Giles Milton

No, no, it's worth recalling, of course, by this point, you know... The Dutch have got to Japan.

The Dutch and the English have got to Japan.

And the Portuguese.

And the Portuguese, long before the Dutch and English, in fact, yeah.

They've got to Japan.

They've formed trading bases there as well.

The Dutch rather more successfully than the English, it had to be said.

But of course, Japanese are also travelling over this area of the East Indies and the Dutch bring them onto their payroll, if you like, and use them as hired mercenaries and executioners.

And so they play a key role in this genocide that takes place in the Bander Islands.

They're the ones that execute all the headmen.

Indeed, they're shipped off all over the place.

But what's kind of remarkable is the population of the Bandar Islands in this period, the sort of 1620s, early 1620s, was about 15,000 native Bandanese.

By the time Yankern has finished his genocide, there are fewer than a thousand left on the Bandar Islands.

It's an extraordinarily sweeping genocide that really wipes out the native population.

No.

Amboina, a little way to the north of the Banda Islands, was another headquarters of the Dutch East India Company in this part of the world.

There were a very small number of English traders on the island at the time.

When I say small, I mean 10, precisely.

And the Dutch want to get rid of them.

They see them, for some reason, they see them as a threat.