The eerie ruins of the first of the colonial Spice islands Forts, Kastella, built by the Portuguese in 1522. Their aim was to deter the Spanish–who had crossed the Pacific to find the Spiceries–from establishing a base there and competing for the island’s cloves.
The Sultan of Ternate initially encouraged the Portuguese to establish a base in his domain, seeing it as a boost in his longstanding confrontation with neighbouring Tidore. But the Christian-Muslim undercurrents were never far from the surface, and a series of incompetent Portuguese governors eventually brought the former allies into open conflict. Under a lengthy siege, the Portuguese abandoned the fort and Ternate in 1575, only to have their former adversaries–now allies, the Spanish–recapture it in 1606.
The fort later passed onto the Dutch, then the British, back to the Dutch, and most recently to the new nation of Indonesia.
This year Kastella turns 500!!!