Note 493 — PRIMO VIAGGIO INTORNO AL MONDO

The Banda, or Nutmeg Islands, which belong to the Dutch, are small and ten in number, some of which are uninhabited. Banda (properly Bândan) means in Javanese “the thing or things tied or united,” or with the word “Pulo,” “united islands.” The group lies between south latitudes 3° 50′ and 4° 40′. Sontar or the Great Banda is the largest island, but the principal settlement is on Nera. They are volcanic in origin and frequent eruptions and earthquakes have occurred. The population is scant, and the raising of nutmegs constitutes almost the entire source of revenue. Abreu was the first Portuguese to visit them (in 1511, at the order of Alboquerque), but Varthema (Travels, Hakluyt Society edition, pp. 243, 244) seems to have visited them before that time. The Portuguese held the islands peacefully until 1609, when the Dutch attempted to settle, but were resisted by the natives, and many of the Dutch massacred, from which followed a war of extermination until 1627. Most of the natives fled, so that it became necessary for the Dutch to introduce slave labor for the cultivation of the nutmegs. At the Dutch conquest the nutmeg plantations were given to the persons taking part in it, and are still held by their heirs, under the name of Parkeniers, on condition of delivering the whole product to the government at a fixed and low rate. See Crawfurd’s Dictionary, pp. 33–36.