Tidore is an island and town in the Maluku Islands of eastern Indonesia, just west of the larger island of Halmahera. In the pre-colonial era, Tidore was a major regional political and economic power, and a fierce rival of nearby Ternate, just to the north.

The sultans of Tidore ruled most of southern Halmahera, and, at times, controlled Buru, Ambon and many of the islands off the coast of Papua. Tidore established a loose alliance with the Spanish in the sixteenth century, and Spain had a minor fort on the island. While there was much mutual distrust between the Tidorese and the Spaniards, for Tidore the Spanish presence was helpful in resisting incursions by their enemy Ternate, as well as the Dutch forces that had a base on that island.

As Spanish strength in the region diminished before their eventual withdrawal from the region in 1660s, Tidore became one of the most independent kingdoms in the region, resisting direct control by Dutch East India Company (VOC). Particularly under Sultan Saifuddin (r. 1657-1689), the Tidore court was skilled at using Dutch payment for spices for gifts to strengthen traditional ties with Tidore's traditional periphery. As a result he was widely respected by many local populations, and had little need to call on the Dutch for military help in governing the kingdom, as Ternate frequently did.

Tidore remained an independent kingdom, albeit with frequent Dutch interference, until the late eighteenth century. Like Ternate, Tidore allowed the Dutch spice eradication program (exterpatie) to proceed in its territories. This program, indended to strengthen the Dutch spice monopoly by limiting production to a few places, impoverished Tidore and weakened its control over its periphery.

References

• Andaya, Leonard Y. 1993. The world of Maluku: eastern Indonesia in the early modern period. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 0-8248-1490-8.