparently how he would have what he would 0:05:22.640 --> 0:05:26.360 have answered to Well, and then later on Hudson was like, oops, 0:05:26.480 --> 0:05:29.400 I found Manhattan. Yeah, but that's not what I was 0:05:29.440 --> 0:05:32.080 looking for. Well, they were failing again and again and again. 0:05:32.240 --> 0:05:36.719 Ultimately what they were looking for was a passageway to China. Um, 0:05:36.880 --> 0:05:40.120 and they found it in Panama. But even then they 0:05:40.120 --> 0:05:43.640 were like still a little too wide and a little 0:05:43.680 --> 0:05:47.760 too far. But um, but yes, it was very accident. Um. 0:05:47.800 --> 0:05:51.800 Except Vasco da Gama was one of the few success 0:05:51.839 --> 0:05:55.320 stories and one of the earliest two, and he kind 0:05:55.360 --> 0:06:00.480 of cemented the Portuguese control over this because um, there 0:06:00.520 --> 0:06:03.600 the the West Indies, like what we now refer to 0:06:03.680 --> 0:06:10.560 as like Indonesia, the Indian subcontinent, Australasia. Basically, Um, that 0:06:10.680 --> 0:06:13.320 was the place where we wanted to get to. The 0:06:13.360 --> 0:06:15.479 Europeans wanted to get to, but they couldn't do it 0:06:15.520 --> 0:06:19.120 overland any longer. Well, the Gama sailed down around Africa, 0:06:19.480 --> 0:06:21.800 past the Cape of Good Hope and up to India 0:06:22.520 --> 0:06:27.640 and came back and said, Okay, Portugal owns the world now, 0:06:28.120 --> 0:06:30.760 And they kind of did as far as being the 0:06:30.760 --> 0:06:33.400 dominant traders of the of the time, at least for 0:06:33.480 --> 0:06:38.000 the for pretty much the whole sixteenth century. UM in Europe, 0:06:38.040 --> 0:06:41.880 of course wouldn't have that. So the Dutch and the English, 0:06:42.240 --> 0:06:45.440 you know, ponied up, and well ponied up means they paid. 0:06:45.480 --> 0:06:49.479 They manned up, I guess, and said, you know what, 0:06:49.520 --> 0:06:51.200 we gotta get on the on the scene here because 0:06:51.200 --> 0:06:54.400 Portugal is kicking her butt in the spice trade. And 0:06:55.360 --> 0:06:57.240 I looked up the whole spice thing just to get 0:06:57.240 --> 0:06:59.159 a little more into it, because I was like, why 0:06:59.200 --> 0:07:02.200 we're spices such a big deal. Well, he who controls 0:07:02.240 --> 0:07:05.479 the spice controls the universe. Well, it was kind of true. 0:07:05.480 --> 0:07:09.560 Back then, UM, spices were were a huge deal because 0:07:09.880 --> 0:07:14.320 uh one, Europe didn't have these exotic spices because they 0:07:14.280 --> 0:07:16.960 didn't grow there. They had they had the head garlic, 0:07:17.240 --> 0:07:21.080 the head onion, and they had like horzerdish. That's about it. 0:07:21.640 --> 0:07:25.240 So all of a sudden, these exotic spices, uh, come come, 0:07:25.440 --> 0:07:29.720 come around, and it makes crappy meat tastes better, It 0:07:29.760 --> 0:07:34.080 makes spoiled meat taste edible, and other bad foods that 0:07:34.120 --> 0:07:37.120 have gone bad. Yeah, gruel just spice the crap out 0:07:37.120 --> 0:07:40.840 of it. And um, it was expensive, so it became 0:07:40.920 --> 0:07:43.920 like a sign of nobility. So like if you were 0:07:44.320 --> 0:07:47.480 entertaining and you were like either noble or wealthy, you 0:07:47.520 --> 0:07:50.640 would like really turn it on to your guest if 0:07:50.680 --> 0:07:54.200 you like brought out the spice tray like along with 0:07:54.240 --> 0:07:57.040 the meal that's already spiced, and they would just sample 0:07:57.080 --> 0:07:59.360 different little spices and it was like a really big thing. 0:07:59.560 --> 0:08:02.080 And then top it all off, it was served by 0:08:02.160 --> 0:08:05.520 a captured human being wearing like bright feathers, so you 0:08:05.560 --> 0:08:09.640 could really show off for your guest's Uh. Spice is 0:08:09.680 --> 0:08:14.440 also improved health. They were used medicinally to treat dozens 0:08:14.520 --> 0:08:17.920 of maladies. Well, let's get to the star of this episode. 0:08:18.720 --> 0:08:22.400 Preserved meats not there yet. Oh sorry, well salt, yeah, 0:08:23.800 --> 0:08:26.200 how we get j Yeah, salt was so valuable they 0:08:26.280 --> 0:08:29.680 like hit it in the Tower of London. Oh yeah, 0:08:29.760 --> 0:08:31.240 I think they called it the Salt Tower even for 0:08:31.240 --> 0:08:35.480 a little while, not officially. And then peppercorn evidently was 0:08:35.520 --> 0:08:38.040 one of the most valued. It was like a really 0:08:38.120 --> 0:08:41.280 huge deal you had pink peppercorn. Yeah. Plus it's not 0:08:41.360 --> 0:08:44.120 cheap pepper even to this day. But they would actually 0:08:44.160 --> 0:08:47.839 use peppercorn as rent in areas where like there didn't 0:08:47.840 --> 0:08:49.480 have money, so they would use this currency and like 0:08:49.520 --> 0:08:53.640 paid peppercorn rent to your landlord. In the background, somebody shouting, 0:08:53.640 --> 0:08:56.040 bring out, you're dead and you're paying your rent and peppercorn. 0:08:57.280 --> 0:08:59.719 So that's that's a primer on why it's such a 0:08:59.760 --> 0:09:02.200 big eel to get spices back in the day. Well. 0:09:02.200 --> 0:09:06.079 Plus also ultimately the reason why people were doing everything 0:09:06.120 --> 0:09:09.880 and anything like memos shut down. Um, the silk rows 0:09:09.920 --> 0:09:15.080 in fourteen fifty three, Columbus sets sail in fourteen Yeah, 0:09:15.280 --> 0:09:19.040 so in less than forty years. Um, like we're like, okay, 0:09:19.120 --> 0:09:21.199 we have to figure this out. But I think the 0:09:21.920 --> 0:09:25.440 big driver of it always money. Sure, there was a 0:09:25.440 --> 0:09:28.199 merchant class that could make money from selling this stuff 0:09:28.240 --> 0:09:30.800 to the nobility. That's right there, you have it. There 0:09:30.840 --> 0:09:33.439 you have it. So where were we Portugal ruling the 0:09:33.679 --> 0:09:37.800 spice trade, um. And then the Dutch are like, we 0:09:37.800 --> 0:09:40.920 gotta put a stop to this. We need to go 0:09:41.360 --> 0:09:46.200 form a corporation chartered company, one of the world's first. 0:09:47.040 --> 0:09:50.120 I'm gonna butcher this. It's Dutch man. I mean, that's 0:09:50.120 --> 0:09:57.280 hard to say. The ver Verinigdish Indiese Company or the 0:09:57.400 --> 0:10:02.480 Dutch East India Company in English, the VSC, which is 0:10:02.640 --> 0:10:04.800 probably what we'll call it, or we if we refer 0:10:04.920 --> 0:10:07.840 to the Dutch, that's what we're talking about, because they 0:10:07.880 --> 0:10:12.080 were representative of the Dutch government. It was a government 0:10:12.640 --> 0:10:17.840 establishing government um initially funded company that the the Dutch 0:10:18.080 --> 0:10:20.760 came about and said, hey, Portugal, you're not the only 0:10:20.760 --> 0:10:23.040 guys on the map now. And then shortly after that 0:10:23.080 --> 0:10:27.000 the English said, the English said, you know what, We're 0:10:27.000 --> 0:10:29.320 going to form the East India Company, which, by the way, 0:10:29.360 --> 0:10:33.040 we should do an episode on just itself. And it 0:10:33.080 --> 0:10:35.880 was brutal, just the crazy stuff that the East India 0:10:35.920 --> 0:10:38.720 Company did, killing him the name of spice. Yes, and 0:10:38.760 --> 0:10:42.040 the Dutch did too. We'll see pretty much everybody did. 0:10:42.160 --> 0:10:45.760 Your Europeans were brutal, um. But uh so the E 0:10:45.960 --> 0:10:48.640 i C. The East India Company or the the English 0:10:49.120 --> 0:10:52.520 um and the Dutch suddenly hit the scene and gave 0:10:52.559 --> 0:10:55.360 Portugal a run for its money and basically rested control 0:10:55.400 --> 0:11:00.840 away from Portugal and started dividing it between themselves. That's 0:11:00.920 --> 0:11:03.640 the scene in the West Indies, that's right. And then 0:11:03.679 --> 0:11:08.440 they all said, hey, let's go west and check out 0:11:08.480 --> 0:11:11.400 what kind of fur is being traded. I'm sorry, that's 0:11:11.440 --> 0:11:15.520 the scene in the East Indies. Would you say West Indies? Yeah? Yeah, um, 0:11:15.800 --> 0:11:19.840 nice catch. So they the v O C in the 0:11:19.880 --> 0:11:24.000 E I C England, in Holland, let's call it okay, 0:11:24.280 --> 0:11:27.040 or we're calling the Dutch, or maybe we should just 0:11:27.080 --> 0:11:31.000 say that from Amsterdame. Okay, they're all the same. Jerry's laughing. 0:11:31.320 --> 0:11:34.080 Let's call it the the Netherlands. Everyone in rotter Damn 0:11:34.160 --> 0:11:38.400 is really mad at you right now, Um Rodder. Name 0:11:38.400 --> 0:11:41.000 is very nice. Actually, I would imagine I think all 0:11:41.040 --> 0:11:45.200 of it, all of the Netherlands are nice, lovely, lovely country. 0:11:45.520 --> 0:11:50.400 Um okay. So uh so they both say, let's go 0:11:50.480 --> 0:11:52.880 check out the New World because there's gotta be some 0:11:52.920 --> 0:11:56.240 fur there, and let's do it. Let's let's beat the 0:11:56.440 --> 0:11:59.920 Portuguese over there. Let's do it, I mean not together 0:12:00.000 --> 0:12:03.920 in a charter. Yeah, um, we can do it, right. 0:12:04.240 --> 0:12:07.440 So yeah, now they were competing. They didn't do anything together. 0:12:07.440 --> 0:12:09.640 It was all competition. There's a competition in the east 0:12:09.679 --> 0:12:11.720 for the Spice Islands, and now there's a competition in 0:12:11.760 --> 0:12:16.400 the west and specifically in the um northeastern what is 0:12:16.400 --> 0:12:19.360 now the northeastern United States. And the whole thing began 0:12:19.440 --> 0:12:21.800 with um like you were poking fun at Henry Hudson 0:12:22.160 --> 0:12:24.920 who tried to look for a northeast passage to China 0:12:25.160 --> 0:12:27.960 for the Dutch. Though that was I was on his own. 0:12:28.040 --> 0:12:31.239 He was an English explorer. I thought was the northeast. 0:12:31.400 --> 0:12:34.680 Then the said, hey, while you're up there, look for 0:12:34.920 --> 0:12:37.680 a northwest passage. Try that one and we'll pay you. 0:12:37.760 --> 0:12:39.760 Now here's what I was curious about. Was he like 0:12:39.920 --> 0:12:42.240 a trader to his country for doing this or was 0:12:42.240 --> 0:12:44.160 it just like all bets are off when you're hired. 0:12:45.000 --> 0:12:50.160 I think it was you. Well, Christobal Cologne was I 0:12:50.200 --> 0:12:52.599 think he was Portuguese. No, he was Genoese. He was 0:12:52.640 --> 0:12:56.200 Italian and he was exploring for um, the Spanish when 0:12:56.200 --> 0:13:00.920 he landed on Hispaniola. So yeah, it was I think 0:13:00.960 --> 0:13:04.920 whoever whoever would pay for your expedition. And yeah, so 0:13:05.160 --> 0:13:08.200 Henry Hudson, I don't believe I've ever heard him considered 0:13:08.200 --> 0:13:12.640 a trader for that. But he basically contracted out with 0:13:12.679 --> 0:13:15.280 the Dutch. That's right, the V O C. And he 0:13:15.360 --> 0:13:18.760 didn't find that Northwest passage, but he did discover, um, 0:13:18.880 --> 0:13:22.839 the Hudson River. He did. It wasn't called that until 0:13:22.880 --> 0:13:27.040 he found it Long Island in another place called Manhattan. 0:13:28.000 --> 0:13:30.960 And now we get to the crux of our story 0:13:31.160 --> 0:13:34.000 because the Dutch are aware that there's a place called 0:13:34.040 --> 0:13:37.120 Manhattan and they want to check it out because it 0:13:37.200 --> 0:13:43.200 has awesome street food. He uh, he did little trading 0:13:43.200 --> 0:13:47.400 there initially, and that's how he kind of established for 0:13:47.480 --> 0:13:51.440 the Dutch was by taking part in some commerce. Yeah, 0:13:51.440 --> 0:13:56.240 because first, um, we're fairly lucrative. There were nothing compared 0:13:56.280 --> 0:13:58.240 to spices, but they were enough to like get an 0:13:58.840 --> 0:14:04.600 interest for nothing compared to peppercorn because we were lousy 0:14:04.640 --> 0:14:07.520 with animals at the time. Yeah, like we didn't know 0:14:07.559 --> 0:14:10.000 what we're doing. Just kill them all and the fur 0:14:10.120 --> 0:14:13.560 is easy to come by. Peppercorn though, doesn't grow here. 0:14:14.440 --> 0:14:20.040 All right, you're ready, I'm ready, okay, so uh he 0:14:20.320 --> 0:14:24.000 uh he claims it for the Dutch. The States General 0:14:24.000 --> 0:14:28.280 of the Netherlands set up the Dutch West India Company 0:14:28.680 --> 0:14:32.040 after this you know revelation that they have you know, 0:14:32.080 --> 0:14:37.040 trading partners over there, that's right, And it became New Netherland, 0:14:37.760 --> 0:14:42.120 not New Belgium, not New or New Amsterdam. Yeah, new 0:14:42.160 --> 0:14:45.520 New Amsterdam is New York exactly. New Netherlands is the 0:14:45.640 --> 0:14:50.160 area around New York. Yeah, specifically, I think New York, 0:14:50.280 --> 0:14:55.400 New Jersey, Connecticut, Um, Delaware and parts of Pennsylvanian and 0:14:55.440 --> 0:14:58.640 Rhode Island like a lot a lot of area. So 0:14:58.720 --> 0:15:01.680 the the Dutch West India Company sends a bunch of 0:15:01.760 --> 0:15:05.360 Dutch people the colonize and start hanging out, uh, kind 0:15:05.400 --> 0:15:10.800 of making friends with the local Indians, the lenape Algonquin 0:15:10.840 --> 0:15:13.720 Lennapee tribe. So I also read that there were Delaware, 0:15:14.120 --> 0:15:18.920 the Meadowak, and the Wappinger were all there or whoppinger, Um, 0:15:18.960 --> 0:15:22.360 we're all in the area as well. Um, So the 0:15:22.760 --> 0:15:26.000 Dutch are like hanging out around these people are the 0:15:26.080 --> 0:15:28.800 new guys, and they're talking here there. And within five 0:15:28.880 --> 0:15:35.080 years the director himself of the v o C, Peter Minuit, 0:15:35.840 --> 0:15:38.640 shows up and he's basically just coming to check on 0:15:38.720 --> 0:15:42.560 this newly established colony, and while he's there, one of 0:15:42.600 --> 0:15:46.560 the things he does is um try to establish claim 0:15:46.720 --> 0:15:50.760 for the Dutch of Manhattan by buying it from the 0:15:50.760 --> 0:15:53.840 local tribe. Yeah. Well, at first, so the Indians are 0:15:53.840 --> 0:15:57.520 all like, we don't, we don't trade land and air 0:15:57.560 --> 0:16:00.240 and water. That's that's for everyone to use. And then 0:16:00.240 --> 0:16:02.720 the Dutch, we don't understand that. The Dutch said, have 0:16:02.880 --> 0:16:09.080 you tried liquor? And composedly suppose this is what Jay 0:16:09.160 --> 0:16:12.040 McGrath says. She's pretty good at history generally. I just 0:16:12.080 --> 0:16:14.080 looked at that. I couldn't find the liquor. I couldn't 0:16:14.080 --> 0:16:16.200 find any other great sources for that. So according to 0:16:16.240 --> 0:16:20.720 this article, um, the Dutch said, hey guys, let's um, 0:16:20.920 --> 0:16:23.880 let's partake in some liquor, and the Indians on the 0:16:23.880 --> 0:16:27.120 island drank it with them and got really drunk. And 0:16:27.160 --> 0:16:30.440 that's where the name Mannhattan supposedly comes from, which I 0:16:30.440 --> 0:16:34.080 guess it would be in an algonquin tongue because that's 0:16:34.120 --> 0:16:39.560 what everybody spoke up there. But it was Manna hatch 0:16:40.000 --> 0:16:44.480 Tannian and the hatch tani, which means the place we 0:16:44.520 --> 0:16:48.640 all got drunk. Yeah, that's where Manhattan comes from. Supposedly 0:16:48.680 --> 0:16:50.840 that's the legend. Well that's what they say. The Dutch 0:16:50.840 --> 0:16:56.120 trans translated that into Mannahatta and then that eventually became Manhattan. Right, 0:16:56.400 --> 0:16:59.360 So the Dutch are there, Peter Minuit's there, and he's like, 0:16:59.400 --> 0:17:02.040 you know what, it's just let's see what we can 0:17:02.040 --> 0:17:04.639 do and let's try to buy this um. Like you 0:17:04.680 --> 0:17:10.440 said that, the Indians at the time, supposedly nowhere in 0:17:10.440 --> 0:17:14.840 in the New World um understood or believed in the 0:17:14.880 --> 0:17:18.240 concept of owning land. So the idea of an Indian 0:17:18.400 --> 0:17:22.240 saying I will see this land to you you you 0:17:22.280 --> 0:17:23.960 have to also follow that up at the image of 0:17:24.000 --> 0:17:27.439 them turning around and laughing to his friends. Right, And 0:17:27.520 --> 0:17:30.760 not only that, apparently Manhattan wasn't um inhabited. It was 0:17:30.800 --> 0:17:32.600 a place where they hunted and fished and kind of 0:17:32.680 --> 0:17:36.840 hung out sometimes. But apparently no local tribe lived on Manhattan, 0:17:37.200 --> 0:17:39.800 so which made the idea of one of them selling 0:17:39.840 --> 0:17:43.560 it to them even funnier. And no one knows which 0:17:43.600 --> 0:17:47.720 which group the Dutch um bought this from. The only 0:17:47.800 --> 0:17:51.000 record of this this transaction ever taking place was a 0:17:51.080 --> 0:17:55.440 letter written by Peter Minuit, who just mentions offhand, Um 0:17:55.560 --> 0:17:58.720 the next year that oh, yeah, we bought Manhattan for 0:17:59.040 --> 0:18:04.600 a chest of of stuff for sixty guilders. Yeah, that's 0:18:04.600 --> 0:18:08.639 the old rumor two dollars bought Manhattan, and that's you know, 0:18:08.880 --> 0:18:12.000 been disputed here and there. Um, well, the sixty guilders 0:18:12.040 --> 0:18:15.080 is what he wrote that he spent. He spent for Manhattan. 0:18:15.920 --> 0:18:18.080 But how much that was worth at the time, Like 0:18:18.119 --> 0:18:20.000 you said, a lot of people said twenty four dollars. 0:18:20.000 --> 0:18:24.000 They've seen a thousand. It wasn't much, right. Um. I 0:18:24.040 --> 0:18:26.000 did a little more reading on this too, and it's 0:18:26.400 --> 0:18:28.639 because you know, of course, the person you think is boy, 0:18:28.680 --> 0:18:32.200 the Native Americans got rooked out of Manhattan and who 0:18:32.280 --> 0:18:35.840 knew at the time, But like you said, they didn't 0:18:35.840 --> 0:18:38.440 even own it, so they sort of pulled a fast one. 0:18:38.920 --> 0:18:41.640 And in the end, I think most historians think that 0:18:42.720 --> 0:18:47.320 neither party really fully even understood the terms of the sale. 0:18:47.359 --> 0:18:49.920 And it wasn't like, oh my gosh, we have these 0:18:50.119 --> 0:18:54.280 trinkets now. It was hey, we've got some potential military partners, 0:18:54.760 --> 0:18:56.760 and the Dutch were like, hey, we've got some potential 0:18:56.800 --> 0:19:00.119 trade partners. So it was a lot more. It a 0:19:00.160 --> 0:19:04.160 lot more than the sixty guilders right, and even the trinkets, 0:19:04.200 --> 0:19:07.040 like you mentioned, that's under dispute as well. They they 0:19:07.200 --> 0:19:10.560 it's all. It's also in addition to the twenty four dollars, 0:19:10.560 --> 0:19:13.000 which is estimated in the nineteenth century, is kind of 0:19:13.040 --> 0:19:16.119 a way to make the Indians look like idiots. UM 0:19:16.119 --> 0:19:19.520 saying that it was just a box of trinkets makes 0:19:19.560 --> 0:19:22.399 it sound like he makes them sound even dumber. But 0:19:22.560 --> 0:19:27.720 probably what it was where like axes, metal kettles, UM, scissors, 0:19:27.720 --> 0:19:30.120 just stuff like the Indians just technology. They didn't have 0:19:30.160 --> 0:19:35.359 them cutting in so UM. The I guess the idea 0:19:35.440 --> 0:19:39.520 that the man that the Indians selling Manhattan for two 0:19:39.640 --> 0:19:43.440 dollars is um false at the very least, it's it's 0:19:43.440 --> 0:19:47.360 been um taken out of context. But what we have here, 0:19:47.520 --> 0:19:50.600 I think what you're saying is that there's two parties, 0:19:50.760 --> 0:19:53.560 neither of which are in any um position to sell 0:19:53.720 --> 0:19:58.240 or buy this land, who do just that UM. And 0:19:58.680 --> 0:20:03.200 the sale of Brooklyn actually is a lot better re recorded. 0:20:03.240 --> 0:20:06.919 There's it's a lot better documented UM. From sixteen thirty 0:20:07.040 --> 0:20:10.960 six to six eighty four, over like twenty two treaties 0:20:11.040 --> 0:20:15.520 the local Um tribes sold Manhattan or Brooklyn piece by 0:20:15.600 --> 0:20:19.639 piece like what amounted to like twelve thousand guilders over time. 0:20:20.359 --> 0:20:23.600 And um historians now see that as the Indians kind 0:20:23.600 --> 0:20:27.199 of figuring out that if you sold this land that 0:20:27.280 --> 0:20:30.280 you didn't even think you owned to the Europeans, it 0:20:30.359 --> 0:20:34.919 was a way of staving off your eventual removal, and 0:20:34.960 --> 0:20:37.480 that they were basically doing it. They kind of mastered, 0:20:37.560 --> 0:20:43.800 like pawning the Europeans, so they were on views of land, 0:20:43.840 --> 0:20:46.960 they weren't the rubes that they're painted to be. Oftentimes. 0:20:47.000 --> 0:20:49.399 I think that's the point here. Yeah, I like that. Okay, 0:20:49.480 --> 0:20:52.439 they said, check out park Slope. Can you imagine the 0:20:52.440 --> 0:20:55.800 baby carriages one day and the young yuppiece who will 0:20:55.800 --> 0:20:59.840 be living here are they're still yuppies if not in 0:21:00.080 --> 0:21:04.280 name and practice. Yeah. Um. So the long story short 0:21:04.480 --> 0:21:06.879 is that the Dutch now believed that they own Manhattan 0:21:07.440 --> 0:21:11.000 and New Netherlands in short order, like by the end 0:21:11.040 --> 0:21:14.760 of the seventeenth century, they own what's now New York, 0:21:14.800 --> 0:21:18.040 New Jersey in Connecticut, right, that's right. At the same time, 0:21:18.280 --> 0:21:21.679 back east in the East Indies, things are starting to 0:21:21.720 --> 0:21:26.520 heat up, specifically around what I said earlier is the 0:21:26.600 --> 0:21:32.040 star of this episode. This as far as spices go nutmeg. Uh. 0:21:32.200 --> 0:21:35.639 Nutmeg was very valuable. It tasted yummy when sprinkled on 0:21:35.840 --> 0:21:40.840 puddings and desserts. And uh it was an approdisiac. Supposedly 0:21:41.320 --> 0:21:45.880 it was hallucinogenic. Uh powder it's an abort of fashion, 0:21:46.280 --> 0:21:50.240 which means it can cause abortions. Really, so if you're pregnant, 0:21:50.280 --> 0:21:54.440 you were supposed to touch nutmeg. Interesting, I didn't done that. Yeah. Uh. 0:21:54.480 --> 0:21:57.359 And during the Black Plague, they would wear nutmeg around 0:21:57.359 --> 0:22:00.600 their neck. And if you think that sounds a little inky, 0:22:00.880 --> 0:22:03.879 it might have actually kept the fleas away that carried 0:22:03.920 --> 0:22:07.600 the Black plague, so it may not have been simply superstition, right, 0:22:08.160 --> 0:22:10.880 So they were kind of smart. Plus again we get 0:22:10.880 --> 0:22:15.080 to what what really drove people the mark up big time. 0:22:15.200 --> 0:22:18.280 They they some traders marked it up as much as 0:22:18.320 --> 0:22:22.760 six thousand percent. That's a lot of profit which would 0:22:22.800 --> 0:22:25.199 make people go crazy for it, which is what the 0:22:25.280 --> 0:22:28.440 Dutch did. That's right. And at the time, up until 0:22:28.440 --> 0:22:30.400 about the mid nineteenth century, the only place you could 0:22:30.400 --> 0:22:35.160 find this stuff was in the Banda Islands in Indonesia 0:22:35.640 --> 0:22:40.199 group of islands got this nutmeg. This one island in particular, 0:22:40.880 --> 0:22:45.120 uh Powella Run, which they called run yeah, that one 0:22:45.240 --> 0:22:48.280 was lousy with us. It's one of the smallest islands 0:22:48.280 --> 0:22:51.160 of the Banda Islands, but it was like just covered 0:22:51.200 --> 0:22:54.960 in nutmeg. And there's how many, I think five islands 0:22:55.080 --> 0:22:58.840 to the band is and um four were controlled by 0:22:58.880 --> 0:23:02.000 the Dutch clearly out right, and then one was controlled 0:23:02.000 --> 0:23:05.040 by the British. And the Dutch um landed on the 0:23:05.040 --> 0:23:08.440 band Islands and kicked the Portuguese out. It did their 0:23:08.520 --> 0:23:11.680 little treaty thing with the locals, which they like to do. 0:23:12.200 --> 0:23:15.080 The locals said, okay, thanks for the money. I don't 0:23:15.119 --> 0:23:17.199 know what you're talking about, and proceeded to trade with 0:23:17.240 --> 0:23:20.359 other people. Well, yeah, they wanted to establish the monopoly 0:23:20.520 --> 0:23:23.159 the Dutch did. Yeah, they're saying like we want to 0:23:23.200 --> 0:23:26.680 be the only exporter of nutmeg, right, you can only 0:23:26.680 --> 0:23:29.119 sell to us. And then here signed this. But the 0:23:29.160 --> 0:23:32.879 locals did. They had no idea what what was going on, 0:23:32.920 --> 0:23:35.720 and they didn't understand this concept or they just didn't 0:23:35.720 --> 0:23:38.119 really care if the Dutch wanted a monopoly or not. 0:23:39.000 --> 0:23:43.280 So long story short, the Dutch brutalized the Banda natives. 0:23:44.080 --> 0:23:50.200 Um Uh carried out like raids and massacres of villages, 0:23:50.280 --> 0:23:56.960 executed chiefs, basically um wipe themselves out of the local 0:23:57.000 --> 0:23:59.320 population that was capable of growing nutmegs, so they had 0:23:59.359 --> 0:24:04.080 to import colonists from the Netherlands to come grow the nutmeg. 0:24:04.240 --> 0:24:08.080 That's right. But they had their monopoly, well almost the monopoly, 0:24:08.119 --> 0:24:11.640 because the British still had the control of run um. 0:24:11.720 --> 0:24:13.159 And like you said, even though it was small, it 0:24:13.240 --> 0:24:16.719 was lousy with with nutmeg. It's so crazy that nutmeg 0:24:16.840 --> 0:24:19.040 was like the reason all this was going on. I've 0:24:19.040 --> 0:24:23.160 got like four whole nutmeg nuts in my pantry right 0:24:23.160 --> 0:24:26.439 now and it's like nothing to men to see my pants. 0:24:26.920 --> 0:24:29.199