Bacan Islands


The Bacan Islands, formerly also known as the Bachans, Bachians, and Batchians, are a group of islands in the Moluccas in Indonesia. They are mountainous and forested, lying south of Ternate and southwest of Halmahera. The islands are administered by the South Halmahera Regency of North Maluku Province. They formerly constituted the Sultanate of Bacan.
Bacan, formerly also known as Bachian or Batchian, is the group's largest island. Bacan Island in 2020 included about 82,387 people, of whom 7,073 lived in the capital Labuha; it is subdivided into seven districts. The second and third-largest islands are Kasiruta and Mandioli. Kasiruta and Mandioli each have over 11,000 inhabitants, and each is subdivided into two districts. A fourth island, Batang Lomang, forms a twelfth district within the group. There are dozens of smaller islands in the group, which had a total population of 84,075 at the 2010 Census, but by the 2020 Census had risen to 111,517. The official estimate as at mid-2023 was 117,986.

Administration

The group is divided into twelve administrative districts out of the thirty districts within South Halmahera Regency. They are tabulated below with their areas and their populations at the 2010 Census and 2020 Census, together with the official estimate for mid 2023. The table also includes the number of administrative villages in each district and its post code.
Kode
Wilayah		NameEnglish nameArea
in
km2		Popn
census
2010		Popn
census
2020		Popn
estimate
mid 2023		Admin.
centre		No.
of
villages		No.
of
islands		Post
code		Island
or group
82.04.21Bacan Timur SelatanSoutheast Bacan321.136,4607,4938,352Wayaua7197791Bacan Island
82.04.22Bacan Timur TengahEast Central Bacan276.285,2296,1586,495Bibinoi7297791Bacan Island
82.04.07Bacan TimurEast Bacan463.509,05112,79413,649Babang10897791Bacan Island
82.04.17Bacan SelatanSouth Bacan169.2113,26519,56021,153Mandaong10-97791Bacan Island
82.04.08Bacan304.6919,09227,04528,468Labuha14397791Bacan Island
82.04.14Bacan Barat UtaraNorthwest Bacan264.944,0965,0105,099Yaba8197791Bacan Island
82.04.09Bacan BaratWest Bacan180.783,5494,3274,665Indari74997791Bacan Island
82.04.18Batang Lomang Batang Lomang Islands55.816,1777,6557,858Bajo81397790Batang Lomang Islands
82.04.19Mandioli SelatanSouth Mandioli138.815,7986,9367,237Jiko6-97791Mandioli
82.04.20Mandioli UtaraNorth Mandioli96.792,9903,8093,880Indong6797791 Mandioli
82.04.16Kasiruta TimurEast Kasiruta247.933,8474,8655,062Loleo Jaya8697790Kasiruta
82.04.15Kasiruta Barat West Kasiruta272.984,5215,8655,968Palamea102597790Kasiruta

Notes: formally called Kepulauan Batanglomang; situated between Bacan and Mandioli Islands.
except for Bobo desa, which has a postcode of 97792.
includes Lata Lata Island, located to the northwest of Kasiruta Island, and comprising two desa - Lata Lata and Sidanga.
Bacan Island's seven districts comprise 63 villages as follows: Bacan Timur Selatan - Liaro, Pigaraja, Silang, Tabajaya, Tabangame, Wayakuba and Wayaua. Batan Timur Tengah - Bibinoi, Songa, Tabapoma, Tawa, Tomara, Tutupa and Wayatim. Bacan Timur - Babang, Bori, Goro-Goro, Kaireu, Nyonyifi, Sabatang, Sali Kecil, Sayoang, Timlonga and Wayamiga. Bacan Selatan - Gandasuli, Kampung Makian, Kubung, Kupal, Mandaong, Panamboang, Papaloang, Sawadai, Tembal and Tuokona. Bacan - Amasing Kali, Amasing Kota, Amasing Kota Barat, Amasing Kota Utara, Awanggoa, Belang Belang, Hidayat, Indomut, Kaputusan, Labuha, Marabose, Suma Tinggi, Sumae and Tomori. Bacan Barat Utara - Geti Baru, Geti Lama, Gilalang, Jojame, Lolarogurua, Nusa Babullah, Sidopo and Yaba. Bacan Barat - Indari, Kokotu, Kusubibi, Nang, Nondang, Tawabi and Wiring.
Batang Lomang's single district comprises 8 villages as follows: Bajo, Batutaga, Kampung Baru, Paisumbaos, Prapakanda, Sawangakar, Tanjung Obit and Toin.
Mandioli's two districts comprise 12 villages as follows: Mandioli Selatan - Bahu, Galala, Jiko, Lele, Tabalema and Yoyok. Mandioli Utara - Akedabo, Bobo, Indong, Leleongusu, Pelita and Waya.
Kasiruta's two districts comprise 18 villages, listed as follows with their populations in mid 2022: Kasirutu Barat - Kakupang, Marikapal, Bisori, Doko, Palamea, Arumamang, Lata Lata, Sidanga, Sengga Baru and Imbu Imbu. Kasirutu Timur - Tawa Bacan Barat, Maritosa, Loleo Jaya, Kou Balabala, Loleo Mekar, Kasiruta Dalam, Jeret and Tutuhu.

History

From early times, Bacan was one of the four kingdoms of Maluku together with Ternate, Tidore and Jailolo. The ruling elite converted to Islam in about the late 15th century. The sultan at first resided on Kasiruta Island and had political and commercial influence in northern Ceram and the Papuan Islands. In 1513, the first Portuguese trading fleet to reach the Moluccas set up a trading post on Bacan which at the time was tied to the Sultan of Ternate by dynastic marriages. The fleet's commander, Captain Antonio de Miranda Azevedo, left seven men on Bacan to buy cloves for the following year's expedition. Their arrogant behaviour and reported bad treatment of Bacan women led to their murder. As Ternate did not have enough stock, the ship for which the men had stayed to prepare was used by the Sultan of Ternate to fill Ferdinand Magellan's last ship, which was the first ship to circumnavigate the world. A slave and two birds of paradise were given to the ship by Bacan. Bacan became a place of refuge for rebellious Ternatans. The Portuguese sent a punitive expedition against Bacan but it failed, and instead the Portuguese Governor Galvão challenged Bacan's sultan to a duel to determine who was to be subservient to whom. The challenge was accepted but the duel never took place.
In 1557, Father Antonio Vaz converted Bacan's sultan and court members to Catholicism. The king was married to a daughter of Sultan Hairun of Ternate. Fleets from Ternate invaded the islands in 1570 and later and the king apostatized in 1575, though he was nevertheless poisoned in 1578. A community of Christians remained and were later joined by coreligionists from Tobelo and Ambon. A small Roman Catholic hospital was built by an elderly Dutch nun. Today, Protestants significantly outnumber Catholics. During the mid-19th century Moluccan travels of British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace, Christians in the Moluccas were called Orang Sirani, a term regularly applied to locals of European ancestry in the Malay Archipelago, thought to have been descended from the Portuguese. They had dressed in white and black and Wallace reports they dance "quadrilles, waltzes, polkas, and mazurkas with great vigour and much skill".
Following the 1575 Ternatan invasion, Bacan become subservient to Ternate for periods, which was sealed through marriages. A sister and a daughter of Sultan Saidi Berkat of Ternate married Bacan rulers in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. A Spanish fort was built in 1606. By this time the seat of the sultan had been moved from Kasiruta to Bacan Island. Once the Dutch East India Company established hegemony in 1609, the Netherlands' power on Bacan was based in Fort Barnaveld.
In 1705, the sergeant in charge of the fort and the sultan captured the English explorer William Dampier, seized his ship, looted its cargo, and threatened all aboard with execution. It is thought that this was in response to Dampier violating the trade monopoly. When the sergeant's Dutch superiors heard of the incident, Dampier was released, his ship restored and the English provided with sumptuous hospitality in Ternate. The chief town at the time, also known as Bachian, was Amasing or Amasingkota on the island's isthmus.
Ternate and Bacan were the only places in the northern Moluccas that had a Dutch curriculum school and a Protestant minister in the late 19th century. The majority of Bacan's Roman Catholics became Protestants during the Dutch colonial period. These Sirani wore semi-European dress and celebrated Sundays with dancing and music. The was treated as a Dutch protectorate; it was replaced by a council of chiefs under a Dutch contrôleur in 1889. A sultan with much reduced powers was eventually appointed in 1900. What independence remained was lost with the Japanese occupation during and Indonesian independence after World War II. The most significant modern town is Labuha on the west coast. Bacan has more recently been in the news due to violence between Christian and Muslim inhabitants of the island.