The Dutch East India Company executed 44 Banda chiefs in 1621 and gave the nutmeg groves to Dutch planters, and one planter family says it has held its grove for 13 generations

Nutmeg and mace grew nowhere else in the world when the Dutch East India Company reached the Banda Islands. A cargo bought there could sell for up to 300 times its price in Europe. Before 1621 the islands had about 13,000 to 15,000 people. In 1621 Governor-General Jan Pieterszoon Coen conquered Great Banda. The company arrested 44 orang kaya, the island chiefs, on suspicion of plotting to kill Coen. They were questioned on the rack, sentenced to death and executed. Many Bandanese fled to the mountains and died of hunger. About 800 were deported to Batavia. About 1,000 stayed on the islands as slaves. The company cut the nutmeg gardens into plots called perken and gave them to Dutch free burghers, the perkeniers. They had to sell all their nutmeg and mace to the company. Enslaved workers from across the archipelago did the work. The system lasted until 1873. Pongky van den Broeke says he is the 13th generation of his family on Banda. In 2021, aged 63, he ran a 12.5-hectare nutmeg garden left to him by his father, Benny William van den Broeke. CNN Indonesia reports that his wife, a child and an aunt were killed in the 1999 Maluku conflict because the family was seen as Dutch^†. He sells candied nutmeg and nutmeg oil abroad.