May 8, 2012 • 34 mins
Today nutmeg is commonplace, but this wasn't always the case. In the 17th century, the Dutch and the British fought a trade war over nutmeg. Join Chuck and Josh as they travel across continents and centuries to trace the story of nutmeg and Manhattan.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know
from House Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W Chuck Bryant
with this Atlanta Braves hat. How's it going, slugger? Yeah?
(00:24):
Four braves? Oh yeah. The Yankees are doing terribly too. Yeah,
it's a great way to start the season. Yeah, but
at the same time, it's like, oh and four out
of what a hundred and eighty nine. It's not like
they don't have time to come back and six. But yeah, no,
of course there's an a big deal. But you never
want to start out like that. No, you really don't. But,
as the GM pointed out in an article in Atlanta Magazine,
(00:46):
still a lot of games to play. Uh. There, it's
a rebuilding season. So they fired somebody, right, yeah, oh yeah.
He basically said, like, if you're a fan, don't I
hope go read it. Okay, I'm not kid. Even if
that were true, they jams don't say that. He said it.
He sounds like a straight shooter, right, Maybe he was
(01:07):
drunk when he did this interview. I don't know, but
that's what that's how I read it. And Matt Arnett's
in it too, is a picture of him in front
of the grocery. Oh really mad, So I guess we
should stop talking like we're not being recorded right now. Um, chuck, uh,
this is stuff you should know, as you know. And
(01:29):
I propose that we begin in earnest now, so chuck
back in. There was a guy, an entomologist who he's
not an entomologist, but he did coin a term in
an editorial that he wrote for the Journal of Insect Conservation.
The guy's name is Michael Samways, and the term he
(01:52):
coined is the homage scene. Okay, and the homage scene
is this word that describes basically the um sweeping similarity
and homogeneity that's come about around the planet um since
the age of exploration. It's the reason why you have
(02:15):
chili peppers as one of the basis of Thai cooking,
even though chili peppers are from meso America, tomatoes from
meso America from the basis of Italian cooking. Um. It's
the reason why there are black people and white people
in the United States. It's the reason why there's Asians
in Mexican. In Mexico, it's the reason why the Irish
(02:37):
uh entered a famine because they became too reliant on
the potato, which is actually from the Andes. And it's
the reason why there's old navy stores on every continent,
well probably except maybe Antarctica, but I wouldn't be willing
to bet too much against that. But the homogescene is
this age that we're living in now where biologically it's
like the earthworms in Minnesota. They're really from Europe, but
(03:00):
they're destroying forests in Minnesota. It's all of this coupling
together what um A geographer named Alfred Crosby called umu
re stitching the seams of Pangaea, the super continent back
together once again. And then one of my heroes, Charles c. Man,
it's the basis of his book the follow up in
f called It's all about the homogen scene. And like
(03:23):
the world that Columbus inadvertently created, the big global stew
thank you. Um So a lot of people attributed to Columbus,
but you really need to go a little further back
and you can place the responsibility for the homoges scene.
The good, the bad, the ugly, the everything at the
feet pretty much of one guy and Ottoman Sultan named
(03:48):
Member the Second, who kind of changed the course of
history when he overtook Constantinople. That was a pretty good intro.
You just did like a many jazz hands that they
were trembling. Yeah, you like try to stop yourself. Uh yeah.
Age of Exploration. It was kicked off by Member the Second, Yeah,
(04:10):
because he basically shut down UM trade routes through the
Middle East. Yeah, the Silk Roads, the famous Silk Roads,
which was huge. Well yeah, I mean think about it,
like Europe got everything from the Middle East, or from
Asia through the through the India, through Turkey, through the
subcontinent UM. And this guy took control of Constantinople and
(04:32):
effectively said, you know what, I'm kind of tired of
your crusades, so any Europeans are barred from taking part
in this trade. And that was that. That was huge
because then they had to take to the sea. Yeah,
but think about it, within like fifty years, all of
a sudden they were like, okay, well let's just sail
and see what happens. Yeah, and that changed everything. Well,
did that kick off the age of expression? That that
(04:54):
act is what made people say I'm gonna go get
in my frigate exactly and just say frigate out of here. Sorry.
Then the word play today is world class. Uh, yes, Josh,
So they and I also found it interesting that it
seems like almost every great discovery that happened because of
that was in a big accident. Yeah, these dudes didn't
(05:16):
know where they were. No, Well, Columbus cologne, Crystal Ball
cologne is apparently how he would have what he would
have answered to Well, and then later on Hudson was like, oops,
I found Manhattan. Yeah, but that's not what I was
looking for. Well, they were failing again and again and again.
Ultimately what they were looking for was a passageway to China. Um,
(05:36):
and they found it in Panama. But even then they
were like still a little too wide and a little
too far. But um, but yes, it was very accident. Um.
Except Vasco da Gama was one of the few success
stories and one of the earliest two, and he kind
of cemented the Portuguese control over this because um, there
(06:00):
the the West Indies, like what we now refer to
as like Indonesia, the Indian subcontinent, Australasia. Basically, Um, that
was the place where we wanted to get to. The
Europeans wanted to get to, but they couldn't do it
overland any longer. Well, the Gama sailed down around Africa,
past the Cape of Good Hope and up to India
(06:22):
and came back and said, Okay, Portugal owns the world now,
And they kind of did as far as being the
dominant traders of the of the time, at least for
the for pretty much the whole sixteenth century. UM in Europe,
of course wouldn't have that. So the Dutch and the English,
you know, ponied up, and well ponied up means they paid.
(06:45):
They manned up, I guess, and said, you know what,
we gotta get on the on the scene here because
Portugal is kicking her butt in the spice trade. And
I looked up the whole spice thing just to get
a little more into it, because I was like, why
we're spices such a big deal. Well, he who controls
the spice controls the universe. Well, it was kind of true.
Back then, UM, spices were were a huge deal because
(07:09):
uh one, Europe didn't have these exotic spices because they
didn't grow there. They had they had the head garlic,
the head onion, and they had like horzerdish. That's about it.
So all of a sudden, these exotic spices, uh, come come,
come around, and it makes crappy meat tastes better, It
makes spoiled meat taste edible, and other bad foods that
(07:34):
have gone bad. Yeah, gruel just spice the crap out
of it. And um, it was expensive, so it became
like a sign of nobility. So like if you were
entertaining and you were like either noble or wealthy, you
would like really turn it on to your guest if
you like brought out the spice tray like along with
(07:54):
the meal that's already spiced, and they would just sample
different little spices and it was like a really big thing.
And then top it all off, it was served by
a captured human being wearing like bright feathers, so you
could really show off for your guest's Uh. Spice is
also improved health. They were used medicinally to treat dozens
(08:14):
of maladies. Well, let's get to the star of this episode.
Preserved meats not there yet. Oh sorry, well salt, yeah,
how we get j Yeah, salt was so valuable they
like hit it in the Tower of London. Oh yeah,
I think they called it the Salt Tower even for
a little while, not officially. And then peppercorn evidently was
(08:35):
one of the most valued. It was like a really
huge deal you had pink peppercorn. Yeah. Plus it's not
cheap pepper even to this day. But they would actually
use peppercorn as rent in areas where like there didn't
have money, so they would use this currency and like
paid peppercorn rent to your landlord. In the background, somebody shouting,
bring out, you're dead and you're paying your rent and peppercorn.
(08:57):
So that's that's a primer on why it's such a
big eel to get spices back in the day. Well.
Plus also ultimately the reason why people were doing everything
and anything like memos shut down. Um, the silk rows
in fourteen fifty three, Columbus sets sail in fourteen Yeah,
so in less than forty years. Um, like we're like, okay,
(09:19):
we have to figure this out. But I think the
big driver of it always money. Sure, there was a
merchant class that could make money from selling this stuff
to the nobility. That's right there, you have it. There
you have it. So where were we Portugal ruling the
spice trade, um. And then the Dutch are like, we
gotta put a stop to this. We need to go
(09:41):
form a corporation chartered company, one of the world's first.
I'm gonna butcher this. It's Dutch man. I mean, that's
hard to say. The ver Verinigdish Indiese Company or the
Dutch East India Company in English, the VSC, which is
(10:02):
probably what we'll call it, or we if we refer
to the Dutch, that's what we're talking about, because they
were representative of the Dutch government. It was a government
establishing government um initially funded company that the the Dutch
came about and said, hey, Portugal, you're not the only
guys on the map now. And then shortly after that
(10:23):
the English said, the English said, you know what, We're
going to form the East India Company, which, by the way,
we should do an episode on just itself. And it
was brutal, just the crazy stuff that the East India
Company did, killing him the name of spice. Yes, and
the Dutch did too. We'll see pretty much everybody did.
Your Europeans were brutal, um. But uh so the E
(10:45):
i C. The East India Company or the the English
um and the Dutch suddenly hit the scene and gave
Portugal a run for its money and basically rested control
away from Portugal and started dividing it between themselves. That's
the scene in the West Indies, that's right. And then
they all said, hey, let's go west and check out
(11:08):
what kind of fur is being traded. I'm sorry, that's
the scene in the East Indies. Would you say West Indies? Yeah? Yeah, um,
nice catch. So they the v O C in the
E I C England, in Holland, let's call it okay,
or we're calling the Dutch, or maybe we should just
say that from Amsterdame. Okay, they're all the same. Jerry's laughing.
(11:31):
Let's call it the the Netherlands. Everyone in rotter Damn
is really mad at you right now, Um Rodder. Name
is very nice. Actually, I would imagine I think all
of it, all of the Netherlands are nice, lovely, lovely country.
Um okay. So uh so they both say, let's go
check out the New World because there's gotta be some
(11:52):
fur there, and let's do it. Let's let's beat the
Portuguese over there. Let's do it, I mean not together
in a charter. Yeah, um, we can do it, right.
So yeah, now they were competing. They didn't do anything together.
It was all competition. There's a competition in the east
for the Spice Islands, and now there's a competition in
the west and specifically in the um northeastern what is
(12:16):
now the northeastern United States. And the whole thing began
with um like you were poking fun at Henry Hudson
who tried to look for a northeast passage to China
for the Dutch. Though that was I was on his own.
He was an English explorer. I thought was the northeast.
Then the said, hey, while you're up there, look for
a northwest passage. Try that one and we'll pay you.
(12:37):
Now here's what I was curious about. Was he like
a trader to his country for doing this or was
it just like all bets are off when you're hired.
I think it was you. Well, Christobal Cologne was I
think he was Portuguese. No, he was Genoese. He was
Italian and he was exploring for um, the Spanish when
he landed on Hispaniola. So yeah, it was I think
(13:00):
whoever whoever would pay for your expedition. And yeah, so
Henry Hudson, I don't believe I've ever heard him considered
a trader for that. But he basically contracted out with
the Dutch. That's right, the V O C. And he
didn't find that Northwest passage, but he did discover, um,
the Hudson River. He did. It wasn't called that until
(13:22):
he found it Long Island in another place called Manhattan.
And now we get to the crux of our story
because the Dutch are aware that there's a place called
Manhattan and they want to check it out because it
has awesome street food. He uh, he did little trading
(13:43):
there initially, and that's how he kind of established for
the Dutch was by taking part in some commerce. Yeah,
because first, um, we're fairly lucrative. There were nothing compared
to spices, but they were enough to like get an
interest for nothing compared to peppercorn because we were lousy
(14:04):
with animals at the time. Yeah, like we didn't know
what we're doing. Just kill them all and the fur
is easy to come by. Peppercorn though, doesn't grow here.
All right, you're ready, I'm ready, okay, so uh he
uh he claims it for the Dutch. The States General
of the Netherlands set up the Dutch West India Company
(14:28):
after this you know revelation that they have you know,
trading partners over there, that's right, And it became New Netherland,
not New Belgium, not New or New Amsterdam. Yeah, new
New Amsterdam is New York exactly. New Netherlands is the
area around New York. Yeah, specifically, I think New York,
(14:50):
New Jersey, Connecticut, Um, Delaware and parts of Pennsylvanian and
Rhode Island like a lot a lot of area. So
the the Dutch West India Company sends a bunch of
Dutch people the colonize and start hanging out, uh, kind
of making friends with the local Indians, the lenape Algonquin
(15:10):
Lennapee tribe. So I also read that there were Delaware,
the Meadowak, and the Wappinger were all there or whoppinger, Um,
we're all in the area as well. Um, So the
Dutch are like hanging out around these people are the
new guys, and they're talking here there. And within five
years the director himself of the v o C, Peter Minuit,
(15:35):
shows up and he's basically just coming to check on
this newly established colony, and while he's there, one of
the things he does is um try to establish claim
for the Dutch of Manhattan by buying it from the
local tribe. Yeah. Well, at first, so the Indians are
all like, we don't, we don't trade land and air
(15:57):
and water. That's that's for everyone to use. And then
the Dutch, we don't understand that. The Dutch said, have
you tried liquor? And composedly suppose this is what Jay
McGrath says. She's pretty good at history generally. I just
looked at that. I couldn't find the liquor. I couldn't
find any other great sources for that. So according to
this article, um, the Dutch said, hey guys, let's um,
(16:20):
let's partake in some liquor, and the Indians on the
island drank it with them and got really drunk. And
that's where the name Mannhattan supposedly comes from, which I
guess it would be in an algonquin tongue because that's
what everybody spoke up there. But it was Manna hatch
Tannian and the hatch tani, which means the place we
(16:44):
all got drunk. Yeah, that's where Manhattan comes from. Supposedly
that's the legend. Well that's what they say. The Dutch
trans translated that into Mannahatta and then that eventually became Manhattan. Right,
So the Dutch are there, Peter Minuit's there, and he's like,
you know what, it's just let's see what we can
do and let's try to buy this um. Like you
(17:04):
said that, the Indians at the time, supposedly nowhere in
in the New World um understood or believed in the
concept of owning land. So the idea of an Indian
saying I will see this land to you you you
have to also follow that up at the image of
them turning around and laughing to his friends. Right, And
(17:27):
not only that, apparently Manhattan wasn't um inhabited. It was
a place where they hunted and fished and kind of
hung out sometimes. But apparently no local tribe lived on Manhattan,
so which made the idea of one of them selling
it to them even funnier. And no one knows which
which group the Dutch um bought this from. The only
(17:47):
record of this this transaction ever taking place was a
letter written by Peter Minuit, who just mentions offhand, Um
the next year that oh, yeah, we bought Manhattan for
a chest of of stuff for sixty guilders. Yeah, that's
the old rumor two dollars bought Manhattan, and that's you know,
(18:08):
been disputed here and there. Um, well, the sixty guilders
is what he wrote that he spent. He spent for Manhattan.
But how much that was worth at the time, Like
you said, a lot of people said twenty four dollars.
They've seen a thousand. It wasn't much, right. Um. I
did a little more reading on this too, and it's
because you know, of course, the person you think is boy,
the Native Americans got rooked out of Manhattan and who
(18:32):
knew at the time, But like you said, they didn't
even own it, so they sort of pulled a fast one.
And in the end, I think most historians think that
neither party really fully even understood the terms of the sale.
And it wasn't like, oh my gosh, we have these
trinkets now. It was hey, we've got some potential military partners,
(18:54):
and the Dutch were like, hey, we've got some potential
trade partners. So it was a lot more. It a
lot more than the sixty guilders right, and even the trinkets,
like you mentioned, that's under dispute as well. They they
it's all. It's also in addition to the twenty four dollars,
which is estimated in the nineteenth century, is kind of
a way to make the Indians look like idiots. UM
(19:16):
saying that it was just a box of trinkets makes
it sound like he makes them sound even dumber. But
probably what it was where like axes, metal kettles, UM, scissors,
just stuff like the Indians just technology. They didn't have
them cutting in so UM. The I guess the idea
that the man that the Indians selling Manhattan for two
(19:39):
dollars is um false at the very least, it's it's
been um taken out of context. But what we have here,
I think what you're saying is that there's two parties,
neither of which are in any um position to sell
or buy this land, who do just that UM. And
the sale of Brooklyn actually is a lot better re recorded.
(20:03):
There's it's a lot better documented UM. From sixteen thirty
six to six eighty four, over like twenty two treaties
the local Um tribes sold Manhattan or Brooklyn piece by
piece like what amounted to like twelve thousand guilders over time.
And um historians now see that as the Indians kind
(20:23):
of figuring out that if you sold this land that
you didn't even think you owned to the Europeans, it
was a way of staving off your eventual removal, and
that they were basically doing it. They kind of mastered,
like pawning the Europeans, so they were on views of land,
(20:43):
they weren't the rubes that they're painted to be. Oftentimes.
I think that's the point here. Yeah, I like that. Okay,
they said, check out park Slope. Can you imagine the
baby carriages one day and the young yuppiece who will
be living here are they're still yuppies if not in
name and practice. Yeah. Um. So the long story short
(21:04):
is that the Dutch now believed that they own Manhattan
and New Netherlands in short order, like by the end
of the seventeenth century, they own what's now New York,
New Jersey in Connecticut, right, that's right. At the same time,
back east in the East Indies, things are starting to
heat up, specifically around what I said earlier is the
(21:26):
star of this episode. This as far as spices go nutmeg. Uh.
Nutmeg was very valuable. It tasted yummy when sprinkled on
puddings and desserts. And uh it was an approdisiac. Supposedly
it was hallucinogenic. Uh powder it's an abort of fashion,
which means it can cause abortions. Really, so if you're pregnant,
(21:50):
you were supposed to touch nutmeg. Interesting, I didn't done that. Yeah. Uh.
And during the Black Plague, they would wear nutmeg around
their neck. And if you think that sounds a little inky,
it might have actually kept the fleas away that carried
the Black plague, so it may not have been simply superstition, right,
So they were kind of smart. Plus again we get
(22:10):
to what what really drove people the mark up big time.
They they some traders marked it up as much as
six thousand percent. That's a lot of profit which would
make people go crazy for it, which is what the
Dutch did. That's right. And at the time, up until
about the mid nineteenth century, the only place you could
find this stuff was in the Banda Islands in Indonesia
(22:35):
group of islands got this nutmeg. This one island in particular,
uh Powella Run, which they called run yeah, that one
was lousy with us. It's one of the smallest islands
of the Banda Islands, but it was like just covered
in nutmeg. And there's how many, I think five islands
to the band is and um four were controlled by
(22:58):
the Dutch clearly out right, and then one was controlled
by the British. And the Dutch um landed on the
band Islands and kicked the Portuguese out. It did their
little treaty thing with the locals, which they like to do.
The locals said, okay, thanks for the money. I don't
know what you're talking about, and proceeded to trade with
other people. Well, yeah, they wanted to establish the monopoly
(23:20):
the Dutch did. Yeah, they're saying like we want to
be the only exporter of nutmeg, right, you can only
sell to us. And then here signed this. But the
locals did. They had no idea what what was going on,
and they didn't understand this concept or they just didn't
really care if the Dutch wanted a monopoly or not.
So long story short, the Dutch brutalized the Banda natives.
(23:44):
Um Uh carried out like raids and massacres of villages,
executed chiefs, basically um wipe themselves out of the local
population that was capable of growing nutmegs, so they had
to import colonists from the Netherlands to come grow the nutmeg.
(24:04):
That's right. But they had their monopoly, well almost the monopoly,
because the British still had the control of run um.
And like you said, even though it was small, it
was lousy with with nutmeg. It's so crazy that nutmeg
was like the reason all this was going on. I've
got like four whole nutmeg nuts in my pantry right
now and it's like nothing to men to see my pants.
(24:26):
I didn't understand that. It's like, what's that good for?
I just have one in my pocket, gets rid of police.
Uh alright, So the Dutch um you were saying, they
didn't quite have a monopoly because the British had a run. Exactly,
the British had run so uh, they would dip um.
They would dip the nutmeg and lime the dutch wood,
(24:48):
which would mean it can't grow like if you planet. Yeah,
because think about it, if you're exporting nutmeg, it's the
fruit the mast of the nutmeg tree, which means it's
also the seed, which any smart person could take that,
put it in the ground in a similar climate and
grow nutmeg, and then all of a sudden, the Dutch
doesn't The Dutch don't have that monopoly any longer, so
they very ingeniously dipped it in line. That was that
(25:11):
jerk move. It is a jerk move, but it's a
good way to control that's true. But it didn't quite
work because somebody decided, one of the higher ups that
we need to partner up with England here instead of
trying to like war them out of business with a nutmeg,
let's partner up um. In sixteen nineteen they signed a
(25:33):
cooperation agreement, but there was a commander of the v
o C Yahn Pierre Soon Cohen, who said, screw that
and screw your agreement. I'm gonna go and I'm gonna
burn down all the nutmeg treats. Yeah, he seems like
a very vindictive kind of guy, like he wanted the
British out. He wanted the Band Islands just under Dutch
(25:55):
control so badly that even after his the higher up
said well, we're cool with the British, he was like, no, no,
you know what, I'm just gonna burn the whole island down.
That's all right, he was crazy, he was yeah. Uh.
So fast forward to the Second Anglo Dutch War. The
Dutch finally get control of Run Yeah in sixteen sixty six.
(26:17):
And then right after that they the Dutch in the English,
said all right, things are a little out of hand,
right now, let's end this war with the treaty, Yeah,
very appropriately named Treaty of Bretta. Well back up a
little bit before this. In sixteen sixty we need to
point out what's going on back in Manhattan. England took
(26:38):
control of Manhattan pretty much by sailing four ships into
the harbor, and because the fur trade wasn't as lucrative
as they thought it was gonna be, the West India
Company from uh Holland said, you know, we're not so
concerned about that area, so we're not going to fortify
it too much. We're not gonna send him a lot
of ammo. So basically, when the English showed up in
(26:59):
sixteen four and said surrender, they went, okay, like, will
surrender because the Dutch are, you know, Motherland kind of
forgot about us over here. They don't care about us,
and so come on, it's yours. And by this time
also they'd formed the first brewery, remember blocking Christiansen, So
they were just getting drunk. Yeah, They're like come on,
(27:20):
and and of course England was like sweet yeah, um,
so thank you for that. By the way, um, the
the Dutch in the English after what was the war
that that was the Second Anglo Dutch War, second of three,
I think, and in the Treaty of Breta um between
the Dutch and the English um settled. A lot of
(27:41):
disputes ended that war, but they had disputes in the
in the West Indies. So this way the Dutch had
all of the in the East Indies had all of
the band Islands. Um. The There was a lot of
skirmishes between the Dutch and the English in Surinam over
cocoa and sugar plantations. And finally, in the Treaty of Bretta,
(28:01):
which was very much in the duchess favor, the English
ended up with Manhattan. They said, you just had that,
You're already there and it was kind of um, as
man puts it in was kind of a booby prize,
like you know. The English were like, if you can
keep that, it's all right, and like no, no, we
(28:22):
want you to have it. We're so grateful for the
for the islands and for Surinam. You keep Manhattan, and
today the Olsen twins lived there, at least one of
them does. Uh. So in the end, England kept Manhattan,
which they kind of already had. The Dutch kept Run
which they kind of already had again by that point. Um,
(28:45):
but England kind of pulled a fast one by taking
lime free nutmeg and planning it on different islands. Granada,
who came out on top England, I would say, so,
so they sorted in it up, trading Manhattan for nutmeg.
That's a really really roundabout way to put it. Uh
And then of course in sixteen seventy three the Dutch
(29:08):
retook Manhattan said no, no, no, it's ours again. There
was a third war, uh Anglo Dutch War, but they
were also fighting the French at the same time, which
really screwed them. They went bankrupt basically, and finally in
sixteen seventy four, the Treaty of Westminster, they finally said,
(29:28):
all right here, officially once again, you have Manhattan. Man
that's where like all over the place, weren't they you
you you're new that's it. That's all for nutmeg and Manhattan.
I'd like to do more history of New York stuff.
I love that. Yeah, it's cool, great topic, very cool.
(29:49):
Uh well you got anything else? Yeah? If you want
to learn more about nutmeg, you should type that word
into the search part house stuff works dot com. You
can can also type in East India, come Benny Dutch,
West Indies company like all sorts of cool stuff, and
it'll bring up all sorts of cool things TI Manhattan.
(30:09):
You'll be pleasantly surprised if you type that into the
search part. It's probably a drink maybe article in there
that would pleasantly surprise me. Um so, I said, handy
searcher bar, which means it's time for listening, made Josh
appropriately enough. This is about Robert de Niro talking New
York area. Hi, guys, I worked in the service industry
(30:32):
for about ten years. This is about tipping the way
from salad bars to four star hotels, and I've had
tons and tons of stories. Most memorably is the one
I had when I served Mr Robert de Niro named
spando Um. This is about seven years ago. I was
acting as doorman at the Fairmont Washington, d C. Nice Place.
De Niro stayed with us for about three nights, and
(30:54):
I happened to work every day during his stay. Because
I worked the night shift, had several opportunities to greet
him and his lovely life and pretty much no one
else was around. His wife was very charming and talkative
and would indulge the driver in genuine conversation. Uh. This
would afford me time to fit in a little small
talk with the man himself, and his reactions were classic DeNiro.
(31:14):
He even shrugged his shoulders when he spoke the man
is a movie. Can you imagine being DeNiro? Where people
I was like, dude, that's so DeNiro. He's just like
that's me, Like, please stop it. Anyways, for some reason,
his wife and himself took a liking to me and
requested me to assist him in checking out of the
room at the end of the stay. He had three
beautiful children, all mixed race like myself, and he had
(31:36):
to tend to one of them who was dealing with
an eye infection. A manager, luggage and their checkout and
proceeded down to the driveway at the entrance. It was
all hands on deck, including the general manager, all supervisors,
and my bell staff. Problem is on a checkout like this,
too many people getting the way of us, Lackey's receiving
any kind of proper gratuity. On top of that, celebrity
(31:57):
stind to have what we call a fixer, someone who
acts as a little man between the hotel and the guests, because,
of course the guests. I don't want to talk to
the bellhop, got someone else do that. Uh So I'm
waiting next to his vehicle, luggage is packed, not expecting
any tip because it's part of the course with this
kind of checkout, and I can't complain having had the
opportunity to serve someone I admired greatly. At that point,
(32:18):
Mr de Niro walked up to the fixer and I
heard him say, are these guys taken care of of course?
The fixer replies, oh, yes, of course, of course, of course,
knowing darnwell that wasn't true. That's when de Niro pulls
the most classic move ever. He looks at the fixer
and says, okay, well, I want to take care of
them myself. I wish I could do a de Niro.
I'm not even gonna embarrass myself, though I'm surprised you can't.
(32:40):
Uh proceeds to hand out twenty dollar bills to all
of the bell men. Uh, simply for holding the door open.
Then he walks over to me, thanks me for my service,
and shakes my hand. My heart is beating like Jimmy Conway.
I looked Jimmy Conway's boot in Billy Batt's face. I
looked down and there are five bills folded up neatly
in my palm. He see seriously folded up the bills
(33:01):
in his bomb and shook my hand like Scorsese had
just called action. Uh. The only thing I could think was, wow,
he really just did that. I basically blacked out after that.
And that it's from Corey Osborne and he came to
and wrote the email. Pretty cool. I love that de
Niro taking care of the common man. Yeah, and Boo
(33:21):
on the fixer his Yeah. I thinks this, buddy, that
was a great one. Thanks a lot, Corey. That was
a good tipping story. That was maybe the best one
we got, I think. So, um, let's see what else, Chuck, Yeah, nothing,
I can't think of anything for anybody to write in about. Uh.
If you got any interesting Manhattan history stories, that's a
(33:43):
great one, or Brooklyn. The Brooklyn Historical Society is killing
you know, our friend Rachel Grundy does uh literary pub crawls.
So seek out the Literary pub Crawl in South Manhattan
and Rachel and her cohorts will take you aroun onto
the pubs and you'll drink and learn about the famous
people who wrote there and drank there. Yes, that's great, Chuck, Sure,
(34:07):
um so yeah what Chuck said? And you can wrap
it up in a tweet. Forty characters are less, two
s y esk podcast. You can join us on Facebook,
Facebook dot com slash stuff you Should Know, or you
can send us an email wrap it up spanking on
the bottom. Send it to Stuff podcast at Discovery dot
(34:30):
com for more on this and thousands of other topics.
Is it how Stuff works dot Com brought to you
by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are
(34:51):
you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know
from House Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W Chuck Bryant
with this Atlanta Braves hat. How's it going, slugger? Yeah?
(00:24):
Four braves? Oh yeah. The Yankees are doing terribly too. Yeah,
it's a great way to start the season. Yeah, but
at the same time, it's like, oh and four out
of what a hundred and eighty nine. It's not like
they don't have time to come back and six. But yeah, no,
of course there's an a big deal. But you never
want to start out like that. No, you really don't. But,
as the GM pointed out in an article in Atlanta Magazine,
(00:46):
still a lot of games to play. Uh. There, it's
a rebuilding season. So they fired somebody, right, yeah, oh yeah.
He basically said, like, if you're a fan, don't I
hope go read it. Okay, I'm not kid. Even if
that were true, they jams don't say that. He said it.
He sounds like a straight shooter, right, Maybe he was
(01:07):
drunk when he did this interview. I don't know, but
that's what that's how I read it. And Matt Arnett's
in it too, is a picture of him in front
of the grocery. Oh really mad, So I guess we
should stop talking like we're not being recorded right now. Um, chuck, uh,
this is stuff you should know, as you know. And
(01:29):
I propose that we begin in earnest now, so chuck
back in. There was a guy, an entomologist who he's
not an entomologist, but he did coin a term in
an editorial that he wrote for the Journal of Insect Conservation.
The guy's name is Michael Samways, and the term he
(01:52):
coined is the homage scene. Okay, and the homage scene
is this word that describes basically the um sweeping similarity
and homogeneity that's come about around the planet um since
the age of exploration. It's the reason why you have
(02:15):
chili peppers as one of the basis of Thai cooking,
even though chili peppers are from meso America, tomatoes from
meso America from the basis of Italian cooking. Um. It's
the reason why there are black people and white people
in the United States. It's the reason why there's Asians
in Mexican. In Mexico, it's the reason why the Irish
(02:37):
uh entered a famine because they became too reliant on
the potato, which is actually from the Andes. And it's
the reason why there's old navy stores on every continent,
well probably except maybe Antarctica, but I wouldn't be willing
to bet too much against that. But the homogescene is
this age that we're living in now where biologically it's
like the earthworms in Minnesota. They're really from Europe, but
(03:00):
they're destroying forests in Minnesota. It's all of this coupling
together what um A geographer named Alfred Crosby called umu
re stitching the seams of Pangaea, the super continent back
together once again. And then one of my heroes, Charles c. Man,
it's the basis of his book the follow up in
f called It's all about the homogen scene. And like
(03:23):
the world that Columbus inadvertently created, the big global stew
thank you. Um So a lot of people attributed to Columbus,
but you really need to go a little further back
and you can place the responsibility for the homoges scene.
The good, the bad, the ugly, the everything at the
feet pretty much of one guy and Ottoman Sultan named
(03:48):
Member the Second, who kind of changed the course of
history when he overtook Constantinople. That was a pretty good intro.
You just did like a many jazz hands that they
were trembling. Yeah, you like try to stop yourself. Uh yeah.
Age of Exploration. It was kicked off by Member the Second, Yeah,
(04:10):
because he basically shut down UM trade routes through the
Middle East. Yeah, the Silk Roads, the famous Silk Roads,
which was huge. Well yeah, I mean think about it,
like Europe got everything from the Middle East, or from
Asia through the through the India, through Turkey, through the
subcontinent UM. And this guy took control of Constantinople and
(04:32):
effectively said, you know what, I'm kind of tired of
your crusades, so any Europeans are barred from taking part
in this trade. And that was that. That was huge
because then they had to take to the sea. Yeah,
but think about it, within like fifty years, all of
a sudden they were like, okay, well let's just sail
and see what happens. Yeah, and that changed everything. Well,
did that kick off the age of expression? That that
(04:54):
act is what made people say I'm gonna go get
in my frigate exactly and just say frigate out of here. Sorry.
Then the word play today is world class. Uh, yes, Josh,
So they and I also found it interesting that it
seems like almost every great discovery that happened because of
that was in a big accident. Yeah, these dudes didn't
(05:16):
know where they were. No, Well, Columbus cologne, Crystal Ball
cologne is apparently how he would have what he would
have answered to Well, and then later on Hudson was like, oops,
I found Manhattan. Yeah, but that's not what I was
looking for. Well, they were failing again and again and again.
Ultimately what they were looking for was a passageway to China. Um,
(05:36):
and they found it in Panama. But even then they
were like still a little too wide and a little
too far. But um, but yes, it was very accident. Um.
Except Vasco da Gama was one of the few success
stories and one of the earliest two, and he kind
of cemented the Portuguese control over this because um, there
(06:00):
the the West Indies, like what we now refer to
as like Indonesia, the Indian subcontinent, Australasia. Basically, Um, that
was the place where we wanted to get to. The
Europeans wanted to get to, but they couldn't do it
overland any longer. Well, the Gama sailed down around Africa,
past the Cape of Good Hope and up to India
(06:22):
and came back and said, Okay, Portugal owns the world now,
And they kind of did as far as being the
dominant traders of the of the time, at least for
the for pretty much the whole sixteenth century. UM in Europe,
of course wouldn't have that. So the Dutch and the English,
you know, ponied up, and well ponied up means they paid.
(06:45):
They manned up, I guess, and said, you know what,
we gotta get on the on the scene here because
Portugal is kicking her butt in the spice trade. And
I looked up the whole spice thing just to get
a little more into it, because I was like, why
we're spices such a big deal. Well, he who controls
the spice controls the universe. Well, it was kind of true.
Back then, UM, spices were were a huge deal because
(07:09):
uh one, Europe didn't have these exotic spices because they
didn't grow there. They had they had the head garlic,
the head onion, and they had like horzerdish. That's about it.
So all of a sudden, these exotic spices, uh, come come,
come around, and it makes crappy meat tastes better, It
makes spoiled meat taste edible, and other bad foods that
(07:34):
have gone bad. Yeah, gruel just spice the crap out
of it. And um, it was expensive, so it became
like a sign of nobility. So like if you were
entertaining and you were like either noble or wealthy, you
would like really turn it on to your guest if
you like brought out the spice tray like along with
(07:54):
the meal that's already spiced, and they would just sample
different little spices and it was like a really big thing.
And then top it all off, it was served by
a captured human being wearing like bright feathers, so you
could really show off for your guest's Uh. Spice is
also improved health. They were used medicinally to treat dozens
(08:14):
of maladies. Well, let's get to the star of this episode.
Preserved meats not there yet. Oh sorry, well salt, yeah,
how we get j Yeah, salt was so valuable they
like hit it in the Tower of London. Oh yeah,
I think they called it the Salt Tower even for
a little while, not officially. And then peppercorn evidently was
(08:35):
one of the most valued. It was like a really
huge deal you had pink peppercorn. Yeah. Plus it's not
cheap pepper even to this day. But they would actually
use peppercorn as rent in areas where like there didn't
have money, so they would use this currency and like
paid peppercorn rent to your landlord. In the background, somebody shouting,
bring out, you're dead and you're paying your rent and peppercorn.
(08:57):
So that's that's a primer on why it's such a
big eel to get spices back in the day. Well.
Plus also ultimately the reason why people were doing everything
and anything like memos shut down. Um, the silk rows
in fourteen fifty three, Columbus sets sail in fourteen Yeah,
so in less than forty years. Um, like we're like, okay,
(09:19):
we have to figure this out. But I think the
big driver of it always money. Sure, there was a
merchant class that could make money from selling this stuff
to the nobility. That's right there, you have it. There
you have it. So where were we Portugal ruling the
spice trade, um. And then the Dutch are like, we
gotta put a stop to this. We need to go
(09:41):
form a corporation chartered company, one of the world's first.
I'm gonna butcher this. It's Dutch man. I mean, that's
hard to say. The ver Verinigdish Indiese Company or the
Dutch East India Company in English, the VSC, which is
(10:02):
probably what we'll call it, or we if we refer
to the Dutch, that's what we're talking about, because they
were representative of the Dutch government. It was a government
establishing government um initially funded company that the the Dutch
came about and said, hey, Portugal, you're not the only
guys on the map now. And then shortly after that
(10:23):
the English said, the English said, you know what, We're
going to form the East India Company, which, by the way,
we should do an episode on just itself. And it
was brutal, just the crazy stuff that the East India
Company did, killing him the name of spice. Yes, and
the Dutch did too. We'll see pretty much everybody did.
Your Europeans were brutal, um. But uh so the E
(10:45):
i C. The East India Company or the the English
um and the Dutch suddenly hit the scene and gave
Portugal a run for its money and basically rested control
away from Portugal and started dividing it between themselves. That's
the scene in the West Indies, that's right. And then
they all said, hey, let's go west and check out
(11:08):
what kind of fur is being traded. I'm sorry, that's
the scene in the East Indies. Would you say West Indies? Yeah? Yeah, um,
nice catch. So they the v O C in the
E I C England, in Holland, let's call it okay,
or we're calling the Dutch, or maybe we should just
say that from Amsterdame. Okay, they're all the same. Jerry's laughing.
(11:31):
Let's call it the the Netherlands. Everyone in rotter Damn
is really mad at you right now, Um Rodder. Name
is very nice. Actually, I would imagine I think all
of it, all of the Netherlands are nice, lovely, lovely country.
Um okay. So uh so they both say, let's go
check out the New World because there's gotta be some
(11:52):
fur there, and let's do it. Let's let's beat the
Portuguese over there. Let's do it, I mean not together
in a charter. Yeah, um, we can do it, right.
So yeah, now they were competing. They didn't do anything together.
It was all competition. There's a competition in the east
for the Spice Islands, and now there's a competition in
the west and specifically in the um northeastern what is
(12:16):
now the northeastern United States. And the whole thing began
with um like you were poking fun at Henry Hudson
who tried to look for a northeast passage to China
for the Dutch. Though that was I was on his own.
He was an English explorer. I thought was the northeast.
Then the said, hey, while you're up there, look for
a northwest passage. Try that one and we'll pay you.
(12:37):
Now here's what I was curious about. Was he like
a trader to his country for doing this or was
it just like all bets are off when you're hired.
I think it was you. Well, Christobal Cologne was I
think he was Portuguese. No, he was Genoese. He was
Italian and he was exploring for um, the Spanish when
he landed on Hispaniola. So yeah, it was I think
(13:00):
whoever whoever would pay for your expedition. And yeah, so
Henry Hudson, I don't believe I've ever heard him considered
a trader for that. But he basically contracted out with
the Dutch. That's right, the V O C. And he
didn't find that Northwest passage, but he did discover, um,
the Hudson River. He did. It wasn't called that until
(13:22):
he found it Long Island in another place called Manhattan.
And now we get to the crux of our story
because the Dutch are aware that there's a place called
Manhattan and they want to check it out because it
has awesome street food. He uh, he did little trading
(13:43):
there initially, and that's how he kind of established for
the Dutch was by taking part in some commerce. Yeah,
because first, um, we're fairly lucrative. There were nothing compared
to spices, but they were enough to like get an
interest for nothing compared to peppercorn because we were lousy
(14:04):
with animals at the time. Yeah, like we didn't know
what we're doing. Just kill them all and the fur
is easy to come by. Peppercorn though, doesn't grow here.
All right, you're ready, I'm ready, okay, so uh he
uh he claims it for the Dutch. The States General
of the Netherlands set up the Dutch West India Company
(14:28):
after this you know revelation that they have you know,
trading partners over there, that's right, And it became New Netherland,
not New Belgium, not New or New Amsterdam. Yeah, new
New Amsterdam is New York exactly. New Netherlands is the
area around New York. Yeah, specifically, I think New York,
(14:50):
New Jersey, Connecticut, Um, Delaware and parts of Pennsylvanian and
Rhode Island like a lot a lot of area. So
the the Dutch West India Company sends a bunch of
Dutch people the colonize and start hanging out, uh, kind
of making friends with the local Indians, the lenape Algonquin
(15:10):
Lennapee tribe. So I also read that there were Delaware,
the Meadowak, and the Wappinger were all there or whoppinger, Um,
we're all in the area as well. Um, So the
Dutch are like hanging out around these people are the
new guys, and they're talking here there. And within five
years the director himself of the v o C, Peter Minuit,
(15:35):
shows up and he's basically just coming to check on
this newly established colony, and while he's there, one of
the things he does is um try to establish claim
for the Dutch of Manhattan by buying it from the
local tribe. Yeah. Well, at first, so the Indians are
all like, we don't, we don't trade land and air
(15:57):
and water. That's that's for everyone to use. And then
the Dutch, we don't understand that. The Dutch said, have
you tried liquor? And composedly suppose this is what Jay
McGrath says. She's pretty good at history generally. I just
looked at that. I couldn't find the liquor. I couldn't
find any other great sources for that. So according to
this article, um, the Dutch said, hey guys, let's um,
(16:20):
let's partake in some liquor, and the Indians on the
island drank it with them and got really drunk. And
that's where the name Mannhattan supposedly comes from, which I
guess it would be in an algonquin tongue because that's
what everybody spoke up there. But it was Manna hatch
Tannian and the hatch tani, which means the place we
(16:44):
all got drunk. Yeah, that's where Manhattan comes from. Supposedly
that's the legend. Well that's what they say. The Dutch
trans translated that into Mannahatta and then that eventually became Manhattan. Right,
So the Dutch are there, Peter Minuit's there, and he's like,
you know what, it's just let's see what we can
do and let's try to buy this um. Like you
(17:04):
said that, the Indians at the time, supposedly nowhere in
in the New World um understood or believed in the
concept of owning land. So the idea of an Indian
saying I will see this land to you you you
have to also follow that up at the image of
them turning around and laughing to his friends. Right, And
(17:27):
not only that, apparently Manhattan wasn't um inhabited. It was
a place where they hunted and fished and kind of
hung out sometimes. But apparently no local tribe lived on Manhattan,
so which made the idea of one of them selling
it to them even funnier. And no one knows which
which group the Dutch um bought this from. The only
(17:47):
record of this this transaction ever taking place was a
letter written by Peter Minuit, who just mentions offhand, Um
the next year that oh, yeah, we bought Manhattan for
a chest of of stuff for sixty guilders. Yeah, that's
the old rumor two dollars bought Manhattan, and that's you know,
(18:08):
been disputed here and there. Um, well, the sixty guilders
is what he wrote that he spent. He spent for Manhattan.
But how much that was worth at the time, Like
you said, a lot of people said twenty four dollars.
They've seen a thousand. It wasn't much, right. Um. I
did a little more reading on this too, and it's
because you know, of course, the person you think is boy,
the Native Americans got rooked out of Manhattan and who
(18:32):
knew at the time, But like you said, they didn't
even own it, so they sort of pulled a fast one.
And in the end, I think most historians think that
neither party really fully even understood the terms of the sale.
And it wasn't like, oh my gosh, we have these
trinkets now. It was hey, we've got some potential military partners,
(18:54):
and the Dutch were like, hey, we've got some potential
trade partners. So it was a lot more. It a
lot more than the sixty guilders right, and even the trinkets,
like you mentioned, that's under dispute as well. They they
it's all. It's also in addition to the twenty four dollars,
which is estimated in the nineteenth century, is kind of
a way to make the Indians look like idiots. UM
(19:16):
saying that it was just a box of trinkets makes
it sound like he makes them sound even dumber. But
probably what it was where like axes, metal kettles, UM, scissors,
just stuff like the Indians just technology. They didn't have
them cutting in so UM. The I guess the idea
that the man that the Indians selling Manhattan for two
(19:39):
dollars is um false at the very least, it's it's
been um taken out of context. But what we have here,
I think what you're saying is that there's two parties,
neither of which are in any um position to sell
or buy this land, who do just that UM. And
the sale of Brooklyn actually is a lot better re recorded.
(20:03):
There's it's a lot better documented UM. From sixteen thirty
six to six eighty four, over like twenty two treaties
the local Um tribes sold Manhattan or Brooklyn piece by
piece like what amounted to like twelve thousand guilders over time.
And um historians now see that as the Indians kind
(20:23):
of figuring out that if you sold this land that
you didn't even think you owned to the Europeans, it
was a way of staving off your eventual removal, and
that they were basically doing it. They kind of mastered,
like pawning the Europeans, so they were on views of land,
(20:43):
they weren't the rubes that they're painted to be. Oftentimes.
I think that's the point here. Yeah, I like that. Okay,
they said, check out park Slope. Can you imagine the
baby carriages one day and the young yuppiece who will
be living here are they're still yuppies if not in
name and practice. Yeah. Um. So the long story short
(21:04):
is that the Dutch now believed that they own Manhattan
and New Netherlands in short order, like by the end
of the seventeenth century, they own what's now New York,
New Jersey in Connecticut, right, that's right. At the same time,
back east in the East Indies, things are starting to
heat up, specifically around what I said earlier is the
(21:26):
star of this episode. This as far as spices go nutmeg. Uh.
Nutmeg was very valuable. It tasted yummy when sprinkled on
puddings and desserts. And uh it was an approdisiac. Supposedly
it was hallucinogenic. Uh powder it's an abort of fashion,
which means it can cause abortions. Really, so if you're pregnant,
(21:50):
you were supposed to touch nutmeg. Interesting, I didn't done that. Yeah. Uh.
And during the Black Plague, they would wear nutmeg around
their neck. And if you think that sounds a little inky,
it might have actually kept the fleas away that carried
the Black plague, so it may not have been simply superstition, right,
So they were kind of smart. Plus again we get
(22:10):
to what what really drove people the mark up big time.
They they some traders marked it up as much as
six thousand percent. That's a lot of profit which would
make people go crazy for it, which is what the
Dutch did. That's right. And at the time, up until
about the mid nineteenth century, the only place you could
find this stuff was in the Banda Islands in Indonesia
(22:35):
group of islands got this nutmeg. This one island in particular,
uh Powella Run, which they called run yeah, that one
was lousy with us. It's one of the smallest islands
of the Banda Islands, but it was like just covered
in nutmeg. And there's how many, I think five islands
to the band is and um four were controlled by
(22:58):
the Dutch clearly out right, and then one was controlled
by the British. And the Dutch um landed on the
band Islands and kicked the Portuguese out. It did their
little treaty thing with the locals, which they like to do.
The locals said, okay, thanks for the money. I don't
know what you're talking about, and proceeded to trade with
other people. Well, yeah, they wanted to establish the monopoly
(23:20):
the Dutch did. Yeah, they're saying like we want to
be the only exporter of nutmeg, right, you can only
sell to us. And then here signed this. But the
locals did. They had no idea what what was going on,
and they didn't understand this concept or they just didn't
really care if the Dutch wanted a monopoly or not.
So long story short, the Dutch brutalized the Banda natives.
(23:44):
Um Uh carried out like raids and massacres of villages,
executed chiefs, basically um wipe themselves out of the local
population that was capable of growing nutmegs, so they had
to import colonists from the Netherlands to come grow the nutmeg.
(24:04):
That's right. But they had their monopoly, well almost the monopoly,
because the British still had the control of run um.
And like you said, even though it was small, it
was lousy with with nutmeg. It's so crazy that nutmeg
was like the reason all this was going on. I've
got like four whole nutmeg nuts in my pantry right
now and it's like nothing to men to see my pants.
(24:26):
I didn't understand that. It's like, what's that good for?
I just have one in my pocket, gets rid of police.
Uh alright, So the Dutch um you were saying, they
didn't quite have a monopoly because the British had a run. Exactly,
the British had run so uh, they would dip um.
They would dip the nutmeg and lime the dutch wood,
(24:48):
which would mean it can't grow like if you planet. Yeah,
because think about it, if you're exporting nutmeg, it's the
fruit the mast of the nutmeg tree, which means it's
also the seed, which any smart person could take that,
put it in the ground in a similar climate and
grow nutmeg, and then all of a sudden, the Dutch
doesn't The Dutch don't have that monopoly any longer, so
they very ingeniously dipped it in line. That was that
(25:11):
jerk move. It is a jerk move, but it's a
good way to control that's true. But it didn't quite
work because somebody decided, one of the higher ups that
we need to partner up with England here instead of
trying to like war them out of business with a nutmeg,
let's partner up um. In sixteen nineteen they signed a
(25:33):
cooperation agreement, but there was a commander of the v
o C Yahn Pierre Soon Cohen, who said, screw that
and screw your agreement. I'm gonna go and I'm gonna
burn down all the nutmeg treats. Yeah, he seems like
a very vindictive kind of guy, like he wanted the
British out. He wanted the Band Islands just under Dutch
(25:55):
control so badly that even after his the higher up
said well, we're cool with the British, he was like, no, no,
you know what, I'm just gonna burn the whole island down.
That's all right, he was crazy, he was yeah. Uh.
So fast forward to the Second Anglo Dutch War. The
Dutch finally get control of Run Yeah in sixteen sixty six.
(26:17):
And then right after that they the Dutch in the English,
said all right, things are a little out of hand,
right now, let's end this war with the treaty, Yeah,
very appropriately named Treaty of Bretta. Well back up a
little bit before this. In sixteen sixty we need to
point out what's going on back in Manhattan. England took
(26:38):
control of Manhattan pretty much by sailing four ships into
the harbor, and because the fur trade wasn't as lucrative
as they thought it was gonna be, the West India
Company from uh Holland said, you know, we're not so
concerned about that area, so we're not going to fortify
it too much. We're not gonna send him a lot
of ammo. So basically, when the English showed up in
(26:59):
sixteen four and said surrender, they went, okay, like, will
surrender because the Dutch are, you know, Motherland kind of
forgot about us over here. They don't care about us,
and so come on, it's yours. And by this time
also they'd formed the first brewery, remember blocking Christiansen, So
they were just getting drunk. Yeah, They're like come on,
(27:20):
and and of course England was like sweet yeah, um,
so thank you for that. By the way, um, the
the Dutch in the English after what was the war
that that was the Second Anglo Dutch War, second of three,
I think, and in the Treaty of Breta um between
the Dutch and the English um settled. A lot of
(27:41):
disputes ended that war, but they had disputes in the
in the West Indies. So this way the Dutch had
all of the in the East Indies had all of
the band Islands. Um. The There was a lot of
skirmishes between the Dutch and the English in Surinam over
cocoa and sugar plantations. And finally, in the Treaty of Bretta,
(28:01):
which was very much in the duchess favor, the English
ended up with Manhattan. They said, you just had that,
You're already there and it was kind of um, as
man puts it in was kind of a booby prize,
like you know. The English were like, if you can
keep that, it's all right, and like no, no, we
(28:22):
want you to have it. We're so grateful for the
for the islands and for Surinam. You keep Manhattan, and
today the Olsen twins lived there, at least one of
them does. Uh. So in the end, England kept Manhattan,
which they kind of already had. The Dutch kept Run
which they kind of already had again by that point. Um,
(28:45):
but England kind of pulled a fast one by taking
lime free nutmeg and planning it on different islands. Granada,
who came out on top England, I would say, so,
so they sorted in it up, trading Manhattan for nutmeg.
That's a really really roundabout way to put it. Uh
And then of course in sixteen seventy three the Dutch
(29:08):
retook Manhattan said no, no, no, it's ours again. There
was a third war, uh Anglo Dutch War, but they
were also fighting the French at the same time, which
really screwed them. They went bankrupt basically, and finally in
sixteen seventy four, the Treaty of Westminster, they finally said,
(29:28):
all right here, officially once again, you have Manhattan. Man
that's where like all over the place, weren't they you
you you're new that's it. That's all for nutmeg and Manhattan.
I'd like to do more history of New York stuff.
I love that. Yeah, it's cool, great topic, very cool.
(29:49):
Uh well you got anything else? Yeah? If you want
to learn more about nutmeg, you should type that word
into the search part house stuff works dot com. You
can can also type in East India, come Benny Dutch,
West Indies company like all sorts of cool stuff, and
it'll bring up all sorts of cool things TI Manhattan.
(30:09):
You'll be pleasantly surprised if you type that into the
search part. It's probably a drink maybe article in there
that would pleasantly surprise me. Um so, I said, handy
searcher bar, which means it's time for listening, made Josh
appropriately enough. This is about Robert de Niro talking New
York area. Hi, guys, I worked in the service industry
(30:32):
for about ten years. This is about tipping the way
from salad bars to four star hotels, and I've had
tons and tons of stories. Most memorably is the one
I had when I served Mr Robert de Niro named
spando Um. This is about seven years ago. I was
acting as doorman at the Fairmont Washington, d C. Nice Place.
De Niro stayed with us for about three nights, and
(30:54):
I happened to work every day during his stay. Because
I worked the night shift, had several opportunities to greet
him and his lovely life and pretty much no one
else was around. His wife was very charming and talkative
and would indulge the driver in genuine conversation. Uh. This
would afford me time to fit in a little small
talk with the man himself, and his reactions were classic DeNiro.
(31:14):
He even shrugged his shoulders when he spoke the man
is a movie. Can you imagine being DeNiro? Where people
I was like, dude, that's so DeNiro. He's just like
that's me, Like, please stop it. Anyways, for some reason,
his wife and himself took a liking to me and
requested me to assist him in checking out of the
room at the end of the stay. He had three
beautiful children, all mixed race like myself, and he had
(31:36):
to tend to one of them who was dealing with
an eye infection. A manager, luggage and their checkout and
proceeded down to the driveway at the entrance. It was
all hands on deck, including the general manager, all supervisors,
and my bell staff. Problem is on a checkout like this,
too many people getting the way of us, Lackey's receiving
any kind of proper gratuity. On top of that, celebrity
(31:57):
stind to have what we call a fixer, someone who
acts as a little man between the hotel and the guests, because,
of course the guests. I don't want to talk to
the bellhop, got someone else do that. Uh So I'm
waiting next to his vehicle, luggage is packed, not expecting
any tip because it's part of the course with this
kind of checkout, and I can't complain having had the
opportunity to serve someone I admired greatly. At that point,
(32:18):
Mr de Niro walked up to the fixer and I
heard him say, are these guys taken care of of course?
The fixer replies, oh, yes, of course, of course, of course,
knowing darnwell that wasn't true. That's when de Niro pulls
the most classic move ever. He looks at the fixer
and says, okay, well, I want to take care of
them myself. I wish I could do a de Niro.
I'm not even gonna embarrass myself, though I'm surprised you can't.
(32:40):
Uh proceeds to hand out twenty dollar bills to all
of the bell men. Uh, simply for holding the door open.
Then he walks over to me, thanks me for my service,
and shakes my hand. My heart is beating like Jimmy Conway.
I looked Jimmy Conway's boot in Billy Batt's face. I
looked down and there are five bills folded up neatly
in my palm. He see seriously folded up the bills
(33:01):
in his bomb and shook my hand like Scorsese had
just called action. Uh. The only thing I could think was, wow,
he really just did that. I basically blacked out after that.
And that it's from Corey Osborne and he came to
and wrote the email. Pretty cool. I love that de
Niro taking care of the common man. Yeah, and Boo
(33:21):
on the fixer his Yeah. I thinks this, buddy, that
was a great one. Thanks a lot, Corey. That was
a good tipping story. That was maybe the best one
we got, I think. So, um, let's see what else, Chuck, Yeah, nothing,
I can't think of anything for anybody to write in about. Uh.
If you got any interesting Manhattan history stories, that's a
(33:43):
great one, or Brooklyn. The Brooklyn Historical Society is killing
you know, our friend Rachel Grundy does uh literary pub crawls.
So seek out the Literary pub Crawl in South Manhattan
and Rachel and her cohorts will take you aroun onto
the pubs and you'll drink and learn about the famous
people who wrote there and drank there. Yes, that's great, Chuck, Sure,
(34:07):
um so yeah what Chuck said? And you can wrap
it up in a tweet. Forty characters are less, two
s y esk podcast. You can join us on Facebook,
Facebook dot com slash stuff you Should Know, or you
can send us an email wrap it up spanking on
the bottom. Send it to Stuff podcast at Discovery dot
(34:30):
com for more on this and thousands of other topics.
Is it how Stuff works dot Com brought to you
by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are
(34:51):
you
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