Nutmeg and No Mercy

A Bitter Slice of Colonial History

By: Jessica Jones

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

Nutmeg and No Mercy
A spice became worth more than human life.
What followed was brutality few were meant to remember.

The most brutal and profitable genocide you've never heard of.

In the early 17th century, a single spice was worth more than gold. Nutmeg—exotic, intoxicating, and found on only one tiny cluster of volcanic islands: the Banda Archipelago. When the ruthless Dutch East India Company (VOC)—the world’s first true multinational corporation—discovered this monopoly, they initiated a campaign of unrivaled cruelty to secure it.

This is the untold micro-history of imperial greed.

In just a few harrowing years, the VOC’s Governor-General, J.P. Coen, orchestrated the near-total extermination of the Bandanese people. What followed was a complex web of staggering wealth, political betrayal, and a devastating trade-off that indirectly led to the founding of New York.

Nutmeg and No Mercy uses fast-paced, authoritative narrative to rip through the polite veneer of colonial history and expose the bitter truth hidden beneath the spice's alluring aroma.

Discover:

• The shocking profit margin that drove men to mass murder.

• The single, pivotal treaty that traded a priceless island for a remote swamp (Manhattan).

• How a small band of islanders fought a global superpower for their freedom.

Read or listen now and discover the true cost of the spice trade.