Banda Islands

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BandaBesarIslandSeenFromFortBelgica.JPG
Banda Besar island seen from Fort Belgica

The Banda Islands (Kepulauan Banda in Bahasa Indonesia) are a group of ten small volcanic islands in the Banda Sea, about 140km south of Seram island and about 2000km east of Java, and are part of the Indonesian province of Maluku. The capital city is Bandanaira, located on the island of the same name. They rise out of 4-6 km deep ocean and have a total land area of approximately 180 km². They have a population of about 15,000. Until the mid 19th century the Banda Islands were the only source of the spices nutmeg and mace, produced from the nutmeg tree. The islands are also popular destinations for scuba diving and snorkeling.

The Portuguese navigator Antonio de Abreu was the first European to encounter the islands, in 1512. Controlling production of nutmeg and mace was a major motivation for the Dutch conquest of the islands in the 1621. At the time nutmeg was one of the "fine spices" kept expensive in Europe by disciplined manipulation of the market, but a desirable commodity for Dutch traders in the ports of India as well; economic historian Fernand Braudel notes that India consumed twice as much as Europe (Braudel 1984, p. 219). The lucrative monopoly over supply was ruthlessly enforced,: the Dutch decimated and displaced the indigenous Bandanese and the islands were subsequently settled by imported slaves, convicts and indentured labourers (to work the nutmeg plantations), as well as in-migrants from elsewhere in Indonesia.

The population of the Banda Islands prior to Dutch conquest is generally estimated to have been around 13-15,000 people, some of whom were Malay and Javanese traders, as well as Chinese and Arabs. The actual numbers of Bandanese who were were killed, forcibly expelled or fled the islands in 1621 remain uncertain. But readings of historical sources suggest around one thousand Bandanese likely survived in the islands, and were spread throughout the nutmeg groves as forced labourers (Hanna 1978, p.54; Loth 1995, p.18). Shipments of surviving Bandanese were also sent to Batavia (Jakarta) to work as slaves in developing the city and its fortress. Some 530 of these individuals were later returned to the islands because of their much-needed expertise in nutmeg cultivation (something sorely lacking among newly-arrived Dutch settlers) (Hanna 1978, p.55; Loth 1995, p.24).


Fort Belgica, one of many forts built by the Dutch East India Company, is one of the largest remaining European forts in Indonesia.

Religious violence, spilling over from intercommunal conflict in Ambon, affected the islands slightly in the late 1990s, damaging the previously prosperous tourism industry.

There are seven inhabited islands and several that are uninhabited. The inhabited islands are:

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Banda Besar volcano in the Banda Islands

Main group:

Some distance to the west:

To the east:

To the southeast:

Others, possibly small and/or uninhabited, are:

Contents
1 Bandanese culture
2 See also
3 External links
4 References

Bandanese culture

Most of the present-day inhabitants of the Banda Islands are descended from migrants and plantation labourers from various parts of Indonesia, as well as from indigenous Bandanese. They have inherited aspects of pre-colonial ritual practices in the Bandas that are highly valued and still performed, giving them a distinct and very local cultural identity.

In addition, Bandanese speak a distinct Malay Dialect which has several features distinguishing it from Ambonese Malay, the better-known and more widespread dialect that forms a lingua franca in central and southeast Maluku. Bandanese Malay is famous in the region for its unique, lilting accent, but it also has a number of locally identifying words in its lexicon, many of them borrowings or loanwords from Dutch.

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BandaVolcanoSeenFromFortBelgica.JPG
Banda Besar volcano seen from Fort Belgica.
Note soldiers at left.

Examples :

Banda Malay shares many Portuguese loanwords with Ambonese Malay not appearing in Indonesia's national language Bahasa Indonesia. But it has comparatively fewer, and they differ in pronunciation.

Examples :

Finally, and most noticeably, Banda Malay uses some distinct pronouns. The most immediately distinguishing is that of the second person singular familiar form of address: pané.

The descendants of some of the Bandanese who fled Dutch conquest in the seventeenth century live in the Kai Islands (Kepulauan Kei) to the east of the Banda group, where a version of the original Banda language is still spoken in the villages of Banda Eli and Banda Elat on Kai Besar Island. While long integrated into Kei Island society, residents of these settlements continue to value the historical origins of their ancestors.

See also

Maluku Islands

External links

  1. Rick van den Broek's site -- http://home.planet.nl/~vdbroeke/ -- including a Dutch talk from 18 June 1994 -- http://home.planet.nl/~vdbroeke/bandalez.htm
  2. Banda Sea Islands moist deciduous forests -- http://www.worldwildlife.org/wildworld/profiles/terrestrial/aa/aa0102_full.html
  3. Municipalities and Districts, Central Maluku -- http://www.petra.ac.id/english/kti/maluku/cities/cent_mal/gen_info.htm
  4. The author Giles Milton's book Nathaniel's Nutmeg: How One Man's Courage Changed the Course of History (Sceptre books, Hodder and Stoughton, London) gives a vivid account of the struggle for possession of the Banda Islands.
  5. Further reading suggestions by the Spice Islands Archaeology Project -- http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Anthropology/SIAP/readings.html

References

See also: Banda Islands, 1512, 18 June, 1990s, 1994, Antonio de Abreu, Bahasa Indonesia, Banda Sea