Fort Oranye

Fort Oranje is a 17th-century Dutch fort located at the center of Ternate City on the island of Ternate, one of the Moluccas in Indonesia. The fort is the largest in Ternate Island. Fort Oranje was once the capital of Dutch East India Company's trade empire in Asia until it was moved to Batavia.

Ternate is a small volcanic island located in Maluku Islands (The Moluccas). It was the center of the powerful former Sultanate of Ternate. The island was once the world's single major producer of cloves, a commodity which allowed the Sultanate of Ternate to become amongst the most powerful Sultanate in the Indonesian region. The sultans of Ternate was in a continuously conflict with the nearby Sultanate of Tidore. At the end of the 15th century, the Ternatese has adopted Islam as their official religion, which was mainly influenced from the Javanese.

The first Europeans to arrive in Ternate were the expedition team led by Francisco Serrão. Serrão had been shipwrecked near Ceram and was rescued by local inhabitants. Informed by the local Ternatese, the Sultan brought the survivors to Ternate in 1512 and gave permission to the Portuguese to build a fort. Construction of the fort began in 1522, however relationship between the Portuguese and the Sultan was not good since the beginning of the treaty and deteriorated over time. Following the murder of Sultan Hairun at the hands of the Portuguese, the Ternatese expelled the Portuguese in 1575 after a five-year siege. European power in the region was weak and Ternate became an expanding, fiercely Islamic and anti-Portuguese state under the rule of Sultan Baab Ullah (r. 1570–1583) and his son Sultan Said.

In 1599 two Dutch ships led by Commander arrived in Ternate. In 1605 the VOC succeeded in driving the Portuguese out of the Ternate Island but in 1606 the Spanish troops captured the former Portuguese fort and deported the Sultan and his entourage to Manila. In 1607, a VOC admiral Cornelis Matelief de Jonge helped the Sultan of Ternate to expel the Spanish from Ternate. de Jonge succeed in helping the Ternatese, so the Sultanate of Ternate gave permission for the VOC for the spice trade monopoly and allowed the VOC to establish a fort. This new fort, known as Fort Malay, was established on top of an undated Malay Sultan's fortress that has been damaged. In 1609, the first Dutch authority in Ternate Paul van Carden renamed the fort into Fort Oranje, after the House of Orange. Despite of this, the name Fort Malay remained in use after several years later.

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