Third time is indeed the charm, as I was compiling an answer to the second time you asked this when the third time popped up, so I have something almost ready to go!

What were the Spice Islands?

There were much fewer ‘Spice Islands’ than the present-day provinces of Maluku and North Maluku might imply. There were ten ‘Spice Islands’ divided into 2 main groups:

1. What was known as the Moluccas in the 16th century: the 5 small islands of Ternate, Tidore, Makian, Motir and Bacan. At the time, these 5 islands were the only places in the world where cloves were cultivated (although they probably grew wild elsewhere).
2. South of the Moluccas is the island of Seram, and south of Seram is the 2nd group of islands: the tiny Banda Islands of which Banda, Neira, Ai, Run and Rozengain were the only places in the world where nutmeg and mace were cultivated.

As with much of Southeast Asia, we don’t know too much about the pre-colonial Spice Islands. What we do know comes from writings by early Europeans visitors to the region, as well as archaeological work. There are also a couple of mentions in Chinese and Majapahit writings. Thus, this answer is unavoidably a bit of a mishmash of random facts.

Political structure

By the time the Europeans arrived in the early 16th century, the Spice Islands were considered near the eastern border of the ‘Malay World’ that stretched from Aceh and the Strait of Malacca in the west to Papua in the east. The islands were influenced by Islam and other aspects of Malay culture. While the islanders had their own language, Malay was spoken as a lingua franca, not only for trade but also for diplomacy, as can be seen from letters written in the name of Sultan Abu Hayat of Ternate (then aged about 7) to the King of Portugal in the early 1520s.

These were written on yellow paper, as was the practice of Malay royalty, and, interestingly, in Malay. Though the handwriting is excellent, implying that they were written by professional scribes, they are full of inconsistencies in spelling, grammatical errors and lapses into the syntax of the local language of Ternate. It is clear that Malay was not the first language of either leader or their people, which makes it a particularly interesting choice of language. We can conclude that Malay was seen as the proper language in which to conduct royal correspondence and diplomatic exchanges, while day-to-day communication was carried out in a different language.

When the first Europeans arrived, the Moluccas was home to four Sultanates - Jailolo, Bacan, Tidore and Ternate. The latter two were the more powerful of the four and had apparently been in a state of constant rivalry for over a hundred years. Local legends claimed that the Ternate had been under the rule of a single leader since the mid 13th century, but this has yet to be proven.

What we do know about the political structure of these Sultanates is that they were run similarly to other polities in Southeast Asia, in that the Sultan did not have much, or any, administrative power outside his own administrative district. Rather, he bound various leaders in his domain to him through marriage alliances, promises of protection and other means of diplomacy in a form of vassalage (you can read more about Southeast Asian vassalage here).

For many years, the Sultans of Ternate claimed suzerainty over the Banda Islands. The Banda Islands seemed to treat this relationship in true Southeast Asian fashion, sending tribute and acceding to requests when the Sultan was in a position to enforce his overlordship, and pretty much ignoring him when he wasn’t.

The Banda Islands themselves had no one leader, instead, each island was home to several communities, each of which was led by an orang kaya (literally, “rich man” in Malay). These orang kaya controlled the harvesting and export of nutmeg and cloves. The orang kaya were more than happy to fight each other and jostle for greater control of manpower and resources. Dutch and English descriptions from the first decade of the 17th century describe violent battles between two alliances of villages (Nera, Lonthior, Ay and Rhun vs Labbetacca, Wayer and Kumbir) in Banda. Dutch observers wrote that the conflict was due to

… the cutting down of certain trees many years since, in the territory of Nera, by the men of Labetacke whence they since kill one another like dogs.

Amazingly, they also seem to have been able to come together to deal with outsiders in matters of trade even while in violent conflict over other matters. When the Portuguese, English and Dutch tried to negotiate trade agreements, for example, the orang kaya spoke with one voice, often through a letter signed by all of them. They steadfastly refused to grant a monopoly to any buyer. They also collectively set the relative prices of nutmeg and mace - when the price of mace started to far outstrip that of nutmeg, the orang kaya mandated that any sale of mace had to include seven times the amount of nutmeg. While even the Sultanates of the Moluccas competed with each other to gain the favour of various European powers, the Banda Islands could not be divided and conquered by outsiders.

This implies not just that the orang kaya must have had pretty good economic sense, but also that there must have been some sort of mechanism like a regular council with laws or traditions that allowed the orang kaya to organise and arrive at consensus. The location of this council is mentioned in the logbooks of the Dutch ship Gelderland which was in Banda from April until June 1602. Its map singles out one particular settlement and notes that this is

A small town Ortatton where the general county meetings are held.

Its journals, corroborated by other historical accounts, mention that this is the place the orang kayas would gather to discuss intervillage issues. It also seems that this was an important trading settlement as it had its own shahbandar (harbour master).

(Continued in reply)