Sultanate of Tidore

The Sultanate of Tidore was a spice-trading state in the Maluku Islands of eastern Indonesia, centred on the volcanic island of Tidore and ruled by a kolano who later took the title of sultan. Local genealogies trace its kings to the eleventh century, but firm evidence begins in the late fifteenth, when Islam became the court religion under Sultan Jamaluddin. Tidore's clove and nutmeg trade made it a permanent rival of neighbouring Ternate; the two sultanates divided the region's allegiances and competed for influence over Halmahera, Seram and the Papuan islands. After Portuguese and Spanish fleets reached the Moluccas in the early sixteenth century, Tidore usually leaned toward Spain while Ternate sided first with Portugal and then with the Dutch. The Dutch East India Company took Ambon in 1605 and steadily built forts in the islands. Under Sultan Saifuddin, who ruled from 1657 to 1687, Tidore preserved considerable independence and used Dutch payments to sustain its network of tributaries. A treaty of 1780 reduced the sultanate to a vassal, and Sultan Nuku's rebellion, allied with the British, briefly restored its freedom before Dutch rule closed in again. The colonial government abolished the sultan's title in 1905; later titular sultans have revived the office as a cultural institution.