The Banda Islands is a small group of ten islands in the centre of the Banda Sea. Gunung Api Island (Fire Mountain) is a volcanic island that is separated by about 275 meters from Banda Neira Island to its east and about 830 meters from Banda Besar (the largest island of the group) to its south. The study site was located in the narrow channel between Gunung Api and Banda Neira. The total population of the islands was 15,000 in 1995 according to a group of British scientists. Two thirds live on the capital island of Banda Neira.
Gunung Api erupted violently in May 1988, during which the island’s population of 2,000 were evacuated, as were neighbouring islands. Three people were killed but the rich soil has since lured many back to the slopes of the mountain. Two major lava flows are very evident, reaching to the waterfront. Our study site was just to the side of one of these lava flows.
History:
The Banda Islands may be small but their size masks the place they have played in world history. Until the 19th century, the Banda Islands were the world’s only source of nutmeg and mace – extremely valuable for their uses in medicine, flavouring and preserving. First the Chinese and then the Arab traders arrived the shores of the Banda Islands – the first to trade the spices on distant lands. In the early 16th Century, the Portuguese then arrived Banda after conquering the Malacca spice trading hub and commenced a relatively peaceful trading with the Bandanese until the Dutch arrived in 1599. At the turn of the century, the Dutch seized control of the nutmeg/mace plantations, built forts to secure their holding from the Portuguese, and formed the Dutch East Indies Company that sold nutmeg at a price as valuable as gold in the European marketplace.
Throughout the next two centuries, a struggle over the control of the Banda Islands and its valuable nutmeg continued between the people of Banda, the Dutch and the English. A turning point occurred in the 1620s when the Dutch implemented a treaty impossible for the Bandanese to uphold, then carried out a massacre of nearly the entire population, reducing it from 3,843 to approximately 500. They subsequently imported slaves to work the nutmeg plantations they had established along with freemen who also joined the business from Mozambique, the Middle East, Malaysia, Melanesia, China, Japan, Bengal, India and Burma.
For two hundred years, nutmeg was sold around the world almost exclusively by the Dutch East Indies Company. In 1735, a surplus of over a million pounds of nutmeg was destroyed in order to keep prices high. In 1667 the Dutch traded Manhattan Island (on the other side of the world) to the British for Run Island so they could have complete control over all the Banda Islands. Around this time, the English transferred the plants to create nutmeg plantations in Ceylon, Benkulu and Penang and the French manned plantations in Madagascar and Zanzibar. By the end of the 18th century, the East Indies Company was almost bankrupt and the Dutch monopoly on nutmeg finally came to an end.In the early 20th century, as the Indonesian nationalist movement took hold, the Dutch used Banda as a holding post for anti-colonialists including Mohammed Hatta who was to become Vice-President of independent Indonesia and Sutan Sjahrir who was to become its Prime Minister. While in Banda they befriended the family of Seyid Abdullah Baadilla, Patriarch of the Arab community. The King of Banda, Des Alwi, was one of his children. He grew up with the independence leaders and became one of the players in the newly formed Indonesia. Des Alwi returned to Banda while we were there.
Reef topography:
The reef beneath the slopes of Gunung Api comprises a shallow shelf (usually less than two metres) which extends into the bay before sloping gradually to a depth of approximately 20-30 metres. This then falls off into the deep bay with a maximum depth of approximately 100 metres. The reef is truncated on both northern and eastern edges by the lava flows from Api’s eruption in 1988.
Source from www.pcrf.org, Picture from www.indonesialogue.com
