Pre-colonial period

The sultanate was originally named the Kingdom of Gapi,^[1] but later changed the name to be based on that of its capital, Ternate. Originally there were four villages in Ternate and led by clan leaders called Momole. Main activities of the villages were trading spices with Arab, Malay, and Chinese traders. These lucrative trades attracted pirates and because of this, a kingdom emerged. According to one version, Momole Guna of Tobona suggested a forum in which a stronger organization of kingdom is to be adopted. Momole Cico was elected to be the first Gapi king with regnal name Baab Mashur Malamo.^[2] According to another version, the ancestor of the Malukan kings was an Arab descendant of the Prophet called Jafar Sadik. Coming to Ternate, he encountered a nymph (bidadari) from heaven (kayangan) called Nurus Safa. Their four sons were the dynastic ancestors of Bacan, Jailolo, Tidore, and Ternate. The idea of a genealogical unity of the four realms of Maluku has had a large cultural significance that persists until the present. The youngest of the four sons, Baab Mashur Malamo was, according to Ternatan legend, born in heaven, and therefore enjoyed a special status. His descendants were sometimes known as Alam-ma-Kolano, "ruler of all [Maluku]".^[3]

Ternate along with neighbouring Tidore were the world's single major producer of cloves, upon which their rulers became among the wealthiest and most powerful sultans in the Indonesian region.^[4] Much of their wealth, however, was wasted fighting each other. Up until the Dutch completed the colonisation of Maluku in the 19th century, the Sultans of Ternate ruled realms that claimed at least nominal influence as far as Ambon, Sulawesi and Papua.^[5]

In part as a result of its trade-dependent culture, Ternate was one of the earliest places in the region to which Islam spread, coming from Java in the late 15th century.^[6] However, Islamic influence in the area can be traced further back to the late 14th century.^[7] Initially, the faith was restricted to Ternate's small ruling family, and spread only slowly to the rest of the population.^[6]

The royal family of Ternate converted to Islam during the reign of Marhum (1465–1486), making him the first King of Ternate that embraced Islam;^[1] his son and successor, Zainal Abidin (1486–1500) enacted Islamic Law and transformed the kingdom into an Islamic Sultanate; the title Kolano (king) was then replaced with Sultan.^[8]

Genealogy of the rulers of Ternate

Ternatean galleys welcomed the arrival of Francis Drake.

The peak of Ternate's power came near the end of the 16th century, under Sultan Baabullah (1570–1583), when it had influence over most of the eastern part of Sulawesi, the Ambon and Seram area, Timor island, parts of southern Mindanao and Papuan Islands. It frequently engaged in fierce competition for control of its periphery with the nearby Sultanate of Tidore. According to historian Leonard Y. Andaya, Ternate's "dualistic" rivalry with Tidore is a dominant theme in the early history of the Maluku Islands.^[9] Ternate was also often a part of the political affairs of Philippine kingdoms. In a punitive expedition, it once destroyed the Boholano Kedatuan of Dapitan in the Central Visayas region of the Philippines forcing the Boholanos to re-establish their kingdom in Northern Mindanao where they waged war against the Sultanate of Lanao.^[10]

16th century to the present

Kraton (palace) of the Sultan of Ternate

The Sultan's palace

The first Europeans to stay on Ternate were part of the Portuguese expedition of Francisco Serrão out of Malacca, which was shipwrecked near Seram and rescued by local residents. Sultan Bayan Sirrullah of Ternate (1500–1522) heard of their stranding and, seeing a chance to ally himself with a powerful foreign nation, he brought them to Ternate in 1512. The Portuguese were permitted to build a fort on the island, today known as Kastella, construction of which began in 1522, but relations between the Ternateans and Portuguese were strained from the start.^[11] Ternate developed closer relations with the Ottomans as a result.^[12]

An outpost far from Europe generally only attracted the most desperate and avaricious, so that the generally poor behaviour of the Portuguese, combined with feeble attempts at Christianisation, strained relations with Ternate's Muslim ruler.^[13] In 1535 Sultan Tabariji was deposed and sent to Goa by the Portuguese. He converted to Christianity and changed his name to Dom Manuel. After being declared innocent of the charges against him he was sent back to re-assume his throne; however, he died en route in Malacca in 1545. He had though bequeathed the island of Ambon to his Portuguese godfather, Jordão de Freitas. Following the murder of Sultan Hairun at the hands of the Portuguese, the Ternatans expelled the Portuguese in 1575 after a five-year siege. Ambon became the new centre for Portuguese activities in Maluku. European power in the region was weak and Ternate became an expanding, fiercely Islamic and anti-Portuguese state under the rule of Sultan Baab Ullah (r. 1570–1583) and his son Sultan Saidi Berkat.^[14]

The Sultan's guard (1900-1920)

Spanish forces, aided by Filipinos mainly the Boholanos of the destroyed Kedatuan of Dapitan, who were formerly at war against Ternate, captured the former Portuguese fort from the Ternatans in 1606, deporting the Ternate Sultan and his entourage to Manila in the Spanish Philippines (Manila was a formerly a Muslim Bruneian vassal state before the Spanish invaded and Christianized them). The Spanish forced the Ternate ruler, Sultan Said Din Berkat to settle in Manila and pushed him to accept Christianity.^[15] In 1607 the Dutch came back to Ternate, where with the help of Ternatans they built a fort in Malayo. The island was divided between the two powers: the Spaniards were allied with Tidore and the Dutch with their Ternaten allies. For the Ternatan rulers, the Dutch were a useful, if not particularly welcome, presence that gave them military advantages against Tidore and the Spanish. Particularly under Sultan Hamzah (1627–1648), Ternate expanded its territory and strengthened its control over the periphery. Dutch influence over the kingdom was limited, though Hamzah and his grandnephew and successor, Sultan Mandar Syah (1648–1675) did concede some regions to the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in exchange for help controlling rebellions there. The Spaniards abandoned Maluku in 1663.^[16] They took the aristocracy of Moluccan-Portuguese and Filipino-Mexican mixed descent and settled them in Ternate, Cavite (Named after their homeland) in the Philippines, when they evacuated Ternate. Till this day, the Ternate community speak Ternateño Chavacano, a creole language of Spanish with Ternatean and Portuguese influence. In attempts to frustrate Spain, the Ternateans militarily supported the Sultanates of Mindanao in the Southern Philippines by sending reinforcement, during the Spanish-Moro Wars.^[17]

Desiring to restore Ternate to its former glory and expel the western power, Sultan Sibori Amsterdam (1675–1691) declared war to the Dutch, but the power of Ternate had greatly reduced over the years, he lost and was forced to concede more of his lands to the Dutch by a treaty in 1683. By this treaty, Ternate had lost its equal position with the Dutch and became a vassal. However, the Sultans of Ternate and its people were never fully under Dutch control until its annexation in 1914.^[18]

In the 18th century Ternate was the site of a VOC governorship, which attempted to control all trade in the northern Moluccas. By the 19th century, the spice trade had declined substantially. Hence the region was less central to the Netherlands colonial state, but the Dutch maintained a presence in the region to prevent another colonial power from occupying it. After the VOC was nationalised by the Dutch government in 1800, Ternate became part of the Government of the Moluccas (Gouvernement der Molukken). Ternate was seized and occupied by British forces in 1810 before being returned to Dutch control in 1817. In 1824 it became the capital of a residency (administrative region) covering Halmahera, the entire west coast of New Guinea, and the central east coast of Sulawesi. By 1867 all of Dutch-occupied New Guinea had been added to the residency, but then its region was gradually transferred to Ambon (Amboina) before being dissolved into that residency in 1922.^[19]

Sultan Haji Muhammad Usman (1902–1914) made a last attempt to oppose the Dutch by clandestinely endorsing revolts in the region; he failed and was dethroned, his wealth being confiscated, and he was exiled to Bandung, where he lived until 1932. This spelt the end of the traditional Ternatan kingdom, since the administration and settlement pattern were forcibly changed by the Dutch. The throne of Ternate was left vacant from 1914 to 1929, until the board of ministers under the blessing of the Dutch created Crown Prince Iskandar Muhammad Jabir the next Sultan.^[20]

Muhammad Jabir reigned when the Japanese arrived in 1942 and began a hard rule. Two years later he was smuggled to Australia by the Allies. The Sultan played a political role during the Indonesian Revolution, but the tense political situation pushed him to reside in Jakarta after 1950. He made attempts to revive the old body of traditions (adat) in the 1960s, but the sultanate lapsed after his death in 1975.^[21] His son Mudaffar was enthroned as a titular head in 1986. He restored many of the old royal traditions, though Ternate society was temporarily disturbed by sectarian violence in 1999.^[22] Sultan Mudaffar Sjah II died in 2015. The male members of his wife's family, the Dutch Van Gelders, were named Prince of Ternate in 2012, and tried to control the sultanate after Mudaffar's death.