Born Then1621
Life during the Dutch conquest of the Banda Islands
Be born in a place it hit, a few years before it began, and see what it did to five ordinary lives.
What it meant for ordinary people
To control the world's only source of nutmeg, the Dutch East India Company under Jan Pieterszoon Coen conquered the Banda Islands in 1621. Most Bandanese were killed, starved, enslaved or fled. The VOC divided the land into plantations worked by enslaved people.
Deaths: the Banda population fell from about 15,000 to about 1,000 by death, starvation, enslavement and flight.
How hard it hits each person in the game (risk of death, of being conscripted, of leaving) comes from scholarly estimates.
Around the same time
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