clove

Maluku Islands (Moluccas), Indonesia; one of the 'spice islands' commodities alongside nutmeg

Maluku, Arab/Indian Ocean trade, Portuguese colonial seizure, Dutch VOC monopoly, French transplant to Zanzibar/Madagascar

The Dutch VOC deliberately burned clove trees on islands outside their direct control to enforce scarcity and maintain monopoly pricing, a sustained campaign of agricultural destruction against Indigenous Malukan communities. Zanzibar's clove plantations were later built on enslaved labor under Omani Sultanate rule. This means the clove passed from one colonial extraction system to another: the Dutch destruction of the Maluku trade was followed by the Arab-Omani slave economy of East Africa. The ingredient carries both histories.