Spice Islands

English

Etymology

Refers to the importance of the islands for the supply of certain important spices. Clove trees are native to the Maluku Islands, and for some centuries a monopoly of supply existed, until plants were smuggled out and cultivated in Zanzibar.

Proper noun

Spice Islands

1. The Moluccas or Maluku Islands, an archipelago in Indonesia comprising the provinces of Maluku and North Maluku.
   • 1976, Ernest Stanley Dodge, Islands and Empires: Western Impact on the Pacific and East Asia‎^[1], page 3:

     Blue leagues beckoned him, the Humboldt Current helped him north along the western Patagonian shore, fair trade winds sped him westerly when he set his course for the Spice Islands.

   • 2006, Susheela Raghavan, Handbook of Spices, Seasonings, and Flavorings, 2nd edition, page 8:

     The Portuguese established trading ports at Goa, India, and Sri Lanka and moved farther east to Malacca, Malaysia, and the Spice Islands (the Moluccas) bringing back pepper, cloves, nutmeg, and mace.

   • 2010, Charles Edward Miller Pearce, Frances M. Pearce, Oceanic Migration, page 4:

     Halmahera is the largest of the Spice Islands. In contexts involving foreign exploitation of spices, the term Spice Islands sometimes refers only to the five tiny clove-growing islands that lie off the western coast of Halmahera.

2. The Zanzibar Archipelago, in the Zanzibar semi-autonomous region of Tanzania.
   • 2008, Andrew Young, Memoirs of a World Traveler, Volume 1: Journeys of a Lifetime, page 170,

     I decided to prolong my stay in the Spice Islands until the upcoming Zanzibar Cultural Festival and International Film Festival, before heading back to Nairobi.