Amboina, 1623 : : Fear and Conspiracy on the Edge of Empire / / Adam Clulow.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Columbia University Press Complete eBook-Package 2019
• VerfasserIn: Clulow, Adam,
• Place / Publishing House: New York, NY : : Columbia University Press, , [2019]; ©2019
• Year of Publication: 2019
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource :; 14 b&w illustrations

In 1623, a Japanese mercenary called Shichizō was arrested for asking suspicious questions about a Dutch East India Company castle on Amboina, a remote set of islands in what is now eastern Indonesia. He was tortured until he confessed that he had joined a plot orchestrated by a group of English merchants to seize control of the fortification and ultimately to rip the spice-rich islands from the Company's grasp. Two weeks later, Dutch authorities executed twenty-one alleged conspirators, sparking immediate outrage and a controversy that would endure for centuries to come.In this landmark study, Adam Clulow presents a new perspective on the Amboina case that aims to move beyond the debate over guilt or innocence. Amboina, 1623 argues that the case was driven forward by a potent combination of genuine crisis, imagined threat, and overpowering fear that propelled the rapid escalation from suspicion to torture, that gave shape and form to the sprawling plot, and that pushed it forward to a final bloody conclusion. Based on a detailed analysis of archival records, letters, and contemporary legal documents, this book is a masterful reinterpretation of a trial that has divided opinion for centuries. Amboina, 1623 offers new insights into one of the most famous cases in global history and the nature of European expansion across the early modern world.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Illustrations -- Note to the Reader -- Acknowledgments -- Maps of Southeast Asia, Amboina, and the Banda Islands -- Introduction. The Company and the Colony -- PART ONE. Amboina in 1623 -- PART TWO. Remaking a Conspiracy Trial -- Epilogue. The Fearful Empire -- Notes -- Selected Bibliography -- Index