Short answers, pulled from the story.
The historical term East Indies refers to non-Burmese Southeast Asia. It originally described lands in the Eastern Hemisphere from India to New Guinea before geographers narrowed the definition to focus specifically on the Malay Archipelago including Borneo and New Guinea.
Portuguese explorers coined the term Indies during the Age of Discovery after discovering the Cape Route around Africa. Vasco da Gama opened direct sea routes to the Indian Ocean region by 1498 following expeditions that began in the final three years of the fifteenth century.
Spanish rule lasted exactly 333 years before American conquest ended Philippine sovereignty in 1898. The Spanish East Indies included territories stretching from Guam to the Philippines proper under Madrid's administration throughout this period.
Austronesian peoples first expanded outward from Taiwan during prehistoric times before spreading across the Pacific islands. These communities settled primarily along coastal trading hubs throughout the Malay Archipelago alongside Han Chinese migrants known locally as Peranakans or Straits Chinese.
Cotton indigo and spices formed the backbone of global commerce from the seventeenth century onward. Dutch monopolies controlled nutmeg cloves and mace production in the Banda Islands for over a century while British exports moved millions of pounds worth of textiles annually from Bengal to Europe.