Trials exert a powerful hold over our imagination. Major cases generate huge amounts of attention while past trials have become the focus of forensic investigation, drawing huge numbers of viewers interested in working through mounds of evidence in search of an answer. This was perhaps most clearly visible in the remarkable public reaction to the Serial podcast which explored the intricacies of a 2000 Baltimore trial.
Trials fascinate us because the individual stakes are so high and because the answer as to guilt and innocence seems available if we spend enough time weighing up the evidence. But equally important, trials tell us something not only about the participants involved in one particular case but also about society at that time. Court cases provide a window into life at a particular moment in history and for this reason they can be used as a basis for teaching.
This site represents a Collaboration between Dr. Adam Clulow at Monash University and the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University. The goal was to build a website capable of taking high school and university students into the heart of a famous and still controversial seventeenth century conspiracy trial. The site went live in 2016 and has since been visited by thousands of students across the world. Although largely complete, it is being continually added to and updated in response to feedback. If you have any comments or suggestions on the site or if you have used or plan to use it in class, please let us know using the Contact link at the bottom of the page. We are always delighted to hear back from teachers and can suggest additional sources and lesson plans.
The site has been used successfully in high school and university classes across the world.
Why were the Companies in Asia? What were they looking for? What drove the lust for spices? What were they prepared to do to get hold of this commodity?
How did Japanese mercenaries end up on a remote island in Southeast Asia? Why do they think Japanese recruits signed up to fight on behalf of the Dutch East India Company? What does this tell us about Japan in this period?
Why has this been called the first age of globalization? How does this look like the world today?
The heart of the site is the trial engine. When introducing the case to students, we find it important to emphasize that the trial remains controversial today and that we simply do not know what happened on this remote island in 1623. Historians have been debating the case for close to four hundred years but an answer has so far eluded us. This site is intended for educational purposes but also to harness the power of the crowd to develop new approaches that take us closer to solving the case. In the years since it went live, questions and feedback from students has already generated new angles for us to explore and changed our interpretation of the case.
In our experience and as can be seen in the video below, students split when it comes to the case. A majority of students seem to come down on the side of the defense, that there was no plot, but in every class we have trialed the site in a significant fraction of students sided with the prosecution. Discussion can become heated especially over questions of waterboarding and torture. Throughout this, it is important for students to keep in mind both the law regarding torture in this period but also the fragile nature of the European presence in Asia. The Amboyna trial was in many ways the product of European weakness and the following questions can be used to prompt discussion: How powerful were Europeans really in Asia? How does this look different from a later age of imperialism in which Europeans were able to dictate terms?
For a good introduction to the Dutch East India Company and its organization by a leading scholar see here.
For a superb collection of resources related to the Dutch East India Company see here.
To search the archives of the Dutch East India Company click here.
For an invaluable gateway to Dutch legal resources see here.
For a superb collection of maps, drawing and other images related to the Dutch East India Company see here.
Perhaps the best article ever written on the case by one of the giants of Dutch empire scholarship. Concludes that there was a plot but is critical of the way the case was handled.
Anthony Milton, 'Marketing a Massacre: Amboyna, the East India Company and the Public Sphere in Early Stuart England', in Steve Pincus and Peter Lake (eds), The Politics of the Public Sphere in Early Modern England (Manchester/New York, NY: Manchester University Press, 2007), 168–90.
A brilliant examination of how the English East India Company attempted to mobilize public and elite opinion around the case.
A superb examination of two connected 'massacres' in the Americas and Asia.
The definitive account of Hugo Grotius and his involvement in the Company's project to control the spice trade.
A popular account detailing the English push into Asia.
An excellent examination of the criminal ordinance of 1570, which provided (at least in theory) the basis for the use of torture.