Hostname: page-component-5cf477f64f-xc2pj Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-03-28T04:05:54.753Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Integration and Conflict in Indonesia's Spice Islands

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

David Adam Stott
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Tucked away in a remote corner of eastern Indonesia, between the much larger islands of New Guinea and Sulawesi, lies Maluku, a small archipelago that over the last millennia has been disproportionately influential in world history. Largely unknown outside of Indonesia today, Maluku is the modern name for the Moluccas, the fabled Spice Islands that were the only place where nutmeg and cloves grew in the fifteenth century. Christopher Columbus had set out to find the Moluccas but mistakenly happened upon a hitherto unknown continent between Europe and Asia, and Moluccan spices later became the raison d'etre for the European presence in the Indonesian archipelago. The Dutch East India Company Company (VOC; Verenigde Oost-indische Compagnie) was established to control the lucrative spice trade, which was more valuable than gold, becoming both the world's first multi-national company and the globe's foremost trading and transport enterprise. So prized were the Moluccas that in 1667 the Dutch swapped their colony of Manhattan with the British for the latter's tiny island of Run in the Banda Islands, valued for its nutmeg. Subsequent Dutch conquests united the sprawling Indonesian archipelago for the first time and provided the precursor to the modern successor state of Indonesia.

Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 15 , Issue 11 , June 2017 , e6
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2017

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Notes

1 As a geographic or political entity ‘eastern Indonesia’ remains somewhat vaguely defined but this paper follows the convention set by the Indonesian government and the World Bank which use the term to cover the provinces in Kalimantan, Sulawesi, Nusa Tenggara, Maluku, and Papua. By this definition the remaining islands of Sumatra, Java and Bali are classifed as ‘western Indonesia’.

2 International Crisis Group (ICG) Report No.31, Indonesia: The Search for Peace in Maluku, Jakarta/Brussels, 8 February 2002, p. 1.

3 M.C. Ricklefs, 2001. A History of Modern Indonesia Since c. 1200, London: Palgrave, p.28

4 Ricklefs, 2001, p.28

5 Ricklefs, 2001, p.76

6 C.L.M. Penders, 2002. The West New Guinea Debacle: Dutch Decolonisation and Indonesia, 1945-1962, Adelaide: Crawford House, p.89.

7 Rodd McGibbon, 2004. Plural Society in Peril: Migration, Economic Change, and the Papua Conflict, Washington: East-West Center

8 Graham Brown, Christopher Wilson, and Suprayoga Hadi, 2005. ‘Overcoming Violent Conflict: Peace and Development Analysis in Maluku and North Maluku’ in Overcoming Violent Conflict: Volume 4, Jakarta: United Nations Development Programme and Lembaga Ilmu Pengetahuan Indonesia, p.11

9 For more details see Kenneth Conboy and James Morrison, 1999. Feet to the Fire CIA Covert Operations in Indonesia, 1957–1958. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press.

10 George Aditjondro, ‘Guns, pamphlets and handie-talkies: How the military exploited local ethno-religious tensions in Maluku to preserve their political and economic privileges’, Conflicts and Violence in Indonesia - Conference Proceedings, Humboldt-University in Berlin, 3-5 July 2000

11 Aditjondro, 2000

12 Ricklefs, 2001, pp.28-29

13 Jennifer Leith, 1999. ‘Resettlement and Restless Tree Spirits: Shifting Identities and Resource-based Livelihoods in North Halmahera’ Cakalele vol.10 pp.62-76

14 BPS data cited in Brown, Wilson and Hadi (2005), p. 9

15 Gerry van Klinken, 2007. Communal Violence and Democratization in Indonesia: Small Town Wars, London: Routledge, pp.117-119

16 Van Klinken, 2007, p.119

17 Brown, Wilson and Hadi (2005), pp.20-31

18 Van Klinken, 2007, p.109

19 Musthofid, ‘Refugees still waiting for resettlement’, The Jakarta Post, 25 March 2012

20 United Nations Development Program (UNDP), Indonesia Human Development Report 2004, 2004

21 This survey was based on nine indicators: regional infrastructure; business expansion programs; interactions access to land between the government and business; transaction fees; business licensing; security and business conflict resolution efforts; the capacity and integrity of the head of the region; and local regulations.

22 Badan Statistik Indonesia (BPS)

23 2005 figures from BPS Provinsi Maluku, cited in Craig Thorburn, 2009. ‘Maluku: The Long Road to Recovery’ in Budy P. Resosudarmo, and Frank Jotzo (eds.) Working with Nature against Poverty: Development, Resources and the Environment in Eastern Indonesia, Singapore: ISEAS

24 UNDP figures cited in Budy P. Resosudarmo, 2009. ‘A Note on Socio-economic Development in Maluku’ in Budy P. Resosudarmo and Frank Jotzo (eds.) Working with Nature against Poverty: Development, Resources and the Environment in Eastern Indonesia, Singapore: ISEAS

25 Government of Indonesia and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Peace Through Development Programme for North Maluku, Maluku and Central Sulawesi, January 2006

26 Elly Burhaini Faizal, ‘Inequality dogs RI's progress’, The Jakarta Post, 5 January 2012

27 Elly Burhaini Faizal, ‘Maternal, infant deaths in 20 provinces remain high’, The Jakarta Post, 11 May 2012

28 Van Klinken, 2007, p.109

29 KPPOD 2011. Local Economic Governance, A Survey of Business Operators in 245 Districts/Municipalities in Indonesia