Because of its reputation for inaccessibility, Seram was for centuries the refuge of sizeable communities of pirates, dissidents and separatists groups from neighbouring islands who brought in new knowledge and goods. ^[4] Traders and migrants from Sulawesi and Java also settled along the coasts. In the second half of the 20th century, they were joined by sizeable communities of transmigrants and resettled families.

In the 1990s, the majority of the population was concentrated in the low hills and along the coast but a handful of villages still clung to their ancient highland traditional territories. ^[5] The trend to ‘modernity’ promoted an ideology of uniformity, but the mountain and coastal populations lived in different environments and had distinct modes of subsistence, social organisation and cultural values. Mountain groups were essentially forest farmers who hunted and gathered forest products to complement their diets or to trade at the coast. The diverse populations established along the coasts and in the low hills were involved in sedentary agriculture, fishing, trade, the plywood industry, or belonged to the sizeable military and administration posts established there. With the influx of migrants, the coastal population was, in majority, Muslim with interspersed Christian settlements. The highlanders, converted by the Dutch-Ambonese Protestant mission at the beginning of the 20th century, were all registered as Christians. In times of peace, many highlanders journeyed to the coast where education, health care, jobs and commerce were centralised.

The history of Seram is difficult to retrace. Although at the geographical centre of the Moluccas and the largest island of its archipelago, Seram holds a peripheral position in the official history of the region. The groups living inland can seldom trace their own history back more than 100 years. In pre-colonial times, West Seram was a sparsely populated area, located at the periphery of a large trading operation controlled by the north Moluccan sultanates. At least since the 14th century, the Ternatan, Bacanese and Tidorese sultanates had established alliances with coastal groups in the north and the south. West Seram, a halt along the trading routes, became a small producer of cloves (mainly on the peninsula of Huamual) and an exporter of sago. In the first half of the 17th century, Luhu, a vassal of Tidore on Huamual, became a prominent trading centre and a producer of cloves. ^[6] No domain on Seram, however, could establish a realm of influence powerful enough to become a salient political centre in the Moluccas.

Between the 17th and the 19th century, the intervention of the Dutch East Indies Company (VOC) and the reorganisation implemented by the colonial administration progressively altered the situation on the coasts of Seram. Meanwhile, the more isolated western highlands retained most of their territorial and political autonomy until the end of the 19th century. Early reports sketch small independent domains with loose and changing alliances. Coastal and mountain communities were known to trade and intermarry but a general state of tension, enmity and warfare was reported between them. Indeed, the oral traditions of the Alune and Wemale who still occupy the western highlands recall numerous movements of population seeking land in the mountains as well as on the coast or migrating because of quarrels, illnesses or warfare. Such a state of affairs justified the intensive military ‘pacification’ campaigns and the administrative re-configuration of the highlands that took place in the early 20th century and continued during the post-colonial era.

As a result of this assimilation within the colonial and later national administrations, the region has been, during the past 100 years, subjected to ruthless and erratic changes. For the past four or five generations, its indigenous people have been implicated in warfare, guerilla activities and military occupation, and submitted to drastic ‘modernisation’ and relocation policies. They have also been confronted by intense deforestation of their environment and a massive influx of transmigrants. Since 1999, many more communities, old and new, have been displaced or dismembered. ^[7]