Srivijaya's Spice Routes and the Nutmeg Wars

The Srivijaya Empire: Southeast Asia's Forgotten Maritime Superpower — Fexingo History · May 31, 2026 · 8m · transcript

When we think of the Spice Islands, we usually think of the Dutch and the Banda Massacre of 1621. But long before Europeans arrived, Srivijaya's merchant fleets controlled the nutmeg and clove trade from the Maluku Islands. In this episode, Lucas and Luna reconstruct the seventh-to-eleventh-century spice network: how Srivijayan perahu sailed east with monsoon winds, how the Orang Laut enforced a monopoly at the Strait of Malacca, and how a single nutmeg tree in the Banda Sea could fund a maharaja's temple. They also unpack the famous 1621 massacre — narrated through Dutch East India…