Don’t call me a ‘Nutmegger’
It is that time of year again. Someone is bound to come up to me to say, “Sweets for the sweet. Here’s the eggnog. How ‘bout some nutmeg for the nutmegger.”
I am a sailor familiar with exotic islands, and I am a historian familiar with the quest for East Indian spices and the Spice Wars fought under sail between British East India Co. and the Dutch East India Co.
Most importantly, I am a native of Connecticut. Though Connecticut is unofficially referred to as the “Nutmeg State,” don’t call me a “nutmegger.” Historically speaking, that’s an insult.
The fragrant plant
Nutmeg or Myristica fragrans is native to the Banda Islands in the Moluccas and its cultivation was confined to those islands until the Napoleonic Wars. It was only then that nutmeg plants were forcibly removed from the Bandas, and transplanted in Penang Island in Malaysia, in Grenada, and in Kerala, in southern India. Connecticut has never commercially cultivated nutmeg; simply put, it is a tropical tree.
Though nutmeg provides zest to eggnog and pumpkin pie, historically the Arabs used it as an aphrodisiac and it was used to treat liver disease in traditional Chinese medicine. There was one purpose which made it worth its weight in gold.
Protection against the plague
Most importantly in the Elizabethan era and afterward, nutmeg was used to treat the plague across Europe, and as an alleged cure for that disease it was worth more than its weight in gold. Venice and Constantinople controlled the flow of nutmeg to the West for four centuries, but soon Portugal, Spain, Holland and England found the source of that spice. Protection in the form of an aromatic talisman of nutmeg to guard against “The Black Death,” one of the most destructive pandemics in world history, was worth any price.
Fortunes were to be made and two centuries of long bloody, brutal wars to control the output of the Banda Islands ensued.
A single cargo of nutmeg made a captain and his crew rich men, but the loss of life and the loss of ships in the trade made it a wellknown risky business.
The Dutch East India Co. and the British East India Co. were the finalists in the long series of wars for the valuable spice. The Dutch eventually prevailed.
The English kept alive their claim to one of the Bandas, the island of Run, to the very end. In 1667, as part of the Treaty of Breda, the English withdrew their claim to the island of Run in the Bandas in return for Dutch withdrawing their claim to the New Amsterdam (New York) in North America.
During the Napoleonic wars, the longmemoried British seized the Bandas. They then transplanted seedlings to Ceylon, to Penang Island in Malaysia, to Grenada in the Caribbean, and to Kerala in southern India. No nutmeg plantings went to Connecticut.
Yankee peddlers
Now here’s the rub. In the 18th and 19th centuries, Connecticut was known for its peddlers as one of the first manufacturing states. During the American Revolution, it garnered the nickname the “Provisions State” because it provided a disproportionate amount of the arms, gunpowder, textiles, buttons, needles, boots, condiments and sundries to the Continental Army. Connecticut’s peddlers with their wagons continued in the “provisions” business throughout the midAtlantic and Midwest states for over a century afterward.
Research the term “nutmegger” and you will find the nickname is based “on the practice of the Connecticut peddlers who traveled about selling nutmegs.” Where did they get authentic nutmeg? Yankee peddlers were sharp dealers. Often, what they sold was “wooden nutmeg” or counterfeit nutmeg used to stretch an infinitesimal dose of the real thing. The name “nutmegger” is a pejorative. It in effect says the recipient of that sobriquet is a flim-flam artist.
Unknowing transients seem to use the term “nutmegger” most, many from Manhattan. Perhaps it comes of bitterness. In 1667 the Netherlands swapped the colony of New Amsterdam (Manhattan) for the British island of Run in the Spice Islands under the Treaty of Breda. To them, the very word “nutmeg” brings sad memories of rejection. Had New York stayed a colony of the Netherlands today they might have been able to purchase Dutch chocolates and Dutch cleanser at a better price and windmills would have been their energy-efficient source of power. It is no wonder Manhattan clam chowder, that sad Knickerbocker concoction, so sourly different from delectable New England clam chowder, was whipped up by the heartbreak of rejection.
The name is a pejorative. It in effect says the recipient of that sobriquet is a flim-flam artist.
The embittered weed-like pejorative
I once prevented a law firm from naming itself “The Nutmeg Law Firm,” pointing out that nutmeg is not cultivated in Connecticut and historically any nutmeg sold by merchants from Connecticut was presumed counterfeit. Yes, I told them they could use the name, but the nickname was unofficial and would imply the firm was ethically challenged.
Sadly, I cannot bring myself to point out to the local Boy Scout council took the name Nutmeg for one of one of their divisions, the “Nutmeg District,” unconsciously confusing those who respect Scouting’s hard-won reputation for high ethical standards with peddler expedience.
Just don’t call me a “nutmegger,” unless you understand the insult, and mean it as such. If so, we will “have words.”
Then, I’ll wish you good cheer.
R.L. Crossland is a retired naval officer and retired attorney. He is a Connecticut native, Fairfield resident, and historical novelist. His most recent novel, “The Abalone Ukulele: A Tale of Far Eastern Intrigue,” was released by New Academia Publishing on June 29.