On March 21st of last year, the Netherlands’ Malukan community commemorated the 70th anniversary of the arrival in the port of Rotterdam of the Kota Inten, the first of a series of ships carrying Malukan soldiers who served in the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army (KNIL) and their families to the Netherlands. Television programs, news... Continue Reading →
An Ambonese Account on the Arrival of the Portuguese
There are relatively few local non-European written sources on the history of Maluku and Ambon in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that themselves can be traced to those centuries. The seventeenth century Malay-language Hikayat Tanah Hitu written by the Hituese imam Rijali is one of those few written sources. Composed while Rijali was in exile... Continue Reading →