Governorate of Ambon

Coordinates: 3°40′0″S 128°10′0″E / 3.66667°S 128.16667°E / -3.66667; 128.16667
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Governorate of Ambon
Gouvernement Amboyna
1605–1796
Flag of Ambon
Flag
Coat of arms of Ambon
Coat of arms
Dutch colony
CapitalFort Victoria
Common languagesDutch
Governor 
• 1605–1611
Frederick de Houtman
• 1618–1625
Herman van Speult
• 1701–1706
Balthasar Coyett
• 1724–1729
Stephanus Versluys
• 1794–1796
Alexander Cornabé
Historical eraImperialism
22 February 1605
• British takeover
1796
Preceded by		 Succeeded by
Portuguese Empire
Bencoolen

Ambon was a

staple port for the Dutch East India Company in Asia. The island was the world center of clove
production until the 19th century. The Dutch prohibited the rearing of the clove-tree in all the other islands subject to their rule, in order to secure the monopoly to Ambon.

History

Bastion of Fort Victoria

In 1513, the

Portugis however was spoken well into the 19th century and many families still have Portuguese names and claim Portuguese ancestry.[3]

The Portuguese were dispossessed by the Dutch on 22 February 1605, when Steven van der Hagen took over Fort Victoria without a single shot. Ambon was the headquarters of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) from 1610 to 1619 until the founding of Batavia, now Jakarta, by the Dutch.[4] Around 1615, the English founded a settlement on the island at Cambello, which lasted until 1623.

Amboyna massacre

In 1623, the Dutch uncovered a plot by VOC-employed Japanese mercenary soldiers to seize Fort Victoria and assassinate the governor, purportedly in conspiracy with the English merchants. During questioning most suspects were

First Anglo-Dutch war (in 1652) and the Second Anglo-Dutch War (in 1665),[6] while John Dryden produced his tragedy Amboyna; or the Cruelties of the Dutch to the English Merchants on request of one of the English negotiators of the Secret Treaty of Dover during the Third Anglo-Dutch War.[7] The 17th-century propaganda of a deliberate and gruesome slaughter of innocent merchants surfaces even in modern popular historical narratives.[8]

Capture by the British

Further information: Invasion of the Spice Islands

In 1795, the

Peace of Amiens in 1802, but the Dutch East India Company had been nationalized in the meantime, which meant that Ambon become a colony of the Batavian Republic and later the Kingdom of Holland
.

Ambon was retaken by the British in 1810, but once more restored to the Dutch by virtue of the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1814. It then remained, as part of the Dutch East Indies, a colony of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, until in 1949 Maluku was transferred to Indonesia, under agreements that Moluccans could choose or opt out of the new country. After a proclamation of independence the Moluccan islands were invaded by the Indonesian army in 1950 during the Invasion of Ambon.

List of governors

See also

References

  1. ^ "Amboina". De VOC site. Retrieved 4 February 2013.
  2. ^ Ricklefs 1999, p. 25.
  3. ISBN 9780868405988
    .
  4. ^ Ricklefs 1999, p. 28.
  5. ^ Shorto, R., The Island at the Center of the World. Doubleday 2004, p. 72
  6. ISBN 0-521-80408-6
    , p. 297
  7. ISBN 0-521-53144-6
    , p. 141
  8. ISBN 0-340-69676-1

Sources

3°40′0″S 128°10′0″E / 3.66667°S 128.16667°E / -3.66667; 128.16667

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