That is other fascinating instance of collonization clash.

Before the arrival of Europeans, [the] Bandanese had an active and independent role in trade throughout the archipelago. Banda was the world's only source of nutmeg and mace, spices used as flavourings, medicines, preserving agents, that were at the time highly valued in European markets; sold by Arab traders to the Venetians for exorbitant prices.

[In 1512, Portugese were the first Europeans to reach the Bandas.] Maintaining their independence, the Bandanese never allowed the Portuguese to build a fort or a permanent post in the islands. Ironically though, it was this lack of ports which brought the Dutch to trade at Banda instead of the clove islands of Ternate and Tidore.

[Dutch]-Bandanese relations were mutually resentful from the outset, with Holland's first merchants complaining of Bandanese reneging on agreed deliveries and price, and cheating on quantity and quality. For the Bandanese, on the other hand, although they welcomed another competitor purchaser for their spices, the items of trade offered by the Dutch--heavy woollens, and damasks, unwanted manufactured goods, for example--were usually unsuitable in comparison to traditional trade products. [As] much as the Dutch disliked dealing with the Bandanese, the trade was a highly profitable one with spices selling for 300 times the purchase price in Banda.

Until the early seventeenth century, [nutmeg] was one of the "fine spices" kept expensive in Europe by disciplined manipulation of the market, but a desirable commodity for Dutch traders in the ports of India as well; economic historian Fernand Braudel notes that India consumed twice as much as Europe.

[The] Bandanese soon grew tired of the Dutch actions; the low prices, the useless trade items, and the enforcement of Dutch sole rights to the purchase of the coveted spices. The end of the line for the Bandanese came in 1609 when the Dutch reinforced Fort Nassau on Bandanaira Island. The [leaders] called a meeting with the Dutch admiral and forty of his highest-ranking men, and ambushed and killed them all.

[The] English had built fortified trading posts on tiny Ai and Run islands, ten to twenty kilometres from the main Banda Islands. With the British paying higher prices, they were significantly undermining Dutch aims for a monopoly. [In] 1615, the Dutch invaded Ai with 900 men and the British retreated to Run where they regrouped. That same night, the British launched a surprise counter-attack on Ai retaking the island and killing 200 Dutchmen. A year later, a much stronger Dutch force attacked Ai; [after] a month of siege the defenders ran out of ammunition and were slaughtered. [European] control of the Bandas was still contested up until 1667 when, under the Treaty of Breda (1667), the British traded the small island of Run for Manhattan, giving the Dutch full control of the Banda archipelago.

Newly-appointed VOC governor-general Jan Pieterszoon Coen set about enforcing Dutch monopoly over the Banda's spice trade. In 1621 well-armed soldiers were landed on Bandaneira Island and within a few days they had also occupied neighbouring and larger Lontar. The [leaders] were forced at gunpoint to sign and unfeasibly arduous treaty, one that was in fact impossible to keep, thus providing Coen an excuse to use superior Dutch force against the Bandanese. The Dutch quickly noted a number of alleged violations of the new treaty, in response to which Coen launched a punitive massacre. Japanese mercenaries were hired to deal with the [leaders], forty of whom were beheaded with their heads impaled and displayed on bamboo spears for display.

The population of the Banda Islands prior to Dutch conquest is generally estimated to have been around 13-15,000 people. [The] actual numbers of Bandanese who were killed, forcibly expelled or fled the islands in 1621 remain uncertain. But readings of historical sources suggest around one thousand Bandanese likely survived in the islands, and were spread throughout the nutmeg groves as forced labourers. The Dutch subsequently re-settled the islands with imported slaves, convicts and indentured labourers (to work the nutmeg plantations), as well as immigrants from elsewhere in Indonesia. [Some 530 of enslaved surviving Bandanese]  were later returned to the islands because of their much-needed expertise in nutmeg cultivation (something sorely lacking among newly-arrived Dutch settlers).

A sudden potential for huge profit makes people insane. You can have centuries of slowly building trading realtions, and then a kind of whooping globalization...

There are over nine hundred plaques of this type in various museums in England, Europe and America. Many of the plaques now in The British Museum were collected during the British Punitive Expedition in 1897. They are thought to have been made in matching pairs and fixed to pillars in the Oba's palace in Benin City.

The Benin Bronzes are a collection of more than 1,000 brass plaques from the royal palace of the Kingdom of Benin. They were seized by a British force in the "Punitive Expedition" of 1897 and given to the British Foreign Office. Around 200 of these were then passed on to the British Museum in London, while the remainder were divided between a variety of collections.

The seizure of the Bronzes led to a greater appreciation in Europe for African culture. Bronzes are now believed to have been cast in Benin since the thirteenth century, and some in the collection date from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Previously, all pre-European art from the continent, outside North Africa, was thought to be tribal art, using less complex techniques.

The Punitive Expedition of 1897 was a military excursion by a British force of 1,200 under Admiral Sir Harry Rawson that captured, burned, and looted the city of Benin, bringing to an end the highly sophisticated West African Kingdom of Benin. During the conquering and burning of the city, most of the country's treasured art, including the Benin Bronzes, was either destroyed, looted or dispersed.

Background

In 1896 a small armed force led by a British officer, Lt James Phillips, British Acting Consul in the Niger-Delta, was sent to Benin under the authority of Ralph Moore, governor of Britain's West African Niger Coast Protectorate, to demand an end to the customs duties collected from British traders by Oba Ovonramwen, ruler of the then independent Kingdom of Benin. Oba Ovonramwen advised the British that the meeting would have to be postponed due to the annual yam planting and fertility festival taking place in the capital, but Phillips did not want to wait for an official invitation and decided to go anyway. Phillips entered the Kingdom of Benin without official escorts and was thus not met by representatives from the royal court as he advanced towards Benin, the capital. Just before entering the capital, the British delegation was ambushed by a group of warriors. Only two persons in Phillips' party survived. Shortly thereafter, a British force consisting of 1,200 men was formed to revenge the ambush.

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War Booty

After the destruction of Benin, the British Admiralty confiscated and auctioned off the war booty of art to defray the costs of the Expedition. The expected revenue from the looted art was discussed already before Phillips set out on his ill-fated journey to the city of Benin in 1896.