c. 1522–1605 | |||||||
Status | Settlement and possessions of the Portuguese Empire | ||||||
Capital |
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Common languages | Portuguese, Malay, Ternate, Tidore, Other indigenous language. | ||||||
Government | Monarchy | ||||||
Monarch | |||||||
• 1522–1557 | John III | ||||||
• 1598–1605 | Philip III | ||||||
Captain-General | |||||||
• 1522–1525 (first) | Antonio de Brito | ||||||
• 1602–1605 (last) | Pedro Alvares de Abreu | ||||||
Historical era | Early modern | ||||||
• Established | c. 1522 | ||||||
22 April 1529 | |||||||
22 February 1605 | |||||||
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Portuguese colonization era | |||
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1512–1605 | |||
Location | Malay Archipelago, East Indies | ||
Including | Portuguese–Ternate wars | ||
Leader(s) | Alfonso de Albuquerque António de Abreu Francisco Serrão | ||
Key events | Age of Discovery | ||
Chronology
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The Portuguese were the first Europeans to establish a colonial presence in the Indonesian Archipelago. Their quest to dominate the source of the spices that sustained the lucrative spice trade in the early 16th century, along with missionary efforts by Catholic orders, saw the establishment of trading posts and forts, and left behind a Portuguese cultural element that remains in modern-day Indonesia.
Europeans were making technological advances in the early 16th century; new-found Portuguese expertise in navigation, shipbuilding and weaponry allowed them to make daring expeditions of exploration and expansion. Starting with the first exploratory expeditions sent from newly conquered Malacca in 1512, the Portuguese were the first Europeans to arrive in the East Indies, and sought to dominate the sources of valuable spices [1] and to extend their Christian missionary efforts. Initial Portuguese attempts to establish a coalition and peace treaty in 1522 with the West Javan Sunda Kingdom [2] failed, owing to hostilities among islamic kingdoms on Java. The Portuguese turned east to Moluccas, which comprised a varied collection of principalities and kingdoms that were occasionally at war with each other but maintained significant inter-island and international trade. Through both military conquest and alliance with local rulers, they established trading posts, forts, and missions in the North Sulawesi and in the Spice Islands, including Ternate, Ambon, and Solor.
The height of Portuguese missionary activities, however, came in the latter half of the 16th century, after the pace of their military conquest in the archipelago had stopped and their East Asian interest was shifting to Portuguese India, Portuguese Ceylon, Japan, Macau and China; and sugar in Brazil and the Atlantic slave trade in turn further distracted their efforts in the East Indies. In addition, the first European people to arrive in Northern Sulawesi were the Portuguese. Francisco Xavier supported and visited the Portuguese mission at Tolo on Halmahera. This was the first Catholic mission in the Moluccas. The mission began in 1534 when some chiefs from Morotai came to Ternate asking to be baptised. Simão Vaz, the vicar of Ternate, went to Tolo to found the mission. The mission was the source of conflict between the Spanish, the Portuguese and Ternate. Simão Vaz was later murdered at Sao. [3] [4]
The Portuguese presence in the East Indies was reduced to Solor, Flores and Timor (see Portuguese Timor), alongside a small community in Kampung Tugu [5] following defeat in 1575 at Ternate at the hands of indigenous Ternateans, Dutch conquests in Ambon, north Maluku and Banda, and a general failure for sustained control of trade in the region. [6] In comparison with the original Portuguese ambition to dominate Asian trade, their influences on modern Indonesian culture are minor: the romantic keroncong guitar ballads, a number of Indonesian words and some family names in eastern Indonesia such as da Costa, Dias, de Fretes, and Gonsalves. The most significant impacts of the Portuguese arrival were the disruption and the disorganisation of the trade network, mostly as a result of their conquest of Portuguese Malacca and the first significant plantings of Christianity in Indonesia, with the Kristang people. Christian communities in eastern Indonesia have continued to exist and have contributed to a sense of shared interest with Europeans, particularly among the Ambonese. [7]
The 16th century began with the Julian year 1501 and ended with either the Julian or the Gregorian year 1600 (MDC), depending on the reckoning used.
The Maluku Islands or the Moluccas are an archipelago in the eastern part of Indonesia. Tectonically they are located on the Halmahera Plate within the Molucca Sea Collision Zone. Geographically they are located east of Sulawesi, west of New Guinea, and north and east of Timor. Lying within Wallacea, the Moluccas have been considered a geographical and cultural intersection of Asia and Oceania.
The Bacan Islands, formerly also known as the Bachans, Bachians, and Batchians, are a group of islands in the Moluccas in Indonesia. They are mountainous and forested, lying south of Ternate and southwest of Halmahera. The islands are administered by the South Halmahera Regency of North Maluku Province. They formerly constituted the Sultanate of Bacan.
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.
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.
Banten, also written as Bantam, is a port town near the western end of Java, Indonesia. It has a secure harbour at the mouth of Banten River, a navigable passage for light craft into the island's interior. The town is close to the Sunda Strait through which important ocean-going traffic passes between Java and Sumatra. Formerly Old Banten was the capital of a sultanate in the area, was strategically important and a major centre for trade.
Francisco Serrão was a Portuguese explorer and a possible cousin of Ferdinand Magellan. His 1512 voyage was the first known European sailing east past Malacca through modern Indonesia and the East Indies. He became a confidant of Sultan Bayan Sirrullah, the ruler of Ternate, becoming his personal advisor. He remained in Ternate where he died around the same time Magellan died.
Kingdoms of Sunda refers to the monarchies of the Sundanese region prior to the establishment of Indonesia in 1945 AD. The history includes several eras:
The Luso-Sundanese padrão is a padrão commemorating a treaty between the kingdoms of Portugal and Sunda, better known as the Luso-Sundanese Treaty of Sunda Kalapa.
Company rule in the Dutch East Indies began when the Dutch East India Company appointed the first governor-general of the Dutch East Indies in 1610, and ended in 1800 when the bankrupt company was dissolved and its possessions were nationalized as the Dutch East Indies. By then it exerted territorial control over much of the archipelago, most notably on Java.
The Port of Tanjung Priok is the busiest and most advanced seaport in Indonesia, handling more than 50% of Indonesia's trans-shipment cargo traffic. The port is located at Tanjung Priok, North Jakarta, and is operated by Indonesian state-owned PT Pelindo. The port has 20 terminals for accommodating general cargo, liquid bulk, dry bulk, containers, etc. It has specialised facilities catering to oil tankers, chemical-laden ships, metal scrap, and passengers.
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.
Indo people are a Eurasian people of mixed Asian and European descent. Through the 16th-18th centuries, they were known by the name Mestiço. To this day, they form one of the largest Eurasian communities in the world. The early beginning of this community started with the arrival of Portuguese traders in South East Asia in the 16th century. The second large wave started with the arrival of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) employees in the 17th century and throughout the 18th century. Even though the VOC is often considered a state within a state, formal colonisation by the Dutch only commenced in the 19th century.
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.
António de Abreu was a 16th-century Portuguese navigator and naval officer. He participated under the command of Afonso de Albuquerque in the conquest of Ormus in 1507 and Malacca in 1511, where he got injured. Departing from Malacca in November 1511 with four ships, in an exploratory voyage to the 'Spice Islands' of Maluku, he led the first European expedition to reach Timor and the Banda Islands, in Indonesia, in 1512.
Indonesia and Portugal established diplomatic relations in 1950. Portuguese explorer and trader first reached Indonesian archipelago during the Age of Exploration in the 16th century in order to search for spices in the Indies.
The Portuguese presence in Asia was responsible for what would be the first of many contacts between European countries and the East, starting on May 20, 1498 with the trip led by Vasco da Gama to Calicut, India. Aside from being part of the European colonisation of Southeast Asia in the 16th century, Portugal's goal in the Indian Ocean was to ensure their monopoly in the spice trade, establishing several fortresses and commercial trading posts.
Sultan Hairun Jamilu was the 6th Muslim ruler of Ternate in Maluku, reigning from 1535 to 1570. During his long reign, he had a shifting relation to the Portuguese who had a stronghold in Ternate and tried to dominate the spice trade in the region. This ended with his assassination at the hands of a Portuguese soldier in 1570.
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.
The Spanish conquest of the Moluccas was a large-scale military campaign launched by the Spanish authorities of Manila in April 1606 in response to the alliance between the Sultanate of Ternate and the Dutch East India Company. The conquest of Ternate had been a goal for the Spanish since Sultan Babullah expelled the Portuguese from the island in 1575 and the Iberian Union between the Crowns of Spain and Portugal had been formed in 1580.