East Indies

Follows the trade winds, the trade routes, and the port
cities across the East Indies and the Orient uncovering the high finance, piracy, greed, ambition, double dealing, and exploitation.

Driven  by the search
for spices, silks, gold, silver, porcelains and other oriental goods the
Portuguese trading monopoly was challenged by the Dutch East India Company and
then the English East India Company, the worlds first joint stock and
multi-national trading companies. The struggle for supremacy
between the Portuguese, the Dutch and the English ranged across the Eastern
Seas and in the settlements of Goa, Malacca, Ambon, Macao, Canton, Nagasaki,
Solor, Batavia, Macassar, Johor and Singapore for 250 years. The story is told by the history of these port cities,
beginning with Malacca one of the worlds largest trading ports in 16th
century and ending with the founding of Singapore and Hong Kong.