Cloves Tattoo Meaning

Value, the exotic, and the single flower bud that reshaped the world.

Cloves are the small dried flower buds that reshaped the world — the intensely aromatic spice native to a handful of remote Indonesian islands, so coveted that it drove the first voyage around the globe, fueled colonial conquest and atrocity, and was held in the mouths of those who would address an emperor. To carry cloves is to carry value and the exotic — the single flower bud of vast worth that drove circumnavigation, colonization, and the contest for the Spice Islands, the precious aromatic spice from the far edge of the world that changed the course of history.

Cloves (Syzygium aromaticum) are native to only one place on earth: five small islands in the North Maluku archipelago of Indonesia, in what came to be called the Spice Islands or the Moluccas. (The neighboring Banda Islands were the sole source of nutmeg; the Moluccas, of cloves.) For more than two thousand years before any European arrived, the peoples of these islands had been growing cloves and trading them out into the wider world, the precious spice flowing along ancient trade routes from these tiny, remote islands to distant lands.

The European hunger to control this priceless monopoly led to terrible violence. In their drive to seize total control of the spice trade, the Dutch committed atrocities against the island peoples — most infamously, the Dutch extermination of the Banda Islanders in 1621, in their campaign to monopolize nutmeg, which stands as one of the earliest documented colonial genocides. The clove (and its neighbor the nutmeg) thus carries a dark history: the precious spice of these five small islands, coveted by distant empires, became the cause of conquest, monopoly, and the destruction of the very peoples who had cultivated it for millennia. The Indonesian clove is the spice of the five Maluku islands, its monopoly the cause of colonial conquest and atrocity. The Indonesian clove is the spice of the five islands — native only to five small islands in the North Maluku archipelago of Indonesia (the Spice Islands/Moluccas; the neighboring Banda Islands were the source of nutmeg), where the island peoples had grown and traded cloves for over 2,000 years before European contact, the European hunger to control this priceless monopoly leading to terrible violence (most infamously the Dutch extermination of the Banda Islanders in 1621 to monopolize nutmeg, one of the earliest documented colonial genocides) — the precious spice of these remote islands that became the cause of conquest, monopoly, and the destruction of the peoples who had cultivated it for millennia.

The clove (Syzygium aromaticum) is a flower bud harvested before opening and dried — the nail-like shape gives it its name (from French clou, nail). Eugenol, the primary compound in clove oil, is a potent analgesic and antiseptic — it has been used in dentistry as a natural anesthetic and is still used in dental emergency preparations. The VOC (Dutch East India Company) enforced its clove monopoly through the 'hongi raids' — annual expeditions to destroy clove trees growing on any island outside Dutch-controlled Ambon; any trees found elsewhere were burned, and islanders who grew or traded them were killed. A Frenchman named Pierre Poivre (literally 'Peter Pepper') smuggled clove seedlings out of the Moluccas in 1770 CE, breaking the Dutch monopoly — he planted them in Mauritius, and from there cloves spread to Zanzibar, which now produces the majority of the world's cloves. The Victoria, the only ship to complete Magellan's circumnavigation under Juan Sebastián Elcano, returned to Seville in 1522 CE with 26 tons of cloves.

Cloves across cultures

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