Ternate

Ternate is a small island - a single volcanic cone, Gamalama, still active, with a town round its base - and for a period in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries it was one of the most consequential places on earth, because cloves grew here and almost nowhere else, and Europe wanted them. The Portuguese built Fort Kastela in 1522, were expelled, the Spanish came, then the Dutch, and the sultanate of Ternate played them against each other and against neighbouring Tidore across the strait. What survives is a set of forts - Kalamata, Tolukko, Oranje - the sultan's palace and its collection, the clove tree at Afo said to be centuries old, and a crater lake. Alfred Russel Wallace wrote his paper on natural selection here in 1858 and sent it to Darwin.

History

Moluccan tradition says people left Halmahera around 1250, and in 1257 Tobona gathered the momole, the village chiefs, who chose Cico, chief of Sampalu village, as the collective ruler of Ternate. The kingdom was earlier known as Gapi, and the name Maluku, found in the Nagarakretagama, first meant the spice islands of the north, of which Ternate became the dominant one (Wikipedia, Ternate).

Highlights

• European forts - Portuguese, Spanish and Dutch works round the island.
• The sultan's palace - the kedaton and the sultanate's regalia and collection.
• Gamalama - the active volcano the whole island is built on.
• Wallace's ground - where he wrote the 1858 paper that reached Darwin.

When to go

September to March. Three days.

Good to know

Gamalama erupts periodically and closes the airport with ash. Fort interpretation is thin. Maluku's seasons run against Java's. Flights are limited and expensive.

Nearby

Tidore is across the strait; Halmahera is east.