History is often considered “the story of great men” — that all who influence history are heroes. This idea was created in the 1840’s, by Thomas Carlyle, in his seminal work On Heroes, Hero-Worship and the Heroic in History, and has been adopted throughout the centuries.

This definition is both too broad and too narrow. The people that society deems heroic are not necessarily heroes, and to say that the universe is only affected by such quasi-heroes ignores the impact of everything else. Especially the influence of stumps.

In a remote, mosquito-ridden jungle of Indonesia, a stump stands. This stump, called Syzygium aromaticum, is also known as clove. Not many know of this tree stump, not even members of the native tribes who live in this area can identify this tree, christened “Afo” from time immemorial. This stump was once a living tree. A tree that led to the fall of the world’s first corporation: the Dutch East India Company.

The Dutch East India Company was established in 1602, when the States-General of the Netherlands granted a 21-year monopoly on trade and colonial activities in Asia, which meant that the Company had quasi-governmental powers in Asia. It could wage war, coin money, imprison and execute criminals, and establish colonies. It exceeded all its competitors in trade in the Indies, trading over 2.5 million tons of goods. These goods were not gold or silver, but cloves and other spices. In Europe at that time, because of high demand by the upper class, cloves were literally worth their weight in gold. The wealth generated from these spices allowed the Dutch East India Company to become the world’s first multinational corporation, spanning five continents. However, this success came at a price.

At the time, the Dutch East India Company was directly in competition with other European nations’ trading companies. The British and Portuguese Companies especially had the potential to steal away the Netherlands’ spice money because of their shipping infrastructure and large amount of colonies. With so many competitors looking to wrest control of the Spice Islands, the only way the Dutch East India Company could remain lucrative was if they had a monopoly on the spice trade. The Company limited the amount of cloves that could be sold to 8,000 tons a year, to artificially inflate their value, dumping the remainder into the sea. In other words, just like modern-day companies, the Dutch East India Company was price gouging.

The Company was ruthless, forcing their way into Indonesia through slaughter. Colonialists invaded Banda Islands, a trading hub that, until the 19th century, was the only source of nutmeg tree bark. One hundred Dutch settlers killed the entire native adult male population, selling the remainder of the population into slavery. On Afo’s island, Ternate, the Dutch used their economic power of trade to force an uneasy peace with the sultanate.

Unlike Banda Islands’ nutmeg, though, cloves could grow in other areas of the world. In order to maintain their monopoly, the Dutch adopted a policy known as extirpatie: the destruction of all clove plants outside of Dutch holdings. Anyone found with unauthorized clove trees faced the penalty of death.

As a result, all clove trees were chopped down, destroyed so nothing could break the Dutch monopoly. All besides Afo. Against all odds, Afo survived.

In 1770, someone by the codename “Poivre” (French for “pepper”) smuggled Afo’s seedlings to Zanzibar. Zanzibar became the number one producer of cloves in the world, having also enslaved and impoverished much of its population in a desperate quest for higher clove profits, much like what had occurred in the Indies. This broke the Dutch monopoly and increased competition in the markets. Soon after, the Dutch East India Company rolled up the sails of their ships, declaring bankruptcy. Afo itself was chopped down, as firewood in the present became more valuable than spice money in the future. The spice trade in the Indies was officially over. Not a general or a king, but a tree, caused the fall of the world’s first corporation. However, using Carlyle’s definition of a hero, Afo is not a hero.

Even the people who society views as “heroes” are often not. They are oversimplified into a positive character archetype, disregarding all facts to the contrary. For example, Sun Yat-sen is often thought of as the father of China by both Nationalists and Communists, after the fall of the dynastic system. He led the revolution by introducing the idea of republican government to China, which emphasized democracy, nationalism, and the people’s livelihood; bringing China to the same level of political modernism as Europe and America. On January 1st, 1912, Sun Yat-sen was elected president by the Chinese people.

However, with Sun Yat-sen’s meteoric rise, there was inevitably a fall. Yuan Shih-Kai, a rival party’s general, staged a coup, removing Sun Yat-sen and his party, the Guamingdongs, from power. Yuan Shih-Kai then seized the presidency, ruling as dictator. As a result, China shattered into small holdings controlled by warlords. Sun Yat-sen fled to Canton (now Guangzhou) after he was forced into exile.

Following the failure of Sun Yat-sen and the 1911 Nationalist Revolution’s attempt to establish a modern democracy in China, many people were angered at the government’s inaction and lack of improvement. When Germany’s holdings in China were given to Japan in the Treaty of Versailles, the Chinese people retaliated through a massive protest, known as the May 4th Movement. These protesters blamed China’s sluggishness in adopting Western philosophies of equality and democracy for China’s famine, instability, and subordinate international position. They wished to create a European-style social order. In the end, China had mistaken one bloated, ineffective, and dictatorial system of governance for a “hero” who in reality was just another bloated, ineffective, and dictatorial leader. The Nationalist Revolution was only a revolution in that China moved in a 360-degree circle back to where it began.

Again, using Carlyle’s definition, infamous leaders, such as Sun Yat-sen, are heroes in that they created a historical narrative. Carlyle’s characterization of a hero lumps despotic leaders into the category of “hero” while ignoring actual heroes. The main problem with “heroism” is that there is no heroic threshold someone needs to exceed to qualify as a hero, nor is there any guarantee of heroic behavior when someone is labeled a “hero.” Heroism is essentially meaningless.

Yet the idea of the “hero,” a true hero, remains relevant. The mere mention of “hero” draws almost 20 million results on Google, but arguably, none of them are true heroes. A truly great hero is not a bastion of pure, fundamental goodness towards one group, or a harbinger of improvements for one faction at the detriment of another. A real hero is someone who creates a universally positive change in all of human society. Such a person has never once stepped on the earth. Carlyle’s heroes are not true heroes, and neither are the people anyone heroizes.

The person an individual believes to be his or her hero says more about that person than the supposed hero. Carlyle’s list of heroes reflects his belief that strong leadership was necessary to the creation of the ideal state. I believe Afo to be a hero because Afo inadvertently toppled a brutal and repressive colonial regime bloodlessly, which demonstrates the high value I place on freedom and my love of the “unwilling savior” archetype. The list of my heroes and Carlyle’s heroes seldom overlap. While historically, there are no universal heroes, the title of “hero” is still pertinent because the actions of the people we believe to be heroes shape who we are. In other words, we create our own heroes, and in the process, we create ourselves.