The Spice Islands

Western historians used to think Europeans were responsible for the cloves in our pulao, but the fossils say otherwise.

South Asia began trading for cloves looooong before the colonizers arrived. All cloves originate from the Maluku Islands of Indonesia, aka the “Spice Islands.” The earliest known trade with Maluku occurred via Mantai, a Sri Lankan port and hub for international trade.

These traders worked HARD for their clove. Wind-powered ships ⛵ traveled the treacherous, 7,000 km distance between the Indonesian islands and Sri Lanka.

But if the merchants survived the journey, they would be highly rewarded 💰💰💰. The Sri Lankan kingdom would be paid handsomely for the cloves by their trade partners, including the Roman Empire, India and Arabia.

So how can we be confident in this version of history? In 2018, a team discovered a sample of clove at Mantai dating back to 900-1100 AD (also samples of charred black pepper dating back to 600-700 AD.)

All this to say, when we have to fish cloves out from our pulao , we can’t blame the colonizers.