The holiday season is filled with familiar comforts—spiced drinks, chocolate treats, and family feasts. But behind these traditions lies a history that continues to shape today’s global supply chains. From the nutmeg plantations of the past to the cocoa farms of the present, many of the products that define holiday indulgence in the Global North are still linked to systems of slavery and exploitation affecting racialized and marginalized workers around the world.  

The violence behind “pumpkin spice” 

Nutmeg, ginger, cinnamon, and cloves—the core spices behind one of the world’s most beloved flavor combinations—are all indigenous to Asia. Yet today, they’re closely associated with celebration and comfort, especially in the United States. Their path into holiday traditions, however, is rooted in violence. Long before the US was a country, the global spice trade was shaped by genocide, slavery, and exploitation.

As Meher Mirza notes in the BBC,

The Dutch, desperate for a monopoly over the expensive, rare nutmeg that grew only in Indonesia’s Banda Islands, would annihilate nearly the entire Bandanese population, keeping the rest in near-slavery, while selling the spice for massive profits in Europe.

They used similarly brutal tactics to control the clove trade in Indonesia. The Portuguese, English, and Dutch also subjected Sri Lankan workers to violent, coercive labor to harvest and process cinnamon. And in the Caribbean, the English, Spanish, and French depended on enslaved labor to cultivate ginger.

By the 17th century, these four spices—and the exploitation that fueled their production—had become embedded in the recipes and food cultures of colonizing nations around the world.

Tell me more