The Deadliest Company In Human History | Answers With Joe

Spices might be the single thing in history that most shaped our world today. That sounds crazy, but spices once were as valuable as gold. It was an international currency that created and destroyed civilizations and great cities, and enslaved millions. And along the way created the very economy we live under today, by way of the most powerful corporation in human history.

This is a video about the Spice Trade. And the world it created.

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TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 - Intro
2:13 - The Spice Trade
6:04 - Spices As a Status Symbol
7:29 - The History of Spice
11:07 - New Sea Routes
13:45 - Tangent Cam
15:18 - The Dutch East India Company
18:03 - Sponsor
19:08 - The Island of Ran
20:30 - Final thoughts

[Hrodholf]

In Dutch we still have the expression of 'peperduur', which literally translates to 'expensive as pepper'. It's used for anything prohibitively expensive.

[giraffestreet]

As an Indonesian I'm glad more YouTubers talk about this part of history. Dutch colonialism maybe not as widely known as other western colonialism, Spanish, Portuguese, British, American. Looking at the map it's amazing how tiny the Netherlands is yet controlling thousands of islands many many miles away for hundred of years. And how influential they're through out history but not many people are realizing it.

[brunodesrosiers]

I just counted 60-something bottles on our spice shelf. There is this bank in Canada that constantly insists on telling us: ‘’you are richer than you think’’. It took me this video to finally get it.

[tiagol]

11:50 Portuguese guy here! During the times our sailors were trying to surpass this Cape, they would call it the *Cape of Storms* ("Cabo das Tormentas") because, like you said, the place was constantly under heavy storms.

Only after many tries, when they actually managed to sail arround it, did they name it *Cabo da Boa Esperença* (literally "Cape of Good Hope"), because of the new hope it brought in our quest to get to India.
Hope this explains the name!

[amystair]

I would definitely watch a Forgotten Atrocities series! As much as I love your science-based videos, Joe, I think you have a very special touch with videos of a historical nature, and I'm always drawn to them.

[anthonymorris]

A while back, I was stocking spices at work when I turned to the other guy working in the aisle and said, "it's crazy to think that wars were fought over stuff like this". Now it's so common it's just assumed everyone has a cupboard for their forgotten treasures.

[TehnbA]

"He or she who controls the Spice, controls the universe!" - Dune

[TheaSvendsen]

Apparently you could RENT a pineapple for display at your house back then. Kinda beats the purpose today but at the time it was a status symbol showcasing your wealth. So this became a profitable business.

Also, fun fact: when you’re eating a pineapple, it’s actually eating you too! It’s the only known source in nature with the enzyme Bromelain which digest protein. Both fascinating and unsettling :)

[TheAndroidNextDoor]

Well today I learned that the cyberpunk future everyone fears kind of already happened centuries ago with spices and wooden ships but with the same horrifically huge mega corporations.

[SupremeLeaderKimJong-un]

The plant that produces saffron is something you can actually grow in a lot of places (ranging from Spain to Iran), the reason it's so pricy is because of the tiny window the actual saffron is ready/available to pick on top of the fact the process is SO labor-intensive. The harvesting has to be done manually. It takes 75, 000 saffron flowers to make ONE POUND of it

And Dias actually named it the Cabo das Tormentas (Cape of Storms), it wasn't called the Cape of Good Hope until after Vasco da Gama when the Portuguese King John II renamed it

[rienparhan]

The Netherlands used to be so big in the spice trade, but never learned to properly use them. There is barely anyone here that cooks properly with spices. Most of our food is bland, low salt and no spice. People here think a little bit of black pepper is already spicy enough...

[fmtpulmanns]

Interesting co-occurence, if my memory of history lessons in high school is correct, King Pillip II of Spain was also the one who kicked off the 80-Years War between (catholic) Spain and (mostly protestant) Netherlands; one of the reasons the Dutch set up the VOC was to be able to pay for the war.

[TheSteveBoyd]

I'd love to see a video on the story of the "retired" pirate Tomas Bacxter, who was contracted by Nieuw Amsterdam to build a wall to protect against indigenous tribes, but it failed because he used cheap materials and pocketed the money. I love the fact that an act of fraud by a pirate would ultimately be the origin story behind the name Wall Street.

[bradeurich]

I went down an East India Company rabbit whole a month or two ago. My favorite part was that the merchants would come up with some crazy ass stories to sell their exotic goods.

"This cinnamon could only be harvested once per year, because the island was guarded by gremlins, who could not protect the crops for one day a year because reasons."

[KokkiePiet]

The horrific things that happend on the Banda Islands for Nutmeg was repeated by the Dutch in Indonesia on Atjeh, where the population was killed off because there was a hell of lot of oil. The Dutch king send an army to "Pacify" the region and started a company for the Oil, Koninklijke Olie, or as it is known now, Royal Dutch Shell,

[kaylarobertson]

I lived in Indonesia for a while and there are a lot of similarities in the language to Afrikaans. It was surprising, but now the Dutch influence makes sense. Very sad about how the influence was brought about, but I suppose similar to how it was in South Africa too.

[historybuff]

I understand the expense of saffron. I grow my own, because I can't afford it. Interesting side note: saffron is not only a spice, it is also a dye. I had a bumper crop, one year, and used the extra for dye. I wanted to see what the historically most expensive dye looked like. It is a beautiful pale yellow.

[juniorferro]

This is probably my favorite video of the channel. You guys did an amazing job "simplifying" the subject to make the big picture understandable, while at the same time making clear that are way more details and complex things involved on the process.

[sjoerdvanmierlo]

I'm dutch so this video is highly contrasting for me. It's really weird to think about what we achieved as such a small country, but also how much hurt we caused in the process

[rahadianramadhan]

As a citizen of a former Dutch colony, it def feels a bit weird seeing videos about VoC from western creators because we're already learning about it in schools. Keep up the good work, Joe