Above: An artist’s impression of the sprawling Kastella complex in the second decade of the seventeenth century. The original Portuguese fort is in the bottom left corner. The ground behind the fortress slopes up to the flanks of Mount Gammalamma, Ternate’s omnipresent 1715 metre volcano. Visible behind the fort is tiny Fort Novo which was fortified by the Spanish to prevent an enemy emplacing guns above the defences–as they had done when they captured it from Ternate’s sultan in 1606. Image courtesy of Lucas Kukler.
Portuguese-built Kastella is the granddaddy of all Spice Islands Forts. In 2022 it turns 500 years old!
King Manuel I of Portugal ordered Kastella’s construction on Ternate Island in the Moluccas (the Clove Islands) to prevent the Spanish beating him to it and purloining what he regarded as his spices.
Building started in 1522 but the original fort was small and very rudimentary. A palisade enclosed a small yard in which stood several buildings and an 11-metre stone tower. It is the remains of this tower and part of the old walls that can still be seen.
As the threat to Portugal’s presence on Ternate grew, the fort was extended, the walls built of stone, corner bastions added, and the latest artillery mounted. All this fell into the hands of Ternate’s Sultan when, after a five-year siege ending in 1575, the surviving Portuguese surrendered.
Anticipating a counterattack, the Sultan added considerably to the defences and the armament. Over a quarter of a century the Ternateans resisted a series of Portuguese and Spanish (now allied) efforts to retake the fort, before they finally achieved success in 1606. It was the only time Kastella’s defences were stormed.
Again, the walls and bastions were improved and expanded by the new owners, with a captured Dutch (the new enemy) admiral declaring the fortress “invulnerable” in 1610. Kastella co-existed just a few miles away from the new and powerful Dutch fortress at Malayo/ Orange for over 50 years before the Spanish lost interest in the Spice Islands, and withdrew. They destroyed much of the defences, and modern encroachment by houses and roads have left only the ruined tower and some disparate sections of wall partially intact.
Today, Kastella stands ruined, lonely and poignant, far from the bustle of the city. Its old crumbling ramparts look out through coconut palms and across the glittering coral reefs towards the wide horizon as if waiting for the galleons to appear one final time.
Fort Belgica, Banda Island
Plans and elevations of the third and final iteration of Fort Belgica by Carl Reimer from around 1791–more than a hundred years after the rebuilding in the new double pentagonal layout. Impressive though it was, the work surrendered to the British just a few years later without resistance. The unusual layout, dominating location and impressive outlook gives it pride of place among Spice Islands Forts. Image courtesy of Netherlands National Archives.
Belgica, on tiny Banda Island, is the most impressive looking of the Spice Islands Forts. It’s a little like their movie star. Standing on a small rise amid colourful tropical gardens, the imposing double pentagon dominates the little town, and provides a wonderful view from its battlements. Across the narrow channel to the ominous volcano and over to the lush rolling hills of Lonthor, scattered with nutmeg plantations.
Worried that Fort Nassau, the first and primary Dutch fort in the Banda’s, may be threatened by cannon emplaced on a small hill nearby they built Fort Belgica there in 1611. Back then it was a smallish square fort with corner bastions, but in 1662, an earthquake dealt the defences a blow, and rebuilding was required.
This was in the midst of the Anglo-Dutch wars which stretched for over a century, and having seen the English off once from the Banda Islands, the VOC did not want to see them back among the nutmeg plantations.
With this aim, Belgica was rebuilt again in a unique modern style with a high inner wall crowned with round towers, and a low outer wall with angled bastions at each apex. It looks very impressive, even invincible, but on a dark rainy night during the Napoleonic Wars, a small British force stormed over the walls, captured the fort, and turned its guns on Fort Nassau below, forcing its surrender–just as the Dutch had feared.
Back in Dutch hands, it remained a military post into the 1860’s after which it quickly deteriorated. It was refurbished in the early twentieth century, and again in 1990, and stands today as the most ‘complete’ and striking of the Spice Forts. It can be inspected today; its parade ground once crowded with 400 men now silent; just a few cannons scattered around where over 50 had once looked out for invaders.
Fort Victoria, Ambon
An attractive bird’s eye view of most of Ambon Island, focusing in the foreground on the Lettimor Peninsula, and central to that, Fort Victoria, dominating the large, sheltered bay. This bay formed one of the best harbours across the Spice Islands, and was used as a naval base by the Dutch, Japanese and now Indonesia. The rugged terrain of Ambon Island is apparent, and clove plantations can be seen surrounding the fort. Image courtesy Rijkesmuseum, Amsterdam.
Of all the Spice Islands Forts none has seen as much action as Fort Victoria at Ambon. It is a battle-scarred relic of a forgotten age; only Kastella is older.
Now crowded out by the buildings and port of Ambon city, once she stood alone facing the great bay, guardian of the best harbour between Java and New Guinea. Victoria started as a small Portuguese fort in 1576 after an earlier structure across the haven was destroyed by Muslim forces. In her early days, as a limited and very basic work, she held off attacks by Ternate, the Javanese and the Dutch VOC. In 1605, a powerful Dutch fleet forced her surrender and to prevent her ex-owners replaying that scene, the defences were upgraded, extended and more cannon emplaced.
No-one threatened Victoria for nearly two hundred years, except earthquakes, which struck in 1643, 1644, 1672 and again the next year, requiring expensive rebuilding and redesign, always to the latest military standards. Then, the British came and took its surrender in 1796 and again–after a bombardment–in 1810, occupying it briefly each time before handing it back as part of one peace treaty or another between the endlessly warring British and Dutch.
By now a massive sprawling multi-sided fortress, it next changed hands in WWII, when a hastily combined Dutch-Australian force was overrun by invading Japanese. The Japanese then used Fort Victoria as a headquarters and it was consequently plastered with bombs from allied aircraft over a period of three years. After the war successionist rebels operated from it until it was recaptured by government forces in 1950.
Today, the fortress remains an Indonesian Army base, and access is rarely possible. Its solid, centuries old walls and ramparts show accumulated war and earthquake damage, and parts of the perimeter and interior have been demolished or re-purposed. It is closed in by the encroaching urban sprawl, and only the military presence has prevented further demolition. It is a reminder of a bygone age, when European wars spilled over across the Spice Islands, and rebellious locals rose up against colonial masters.
Fort Tolukko, Ternate
Fort Tulukko, the petite. Highlighting the attractive tropical landscaping, with the cone of Tidore’s volcano visible in the distance. Often claimed to be of Portuguese heritage, it was actually built by the Spanish, but soon abandoned to the Dutch, who passed it on to Ternate’s sultan. He modified it into his own fortified palace, but today, though the Sultan still retains a ceremonial role, the fort is managed by the Department of Heritage.
Fort Tolukko near Ternate Airport is impossibly cute, a pint-sized fort that seems more at home in the twelfth than the twenty-first century. You almost expect guards with crossbows to be standing in the little round gatehouse towers. It’s hard to see it belonging in the artillery age of fortifications (that began in earnest when the Turks wiped out the Byzantine Empire at Constantinople in 1453), but it was built in 1611 by the Spanish to put pressure on the large VOC Orange fortress only 2000 metres away (just out of cannon range).
Though it stood on a small rise, it was a very exposed position for such a small fort, and the Spanish abandoned it soon after completing it. The Dutch took possession, but they handed it over to their ally, Ternate’s sultan for use as his personal fortified palace. It seems he made some alterations to suit his own tastes, which gives the surviving structure a refreshing local flavour setting it apart from all other Spice Forts.
Being very close to Ternate city, it is often visited and some effort has gone into landscaping the grounds, though the concrete-heavy refurbishment lacks much grace. Still, it gives a great view from its east-facing gun platform, across to the wide, wild coast of Halmahera, with the stratovolcano at Jailolo directly to the north and 30 kilometres distant.
Fort Tohula, Tidore
An artist’s impression of Fort Tohula in all its might. This is how it would have looked around 1620, soon after completion. It was the Spanish headquarters on Tidore, one of the major clove islands of the Moluccas. Courtesy Lucas Kukler.
My favourite Spice Islands Fort stands on a steep narrow rise, overlooking Soa Siu, main township of Tidore, prominent among the clove islands.
Its remains have been stabilised rather than embellished, for me, adding to its allure. It stands incomplete but evocative, defiant and powerful. The only Spice Islands Fort not to be stormed, surrendered or defeated, this fortress was the Spanish headquarters in the Tidore Sultanate, built from 1611when the Spanish position was under pressure from the VOC throughout the Spiceries. It was abandoned in 1663.
The defences included two massive triangular bastions and a high, round gun platform looking over the approaches to Soa Siu and across the reef-speckled sea to the long rugged lush sweep of Halmahera to the east.
Fort Duurstede, Saparua
A nice view of Duurstede, commanding its little headland, amid beguiling tropical scenery. The fort is located on Saparua Island, one of the Lease Islands, and can be reached by boat from Ambon. The 19 man Dutch garrison, the Administrator and his family were killed when the fort was overrun in a local uprising against Dutch control.
Duurstede is one of those hard-to-get-to forts, but worth the day trip to Saparua from Ambon, if you have the chance. It’s a stunning location, above a sandy beach at the head of a shimmering turquoise bay.
Built in 1691 to replace an earlier work that succumbed to earthquakes, its role was to help cement Dutch control over the Lease Islands–of which Ambon was the principal centre. Its elongated form occupies a tiny headland, built both to deter foreign attackers and intimidate anti-colonial locals.
It had a generally quiet life, except for one interlude that assured its place in history. In 1817 the Dutch-held fort was stormed by local rebel Pattimura, who put all to the sword. The wider uprising he hoped for did not eventuate, the fort was retaken and Pattimura was captured and executed at Fort Victoria in Ambon.
Pattimura remains highly regarded in Indonesia, and a wander through his fort is an opportunity to reflect on the era when Europeans crossed the world’s oceans in their lust for spices, and how the people of the islands saw them as invaders and plunderers.
