Amboyna massacre

• Date: 1623

The Amboyna massacre is perhaps the most infamous incident of conflicts between the Dutch East India Company and British East India Company for power in the Southeast Asian spice trade. It involved the massacre, by Dutch and Japanese agents of the Dutch Company, of roughly twenty Englishmen & Japanese in service to the British Company.

The Dutch were the dominant power, over the English, on the small island of Ambon, as they were throughout the Dutch East Indies (modern-day Indonesia). Japanese mercenaries were employed by the Dutch to help defend their interests on the island, but in 1623, there began to be suspicions that the Japanese were conspiring with the English to attack the Dutch, and take control of the island. Seeking to preempt any such plot, the Dutch massacred the British on the island, along with at least nine out of eleven Japanese. These Japanese were all from Kyushu, and ranged in age from 22 to 50.

References

• Geoffrey Gunn, History Without Borders: The Making of an Asian World Region, 1000-1800, Hong Kong University Press (2011), 232.