Fort Victoria

Fort Victoria is the oldest surviving Portuguese fort in Ambon and the centre of the city's colonial history. Built by the Portuguese in 1575, it was captured by the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in 1605 and expanded into the administrative heart of their spice empire in the Maluku archipelago.

The fort stands in the Sirimau district at the centre of Ambon city. Inside you can see old cannons, colonial-era stonework, and a small museum with objects from the fort's history. The surrounding streets have a layered feel — old Dutch-era buildings alongside newer construction, with the bay visible from the fort's walls. It is not a dramatic ruin but a working historical site with genuine depth if you know the stories attached to it.

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A story
In February 1623, Dutch officers at Fort Victoria summoned ten English East India Company merchants, accused them of plotting to seize the fort, and had them tortured and executed. The Amboyna Massacre, as it became known in England, caused an international crisis and shaped the relationship between the two countries for decades. It ended English ambitions in the Spice Islands and left the Dutch monopoly over cloves and nutmeg essentially unchallenged for the next century.