Season 1

We use pepper and salt every day. Nobody realizes that it was precisely those simple ingredients that initially attracted the Dutch over the oceans. To the West for the salt. To the East for the pepper. It seems like a simple story, but of course there was much more to it and there was a lot more to it before those proud East Indiamen controlled the oceans and the Low Countries became the Golden Republic.

1. 1. Het Hollands mirakel

   1983-10-16

   How was it possible that the small Netherlands from around 1600 grew to the biggest trade and navel power in the world and to the Golden Republic in a few years time? What fuelled that handful of men on vulnerable ships to overcome all conceivable hardships and cross unknown oceans looking for faraway exotic coasts? Curiosity? Thirst for adventure? Or was trade the only motivation, the profit, the prosperity, the fortune?

2. 2. Smokkelaars en vrijbuiters

3. 3. Een peperduur avontuur

4. 4. De geur van kaneel

5. 5. Het begon met de liefde

6. 6. Barbaren in de Chinese Zee

7. 7. Eenzaam tussen miljoenen

8. 8. Van Waalstraat tot Wall Street

9. 9. Verzuimd Brasil

10. 10. Bloed, zweet en tranen

11. 11. De herberg aan de Kaap

12. 12. Van koopman tot kolonist

13. 13. De ontdekking van het Zuidland

14. 14. De laatste getuigen