Nathaniel's Nutmeg

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Instead, this book dedicates far more pages for events NOT in Banda but somewhere else like the Mughal Empire in India, Banten, the North Pole, and tons and tons of shipwrecks, dead sailors and other calamities in the vast ocean.

Although Nathaniel plays only a small role in this book, it is his heroism in trying to secure the tiny island of Run for the British, that the author has chosen to put him in the title. the mouthe of the stomacke and the spleen', it was also `good against the blody flux', a virulent and dangerous strain of dysentery. About 15% of this book (if that) relates to Nathaniel's Nutmeg - and that story is very interesting. The focus is on the English merchants and sailors of the East India Company but by necessity a lot also on their rival the Dutch East India Company. Milton has organized innumerable first-person accounts, by tradesmen and ship captains and others not given to long descriptives, into this tapestry.It is nonfiction that includes colonial expansion, indigenous peoples, ocean voyages, travels to far away lands, political scrambling, commercial trade, and food. The subsequent peace deal between the two nations gave Holland Run and the British Manhattan; New York was born. Because, if you think about it, the reason an old-fashioned swashbuckler is fun to read is that the narrative makes certain pirates into the "good guys," and other pirates into the "bad guys.

The historic 1553 voyage was the brainchild of a newly founded organisation known as the Mystery, Company and Fellowship of Merchant Adventurers for the Discovery of Unknown Lands. What a History lesson,I was so pleased that I bought this authors book a real story of the suffering and hardship that was endured by the every day sailor and merchant just to get us the spices that England required , This is the history lessons that should be taught in school today ,and maybe the kids of the future. Courthope's heroism led to the English taking the Dutch colony of Manhattan in revenge for the death of Courthope and the loss of Run. Nathaniel Courthope was a merchant, a factor of the British East India Company, sent with ships full of sailors, merchants, and warriors to the minute island of Run in the Spice Islands, to claim it for England and thus control a rich source of nutmeg as the island was covered with prime nutmeg trees. And yes, Milton often circles back in his chronology, goes back and forth in time so that it's sometimes hard to follow.

Within the stories of the Spice Islands and the founding of the Dutch East India Company, and the East India Company are some really interesting stories and they are dutifully recorded here in the driest way possible. His adoptive father, Henry Sidney, so eulogised his young charge when presented to the Company that the merchant adventurers thought they had a new Magellan in their midst.

I'm marginally ill today - mild fever, slight achiness, low energy - and because of that, I'm disappointed that I've already finished Giles Milton's Nathaniel's Nutmeg: or, the True and Incredible Adventures of the Spice Trader Who Changed the Course of History. This battle known as the 'spice race' which began in the late 16th century and lasted throughout the 17th century, as well as being interesting in itself, also sheds light on the story of how Britain came to be involved in India and how New York cam to be so named.Eventually this Nathaniel guy does his heroic stand on this one little nutmeg island, but he gets shot too (or dies of the bloody flux? Reading about a lesser known chapter of history—especially a story as seemingly buried as this one was interesting. But that it a problem endemic to historical accounts in which several narratives are advancing simultaneously on several different fronts.