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The Sultanates of Ternate and Tidore. Ternate and Tidore, two tiny volcanic islands in the northern Moluccas (Maluku, the 'Spice Islands' of eastern Indonesia), were for centuries among the most fought-over specks on earth: they produced nearly all the world's cloves. Their rulers converted to Islam in the 15th century - Ternate's ruler taking the title sultan around the 1480s - and built sea-going sultanates whose fleets and vassal islands stretched across the Moluccas and beyond.
The two sultanates were hereditary rivals. Ternate, the stronger, reached its height under Sultan Baabullah (r. 1570-1583), 'Lord of Seventy-two Islands', whose dominion and trading networks reached from Sulawesi to Papua and whose court received European embassies. Tidore, centered on its mountain capital, drew its strength from Papuan ties and later from alliance with Spain. Between them the twin islands were the eastern anchor of the international spice routes that drew Gujarati, Javanese, Chinese and finally European ships.
The Portuguese came first (1512), building a fort on Ternate and turning alliance into domination - until they murdered Ternate's Sultan Khairun, and his son Baabullah besieged and expelled them in 1575, the first major Asian victory over European power in the region. The Dutch (VOC) followed, allied with Ternate, while Spain backed Tidore from the Philippines; their proxy struggle for the clove monopoly devastated the islands, and Dutch 'extirpation' policies burned clove trees across the Moluccas to control supply.
Spain withdrew in 1663, and the Dutch gradually reduced both sultanates to protected client states. But the sultanates never formally died: the Sultans of Ternate and Tidore retain their palaces and customary standing in Indonesia today - the last living heirs of the spice empire that once drew the world to two small volcanoes.
Britannica: Ternate Island
Britannica: Tidore Island
World History Encyclopedia: European Discovery & Conquest of the Spice Islands