Spice Islands 香料群岛

choi

西蒙•沃洛, 记者来鸿：'阿和'的传奇. BBC Chinese, June 23, 2012
http://www.bbc.co.uk/zhongwen/si ... st_clove_tree.shtml

, which is translated from

Simon Worrall, The World's Oldest Clove Tree. BBC, June 23, 2012
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18551857
("For millennia, Ternate and the neighbouring island of Tidore were the world's only source of those fragrant, twig-like herbs"--clove)

Note:
(a) Ternate
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ternate
(in the Maluku Islands)
(b) Maluku Islands
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maluku_Islands
(The islands were also historically known as the "Spice Islands" by the Chinese and Europeans; section 1 Etymology)
(c) Pacific Ring of Fire
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ring_of_Fire
(d) clove tree  丁香树

clove
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clove
(the aromatic dried flower buds of an evergren tree; native to the Maluku islands in Indonesia and used as a spice in cuisines all over the world; have a numbing effect on mouth tissues; The English name derives from Latin clavus 'nail' (also the origin of French clou and Spanish clavo, 'nail') as the buds vaguely resemble small irregular nails in shape; section 4 History)
(e) Tidore
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidore
(The neghboring island of "Ternate, [is] just to the north" of Tidore)
(f) The report said, "Cloves from Ternate were traded by Arab seafarers along the maritime Silk Route as far afield as the Middle East, Europe and China."

Wiki does not have a page for maritime Silk Route or Road. What it has is
spice trade
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spice_trade
(This trade — driving the world economy from the end of the Middle Ages well into the modern times — ushered in an age of European domination in the East)

The West by that time had less need for China's silk. See
history of silk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_silk
("Silk cultivation spread to Japan in around 300 CE, and by 522 the Byzantines managed to obtain silkworm eggs and were able to begin silkworm cultivation. The Arabs also began to manufacture silk during this same time. As a result of the spread of sericulture, Chinese silk exports became less important, although they still maintained dominance over the luxury silk market. The Crusades brought silk production to Western Europe, in particular to many Italian states, which saw an economic boom exporting silk to the rest of Europe. Changes in manufacturing techniques also began to take place during the Middle Ages, with devices such as the spinning wheel first appearing. During the 16th century France joined Italy in developing a successful silk trade, though the efforts of most other nations to develop a silk industry of their own were unsuccessful")

(g) Java Sea
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_Sea
(h) The report said, "The Netherlands United East India Company, or Voc, was the world's first multinational corporation."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_East_India_Company
("The Dutch East India Company (Dutch: Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, VOC, 'United East India Company') was a chartered company established in 1602, when the States-General of the Netherlands granted it a 21-year monopoly to carry out colonial activities in Asia. It is often considered to have been the first multinational corporation in the world and it was the first company to issue stock. It was also arguably the first megacorporation, possessing quasi-governmental powers, including the ability to wage war, imprison and execute convicts, negotiate treaties, coin money, and establish colonies")

British East India Company was founded in 1600.

(i) extirpate (vt; Latin exstirpatus, past participle of exstirpare, from ex- + stirp-, stirps trunk, root):
"to pull up by the root"
www.m-w.com
(j) The report commented, "On the Banda Islands, to the south - the world's only source of nutmeg - the Dutch used Japanese mercenaries to slaughter almost the entire male population."

* Banda Islands
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banda_Islands
(Until the mid-19th century the Banda Islands were the world's only source of the spices nutmeg and mace, produced from the nutmeg tree)
* nutmeg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nutmeg
(Myristica fragrans; an evergreen tree indigenous to the Banda Islands in Maluku islands; nutmeg tree is important for two spices derived from the fruit: nutmeg and mace: Nutmeg is the seed of the tree, while mace is the dried "lacy" reddish covering or aril of the seed)

(k) The report remarked, "In 1770, a Frenchman, appropriately named Poivre, stole some of Afo's seedlings. This Monsieur Pepper took them to France, then the Seychelles Islands and, eventually, Zanzibar, which is today the world's largest producer of cloves."

* In French, poivre is the masculine noun for pepper, whereas poivré, adjective for peppery (and figuratively: spicy).
* Zanzibar
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zanzibar
(Zanzibar Archipelago, off Tanzania;

Tanganyika and Zanzibar (respectively the land and islands and independent from the Britain in 1961 and 1963) merged to form Tanzania, a portmanteau.