Maluku, Indonesia’s Hawaii, the Spice Islands, which consist of 999 big and small islands has an exotic nature. It belongs to a part the 13,677 islands of the Indonesian archipelago. The islands lies on the cross roads of 2 global currents that is the Indian Ocean and the Circum Pacific. It is located between 30 North Latitude and 90 South Latitude and between 1240 – 1350 East Longitudes. Maluku, has a total area, of 850,000 sq kms of which 90 % is covered by sea.
The original name of Maluku is Jasiratul Jabal Maluku which means island covered with mountains. The region’s name later on became Maloko Kirana which means 4 mountainous islands. In the local vernacular it is pronounced Maluku. In 1511 the Portugese visited Maluku, followed by the Spaniards in 1521 and later on the Dutch came in 1599 and the English in 1605.
Maluku at the time was known as Spice Islands therefore all the traders came to Indonesia to monopolize the Maluku spices. The Dutch finally got a stronghold for the monopoly of species over the Maluku islands of a period of three centuries.
They used a system to monopolize all the spices from the local natives. In the 18 th & 19 th centuries spices had no value in the worlds market, being competed by trade of tea, coffee, sugar and other commodities. Since Maluku had lost its economic importance, the Dutch activities took a different direction.
They concentrated on the Java Island. The natives were not satisfied with the spices monopoly of the colonial government, they rebelled one after another. Among the rebels, we have the hero and heroine of Maluku such as Kapitan Pattimura and Christina Tiahahu. So many people of Maluku had taken part in the Indonesian Freedom fight, particularly as forerunners.