Did the Dutch really trade Manhattan for a nutmeg island?

Largely yes, with a caveat. Under the 1667 Treaty of Breda, which ended the second Anglo-Dutch war, England kept Manhattan, which it had seized from the Dutch three years earlier, while the Dutch gained Run, the only English outpost in the Spice Islands. The Financial Times notes that territories in Africa and the Americas were also exchanged, so the deal was part of a larger peace settlement rather than a single bargain between two islands. [1]

Run is one of the smallest of the Banda Islands in Indonesia. At the time the Bandas were the only source of nutmeg and mace, which were extremely valuable. The New York Times describes nutmeg as a spice worth its weight in gold, and the BBC says it was worth more than gold. The Dutch East India Company (VOC) wanted a monopoly on the trade. [2] [3] [4]

According to HowStuffWorks, the Dutch pursued that monopoly violently in the Banda Islands, destroying villages, enslaving people and executing chiefs, and killing most of the Bandanese population. Run, controlled by the British, stood in the way. The VOC commander Jan Pieterszoon Coen reportedly burned its nutmeg trees, and the VOC took control of the island in 1666 during the second Anglo-Dutch war. [5]

Manhattan, then called New Amsterdam, was part of New Netherland. HowStuffWorks says the fur trade there was less lucrative than the nutmeg trade in the East, and that a British fleet had taken New Amsterdam in 1664. At Breda the Dutch gave up their claims to it in exchange for official control of Run. The BBC and the FT describe Manhattan as a swampy piece of land at the time. [5] [4] [1]

HowStuffWorks also says the British were not very excited about the trade and first tried to exchange Manhattan for sugar-producing lands in South America. The Dutch did not agree, and the British kept Manhattan and renamed it New York. [5]

The Dutch gained the nutmeg monopoly they wanted, but it did not last. The FT reports that in the 19th century the British worked out how to cultivate nutmeg in Malaysia and India, which ended the monopoly and burst the spice's price bubble. Nutmeg still grows on Run, where a few hundred residents have plots in the forest. The FT says the island had electricity for about five hours a day at the time of its 2017 article, a contrast with Manhattan that news outlets often highlight. [1] [3]