RUN ISLAND

Run (also known as Pulau Run, Pulo Run, Puloroon, or Rhun[1]) is one of the smallest islands of the Banda Islands, which are a part of the Moluccas, Indonesia. It is about 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) long and less than 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) wide. According to historian John Keay, Run is comparable in its significance in the history of the English overseas possessions as Runnymede is to British constitutional history.

In 1616 England gained control of Run island and started a colony. In the 17th century, Run was of great economic importance because of the value of the spices nutmeg and mace. During the history of the spice trade, sailors of the English East India Company of the second expedition of James Lancaster, John Davis, Sir Henry Middleton and his brother John who stayed in Bantam on Java, first reached the island in 1603 and developed good contacts with the inhabitants.

According to the Treaty of Westminster ending the First Anglo-Dutch War of 1652–1654, Run should have been returned to England. The first attempt in 1660 failed because of formal constraints by the Dutch; after the second attempt in 1665 the English traders were expelled in the same year, and the Dutch destroyed the local nutmeg trees. There are, however, still nutmeg trees growing on Run today.