Ambon Island is part of the Maluku Islands of Indonesia. The island has an area of 743.37 km2 (287.02 sq mi) and is mountainous, well watered, and fertile. Ambon Island consists of two territories: the city of Ambon to the south, and three districts (kecamatan) of the Central Maluku Regency to the north. The main city and seaport is Ambon, which is also the capital of Maluku province, while those districts of Maluku Tengah Regency situated on Ambon Island had a 2020 Census population of 128,069. By mid 2023 those populations were estimated to have become 354,052 and 128,754 respectively, resulting in an all-island population of 482,806.
North Maluku is a province of Indonesia. It covers the northern part of the Maluku Islands, bordering the Pacific Ocean to the north, the Halmahera Sea to the east, the Molucca Sea to the west, and the Seram Sea to the south. It shares maritime borders with North Sulawesi, Southeast Sulawesi and Central Sulawesi to the west, Maluku to the south, Southwest Papua to the east, and Palau and the Philippines to the north. The provincial capital is Sofifi, mostly part of the city of Tidore Islands on the largest island of Halmahera, while the largest city is the island city of Ternate. The population of North Maluku was 1,038,087 in the 2010 census, making it one of the least-populous provinces in Indonesia, but by the 2020 Census the population had risen to 1,282,937, and the official estimate as at mid 2023 was 1,328,594.
The Amboyna massacre was the 1623 torture and execution on Ambon Island of twenty-one men, including ten in the service of the English East India Company, as well as Japanese and Portuguese traders and a Portuguese man, by agents of the Dutch East India Company (VOC), on accusations of treason. It was the result of the intense rivalry between the East India companies of England and the United Provinces in the spice trade and remained a source of tension between the two nations until late in the 17th century.
Maluku is a province of Indonesia. It comprises the central and southern regions of the Maluku Islands. The largest city and capital of Maluku province is Ambon on the small Ambon Island. It is directly adjacent to North Maluku, Southwest Papua, and West Papua in the north, Central Sulawesi, and Southeast Sulawesi in the west, Banda Sea, Australia, East Timor and East Nusa Tenggara in the south and Arafura Sea, Central Papua and South Papua in the east. The land area is 57803.81 km2, and the total population of this province at the 2010 census was 1,533,506 people, rising to 1,848,923 at the 2020 census, the official estimate as at mid 2023 was 1,908,753. Maluku is located in Eastern Indonesia.
Isaac Commelin was a Dutch historian, a member of the vroedschap and a manager of a charity hospital, providing help to the sick and poor.
Steven van der Hagen was the first admiral of the Dutch East India Company (VOC). He made three visits to the East Indies, spending six years in all there. He was appointed to the Council of the Indies. Van der Hagen protested against the harsh administration of the administrators, who wanted a monopoly on the clove trade and were willing to fight against their Spanish, Portuguese, English or Asiatic trade competitors in order to get it. Laurens Reael and Steven van der Hagen wrote with disapproval on how the Heren XVII treated the interests and laws of the Maluku population.
The Sultanate of Ternate, previously also known as the Kingdom of Gapi is one of the oldest Muslim kingdoms in Indonesia besides the sultanates of Tidore, Jailolo, and Bacan.
The Sultanate of Bacan was a state in Maluku Islands, present-day Indonesia that arose with the expansion of the spice trade in late medieval times. It mainly consisted of the Bacan Islands but had periodical influence in Ceram and the Raja Ampat Islands. It fell under the colonial influence of Portugal in the 16th century and the Dutch East India Company (VOC) after 1609. Bacan was one of the four kingdoms of Maluku together with Ternate, Tidore and Jailolo, but tended to be overshadowed by Ternate. After the independence of Indonesia in 1949, the governing functions of the sultan were gradually replaced by a modern administrative structure. However, the sultanate has been revived as a cultural entity in present times.
François Valentyn or Valentijn was a Dutch Calvinist minister, naturalist and author whose Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indiën describes the history of the Dutch East India Company while also making notes on geography, ethnography, and natural history; half is about the Moluccas. The work is characterised by vanity, randomness, imbalance and the lack of systematics. Valentyn even used sources that he considered unreliable and some of his descriptions were considered far-fetched.
Sultan Hasanuddin (Sultan Hasanuddin Tumenanga Ri Balla Pangkana; was the 16th Ruler of The Sultanate of Gowa as Sombaya Ri Gowa XVI from 1653 to 1669. He was proclaimed as Indonesian National Hero on 6 November 1973. The Dutch called Sultan Hasanuddin "the Rooster of the East" as he was described as aggressive in battle.
Fort Oranje is a 17th century Dutch fort on the island of Ternate in Indonesia.
Fort Tolukko is a small fortification that was erected in 1522 on the east coast of Ternate facing Halmahera. It was one of the colonial forts built to control the trade in clove spices, which prior to the eighteenth century were only found in the Maluku Islands. It has been variously occupied by the Portuguese, the native Ternate Sultanate, the Dutch, the British and the Spanish. It was abandoned as a fort in 1864, renovated in 1996, and is now a tourist attraction.
Ambon was a governorate of the Dutch East India Company, consisting of Ambon Island and ten neighbouring islands. Steven van der Hagen captured Fort Victoria on 22 February 1605 from the Portuguese in the name of the Dutch East India Company. Until 1619, Ambon served as the capital of the Dutch possessions in East Asia. In that year Batavia was founded to function as the staple port for the Dutch East India Company in Asia. The island was the world center of clove production until the 19th century. The Dutch prohibited the rearing of the clove-tree in all the other islands subject to their rule, in order to secure the monopoly to Ambon.
Boano Island is an island in West Seram Regency, Maluku Province, Indonesia. It is located off the northern coast of the Hoamoal Peninsula at the western end of Seram Island, across the Boano Strait. The inhabitants speak the Boano and Luhu languages, as well as Indonesian and Ambonese Malay.
Fort Kastela is a ruined Portuguese fortress located at the southwest coast of Ternate. It is famous for being the first colonial fortification constructed in the Spice Islands (Maluku) of Indonesia. Built by the Portuguese in 1522, it is also referred to in different languages as São João Baptista de Ternate or Fortaleza de Ternate (Portuguese), Ciudad del Rosario (Spanish) or Gammalamma. Today it is locally known as Kastella/Kastela.
Sultan Mudafar Syah I, also spelt Muzaffar Syah, was the ninth Sultan of Ternate who ruled from 1606 to 1627. He reigned during an important transitional phase, when the Dutch East India Company gained ascendency in the Maluku Islands and began to regulate the commerce in spices. This was the beginning of the colonial subordination of Maluku that would accelerate during his successors.
Mole Majimun was the seventh Sultan of Tidore in Maluku Islands, who reigned from 1599 to 1627. He was also known as Sultan Jumaldin or Kaicili Mole. In his time the transition to the hegemony of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) began in eastern Indonesia, though Tidore held on to its traditional alliance with the Spanish Empire.
The Ternatean–Portuguese conflicts were a series of conflicts in the Spice Islands in eastern Indonesia between the Portuguese and their allies on one hand, and the Sultanate of Ternate and its allies, on the other. Hostilities broke out from time to time after the establishment of Portugal in Moluccas in 1522. The strongly Catholic and Muslim identities of the combatants gave the struggle elements of a war of religion, although this aspect was frequently blurred by cross-faith alliances. It was also an economic war since the Portuguese aim was to control export of the profitable trade in cloves. Portuguese-Ternatan rivalry later merged with attempts of expansion by the Spanish in the Philippines. The Portuguese were eventually defeated in 1605 by an alliance between the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and Ternate, ending their active involvement in Moluccas affairs. However, they were soon replaced by the Spanish who maintained an Iberian presence in the region up to 1663.
Fort Victoria is one of former Portuguese forts located in Sirimau District, the center of Ambon City and became the oldest fort in the city. It was built by the Portuguese in 1575, but was later taken over by the Dutch. The fort is one of the tourist attractions on Ambon Island and currently serves as the headquarter of the Pattimura Military Command.
The Old Company was a pre-company of the Dutch Republic and originated from the Company of Verre and the New Company, from Amsterdam, in 1598. The directors were Dirck van Os, Jan Hermansz, Jan Janss Carel (Kaerel) and Geraerdt (Gerrit) Bicker. Directors with a smaller share of the investment were: Vincent van Bronckhorst, Symon Jansz Fortuyn, Geurt Dircxz, Cornelis van Campen, Jacob Thomasz Van den Dael, Elbert Simonsz Jonckheyn, Petrus Plancius, Syvert Sern, Jan Poppe, Geurt Dirckss and Pieter Hasselaer. The Old Company and the (New) Brabant Company would merge in 1601 and become the United Amsterdam Company.
Dutch East India Company 
Portuguese Empire 