Spice Trade

Just as corporations today seek to monopolize plant genes in the "developing world", the Dutch East India Company set about seizing total control of spice production and introduced a policy known as extirpation. Until modern times, cloves grew only on a few islands historically called the spice islands and was traded like oil. To ensure control of this product, all clove trees not in control of the Dutch East India Company were uprooted and burned. To keep prices high, supply was limited, excessive harvests were either burned or dumped into the sea. Anyone caught growing, stealing or possessing clove plants without authorization faced the death penalty. Today Zanzibar is the largest producer of cloves.

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