Pulau Ternate & Tidore

Introducing Pulau Ternate & Tidore

A string of perfect volcanic cone islands lurk off the western coast of crazy-K shaped Pulau Halmahera. Of these, Pulau Ternate and its neighbour Pulau Tidore are the most populous, visually dramatic and historically significant. Both islands are ancient Islamic sultanates with a long history of bitter rivalry. As the world’s only major producers of a globally important product (cloves), their sultans became the most powerful rulers in the medieval Indies, wasting much of their wealth fighting each other. At certain times both sultans could claim nominal influence that spread as far afield as Ambon, Sulawesi and Papua.

In 1511 the Portuguese were the first Europeans to settle in Ternate. Tidore’s then ruler quickly responded by inviting in the Spaniards. Both sultans found their hospitality rapidly exhausted as the Europeans tried to dominate the islands, corner the spice market and preach Christianity. Ternate’s Muslim population, already offended by the European’s imported pigs and heavy-handed ‘justice’, were driven to rebel when Sultan Hairun (Khairun) was executed and his head exhibited on a pike in February 1570. The besieged Portuguese held out in their castle till 1575 when the new Ternatean sultan took it over as his palace. Five years later he entertained the English pirate-adventurer Francis Drake. After an amicable meeting, Drake astounded his host by his almost total disinterest in buying cloves. In fact, Drake’s ship Golden Hind was so full of stolen Spanish-American gold that he simply couldn’t carry any cloves.

The Spaniards and Dutch were the next to make themselves unpopular. In a history that is as fascinating as it is complicated and Machiavellian, they played Ternate off against Tidore as well as confronting one another for control of an elusive clove monopoly. The Dutch prevailed eventually, though the sultanates continued almost uninterrupted for most of the period and remain well-respected institutions today.

Ternate saw some violence in 1999–2000, but is now rebounding with major construction programmes. A proposed geothermal power station between Kastela and Rua should one day end the island’s regular power cuts, but as yet there’s only a collapsed signboard at the site.

Last updated: Mar 2, 2009