Petrus Plancius's "The Molucca Islands" map, also known as the "Spice Map," was a pivotal piece of cartography in the late 16th century, crucial in promoting Dutch trade in the East Indies and featuring detailed depictions of the Spice Islands, including nutmeg, cloves, and sandalwood. Plancius, a Dutch cartographer and astronomer, created the map based on Portuguese manuscript charts known to have been obtained covertly.
Born in West Flanders in 1552, Petrus Plancius was widely known not only for being a brilliant cartographer and astronomer, but as a polyglot, geographer, and nautical expert as well. Less widely known is that he was also a Calvinist theologian whose religious views were often described as dogmatic, fanatical, and intolerant. Although Plancius contributed in the broadest sense to the Dutch becoming a world power in economic and maritime terms, throughout his life his primary impetus was to be of service to his faith - dogmatic Calvinism.
Highly educated, inquisitive, and motivated by his knowledge of cartography, and specifically of regions of Asia, Plancius foresaw great profits to be made from trade with India, and was a founding member and administrator, as well as the first hydrographer and mapmaker of the Dutch East India Company. The company, founded in 1602 in the Dutch Republic (present-day Netherlands), was created to protect state trade in the region of the Indian Ocean and to bolster the Dutch during their war of independence from Spain. Functioning as an instrument of this powerful Dutch commercial empire in the East Indies, the company prospered throughout most of the seventeenth century.
As hydrographer for the company, Plancius played a key role in the development of Dutch trade in the East Indies. Creating accurate maps and sea charts were crucial to safe sailing for merchant ships, and his acumen in devising them resulted in charts which were used for decades. Due to the dearth of information regarding astronomy of the southern skies, he commissioned pilot Pieter Keyser to record the position of southern stars, which led to the identification and naming of new constellations. This information enabled Plancius to devise increasingly accurate maps.
The Spice Trade
For over a millennium, all commerce in oriental spices was dependent on Indonesian merchants whose ships carried treasure troves of clove, nutmeg, and mace to the west via the Malay Peninsula, Java, and Sumatra. From there Arabian and Indian merchants were able to purchase and distribute them throughout the regions of the Indian Ocean. Arabian merchants developed trade routes through the Red Sea to Alexandria, or via the Persian Gulf from where Venetian traders took them to Europe.
The location of the islands which produced the spices was kept secret from European merchants and explorers for centuries, ensuring that prices for them would remain exorbitant. It was not until the early 16th century that Europeans learned the location of the islands which produced spices such as pepper, cloves, cinnamon, and nutmeg which were from time to time almost equal in value to gold.
The first Portuguese voyage to India and the Spice Islands, led by Vasco da Gama, set sail from Lisbon in 1497 and landed in Calicut, India, on the Malabar Coast in May 1498. Thus, a direct sea route to Asia, albeit around the African continent, was established, initiating Portuguese maritime trade and presence in the region. This was also the first successful European sea voyage to India, paving the way for colonialism and trade, with particular emphasis on the spice trade. The Portuguese were also the first Europeans to arrive in the Spice Islands (modern-day Indonesia), with their first exploratory expeditions sent from newly conquered Malacca, arriving in 1512.
Driven by the high demand for spices in Europe, the Portuguese had sought direct access to the source of these valuable commodities. Once Portuguese explorers had successfully navigated around the Cape of Good Hope, reaching the spice-rich shores of India and eventually the Spice Islands, Portugal wasted no time in establishing trading posts and forts in the region, aiming to control the spice trade and establish a colonial presence. The Portuguese held sway over the spice trade for almost a century, but eventually faced competition from the Dutch, who eventually gained dominance.
To protect their century long domination of commerce, the Portuguese monarchy made it a crime to divulge information regarding sea routes to the Spice Islands, and the secrets were well kept for nearly a century. To maintain their domination, the Portuguese kept their maps and knowledge of the spice routes secret, using a "Padrão Real" or "Royal Register" as a master map, which was a quasi-secret document. This map was used as a template for all official Portuguese expeditions and was kept in a secure location within the Casa da Índia in Lisbon.
Rise of Dutch Influence in the Spice Islands
Various sources suggest that Petrus Plancius obtained secret Portuguese maps and charts through his contacts with merchants and navigators, including the De Houtman brothers and Jan Huygen van Linschoten, by encouraging the De Houtman brothers to obtain them on a secret mission to Lisbon. However he obtained them, the information contained in them provided Plancius a firm foothold in the development of Dutch trade and commerce in the Spice Islands.
Plancius had been living and working in Brussels when the Duke of Parma took control of Brussels in 1585. On his commandeering of the city, the practice of the Protestant religion was prohibited in the southern Low Countries, and Plancius, along with many other Protestants, fled to Amsterdam to avoid the threat of the Inquisition. Thus, the long-held secrets of the Portuguese were transported to Amsterdam, where they soon became crucially important documents in aiding the undertaking and establishment of Dutch trade in the Spice Islands.
Once in Amsterdam, Plancius became interested in cartography and navigation and within a relatively short time he became a recognized authority on sea routes to India, and was instrumental in the launching of the first Dutch expedition to the islands in 1595, returning in 1597. His Spice Map, first published in 1594 and again in 1595, was instrumental in the success of the Dutch in this undertaking, enabling merchant ships to ply the seas with more knowledge of them than had previously been available. It was key to the early successful voyages sponsored by the Dutch.
The Spice Map
This remarkable, beautiful, and informative map, based on covertly obtained Portuguese documents, provided navigators with a much clearer idea of the maritime obstacles facing them in reaching the islands. It shows a marked improvement over earlier maps, with islands properly placed geographically, well delineated, with correct and easily recognizable names. Islands feature toponyms derived from both Portuguese and earlier sources, including the reports of Marco Polo.
The striking strapwork title cartouche describes the islands and their bounty in Latin. The accompanying distance legend, also in strapwork, features miles in Spanish, Italian, and German. The seas feature rhumb lines crisscrossing the waters to suggest possible navigation for the ships at full sail on waters. Sea monsters were still of concern to navigators of that era, and a number of them are to be found in the map. The magnificent compass rose is an added embellishment to the work, as are the detailed illustrations of the various spices of commercial value which were to be found in the Spice Islands.
Dutch Dominion of the Spice Trade
The first expedition was followed quickly by the Dutch expedition of 1598 led by Jacob van Neck with six ships. There resulted rapid expansion of trade as he returned with four of his merchant ships loaded with rare (to Europeans) spices, thus showcasing the potential for potential commerce in the Spice Islands. Within a short time, the Dutch East India Company was formed and would enable the Dutch to establish a decades long monopoly in the trade.
Petrus Placius played a major role in the development and establishment of this trade. The Portuguese charts and maps obtained earlier by him were important to the voyages of the Dutch, as he used them to draw over 100 maps for their navigators who soon would be sailing to other continents. Indeed, the prosperity of the Dutch in the colonial period owed much to Petrus Palcius and his splendid cartography.
Plancius as Astronomer and Innovator
Plancius trained Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser, a pilot on the vessel Hollandia, to make astronomical observations to map the southern sky, which was largely uncharted on European maps. Based on Keyser's observations, Plancius divided the southern stars into 12 constellations, including Crux (Southern Cross) and Triangulum australe (Southern Triangle). Plancius's work laid the foundation for the modern understanding of the southern constellations, with some of his constellations such as Monoceros (the Unicorn) and Camelopardalis (Giraffe), surviving in modern skies. Keyser recorded the positions of as many southern stars as possible on a voyage to the Indies, leading to the cataloging of about 130 stars.
Plancius produced numerous maps, including his famous "Nova et exacta Terrarum Tabula geographica et hydrographica" (1592), which was one of the first to use the Mercator projection for navigational maps. Plancius was a key figure in promoting the Mercator projection for navigational maps, despite its complex mathematics, which was not initially favored by navigators.He created journals and shipping maps, and developed a new method for determining longitude, crucial for navigation. In addition to creating maps, Plancius also took an active part in preparing navigators for these long voyages, teaching them to plot their charts according to southern skies, drawing astronomical charts for them. Globes and navigational tools such as astrolabes and cross-staffs were among his other contributions.
Petrus Plancius was more than a mapmaker; he was a visionary who bridged theology, science, and commerce at a pivotal moment in global history. His “Spice Map” not only enabled the Dutch to challenge Portuguese supremacy in the East Indies but also symbolized the dawn of a new era of exploration, driven by empirical observation and strategic intelligence. Through his celestial charts and navigational tools, Plancius ensured that Dutch ships could sail with unprecedented accuracy across uncharted waters. His legacy endures not only in the maps he drew, but in the global shift they helped to shape - a testament to how knowledge, once hidden, can reshape the world when brought to light.
Some Maps by Plancius
