A Tale of Run Island
The story of a remote island that does not appear in any Indonesian history book.
Marcus Garvey once said that ‘a people without the knowledge of their past, origin, and culture is like a tree without roots’.
History plays important roles in shaping the current world. It was the previous chapter of the world that gives us profound insight about what had happened in the past, which become the basic foundation of modern age civilization. I was reading a New York Times weekend short stories called ‘a Day Boy for the Night Girl’ when I accidentally stumbled on Amitav Ghosh’s article titled ‘Clove Trees the Color of Ash’. The proponent wrote about the old age of globalization, which three giant countries -Spain, British, and Dutch- were engaged in spice trade feuds circa 16th to 17th century.
The western term of ‘discovery’ — the obnoxious notion that a white man, who had sailed across the ocean, could legally claim ownership of an island, as if it had no local inhabitants — write itself in the history of the world. The most interesting story is the tale of Run Island. Okay, this is the part when you probably ask, “Where in the world is Run island?” or “Does it important to know that island?”. The answer lies beneath you.
As you can see, Run Island is located on the farthest west of Banda and Naira Island (please do not confuse with the Indonesian folk duo, Banda Neira — they got very good music however. Check this out!—). The closest island to Run island is Ai island. Run island was one of the prominent region to spice trade. The spice production was so prolific in Run island, where nutmeg tree — which nerdly called Mystica fragrans — , had produced valuable spices such as nutmeg and mace. Also, the most important spices, clove, which grown from Syzygium aromaticum, is commonly found in Run island. Tragically, local inhabitants was not able to take the advantage of the natural resources around them.
At that time, spice trade became the equivalent of modern day oil and gas commodities. However, the atrocities of the avaricious Dutch colonialism, who had slaughtered 15,000 inhabitants — a vile act that the international law of genocide could not settled the problem— had brought its natural gifts to such a cataclysmic event. Initially, Run island was under the authority of the British. However, the Dutch, wrote Amitav, were so eager that they made an agreement with the British to give up their claim on Run island. In return, the Dutch would pass their right to an island in the far east of the world, Manhattan, to British government. Wait a minute. Is that the Manhattan in New York? The Manhattan, where Martin Scorsese directed Leonardo diCaprio on Gangs of New York? Yup. The Dutch was willing to trade Manhattan to Run Island. The question is why would they did that? And the second question is why are these story was not included in Indonesian history book?
To answer that question we have to untangled the history of Run island:
- British expedition, under the flag of English East India Company, first discovered the island in 1603 under the command of James Lancaster and co.
- On 1616, Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie, which notoriously abbreviated as VOC) had attempted to siege the island. The siege lasted four years.
- On 1652–1654, the first Anglo-Dutch war occurred between England & Netherlands. It was resolved by the Treaty of Westminster on 5/15 April 1654. The ramifications for the Dutch was to gave Run Island to the British. However, the Dutch resisted.
- It was the Treaty of Breda, a resolution for the second Anglo-Dutch War of 1665–1667, that had prominent impact on history. Run island was given by the British to the Dutch and in return, the Englishman took the island of Manhattan. That’s when the Duke of York change the city name from New Amsterdam to New York, hence the name of the busiest city in the world these days. It explains why it wasn’t named New Yorke, which taken from Radiohead frontman. (see this article for more information).
Could you imagine if the Dutch had not given Manhattan to the British? It would create a ripple effect to the whole world, especially to the pop culture history: Sting would write “Englishman in New Amsterdam”. Sinatra would sing the original soundtrack of Martin Scorsese’s movie, “New Amsterdam, New Amsterdam”. Also, the original soundtrack of Arthur, an 1981 movie, would rhymed like this : “When you get caught between the moon and New Amsterdam (?), I know it’s crazy but it’s true…”. Thank god it didn’t occurred. Strange as it may sounds but we have to thank the universe to get the history back in the right line.
However, Run island was not a huge ‘oil reservoir’, which millions of proven hydrocarbons of spices entombed in the island. After VOC published enormous profits on its financial reports during the golden age of Spice Trade, the commodity price of spices were plummeted. The monopoly system used by VOC and the ‘multi-national’ location of spice sites had drove up the overhead costs of the company. Thus, on 1799 VOC went bankrupt.
Run island came back to its original owner, the Indonesian authority, on 17 August 1945. Now it is part of Maluku islands. Ironically, few Indonesian millennials aware about its history. It’s quite sad to see young Indonesian people was struggling to choose the perfect person whom they would like to get married or what kind of traditional cultures should be used in their marriage, while 400 years ago our ancestors were either suffered or slaughtered in defending their island.
