Pattimura: The Captain of Maluku

In May 1817, on the small spice island of Saparua, a former sergeant of the British colonial army named Thomas Matulessy — Kapitan Pattimura — stormed Fort Duurstede and raised the flag of revolt against the returning Dutch. For seven months Maluku burned. Betrayed and hanged that December, he became the eternal symbol of eastern Indonesia's defiance. This is his story: the man, the rising, and the memory that still names universities, airports, and warships.