Indonesia: The Dutch imposed waterboarding and torture with fire on English merchants and Japanese mercenaries in Amboyna in the Spice Islands in 1623. Copper engraving from a pamphlet, c. 1700. The Amboyna Massacre of 1623 occurred on Ambon Island (modern-day Ambon, Maluku), when twenty-one men, including ten Englishmen in service of the East India Trading Company and nine Japanese ronin mercenaries, were violently tortured and executed by agents of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) on accusations of treason and plotting to overthrow local Dutch rulers.
The Dutch East India Company established itself in the East Indies [now Indonesia] in the early 1600s with a view to controlling the lucrative trade in nutmeg, mace, cloves and pepper from a tiny cluster of islands known as the Moluccas [Maluku]. English merchants associated with the British East India Company, however, were also keen to stake a claim in the spice trade, and their interests came into direct conflict with those of the Dutch. Early in 1623, the Dutch local governor, Herman van Speult, believed that the English merchants, helped by Japanese mercenaries, planned to kill him and overwhelm the Dutch garrison. He ordered the arrest of the alleged plotters. Under torture they admitted their guilt, and were executed on Amboina in February 1623. The British thereafter referred to the incident as the Amboina Massacre.
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