The Maluku Wars: Clove, Nutmeg, and Empire

The Rise of Colonialism: How Europe Divided the World — Fexingo History · May 10, 2026 · 6m · transcript

Long before the Dutch and English arrived in Southeast Asia, the Portuguese sought to control the trade in cloves, nutmeg, and mace from the Maluku Islands—the legendary Spice Islands. In Episode 34 of The Rise of Colonialism, we explore the violent struggle that erupted between the Portuguese, the sultanates of Ternate and Tidore, and eventually the Spanish, who arrived from the Philippines. We meet Sultan Hairun of Ternate, who resisted Portuguese demands for a monopoly, and his son Sultan Baabullah, who expelled the Portuguese from the islands in 1575. We examine the role of the Malay…