Nathaniel's Nutmeg: How One Man's Courage Changed the Course of History

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Over all the Spice Islands, Run was the most coveted – covered as it was from one end to the other with Nutmeg trees; trees that would grow nowhere else. At that time Nutmeg was thought to cure the plague; and was the most valuable commodity in the world. Milton is the writer and narrator of the podcast series Ministry of Secrets, produced by Somethin' Else and Sony. Nutmeg in more than trace quantities is a medicinial herb that is still used today. It has a more than mild sophoric effect, is slightly anti-histimine, and is a euphoric. Nathaniel Courthope (born 1585;– died c. October 20, 1620) (sometimes written Courthopp) was an English East India Company officer [1] involved in the wars with the Dutch over the spice trade. Big Chief Elizabeth: The Adventures and Fate of the First English Colonists in America, 2000 ISBN 978-0340748824

In 1614 he was accused of purloining company resources and other offences by one dying man named, Edward Langley. [3] It is astounding to learn how popular these two spices [nutmeg and mace] were in the 15th-17th centuries, especially when compared to how little they are appreciated today. ... [T]he French term for the musk-nut, noix muguette, became the English word nutmeg." On 13 November 1609, Courthope was hired by the East India Company to go to the Spice Islands. He left England with great fanfare and by 1616 was a factor at Sukadana in Borneo. [2] the Portuguese built a Fort in Oman named Muscat ['place of falling' in Arabic] a good place to refuel their sailors coming and going.

The English departed without a struggle shortly after Courthope's death and their local allies - who considered themselves to be under His Majesty's reign - were being oppressed. [6]

Ratnikas, Algirdas J. "Timeline Indonesia". Timelines.ws. Archived from the original on 10 July 2010 . Retrieved 12 August 2010. East Indies: July 1614." Calendar of State Papers Colonial, East Indies, China and Japan, Volume 2, 1513-1616. Ed. W Noel Sainsbury. London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1864. 301-313. British History Online Retrieved 11 July 2019. [ dead link] Russian Roulette" is an historical account of British spies who were sent to Soviet Russia after the 1917 Bolshevik revolution, aiming to thwart Lenin's plans. The book is based on previously unknown secret documents found in archives. In an online review ( BarnesandNoble.com of "Nathaniel's Nutmeg: Or the True and Incredible Adventures of the Spice Trader Who Changed the Course of History" by Giles Milton (1999, Farrar, Straus and Giroux):As you'll have gathered, this is about the spice trade, about which we have some hazy notion ("ah yes, the spice trade") but which repays a closer look. One penn'orth of nutmeg in the East Indies went for 50 shillings in London - that's a 60,000 per cent mark-up, I think - so imagine the incentive for greed, treachery, freebooting and murder. The stories are terrific, and Milton has trawled through the records (primary research - maximum respect) to intoxicating effect. The East India Company used to be a turn-off at school but if they'd told us just how gloves-off this capitalism could be the kids' attention would have been guaranteed. In Medieval and Renaissance banquets, exotic spices, including mace and nutmeg, along with the popular cinnamon, were added in large amounts to various dishes. Fashionable French gourmets would bring their own nutmeg graters to add their nutmeg to appropriately improve on a wealthy host's dinner. Such affectations generally disappeared in the 18th century ... Fortnightly Club of Redlands, California". RedlandsFortnightly.org. 1 November 2001 . Retrieved 12 August 2010. Milton, Giles (1999). Nathaniel's Nutmeg (reissue, illustrateded.). Penguin Books. ISBN 9780140292602. OCLC 44871451. Read about William Hawkins's dealings with the psychotic and unpredictable Moghul Emperor Jehangir (endless piss-ups, gladiatorial competitions between people and lions); Captain William Keeling making his crew put on Hamlet (in Africa, in 1607, possibly the first amateur production); and the Massacre of Amboyna, where the Dutch tortured and then murdered the English inhabitants on trumped-up charges.

Perhaps European nutmeg, which comes from the Moluccan Islands, is of better quality than U.S. nutmegs that are grown in Grenada. Furthermore, ground nutmeg and pulverized mace rapidly lose their volatile oleoresins, and thus only freshly ground specimens are of major gustatory value." Nutmeg is not a nut, but the seed kernel inside the fruit of the nutmeg tree (Myristica fragrans), which is native to Indonesia. It's a spice, once rare and expensive, over which several minor wars were fought between competing countries (Venice, Genoa, the Netherlands, Portugal and England).

Nathaniel Courthope: Oxford Biography Index entry". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press . Retrieved 12 August 2010. This was the period of the Spice Wars; when the British, the Portuguese and the Dutch engaged in frantic searches for a safer route to the Spice Islands (in what is now Indonesia) and a protracted conflict with the locals and each other over control of the world’s spice supply. The Spaniards for a time also sought a role in the spice trade, but their search for a westward route to the islands led them to the New World where they became distracted by the rape of a continent.