History of Banda Island

hile his second in command Francisco Serrão went ahead towards the Maluku islands, was shipwrecked and ended up in Ternate. Distracted by hostilities elsewhere in the archipelago, such as Ambon and Ternate, the Portuguese did not return until 1529; a Portuguese trader Captain Garcia landed troops in the Bandas. Five of the Banda islands were within gunshot of each other and he realised that a fort on the main island Neira would give him full control of the group. The Bandanese were, however, hostile to such a plan, and their warlike antics were both costly and tiresome to Garcia whose men were attacked when they attempted to build a fort. From then on, the Portuguese were infrequent visitors to the islands preferring to buy their nutmeg from traders in Malacca.

Unlike other eastern Indonesian islands, such as Ambon, Solor, Ternate and Morotai, the Bandanese displayed no enthusiasm for Christianity or the Europeans who brought it in the sixteenth century, and no serious attempt was made to Christianise the Bandanese. Maintaining their independence, the Bandanese never allowed the Portuguese to build a fort or a permanent post in the islands. Ironically though, it was this lack of ports which brought the Dutch to trade at Banda instead of the clove islands of Ternate and Tidore.

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