History of Belu

Sejarah Kabupaten Belu
(Tuesday, 03 July 2007) - Sumbangan dari Admin1 - Terakhir diperbaharui (Saturday, 06 October 2007)


SEJARAH SINGKAT KABUPATEN BELU



A. Gambaran Umum Masyarakat Belu



Ditinjau dari segi Budaya dan Antropologis, penduduk Kabupaten Belu dalam susunan masyarakatnya terbagi atas 4 sub
etnik yang besar yaitu : Ema Tetun, Ema Kemak, dan Ema dawan Manlea. Keempat sub etnik mendiami lokasi – lokasi
dengan karerkteristik tertentu dengan kekhasan penduduk bermayoritas penganut agama Kristen Katolik. Masing –
masing etnik tersebut mempunyai bahasa dan praktek budaya yang saling berbeda satu sama lain dan kesamaan dilain
segi. Kendati demikian masyarakat Belu dapat dengan mudah hidup rukun dikarenakan aspek kesamaan – kesamaan
spesifik. Mata Pencaharian utama adalah bertani yang masih dikerjakan secara ekstensif tradisional.

Dari aspek ekologis, kondisi tanah Belu sangat subur karena selain memiliki lapisan tanah jenis berpasir dan hitam juga
dikondisikan dengan curah hujan yang relative merata sepanjang tahun. Daerah Belu yang subur tersebut membuatnya
potensial untuk dikembangkan menjadi daerah peternakan dan pertanian. Sub sektor perikanan dengan kawasan pantai
yang membentang dari Belu bagian selatan sampai utara turut mempengaruhi pemerataan pekerjaan dan pendapatan.
Selain itu dari sub sektor kehutanan kontribusi yang diperoleh juga signifikan dengan beberapa jenis pohon produktif
seperti cendana, eukaliptus, kayu merah dan jati. Dari sektor dan sub sektor lainnya seperti perdagangan dan jasa,
industri dan lainnya juga memberikan kontribusi yang signifikan terhadap pembentukan PDRB dan peningkatan PAD.



B. Sejarah Singkat Orang Belu



Sesuai berbagai penelitian dan cerita sejarah daerah di Belu, manusia Belu pertama yang mendiami wilayah Belu adalah
“Suku Melus”. Orang Melus di kenal dengan sebutan “Emafatuk oan ai oan”, (manusia penghuni batu dan kayu). Tipe
manusia Melus adalah berpostur kuat, kekar orangnya dan bertubuh pendek. Selain para pendatang, yang menghuni
Belu sebenarnya berasal dari “Sina Mutin Malaka”. Malaka sebagai tanah asal – usul pendatang di Belu yang berlayar
menuju Timor melalui Larantuka. Khusus untuk para pendatang baru yang mendiami daerah Belu terdapat berbagai
versi cerita. Kendati Demikian, intinya bahwa, ada kesamaan universal yang dapat ditarik dari semua informasi dan data.

Ada cerita bahwa ada tiga orang bersaudara dari tanah Malaka yang datang dan tinggal di Belu, bercampur dengan
suku asli Melus. Nama ketiga saudara itu menurut para tetua adat masing – masing daerah berlainan. Dari makoan
Fatuaruin menyebutnya Nekin Mataus (Likusen), Suku Mataus (Sonbay), dan Bara Mataus (Fatuaruin). Sedangkan
Makoan asal Dirma menyebutnya Loro Sankoe (Debuluk, Welakar), Loro Banleo (Dirma, Sanleo) dan Loro Sonbay
(Dawan). Namun menurut beberapa Makoan asal Besikama yang berasal dari Malaka ialah ; Wehali Nain, Wewiku Nain
dan Haitimuk Naik.

Bahwa para pendatang dari Malaka itu bergelar raja atau loro dan memiliki wilayah kekuasaan yang jelas dengan
persekutuan yang akrab dan masyarakatnya. Kedatangan mereka ke tanah Malaka hanya untuk menjalin hubungan
dagang antar daerah di bidang kayu cendana dan hubungan etnis keagamaan.

Sedangkan dari semua pendatang di Belu itu pimpinan dipegang oleh “Maromak Oan” Liurai Nain di Belu bagianh
Selatan. Bahakan menurut para peneliti asing Maromak Oan kekuasaaannya juga merambah sampai sebahagian
daerah Dawan (insana dan Biboki). Dalam melaksanakan tugasnya di belu, maromak Oan memiliki perpanjangantangan
yaitu Wewiku-Wehali dan Haitimuk Nain. Selain juga ada Fatuaruin, Sonabi dan Suai Kamanasa serta Loro Lakekun,
Dirma, Fialaran, maubara, Biboki dan Insana. Maromak Oan sendiri menetap di laran sebagai pusat kekuasaan kerajaan
Wewiku-Wehali.

Para pendatang di belu tersebut, tidak membagi daerah Belu menjadi Selatan dan Utara sebagaimana yang terjadi
sekarang. Menurut para sejarahwan, pembagian Belu menjadi Belu bagian Selatan dan Utara hanyalah merupakan
strategi pemerintah jajahan Belanda untuk mempermudah sistem pengontrolan terhadap masyarakatnya. Dalam
keadaan pemerintahan adapt tersebut muncullah siaran dari pemerintah raja – raja dengan apa yang disebutnya “Zaman
Keemasan Kerajaan”. Apa yang kita catat dan dikenal dalam sejarah daerah Belu adalah adanya kerajaan Wewiku-
Wehali (pusat kekuasaan seluruh Belu). Di Dawan ada kerajaan Sonbay yang berkuasa di daerah Mutis. Daerah Dawan
termasuk Miamafo dan Dubay sekitar 40.000 jiwa masyarakatnya. Menurut penuturan para tetua adat dari Wewiku-
Wehali, untuk mempermudah pengaturan sistem pemerintahan, Sang Maromak Oan mengirim para pembantunya ke
seluruh Belu sebagai Loro dan Liurai.

Tercatat nama – nama pemimpin besar yang dikirim dari Wewiku-Wehali seperti Loro Dirma, Loro Lakekun, Biboki Nain,
Harneno dan Insana Nain serta Nenometan Anas dan Fialaran. Ada juga kerajaan Fialaran di Belu bagian Utara yang
dipimpin Dasi Mau Bauk dengan kaki tangannya seperti Loro Bauho, Lakekun, Naitimu, Asumanu, Lasiolat dan Lidak.
Selain itu ada juga nama seperti Dafala, manleten, Umaklaran Sorbau. Dalam perkembangan pemerintahannya muncul
lagi tiga bersaudara yang ikut memerintah di Utara yaitu Tohe Nain, Maumutin dan Aitoon.

Sesuai pemikiran sejarahwan Belu, perkawinan antara Loro Bauho dan Klusin yang dikenal dengan nama As Tanara
membawahi dasi sanulu yang dikenal sampai sekarang ini yaitu Lasiolat, Asumanu, Lasaka, Dafala, Manukleten, Sobau,
LIdak, Tohe Manumutin, dan Aitoon. Dalam berbagai penuturan di Utara maupun di Selatan terkenal dengan nama
empat jalinan terkait. Di Belu Utara bagian Barat dikenal Umahat, Rin besi hat yaitu Dafala, Manuleten, Umaklaran
Sorbau dibagian Timur ada Asumanu Tohe, Besikama-Lasaen, Umalor-Lawain. Dengan demikian rupanya keempat
http://www.belukab.go.id - Situs Kabupaten Belu Bertenaga by KerSip Open Source Dibuat: 15 July, 2008, 11:33
bersaudara yang satunya menjelma sebagai tak kelihatan itu yang menandai asal – usul pendatang di Belu membaur
dengan penduduk asli Melus yang sudah lama punah.

C. Susunan Strafikasi Masyarakat Belu



Membahas tentang struktur masyarakat tidak lain dari pada mengulas tentang tingkatan – tingkatan dalam masyarakat
yang ada dalam.yang ada dalam suatu komunitas atau persekutuan tertentu. Yang tersusun dalam susunan atau lapisan
– lapisan dalam masyarakat yang disebut stratifikasi sosial. Pembagian dan pembedaan masyarakat Belu dalam kelas –
kelas hirarkis di bawah ini di dasarkan pada turunan/ras yang yang ada sejak penduduk para pendatang sampai dengan
kejayaan zaman kerajaan.

Menurut H.J. Grijzen seperti dikutip dalam tulisan Rm. Florens Maxi Un Bria dalam “ The Way To Happiness Of Belu
People” bahwa masyarakat Belu mengenal klasifikasi masyarakatnya atas 3 (tiga) golongan, yang secara hirarkis terdiri
dari :

- Dasi atau golongan bangsawan yang menempati lapisan terpusat dan dari kelompok inilah terpilih Loro / Liurai / Na’I
yang akan memangku jabatan kepemerintahan secara turun temurun.

- Renu yang tidak lain adalah rakyat jelata yang merdeka

- Ata atau klason yang merupakan golongan hamba sahaya. Mereka yang masuk dalam golongan ini biasanya
merupakan tawanan perang yang dijadikan budak untuk melayani kebutuhan masyarakat golongan renu atau golongan
dasi. Perdagangan budak belian ini sempat menjadi komoditi pada tahun 1892 (pada daerah Jenilu – Atapupu) sampai
pada akhirnya di awal abad 20-an Pemerintah Belanda mengeluarkann “Pax Nederlandica” sehingga perdagangan budak
dihapus.



Pembagian masyarakat Belu sendiri ditinjau dari segi ekonomis terdiri dari klasifikasi “orang berpunya/the haves” (Ema
Mak Soin) dan kelompok “orang miskin/the haves not” (Ema Kmukit). Ukuran untuk menentukan dua macam kelas ini
tergantung pada pendapatan yang ia peroleh dan cara atau pola hidupnya setiap hari. Dari sudut politik pemerintahan
nasional, kita mengetahui bahwa penggolongan masyarakat Jawa atas tiga golongan / tiga kelompok besar yang saling
melengkapi satu dengan yang lain. Dalam keterkaitannya dengan struktur masyarakat Belu maka kita mengenal
beberapa kelompok/golongan masyarakat yang terdiri dari:

- Pertama adalah kelompok teratas atau kelompok raja (Nain Oan) masuk kelompok priyayi.

- Kelompok lain adalah kelompok masyarakat bawah (Hutun Renu) atau marjinal dan orang kecil.

- Antara dua kelompok itu ada kelompok penengah atau disebut Fukun dato.

Keterkaitan antara ketiga kelompok utama tersebut terwujud dalam realisasi program dan kerja nyata. Dalam hal ini,
kelompok Raja berperan mengawasi pelaksanaan pembangunan dan membuat putusan pemerintahan. Kelompok Hutun
Renu sebagai mediator antara kedua kelompok tersebut. Perlu dicatat di sini bahwa dalam proses pengambilan
keputusan (fui mutu lian-fui mtun ibun) secara adapt dengan korban bakaran.

Perlu ditambahkan disini bahwa dalam jajaran dan tataran kelompok penurutan raja atau kerabatan horizontal yang
dinamakan “klaken soman” ada juga kelompok vertikal yang disebut “Tohu Larus Hudi Oan”. Dalam catatan sejarah lokal,
menuturkan bahwa di kerajaan Wewiku – Wehali ada 4 dato yang sangat berperan dalam fungsinya sebagai mediator
yaitu, Dato Leki Nahak Tamiru Usi Hawai Lerek (penguasa daerah pesisir laut) atau yang disebut Meti Ketuik. Dato
Klisuk Rae dan Klisuk Lor yang menguasai daerah enclave laut (hasan). Sedangkan Dato Mota menguasai daerah
pesisir kali Benenai (Mota Ninin Here Ninin). Sehingga sesekali dalam kurun waktu tertentu seorang Dato wajib
membawahi upeti kepada rajanya.

(sumber : Bappeda Kab. Belu)





Liurai Dalam Sejarah



Silsilah Liurai Fatuaruin (Liurai Wehali) yang memerintah Belu :

1. Hoa Diak Malaka

2. Dasin Don Peur

3. Dasin Dinik Liurai

4. Dasin Neken Liurai

5. Dasin Bada Mataus

6. Dasin Don Alesu Fernandes

7. Dasin Liurai Muskita

8. Seran Tae Boboto Rui

9. Dasin Tei Seran

10. Dasin Tere Atok Liurai I

11. Dasin Tere Atok II

12. Dasin Tey Seran Liurai

13. Josef Seran Fatin (Nai Bot Liurai Malaka)

14. Anton Tey Seran

15. Louis Sanaka Tey Seran



Liurai I :



http://www.belukab.go.id - Situs Kabupaten Belu Bertenaga by KerSip Open Source Dibuat: 15 July, 2008, 11:33
Dikisahkan, pada zaman dulu, liurai pertama adalah seorang wanita yang sangat cantik menawan, disanjung, diberi
gelar Diak Malaka. Ia adalah Liurai feto dan kawin dengan Seran Taen Boboto Rui Makerek yang diberi gelar : ” sui
Likusaien, sui wehali” (sui dalam bahasa Tetun artinya : menanduk).



Liurai II :



Dari perkawinan Hoa Diak Malaka dengan Seran Taen Baboto Ruin Makerek ini, lahirlah dua orang anak, salah seorang
anak bernama Don Peur yang menggantikan ibunya sebagai Liurai kedua. Sedangkan anaknya yang lain, seorang putri
raja bernama Dona Hodak, kawin dengan raja

Loosina bernama Hoa Sina Malaka Liurai. Turunan dari perkawinan mereka hingga Liurai Liurai VII tidak diberi
kehormatan untuk menjabat sebagai Liurai karena saat itu garis hukum keturunan masih diakui dari garis bapak
(patriarchat)



Liurai III :



Lalu Dasi Don Peur sebagai Liurai II menikahi anak raja Dirma bernama Dasin Masaurain. Dari perkawinan mereka
lahirlah dua bersaudara yakni Dasin Dinik Liurai sebagai Liurai yang ketiga sedangkan adiknya Dasin Eno Tinik Liurai
meninggal sehingga tidak punya keturunan.



Liurai IV :



Dasin Dinik Liurai (Liurai III) kawin dengan Dasin Telek Masan Rain II, anak raja Melus Maketan. Dari perkawinan ini,
lahirlah Dasin Neken Liurai sebagai Liurai IV. Dasin Neken Liurai kawin dengan dua orang istri, yakni Dasin Abulorok,
anak raja Jenilu dan Dasin Lese Bauk, anak raja Bakiduk. Masa pemerintahan Liurai IV ini dikenal orang sebagai raja
yang piawai dalam membagi tanah Timor.



Liurai V :



Keempat anak hasil perkawinan Liurai IV dengan anak raja Jenilu diberi kuasa kuasai memerintah tanah Timor yang
sudah dibaginya. Yakni Dasin Bada Mataus dijadikan Liurai V, tinggal di Wehali. Dasin Ura Mataus Liurai Likusaen
berkuasa di Dili. Dasin Soko Mataus Liurai di Kupang Sonbay dan Dasin Neken Mataus Liurai merantau ke Larantuka.



Liurai VI :



Sebagaimana disebutkan diatas bahwa Liurai keempat (Dasin Neken Liurai) mempunyai dua orang istri. Hasil
perkawinan dengan istri anak raja Bakiduk, yakni Dasin Don Alesu Fernandes diangkat sebagai Liurai VI. Liurai ini
dikenal sebagai raja yang menerima tongkat mas dan perak zaman Portugis. Juga sejarah mencatat, Liurai VI ini kawin
dengan Dasin Hoa Tuka, anak raja Larantuka.



Liurai VII :



Perkawinan Liurai VI dengan anak raja Larantuka ini melahirkan Dasin Liurai Muskita sebagai Liurai VII. Sampai disini
selesailah garis hukum keturunan Liurai yang biasa diambil dari garis patrilineal, maka sejarah mencatat bahwa untuk
selanjutnya Liurai diambil dari garis matrilineal hingga sekarang sesuai hukum adat warga Wesei Wehali.



Liurai VIII :



Muskita memperistri Dasin Bano Tae Liurai dari garis keturunan matrilineal anak raja Babotin, lahirlah Seran Tae Boboto
Rui Makerek II, yang diangkat sebagai Liurai VIII dan memerintah di Sasitamean. Liurai VIII ini turunan langsung dari
garis ketururan raja Bobotin bernama Dasin Tere Tae



Liurai IX :



Liurai VIII (Liurai Sasitamean) ini kawin dengan Telek Masan Rai III melahirkan Dasin Tei Seran Liurai yang kelak
diangkat sebagai Liurai IX dan Nai Kmesak Maunbon.



Liurai X :



Kelak Liurai IX ini kawin dengan Dasin Telek Bian Manlea. Dari perkawinan ini lahirlah Dasin Tere Atok Liurai yang
dimahkotai sebagai Liurai X.



Liurai XI



Liurai X mempunyai dua isteri. Isteri pertama namanya Dasin Luruk Tey Seran dan dari perkawinan ini lahirlah Dasin
Tere Atok II yang diangkat menjadi Liurai XI.

http://www.belukab.go.id - Situs Kabupaten Belu Bertenaga by KerSip Open Source Dibuat: 15 July, 2008, 11:33


Liurai XII :



Sedangkan dengan isteri kedua bernama Dasi Telek Tey Seran lahirlah Dasin Tey Seran Liurai, yang diberi gelar Liurai
XII, raja Fatuaruin yakni bapak dari almarhum Liurai Terakhir (Louis Sanaka Tey Seran).



Liurai XIII :



Ketika Liurai XII ini meninggal, anaknya (Louis Sanaka Tey Seran) masih kecil. Ketika itu pemerintah mengambil inisiatif
untuk mengisi kekosongan dengan memilih Josef Seran Fahik yang dikenal sebagai Nai Bot Liurai Malaka. Josef Seran
Fatin dalam percaturan politik pembentukan swapraja dipercaya untuk menjadi tampuk pimpinan Swapraja Malaka dan
Belu.



Liurai IV



Dikisahkan, Liurai XII kawin dengan Kolo Bian dari Sonaf Uimriso, turunan Ae Bian Manlea. Hasil Perkawinan ini adalah
Anton Tey Seran yang sudah dinobatkan sebagai Liurai XIV tapi mendadak ke Bima, Sumbawa untuk belajar dibiayai
oleh pemerintahan Hindia Belanda mengenai kesultanan. Ia meninggal dan terakhir kerangkanya dipindahkan untuk
dimakamkam di Belu.

Liurai XV :



Louis Sanaka Tey Seran, adik kandung Anton Manek Tey Seran dinobatkan menjadi Liurai XV. Ia memperisteri
Theresia Bete Niis, anak raja Bea Neno / Pah Un Bea Neno dan memiliki 10 anak. Mereka adalah Gaudensia Luruk Tei
Seran, Maria Hoar Tei Seran, Antonius Tei Seran, Magdalena Muti Tei Seran, Demitrius Nana Tei Seran, Natalia Adelina
Bendita Tei Seran, Dominggus Arenkian Aria Neno Tei Seran, Yulianus Antonius Liurai, Flora Diana Mako Tei Seran dan
Dominikus Hilarius Liurai. (Sumber : Belu, Pemimpin dan Sejarah)



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History of Timor

History of Timor
1
Timor Society
Prior to a discussion of Timor's "discovery" or at least first outsider trade contacts, it is important to set
down certain basic facts as to indigenous political and social systems, how these systems are buttressed or a
least mesh with indigenous religious practices and beliefs, and how political and Cultural complexes
translate into economic activity and exchange. We can then ask the question how the first agents of
Portuguese seaborne power, as much agents of the church in the form of the Dominican missionaries,
adapted or confronted local forms of tributary power and political alliances, local commercial trading
networks, and the overall question of colonization, Portugalizacao and Timorese identity down until the end
of colonial rule. But we should also look to the island's complex anthropology. In this sense it would be
well to consider the reflections of one cultural anthropologist who has worked in Timor, Elizabeth G.
Traube, that culture is not immutable, that "the content of cultural forms may justify critiques of or
departures from established practices".1
Here Traube is alluding to processes of cultural evolution and diffusion over long time, but also to the
process of cultural adaptation in the face of climactic events such as the arrival of the Portuguese or Dutch.
Although, as shown below, there have been periods of relative stasis in Timorese history, particularly
prehistory, change and adaptation have always been major themes in Timorese life down unto the present.
Origins
While always subject to much pseudo-analysis and mystification, the ethnic differentiation of Timor was
apparent to the first Western visitors to Timor. From a French enlightenment perspective, albeit jaundiced,
the observations in Kupang of the visiting Napoleonic mission led by Peron is apposite. In this, Peron
speaks of a unity of "three distinct races of the human species", aborigines, Malays, Chinese, plus an
additional "species", "a few mongrel Portuguese, the miserable remains of the first conquerors of Asia and
the pitiable witnesses of the vicissitudes of nations, and the revolutions of empires"! 2
But just as the Western visitors were intrigued by Timor's mestico society, so European investigators into
Timor's society were much taken by the question of origins. Indeed, the methods as much the results of suc
investigations, which began to gather pace in the first decades of this century, mirrored metropolitan trends
and debates as much the evolution of the various disciplines of the "natural sciences", especially physical,
cultural, and social anthropology. The attentions of the Victorians, Wallace and Forbes, have already been
mentioned in this regard. From another quarter, Timor became the object of attention from prehistorians
seeking to find a link between Australian aborigines and an Asian migration.
Much of the debate on physical anthropology was summarised and advanced by A.A. Mendes Correa in
1944, who postulated four basic racial types represented in Timor, although hardly ever in pure type. These
were proto-Malays, deutero-Malays (revealing more Mongoloid features), Melanesoide, and
vedo-Australoid. Overall, he concluded, the proto-Malay or "Indonesian" types predominated over all
others. Next followed the deutero-Malay element (more frequent in women), and third, the vedo-Australoid
element (abundant in Suro). Yet, he declaimed, that is not to declare a perfect homogeneity because even
within the proto-Malay group, Austroloid, Europoid, Indo-Melanoid, Ainoid and other tendencies could be
detected. This includes a mysterious red-haired tribe given some publicity by, inter alia Forbes and Osorio
de Castro.
In making this assertion, Mendes Correa challenged the view of a number of observers who had ascribed a
special prevalence in Timor of a negroid or Papuan or Melanesian influence. True Melanesians and
Papuans were not found, although inclinations or affinities were detected in some groups. Even the
Belunese-the most numerous group on the island as a whole, he asserted, Could not be considered as linked
to Papuan-Melanesian influence, but rather to the Indonesian type. Only among the Antoni of Dutch Timor
Page 1
and among the Timorese of Oecussi was the Melanoid element found to be abundant, although still not
predominant. In Portuguese Timor, he found, the Melanesoid element only appeared more frequent in the
women of Fronteira and Dili. 3
As Glover has explained, little is known of the prehistory of the eastern archipelago until the end of
Pleistocene when the archaeological record proper begins with dated pre-Ceramic Late Stone Age
sequences in the caves of Timor and Sulawesi (about l4,000 years ago). The first excavations in Timor wer
pioneered by Alfred Buhler in 1935 and Th.Verhoeven in the late 1950s, establishing the characteristics of
the Late Stone Age, specifically as marked by the presence of naked stone tools. Researches carried out by
Glover in Cave sites on the edge of the north central plateau near Baucau and in the central mountains
between 1966 and 1967 confirmed no deposits older than the pleistocene period. He determined, however,
that from about 5,000 years ago marked economic changes occurred with the introduction of the pig, goat,
dog, monkey, phalanger and civit cat, and, finally, in the Christian era, the introduction of cattle and deer.
Pottery also arrived in the 3rd millennium BC,. Shell adzes, fishhooks, and shell beads, also appeared in the
coastal sites at this time. After about 3,000 BC certain important new plants made their appearance, namely
Setaria (foxtail millet), bagenaria (bottle gourd), coconuts, various fruits, and trees, and, in latest levels,
peanuts. But, after about 1,000 years ago, there was little occupation in most caves. From this evidence,
Glover adduced the arrival on the island about 3,000 BC of agricultural immigrants from the west or north
bringing Timor into closer relationship with neighbouring islands.4
In part, this migration from the 3rd millennium BC onwards coincided with the development of better
boat-building and sailing techniques. It also initiated the process of differentiation between coastal and
inland societies as encountered by Western mariners in historical times. Still, he found, a process of
diffusion by continuous expansion such as was possible in continental situations was ruled out in Timor
because of its island situation. At the same time lie could not find evidence of the primary role of Timor in
the settlement of Australia, as held in some popular theorizing.
Indigenous Political System
The question as to the indigenous political system of Timor prior to the arrival of Europeans and even after
has been the subject of much discussion and some hyperbole. On the one hand, Timorese societies conform
broadly to the segmentary societies of eastern Indonesia, notable for the absence of Indianized forms of
kingship and the presence of numerous lineage-based societies fragmented b3i language and geographical
isolation.
According to H.G. Schulte Nordholt, who conducted extensive fieldwork in Dutch Timor in the prewar
period, at the time of the arrival of the first Europeans, there existed a realm which might in a sense be
considered a unitary state. Supreme power was vested in a ritual centre, the bride giver, to which the variou
communities shared by virtue of affinal relationships. While the centre existed mainly as a political
superstructure, it was also capable of making decisions affecting the entire community, namely warfare,
administration, adjudication, and ritual. At the centre of this construct was the kingdom of
Waiwiku-Wehale, located in the fertile southeastern part of west Timor, but divided between the Antoni an
the Tetum Belu, a division also corresponding with language.5
Anthropologist James Fox clarifies that based on ideas of spiritual precedence, the influence of the Tetum
Belu kingdom of Wehale, may once have extended over more than two-thirds of the island joining the petty
tribal kingdoms into a unified political system. It makes further sense, he points out, if we see the
straighterhaired Belunese as more recent Malay-type migrants establishing themselves on Timor's
central-north coast in a long process beginning around 3,000 BC before moving inland and displacing and
dominating the frizzy-haired "Melanesian" Antoni or "people of the dry land", a process that was evident
right up until the time when Europeans began to move into the area.6
But, as taken up below, the centuries-long struggle between the Dutch and the Portuguese for the loyalties
of the petty tribal kingdoms, beginning with the partial destruction of Wehale in 1642, obviously disturbed
traditional alliances as much the concept of a unified realm. Notable, has been the westward dispersion of
the Antoni, today dominating most of west Timor. Was this then a case of the bees deserting the
honeycomb", to use the metaphor of Indonesian historian A.B.
Lapian in describing the fragmentation of the realm? 7
Page 2
0r was the concept of a truly unified historical political centre on Timor a fiction? By way of elaboration,
Lawson argues that without diminishing the importance of Common myths, ritual power, and marital
alliances extending unity to otherwise independent kingdoms, "one should not underestimate the influence
of trade in the processes which gave some kingdoms social esteem and power". She continues that, "Rulers
who could organize labor and deliver sandalwood (or other commodities), would gain in material things lik
cloth, tools, and guns, thereby enlarging their possibilities to gain more prestige and power, might it be
through marital alliances or warfare". Between 1515 and 1650, Lawson argues, the destruction of
Waiwiku-Wehale-the scattering of the bees from the honeycomb in Lapian's imageｐr- roceeded as
strategically located Coastal kingdoms (reinos) enriched themselves in the new sandalwood trade thereby
weakening bonds with the empire-like Waiwiku-Wehale system. For the Portuguese it was imperative to
win the loyalty of those kings-style rei, sometimes regulo in Portuguese or liurai in Tetum language and raj
by the Dutch-controlling good harbours for the transshipment and supply of sandal.8
As revealed in the earliest Portuguese writings on Timor, at the time of the foundation of Lifau, the island
was then, and for long afterwards, divided into two roughly equal spheres, the eastern called Belos (Belu)
and the western Called Serviao. Although the tribes of Serviao were the first to accept Portuguese
sovereignty, those of Belu who did so shortly afterwards, proved more faithful vassals in the long run.9
Undoubtedly, also, the shift in local alliances across long time contributed to a collective memory of unities
and divisions, just as a Luso-Dutch modus vivendi of the mid 1600s tended to coincide with, or at least
reinforce a dualistic set of allegiances on the island. For example, in 1818 visiting French
scientist-adventurer, Louis de Freycinet, found Timor neatly divided into two great states or provinces, that
of the northeast called Belu, and the other, Vaikenos or Serviao. The more numerous of the little states, he
found, were kingdoms of the province of Belu with a part of Serviao-Vaikenos tributary or loyal to Portuga
and part, in the southwest, loyal to Holland. Even so, as elaborated in the text, certain so-called loyal states
were obviously quasi-independent or in a state of rebellion.10
But it is also true that the notion of unity around the Vaiqueno-speaking Sonbai of Serviao of the west
endured over longer time, especially as the supremacy of the Sonbai as emperor was recognized by vassal
kingdoms.
It would be hard to understand the dynamics of Timorese society without acknowledging the system of
government and leadership. Patron-Client links between rulers and followers come to the heart of an
understanding ofa11iances, and shifts of loyalties and help to explain the tenacity of rebel leaders in the fac
of overwhelming odds. From del Cano down-a reference to the infamous kidnapping of a Timorese prince
by the Magellan expedition which, as elaborated in the following chapter, touched Timor in 1522-the
importance of dealing with local lords, rajas or reis to win favours, allegiances, and allies has been
recognized by all outsiders in their dealings with Timorese, whether Portuguese, Dutch, Japanese,
Australian, or Indonesian.
ln passing comment on the Timorese concept of government, de Freycinet observed that the rajas exercised
"supreme power" over their people, wielding "une autofite absolue et presque despotique" or, in the eyes of
their subjects, a "divine et indelebile" power. Rules of succession varied but were, in principle, strictly
hereditary. In the absence of a mature male heir, women' sometimes assumed the paramount position. Next
in rank were the dato, followed by the toumougom and the labo. In this typically pre-literate society, matter
of legislation were governed by tradition and local custom, albeit modified to degrees by the adoption of
certain Chinese or Muslim ideas. He further observed that the reinos were frequently given to forming
defensive and offensive alliances. Treaties, especially, were entered into on the basis of family links. In this
way, even the kings of relatively small kingdoms were able to wield considerable authority over large
space. 11
Indeed, Governor de Castro writing in 1867 likened them to "pequenas republicas" or small republics. 12
Researching in 1974, Elizabeth Traube found that the power of local leaders of the Mambai people-of
which Dili was formerly part- was held to emanate from "other, more powerful sovereigns", namely the
Portuguese colonial rulers whose presence in Dili dates back to the shift of the capital from Lifau. She note
that in Mambai political theory there is no tradition of foreign invaders from the outside nor do they have
any real conception of a larger outside world which might encompass their own society. Even the malaia,
the Tetum term for foreigners, who occupied the structural position of outside rulers "are not strangers at al
but are returning younger sons of the land...." In other words, when Portuguese ships sailed into Dili
Page 3
harbour, the Portuguese were welcomed by the elder people of the land and incorporated into the exchange
that linked them to the interior. As with Traube, numerous students of Timor have observed various cultura
features of he colonial relationship invoked in ritual. Notable is the ritual veneration of the Portuguese nag
and other regalia of office including drum, swords and spears, a practice which dates back many
generations. 13
Such veneration even extended to ancient Portuguese letters and documents. At least Gerard Francillon
found this to be the case in the successor state of Wehale which he researched between 1962J64. At this
time Wehale was a small princedom in the southern part of the Belu subdivision of central-west Timor, the
home of 11,000 inhabitants and the most isolated of all the Tetum-speaking areas. Certain of these letters
dating from 1778-80 referred to the Rei Veale or Great Lord of Belu. In any case, Nai Bot, the Great Lord
of Wehale died in 1924, albeit much mourned over all parts of Timor. Only pacified by the Dutch in 1906,
Wehale was still headed by a raja at the time of Francillon's research, addressed as fetor (from the
Portuguese feitor) or korne from the Portuguese coronel, or colonel. But while the rajas and their modem
descendants became the focus of deep respect and veneration on the part of Wehale people and Timorese
atom Other parts, Francillon contends that, in the "emptiness" of the sacred house and its impoverished
condition, the name of Wehale and its renown was ultimately more important than its representative. 14
Elsewhere, Traube has elaborated upon the Mambai emphasis on antiquarianism as much its manipulation
under Portuguese rule. Essentially, the Mambai differentiated between their own ritually organized
communities from hose created by Portugal by referring to the former as ancient kingdoms or kingdoms of
long ago. Whereas the Portuguese regarded the periodic and annual ritualized ceremonies of the Mambai as
religious, they too were careful to distinguish them from the secularized political structures imposed by
colonial rule. But the Mambai - - who had no particular love of the Portuguese -u- believed that when in
1903, in lieu of the Cash head tax, the Portuguese abolished the tributary arrangements that reached back to
the earliest days of their presence in Dili, they also delegitimized themselves. She writes: "when modem
Portuguese rulers abolished the tribute system which revolved around the old lords of rock and tree, they
were tuning their backs on the very figures whose ancestors had summoned them to Timor". In short,
legitimation took on cultural form. 15
This is an important point as, in Timor under the Portuguese, just as in other colonialisms, forms of
legitimation alongside more drastic means of control always went hand in hand in the construction of
networks of beneficiaries and collaborators.
But how does this sense of cultural legitimation on the part of specific communities sit with a generalized
sense of "tradition" which, in the absence of significant epigraphical evidence and recorded history, is best
found in the rich oral tradition of the Timorese? There is no history of native script in Timor and the work o
transcribing this literature only commenced with any rigour in the last decade of colonial rule. As in many
other preliterate Asian and African societies "literature" was chanted or sung. In Timor, as Louis Berthe
found of the Bunak, this could take the form of elaborately developed narrative recitation, typically
involving repetition, rhyme, and alliteration which also helped performers memorize the verses.16
Legends, such as the creation myth based on the crocodile, in turn represented in graphic art and in
decorative pieces are enduring in Timorese society. As Fernando Sylvan recounts, of "the crocodile that
became Timor", a boy returned a wayward crocodile to the swamp. Although sorely tempted to eat his new
friend, canoe-like the crocodile redeems the boy's dream of making a sea journey, only to change shape and
size into the form of a Crocodile-shaped island covered with hills, woods, and rivers.17
Ruy Cinatti has also recounted one primordial lore or foundation myth that traces the origins of the
Timorese to a legendary sea voyage from Malacca via Macassar to Flores and then to Amatung. 18
Other versions of this legend such as that held by the Ossu people trace the migration from an island
between Timor and New Guinea. Timorese myths and legends are not only offer clues to the origin and
foundation of various reinos, but, as Eduardo dos Santos' collection and annotation makes clear, are also
rich in history and ethnography.l9
From his experience a wartime Timor, Australian Cliff Morris has related that recitation of stories and
poetry were arts indulged in by all. In every village, elders would induct the young in the lore of the clan
but the ultimate storytellers were the Lia Na 'ain or Na 'Lia, literally meaning "lord of words" or bards, who
could expiate for hours on verse that had never been heard until then. Morris observes:
There were a number of traditional patterns but the most common was dadolim, where each verse was put
Page 4
in two lines and each line was in two phrases. The first phrase of the second line repeated the meaning of
the last phrase in the first line but with different words. The second phrase of the second line followed the
same pattern. 20?
While Morris is describing the basic mode of transmission of knowledge/lore common to pre-literate
societies around the world, it is of interest that this verbatim language as spoken in rumor was rich with
metaphor as it was pregnant with the symbolism of the animist culture from which it issued, notably the
dualistic conception of nature.
Indigenous Religious Beliefs and Practices
Under Portuguese rule Catholicism never gained more than 15-20 per cent of the population down until
1975. Stated another way, the Catholic church in Timor was obliged to accommodate itself to many
traditional practices. Writing in 1972, British anthropologist David flicks observed that although many
traditional ritual elements survived, aboriginal religion was nevertheless decaying rapidly. What, then, were
the main features of indigenous religious practice and belief? In traditional Timor it was the dato-lulik or ra
ulik, community priest or ritual practitioner, who mediated the spiritual world otherwise manifest in such
natural phenomena as rivers, mountains, forest and gardens. The dato-lulik was the key practitioner of
animal sacrifice marking major events in the life Cycle of the Timorese including the celebration of war an
peace. Animal sacrifice Were directed towards ancestral spirits and other spirits believed to inhabit wood,
stones and streams.
Another facet of Timorese religion was the cult of the relic, placed in the uma lulik or community house,
usually the most distinctive building in a town. Totems included animals and plants. Even clans were
regarded as totemic groups whose members observed specific food taboos. As mentioned, veneration of old
Portuguese nags was very much part of this culture. Head-hunting, also part of Timorese tradition, was only
eliminated in this century. While cannibalism was unknown in eastern Timor, headhunting, according to
flicks, was a popular activity whose raison d'etre was ritual and social prestige. But when peace returned to
the warring princedoms, the captured heads were duly surrendered.21
So were blood oaths or juramento frequently resorted to in the way of sealing loyalties between tribes or
foreign parties.22
Indeed, as we shall review in a conclusion, the 400 year long rebellion of the Timorese cannot entirely be
separated from the ritualized quality of warfare in rumor as expressed by the Tetum word funu.
One central cultural practice much noted in Portuguese ethnologies on Timor is that of barlaque. From a
study by Manuel Alves da Silva, a Catholic missionary in Timor in the 1880s, we learn that this is a term of
Malay origin which expresses an alliance between reinos, and their subordinate sucos, and individuals.
More than just a dowry, it appeared to Alves da Silva as a trade or even "shamanistic" trade in women for
fabulous value. This was expressed by the Portuguese word barlaque or vassau humani, where the parents
of the bride are called o humani and the man-shaman the vassau. The cost of vassau could be as high as 30-
100 buffaloes, horses, and swords while humani might be measured in such articles as coral, baskets, and
cloths. For the church, the material character of these marriages and the guarantees they affirmed,
represented a clear obstacle to conversion, as indeed, did other types of relationships, running from
concubinage, polygamy - generalized in Timor - and acts deemed superstitious and quasi-idolatrous, such a
the cult of the veneration of the dead, death Ceremonies, war Ceremonies, etc.23
Lazarowitz, who carried out fieldwork among the Makassai of the Baucau region of northeast Timor in
1975, viewed marriage in Timor, as creating an "ongoing alliance between groups", part of a "wider system
of social action tying together and integrating the worlds of the living and the spirits in stable equilibrium".
He saw the entire system as turning on a profound desire for union and balance across the spectrum of
social relations, whether marriage, bridewealth transactions, agricultural ritual, and political and legal
organization. This was achieved through the means of "complementary dual oppositions and analogical
associations", for example, between wife-giver and wife-taker, masculine-feminine, control over
fertility-lack of control, buffalo, horse, swords versus women, pigs, Cloths, necklaces, and, especially that
between the world of the spirits (sacred) and the world of the living (secular). He concludes, "It is quite
clear that Makassai life is permeated by oppositions which structure social behaviour".24
Page 5
The principle also extends to geography. 1'hus, whereas the sheltered, enclosed, and navigable northｒe ｎ
sea or tassi-fetu is recognized in Tetum cosmology as female, the southern sea, the tassi-mane, with its
limitless horizon and swelling unnavigable seas, represents the male principle.
Barlaque and marriage, of course, is not the only socially celebrated rite de passage in Timor. Saldanha has
described other ritualized ceremonies, including those for birth, involving an eye washing ceremony called
fasematam, and haircutting ceremony called tesifuk. Besides funerals, death involved such ceremonies as
the aifunan mauruk (bitter mower) held one week after death and the alfunan midar (sweet mower) held
after 40 days. The kore metan or removing the black is a ceremony held one year after the death of a
relative. While women wear I black for mourning, men wear a small patch of cloth pinned to a shirt. Such i
the pervasiveness of this Luso-Catholic practice that the black patch appears as a subliminal mark of
Timorese identity, one that I instantly recognized in the course of a 1995 rendezvous with a Timorese in the
amazingly polyethnic environment of the east Malaysian state of Sabah. To these ceremonies might be
added those for the planting and harvesting office and maize that take place in the umalik of each umakain
or clan. The list of ritualized and solidary-building ceremonials increases if we account for such occasions
as threshing office stalks (sama hare), the communal building of houses (dada ai or lugging of wood, and
even cockfighting futu manu). 25
Cinatti and others have described the social function of such estilo or ceremonies which sometimes brought
together hundreds or even thousands of people from any given region. Such occasions were a time for
display of gorgeous tais or traditional woven apparel for males, along with elaborate metal body
decorations, and, for women, Timorized versions of the Malay sarong or skirt and kebaya, blouse.
No festa was complete without music, choral or rhythmic singing and dancing.
Musical accompaniment, according to region, could be Macassar gongs, drums, bamboo mutes, or home
made guitars. Notable were the gamelan-like orchestras of Oecusse and the snake dance of Suai.26
It can be said that all the estilo have their origins in the Timorese sense of the sacred and profane, a world
view that does not compartmentalize one facet of tradition from another, but which, while accommodating
to change- D40tably the coming of outsiders with their monotheistic religion-constantly seeks the
reassurances offered by tile hoary traditions keyed to the passage of seasons and agricultural rhythms as
handed down in the form of chants and oral traditions. The great Timorese creation myth of the crocodileto
which, as alluded, even the shape of the island is said to resemble-seems to encapsulate this sense. For
some, the enduring Timorese belief in spirits conjures up some sense of an ancient human stock in the
process of evolution. But such statements are bound to be misleading as the following discussion reveals.
Language and Ethnicity
As alluded in the introduction, the linguistic and ethnic patterning of Timor reflects a long history of
migrations and convergences of peoples bearing different cultural influences, notably, Indonesian coming
from the west, and, Melanesian coming from the east. Nevertheless, irregular topography, otherwise
inhibiting communications between different groups, gave rise to the production of a great range of social
institutions including language variety. Linguistically, the island of Timor is occupied by two different
language families, one Austronesian, the other non-Austronesian or Papuan. Whereas in the western part of
Timor, two Austronesian languages dominate, namely Antoni and Tetum, on the eastern half of the island,
at least fourteen distinct languages are spoken, including, besides Tetum, Mambai, Makassai, Kemak,
Bunak, Tocodede, Galoli, Dagada and Baiqueno (Dawan). Even so, there is no precise agreement among
anthropologists and linguists as to the precise numbers of languages, or indeed what constitutes a dialect,
especially, as would be expected, because of the long process of linguistic borrowings. Further, only a few
languages have been studied, codified or transcribed.
These include Tetum, Tetum-Praca, Galoli and Dawan. Only basic grammatical outlines of Tocodede,
Mambai and Kemak had been established by the prewar period. Neither were basic ethnographies of the
majority of Timorese systematically conducted, lending much imprecision as to questions of nomenclature
or ethnic labelling, language and linguistic convergences.27
While Tetum Belu had its origins in the Kingdom of Wehale, according to Cliff Morris, the biggest
concentration of "natural" Tetum speakers in eastern Timor in the late colonial period was to be found
around on the central south coast, from Luca in the east to Alas in the west. The dialect of this area is
Page 6
referred to as TetumLos and is centred on the Kingdom of Samoro and the town of Soibada. By contrast,
Tetum-Terik is spoken in the northwest of eastern Timor and the northeast of west Timor, a dialect related
to Tetum-Belu. This latter dialect is spoken in the southwest of East Timor and southeast of western
Timor.28
Tetum-Dili, also known as Tetum-Praca, was the lingua franca used in colonial times and the dialect most
favoured by Portuguese official along with missionaries and other outsiders in communicating with
Timorese. Yet, unlike the experience in many other South east Asian colonies in acknowledging the status
of vernacular languages, nothing was done under official Portuguese auspices to raise Tetum to the level of
a print language, much less the numerous minority languages and dialects.29
But again, as Mendes Correa determined, just as the racial heterogeneity of the Timorese may be a result of
"blood mixture between conquerors and conquered, or between masters and slaves, with the exogamy of
some tribes with true (rapes of Sabine'", so the correlation of language and ethnic group is problematical,
although not beyond scientific calculation.30
The Community Mode of Production
Schulte Nordholt, clarifies that, because of trade, the Antoni people of west Timor outgrew the stone age at
a relatively early stage. Yet, while raising to a fine art the manufacture of woven or ikat cloth, he found it
remarkable that they never learned to forge iron or even silver objects themselves.31
But while the smelting of ores may have eluded the Timorese, it is not the same as saying that they did not
master metalwork. In fact, the remodelling of iron goods, such as in the making of utensils and knives out o
reclaimed bomb Casings, and the forging of metal using bellows made of bamboo, is a specialized male
activity. On the other hand, the art of manufacturing melted silver using bamboo forges and clay moulds, a
typically feminine activity, developed as a fine art.
Naturally, the production of ikat and tais or woven cloth demands highly specialized skills, such as the
cultivation and harvest of cotton, ginning, carding, spinning and weaving. In the colonial period, locally
produced cotton was more highly esteemed than that acquired from Chinese merchants. With the exception
of the manufacture of looms and frames (a masculine activity), the series of technical activities associated
with weaving, including the reproduction of the ikat motifs attributing lineage, are entirely female activities
Indeed, the circulation of cloths in society conformed to a number of precise rules relating to the
continuation of the lineage, e.g. birth, marriage, burial, adoption, or the inauguration of a new house. A
similar division of sexual labour is adhered to in the production of women's goods. The production of cord
fibre from the Arenga palm is a male activity, while the production of, say, baskets with decorative form, is
an entirely female activity. Another artisanal activity devolved to women is the production of pottery.
Notwithstanding the labour, women are concerned with the acquisition of raw materials, to the baking of
the pot in an open kiln, to the selling of the pots.
Depending upon location, this work is reserved for women of certain lineages.32
Certainly, from my observation in the 1960s and in the 1990s, it is women who retail these pots in such
marketplaces as those of Manatuto and Baucau.
By contrast, the specialist construction of houses, such as in cutting and grooving of wood, the rough
hewing of beams, or in thatching roofs with Arenga palm leaf, is a masculine activity. It goes without
saying that the specialist carpenter cum ritualist house-builder will be versed in local architectural variety
according to province. Such geographical variation in Timorese dwellings have been best captured by
Portuguese ethnographer, Ruy Cinatti, who has observed striking regional variety from the pyramidal style
houses of Maubesse to the distinctive Lautem house of the hills and plateaux of the east, recognizes seven
types by broad architectural features and regional identity - Bobonaro, Maubisse, Baucau, Lautem,
Viqueque, Suai, and Oecusse. It is clear from his studies and illustrations, however, that the functional
organization of space in each of these dwellings responds to complex social and economic needs,
respectively living space and granary, social status, obviously, and the need to propitiate the spirits. But
variation also existed. For instance in Oecusse, the rectangular shaped houses of the coastal regions were
importations, displacing the conical shaped houses and shelters of the interior-land, as confirmed by the
author in an overnight stay-among the most primitive in Timor. 33
Until recently, sticks and dibbles were the common tool used in agriculture. Wet rice agriculture also had it
Page 7
place in the Timor economy, albeit limited to certain zones.
The ploughs the wheel, and even the hoe, were seldom used. Nevertheless, from an early age, the buffalo
found its place especially as a "plough" in the cultivation of wet rice. Likewise, the Timor pony adapted
well to the human ecology of the Timorese and remains a striking symbol of their way of life. In colonial
times no long-distance journey on and off many of the major routes could be contemplated without recours
to a caravan of ponies. As the author observed in colonial times when en route by Timor pony from
Batugede to Balibo and Pantai Macassar to Osilo in Oecusse, care of such ponies was a specialist position.
Even river-crossings were in he hands of other specialists (males) who exacted their small tax accordingly.
Down until modern times, the majority of the Timorese have engaged in subsistence agriculture. This takes
the form of either shifting cultivation of the slash and burn type or the cultivation of such crops as corn,
sweet potatoes, cassava, rice, or beans in gardens surrounding households. Portuguese reports of the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries agree that Timor was extraordinarily well endowed by nature.
Pigafetta's classic account also records: "In this island, and nowhere else, is found white sandalwood,
besides ginger, swine, goats, rice, figs, sugarcanes, oranges, wax, almonds, and other things, and parrots of
divers sorts and colours".34
Even so, given the long dry seasons, dearth, disease and famine can reduce the Timorese peasant farmer to
a level dangerously below subsistence.
The digging stick method frequently demands too much from a population whose energy is often reduced
by inadequate nutrition.35
Hunting and gathering is a complimentary activity. This can be a sexually undifferentiated activity such as
gathering in the forest or on the seashore. Gathering often occupies "dead time" during the agricultural
cycle. But, as observed by the author on the seacoast of the province of Covalima in 1972, the hunt-a male
activity-can be both stylized and ritualized. Such was the procession-like quality of a deer hunt actually
interrupted by the presence of the author interposed somewhere between the hunted, a deer, and the hunters
comprising a group of about twenty, some mounted and others on foot accompanied by dogs. This
exclusively male group of Tetum Belu speakers resplendent in tais and bearing a variety of weapons from
primitive handmade guns to spears, long knives and blow-pipes broke off the chase to-rightly-interrogate
the author as to his presence. While this particular hunt may not have been of purely ritual order, in the case
of boar hunting before planting rice, it can be so described. 36
Fishing compliments agricultural activities and, as can still be witnessed of the Galole of the rugged north
coast, becomes a communal activity or at least a female activity in the harvesting of ingenious stonewalled
fish traps constructed on drying shore reefs. The collection of shells for sale to manufacturers of lime or for
use in the building industry, such as practised in Dili, is probably a more recent activity. While the
fishermen of the Areia Branca zone belong to a group of professionals whose marketplace has always been
the townspeople, their technology remains primitive (home made goggles and pronged harpoons or hand
spears).
Small, seemingly unseaworthy dugouts and outrigger canoes, also seen in Dili and Atauro, are undoubtedly
of Indonesian inspiration and fairly generalized along the north coast. Fishing with individual nets, such as
on the northeast coast, is a collective activity and festivity relating to fish migrations at the mouth of stream
The communal drawing in of large nets on the beaches of Dili appears to be of Portuguese inspiration. In
several weeks spent in the early 197'0s on the south coast of the island in Covalima, and Waiwiku and
Amanubang, contiguous regions of west Timor, the author was struck by the absence of either sea or river
flshermen, although not, as noted, the absence of hunting in this locale. Nevertheless, the activity of
collecting molluscs and crustaceans on the south coast is complimentary to gathering activity in the forest.3
The regional diversity of Timor's human ecology is captured in the research of those Western
anthropologists permitted to carry out fieldwork in Portuguese Timor in the 1970s. While concerned to
investigate the specificities of traditions of their respective research sites, most of this group of
anthropologists working in the structuralist tradition found certain similarities at the level of socioeconomic
and political cultural traditions with others peoples of eastern Indonesia.
The Makassai of the Quelicai region, the subject of the research of the American anthropologist Shepherd
Forman who carried out fieldwork between 1973-74, were then a group of about 80,000 non-Austronesian
language speakers inhabiting the northern coast and Matabean mountain range and high mountain valleys o
the east-central part of eastern Timor. He found them largely self-sufficient in agriculture and animal raisin
Page 8
typically cultivating corn and root crops in patrilineallyinherited ancestral gardens. This activity was
supplemented by rice grown on elaborately sculpted and irrigated terraces. The Makassai also herded water
buffaloes, goats, and pigs and raised chickens and fighting cocks. Their crops, livestock along with ikat,
ancient swords, glass beads and a few gold amulets comprised their entire exchangeable wealth. The
Makassai then lived in small and scattered family compounds in defensive mountain positions. 38
Elizabeth Traube, who researched the Mambai of Aileu in the early 1970s, also remarked upon their
subsistence existence based on shifting cultivation and animal husbandry. Agricultural practice included dry
land Cultivation of rice, corn and root crops. The Mambai-regarded by other groups as one of the poorest
and most "backward" peoples in Timor-worked their gardens cooperatively by kin groups, herded water
buffaloes, goats and pigs, but primarily used them in ceremonial exchanges.
Small coffee holdings supplied a major source of cash. Like other Timorese, the Mambai lived in dispersed
hamlets of between two to five houses. 39
The German agronomist, Metzner, who spent a year in the Baucau-Viqueque district studying methods of
food production in an ecologically adverse zone, noted that rain-fed rice and irrigated field rice was
expanding at the time of his research.
Yet corn was the main crop otherwise grown by the method of bush-fallowing, meaning the cultivation of
several plots of land in succession. As in much of Timor, such staples were supplemented by home gardens
growing a profusion of fruit trees, vegetables, tubers, etc. 40
Writing of the social organization of the Ema (called Kemak by outsiders), and numbering 50,000 in
colonial times, Clamigirand described them as living in a part of central Timor bounded by the sea to the
north, the Bunaq territory to the south and west, and the Mambai to the east. Writing of her field site,
Marabo, in the mountains, Clamagirand observed terraced fields built on rocky mountain slopes farmed
according to shifting cultivation. The main subsistence crop of the Ema was corn although both dry and we
rice was grown, along with tubers, yams and taro. Additionally they raised Cattle and kept fowls. All Ema
houses, she found, are built on stilts according to the same plan. But a core house at the centre of the
community confirmed for the Ema the sense that their territory lay at the centre of the earth's navel or sacre
centre. 41
Wet-field agriculture is the exception, and finds its place in only certain ecological conditions. In 1993 the
author had occasion to observe at close hand the ingenuity of Timorese wet-rice cultivators in Baucau,
especially in channel1ing natural sources of water mowing from limestone formations down the valley that
connects the town with the sea. Buffaloes churning a sea of mud in gently terraced and bunded rice paddies
suggest early contacts with other Southeast Asian societies. The scene is replicated on larger scale on the
mood plains of the Manatuto river where primitive methods of winnowing padi rice is on open display
today in the right season. Water buffaloes (frequently victims of war) are in high demand as for ritual
purposes and also to pay bride prices. Otherwise Timorese keep a variety of domestic animals, pigs,
chickens, Bali cattle, horses, goats, sheep, necessitating the construction of elaborate fences.
But while the management of such exchanges at the level of barter involved a degree of political
coordination, no Timorese as such were involved in the external trade process and hence no Timorese
merchant caste 'emerged-1he hallmark of the Indian and Islamic influenced state systems further west. In a
precarious ecological setting, where the communitarian or at least lineage mode of production dominated,
Timorese society had entered a long period of relative social stasis, marked by relatively low technological
development and relatively inward directed system of exchanges and contacts. Still, this did not preclude
change absolutely. Invariably, external contacts, at least beginning with Chinese visitors, led to the
incorporation of new cultural and material elements.
While an item by item analysis of this diffusion and incorporation would be illuminating, suffice is to offer
the observations of one visitor to Timor in the late seventeenth century, William Dampier. Whereas, for
example, Pigafetta passed no comment upon the near ubiquitous Timor pony, Dampier reckoned it was
among a number of domestic animals introduced by the Dutch or Portuguese. Thus he was struck by the
presence of ducks and geese at Kupang, but not at Lifau, whereas at Lifau he found beef cattle.
On the other hand, the Dutch fort raised a different kind of black cattle. "Indian" Com, he observed, was a
"common food" among the islanders, although the Portuguese and their Blends also grew some rice.
Dampier also listed a profusion of fruits on Timor, many of which he attributed to Dutch or Portuguese
importation, for example the pumpkin, although it is also possible that Pigafetta would have encountered
Page 9
many of the citrus fruits of possible Chinese origin. We should, at the same time, be aware of elements of
material change in Timorese society. Conceivably, the introduction by the Portuguese of the match-lock
could also have been crucial in effecting major political or technological innovation, as definitely happened
in the wake of the Portuguese arrival in Tanegashima and elsewhere in Japan. But, as Dampier observed at
first hand, rather than manufacturing guns, the Portugalized communities in the islands purchased them from
Batavia.42
What is ignored in much of the colonial literature, including reports written by visitors, is the dynamism of
the "native" or bazaar economy. There is no question that, alongside the monetized section of the economy
that developed in colonial times, the subsistence or natural economy provided the backbone of economic
life in the colony. As underscored below, in our discussion of rebellion, a major feature of the colonial
economy in Portuguese Timor down unto modern times is the longevity of the primitive economy upon
which the peasant cultivator was thrown back in times of adversity, including war, rebellion, natural disaste
and, as a way of protest against the solicitation of colonial labour recruiters and tax Collectors.
Lazarowitz observed of the Makassai in 1975, that, according to season, up to 1,200 attended the markets a
Ossu. With the exception of some products like tobacco, he found that money was not involved in most
transactions, just the barter of agricultural goods at a known rate.43
To be sure the mercado semanal or weekly marketplace in Timor was more than just a commercial link in
the process of exchange whether by barter or by sale. It was also a social point of contact between Timorese
of similar linguistic group or out-groups, between Timorese and non-Timorese including Chinese and
Portuguese. It also served as the site of games, including gambling and cockfights. The cockfight ring
located next to Dili's once vibrant municipal mercado represented this junction of commerce, social
interaction, fortune and ritualized performance Par excellence.
Slavery
While in Timor it would not be accurate to talk of a slave mode of production per se, as no plantation
industry developed along these lines before the late nineteenth century, nevertheless Timor was subject to a
long history of trafficking in both male and female slaves and even children. Indeed, slaves for the Batavia
and Macau markets were, according to Boxer, the next most profitable commodity in Timor after
sandalwood and a "constant supply of these unfortunates" was guaranteed-as explained below-by the
internecine wars of the d'Hornays and da Costas.44 Although the Portuguese state was not directly
involved- in any case the practice was not condoned by the Catholic church-Macassans, Chinese and, by
the seventeenth century, the Dutch, were all engaged in the dispatch of Timorese slaves throughout the
archipelago. In particular, Timorese slaves were used by the Dutch to work the nutmeg and mace
plantations in Banda after the conquest and virtual extermination of the Bandanese in 1621.45
Writing of the early decades of the nineteenth century, de Freycinet observed that male slaves in Timor
fetched between 30-40 piastres, while females, according to their appearance, fetched as much as 100
piastres.46
He also observed that in traditional society where death was the punishment for a multitude of small
offences, those who escaped capital punishment often became slaves. Warfare and capture also generated
slaves. Even so, as de Flreycinet learned from his reading of Crawfurd, categories of slaves existed
throughout the archipelago, ranging from prisoners-of-war, to debtors, to criminals, to foreigners, or their
children. But in a domestic situation, he acknowledged that "slaves" as domestics could be treated with
great affection and as members of the family.47
But even when the regional slave trade was proscribed, debt bondage and other forms of indentured labour
continued outside the circuits of accumulation and in line with a sense of differential measures of social
value. Forms of bondage undoubtedly Continued up to the end of Portuguese colonial rule, usually at the
level of household labour. To understand this phenomenon it is essential to set down certain facts relative to
the family in Timor, including the status of women and children. The observations made by A.A. Mendes
Correa of the status of women in prewar Timor are also apposite. He declares that outside of zones where
missionary activity was strong or where Portuguese authority had more fully asserted itself, the status of
women appeared to be "subordinate". With few exceptions, the patrilineal family was the rule, although as
instanced below, there have been "queens" in Timor, and, in the absence of male descendants, the right of
Page 10
inheritance passes on to women. Yet while appearing as "a piece of merchandise for their parents", he
reveals that they are not without rights. In fact, in a situation of exogamy between two sharply defined
classes, the relationship between "husband providing clans" and "wife providing clans" proceeds according
to the complex rules of barlaque or wife-taking. For example, enslavement of the husband to the family of
the wife can occur. In any case exogamy often involves elements of compulsion.48
Cliff Morris has described a variant of this albeit benign practice in the modem period as likening the
"slave" to a member of the family.49
Conclusion
Fundamentally, as described, Timor society conformed to the characteristic model of segmented societies o
eastern "Indonesia". There was no evidence of centralized state structures, at least along the lines of
Indianized systems as found in islands to the west. While a certain amount of cultural borrowing occurred a
a result of foreign trade contacts, Timorese society had entered a long period of stasis at the time of the
arrival of the first Christian missionaries. Broadly, in Wallersteinean language, the island of Timor
conformed to the generalized category of a "minisystem" outside world-systems defined as regional
divisions of labour composed of several cultural groups. Minisystems, by contrast, were "smal1scale
systems covering a limited geographical area, within which all that is essential for the survival of the
collectivity is done".50
But in dignifying local holders of power with the appellation of rei, the Portuguese were precise. The
exercise of statecraft by the liurai involved the creation of coalitions based on mutual interest in highly
localized situations, either against local adversaries, or around relations with outsiders engaged in trade. As
we have stressed, it is important to view the indigenous political system as integral with traditional beliefs
and practices, collective modes of productions, language and ethnicity, out-group relations, and, as shown
below, even the means of waging war, the Timorese funu spanning generations.
While such "feudal" and backward practices would not be missed in an independent Timor Loro Sae, as
mentioned, sad is to say that much of the anthropological "present" of the 1970s described in this chapter no
longer exists. By 1983, to take one example, Forman's Makassai-or at least survivors of a form of ethnic
cleansing practised by the Indonesian occupation especially in the Matabean ranges-were reduced to
scavenging for wild roots with disease and hunger, especially among women and children, rife. As
witnessed by the author in Baucau region ten years later, not much had changed. Forman, Traube and
others have offered plaintive testimony as to the nature and scope of destruction of native Timorese society
since 1975. Correspondingly, all the more valuable that these precious ethnologies were actually
accomplished on the threshold of cataclysmic change, a reference to the Indonesian-induced civil strife,
invasion and occupation of the territory that would sweep all before it in the ensuing decades.
In any case, as we shall view, throughout the period of Portuguese domination, as much under Indonesian
rule, cultural 1egitimation by various Timorese actors as much attempts by the state and the missions to
remake Timorese in their mould, comes to the heart of concerns over identity and, indeed, what constitutes
indigenous form.
Notes
1. Elizabeth S. Traube, "Mambai Perspectives on Colonialism and Decolonisation", in P. Carey and G.
Carter Bentley (eds.), East I7imor at the Crossroads: Ike Forging of a Nation, Cassell, London, 1995, pp. 42
-43.
2. M. F. Peron, A Voyage of Discovery to the Southern llemisphere, Richard Phillips, London, 1809, pp.
114-115. I
3. A.A. Mendes Correa, Timor Portuguesa: Contribuico?es para o seu Estudo Antropol6gico, Minist6rio
das Col6nias, Imprensa Nacional de Ljisboa, 1944.
4. Ian C. Glover, "FI'he Late Stone age in Eastern Indonesia", Indonesia, No. 12, March 1977; and
Archaeology in Eastern Ilimor, 1966p67, Department of Prehistory, Research School of Pacific studies,
ANU, 1986, passim.
5. H.G. Schulte-Nordholt, The Political System of the Antoni, Martinus Nijhoff, The I;Iague, 1971.
Page 11
6. James Fox, "Forgotten, neglected but not peaceR11. A flistory of Timor", Canberra limes, 27 November
1975 cited in Bill Nico1, I'imor: The Stillborn Nation, Visa, Melboume, 1978, p. 5.
7. A.B. Lapian, "Comments on The Sulu Zone...", paper presented at International Symposium
SoutheastAsia, Kyoto, Japan, 18-20 October, 1996, p. 3.
8. Yvette Lawson, "East Timor: Roots Continue to Grow", University of Amsterdam, MA dissertation,
1989, pp. 4i
9. C. R. Boxer, "Portuguese pI'imor: A Rough Island Story", 1Iistory Today, l960, p. 352.
10. Cf. L.C.D. de Freycinet, Voyage autour du monde, execute Sur les corvettes S.M. l'tJranie et la
Physiciennependant les annifes 181 7-1820, Paris, 1827, pp. 553-555.
11. lbid.,pp. 705-712.
12. Affonso de Castro, Aspossesso?esportuguesas na oceania, Imprensa Nacional, Lisboa, 1 867, p. 17.
13. Elizabeth S. Traube, Cosmology and Social Life: Ritual Exchange among the Mambai of East Timor,
University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1986. pp. 52-53. and see "Mambai Perspectives on Colonialism and
Decolonization", pp. 4.2-58.
14. Gerard Francillon,"Incursions upon Wehale: A Moderll flistory of an Ancient Empire", J.J. Fox (ed.),
The Flow of Llfe: Essays on Easternlimor, ftarvard University Press, Cambridge, 1980, pp. 249-258.
15. Traube, "Mambai Perspectives..."
16. Louis Berthe, Bei Gua, Itiniraire de ance^tres.. mythes des Bunaq de Timor, Centre national de la
recherche scientifique, 1972.
1 7. Femando Slyvan, Cantolenda Maubere h the Legends of the MaubeI.eS, Borja da Costa Austronesian
Foundation.
1 8. Ruy Cinatti, Leopoldo Almeida and Sousa Mendes, Ajnquitectura limorense, Instituto lnvestigagao
Cielltifica Tropical, Museu de Etnologia, Lisboa, 1987, pp. 10-1 1.
19. Eduardo dos Santos, Kanoik: Mitos e Lendas de limor, Ultramar, Lisboa, 1967.
20. Cliff Monis, A Traveller A Dictionary in Tetun,English and Elnglish liitunfrom the land of the Sleeping
Crocodile: East Timor, Baba Dock Books, Frankston, 1972, p. 10.
2 1. David ilicks, "Timor-Roti" in Frank M. Lebar (ed.), Ethnic Groups oflnsular SoutheastAsia, Vol. I,
HRAF Press, New Ilaven, 1972, p. 102.
22. Cf. Joao Mariano de Sousa Saldanha, I7he Political Economy of East Timor Development, Pustaka
Sinar Harapan, Jakarta, 1994, pp. 75-6 on the concept of juramento.
23. Manuel M. Alves da Silva, "Relat6rio", A Voz do Crente, 30 do Julho 1887.
24. Toby Fred Lazarowitz, "pIlhe Makassai: Complimentary Dualism in Timor", Ph.D. dissertation,
SUNY,1980.
25. Saldanha, The Political Economy of East Timor, pp. 74-77.
26. Ruy Cinatti, Leopoldo Almeida and Sousa Mendes, Arquitectura limorense
27. Hicks, Ethnic Groups, p. 93
28. CliffMorris, A Traveller 3g Dictionary, p. 8.
29. The historical development ofp1'etum and especially Tetum Praga is best discussed by GeoHrey flul1,
"A Language Policy for East Timor: Background and Principles", in lis Time to Lead the Way, FJTRA,
Melboume, 1 996, pp. 38-59. While, as flull observes, a certain number ofbon.owings A:om Malay entered
Tetum ijrom the fourteenth century as a result of early contacts with Muslim traders, it is noteworthy that a
early as 1 867 Governor de Castro observed that Tetum incorporated many Portuguese words, especially
pertaining to objects introduced since the "conquista". AHonso de Castro, As Possesso?es Portuguezas na
Oceania, Lisboa, Imprensa Naciona1, 1 867, p. 328. Hull does not mention the fact, but today as the
domain ofbahasa Indonesia expands inside easterll Timor, so the tendency ofTetum to incorporate
Indonesian terlnS at the expense of Portuguese.
30. Mendes Correa, Iimor Portugue's, p. 192.
3 1. Schulte-Nordholt, The Political System of the Antoni.
32. Povos de limor, Fundaeao Oriente, Lisboa, 1992 .
33. Ibid. And see Ruy Cinatti, Leopoldo de Almeida, Sousa Mendes, Arquitectura Timorense.
34 Pigafetta, Magellan 3g Voyage, p. 141.
35. Schulte-Nordholt, The Political System of the Antoni.
36. Another description and analysis ofa Timorese hunt can be found in Ant6nio de Almeida, "flunting and
Page 12
Fishing in Timor", Proceedings of the Ninth Pacljic Science Congress, 1957, Vol. 3, 1963, pp. 239-24.1,
republished in 0 Oriente de Expressa?o Portuguesa, Fundagao Oriente, Centre de fistudos Orientais,
Lisboa, 1994, pp. 467-469.
37. hid., Luis Filipe Thomaz, Notag sobYle a m'da man'tima em Timor, Centro de Estudos de Madnha,
Lisboa, 1 977.
38. See Forlnan, "Descent, Alliance, and F,xchange Ideology among the Makassae of East Timor", in I.J.
Fox (ed.) The Flow of Llfe: Essays on Eastern Timor, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1980, pp. 1
52N177.
39.Traube, Cosmology and Social Llfe.
40. Joachim K. Metzner, Man and Environment in Eastern Timor, Development Studies Centre, Mono
graph No.8, ANU, Canberra, l977.
4 1. Brigitte Clamagirand, "The Social Organization of the Ema of Timor", in James J. Fox (ed.), The
Flow ofIJlfe: Essays on Eastern Timor, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, l980, pp. 134-1 5 i.
42.William Dampier, A Voyage to New Holland: me English Voyage of Discovery to the South Seas in
1699, Alan Sutton, Glouster, 1981, pp. 172-186.
I 43.Lazarowitz, "The Makassai", p. 72
44.Charles R. Boxer, Fidalgos in the Far East, 1550-1 770, Martinus Nijhoff, 1'he Hague, l948.
45. John Villiers, East ofMalacca, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Bangkok, 1 985, p. 67; AHU, Macau
I cx 3 doc No.4, 1748, "Bishop of Macau, D. Frei tlilario ofSanta Rosa to D. Joao V".
46. de Freycinet, Voyage, p. 693. There is some irony in the Frenchman's dry recitation of facts on
slavery, especially as he accepted the oHer of a Timorese slave-boy when in Dili A:om the hand of the
gover nor. Aged between 6-7 and a native of the reino ofFailieor, this boy, Christened JosefJht6nio, died at
the age of 16 in Paris. The story is recounted by de Freyeinet's wife, Rose. See Mamie Bassett, Realms
andlslands: The World Voyage of Rose de Freycinet in the Cowette tlranie 181 7-1820, Oxf7ord
University Press, London, 1962, p.107. A likeness ofJosefAnt6nio also appears in this book.
47. de Freycinet, Voyage, p. 708.
48. Mendes Correa, Iimor Portugue's.
49. Morris, A I3Faveller i Dictionaw, p. 16.
50. I. Wallerstein, The Politics of the World-Economy, CUP, Cambridge, l984, p. 148
2
The Discovery of Timor
Relative to the seventeenth Century, little documentary evidence remains or has been uncovered on the
Portuguese in Timor in the sixteenth Century, the Century of discovery, albeit, not yet permanent European
settlement on Timor. Whether this owes to Portuguese secrecy or, as the Portuguese writer Porfirio Campos
asserts, allegations of criminal negligence on the part of one Governor in allowing fire to destroy the Dili
archives in 1779,1
The problem remains for the modem student of Timor's history, just as it puzzled those Portuguese
historians who sought to write the history of the island a century earlier. While, as discussed below, much
can be inferred from the scattered and obscure writings of the first Dominican missionaries in the Lesser
Sunda islands along with contemporary travellers' reports, we should not ignore a prior Chinese interest in
Timor. Notably, as revealed by modern scholarship which emphasizes the importance of Asian regional
networks and zones alongside the literature on "incorporation", it is important to consider the way that
Timor fitted into or, at least, interrupted, Asian tributary and long-distance trading networks radiating out o
Page 13
variously, Java, Malacca and China, prefiguring by centuries European interest in the island's fabled source
of coveted sandal groves.2
The Sandalwood Trade and Chinese Discovery of primer
The importance of sandalwood to outsider interest in Timor is such to merit dig1'eSsion. Most studies of
Timor agree that early contacts with Timor was linked with sandalwood exploitation. While santalum album
L is not unique to Timor, but also occurs in certain Pacific island groups, Madagascar, India, and Australia,
the islands of Timor, Sunda, and Solor were host to the highest quality white sandalwood in demand. Until
resources were massively depleted in the nineteenth century, sandal was widely dispersed through rumor up
to 1300 metres in altitude. Crawfurd, writing in 1820, observed of this perfumed wood, that the best "is that
nearest the root of the tree; and for this reason, the largest billets are the highest priced". 3
Writing of the ancient sandalwood trade, the geographer Ormeling offers that it bore the character of a thin
gold thread linking Timor with Java's coasts add on to India and China. In both these countries the aromatic
wood found use in religious and burial ceremonies long before the advent of the Portuguese. Chinese
incense sticks offer but one example of the use of sandal in powdered form. It was also the coveted raw
material used for the carving of fans and boxes. Oil extracted from sandal was also highly valued. As such,
sandal entered the circuits of long-distance trade as a luxury item. Despite the entry of this commodity into
world market, Timor was relatively untouched; transactions were mainly with local rulers and the foreign
impact was restricted to the coastal regions.4
Dutch scholars have established that, at the time of the Javanese empire of Srivijaya (circa tenth century
AD), sandalwood from Timor was transported to the Malacca Straits area and then via the
monsoon-controlled trade routes to India and China.
Crawfurd, citing local "annals", observed that as early as 1332 the Javanese along with Malays frequented
Ternate in the Spice Islands as the "first link in the long commercial chain" reaching from the Moluccas to
Europe. There is no question that sandal from Timor entered this chain as a commodity of Indian or Arab
trade.5
We also know from such Chinese sources as the 1225 accounts of the Chinese Inspector of Overseas Trade
Chau-Ju-Kua, that Timor was regarded as a place rich in sandalwood. Ming dynasty records are more
eloquent on the subject, describing Timor as an island covered with the aromatic wood and having at least
twelve landing places where Chinese merchants made their landfall.6 Also from this time a direct sea route
to Timor was opened up by Chinese navigators through the Sulu and Celebes seas to the Moluccas.7
From his reading of Chinese sources on this question, Roderich Ptak has established that the earliest extant
Chinese description of Timor is that contained in the Tao-i chin-lueh (circa 1350):
[Timor's] mountains do not grow any other trees but sandalwood which is most abundant. It is traded for
silver, iron, cups, cloth from Western countries and coloured taffetas. There are altogether twelve localities
which are called ports...
In any case, the Tao-i chin-lueh, is of interest in suggesting, inter alia, direct trade between Timor and
China, high profits realized from the sale of sandal, and the presence of possible Javanese, Indian, or Arab
traders in Timorese ports as bearers of goods from the west.8
While no other Yuan or early Ming sources refer lo the continuation of direct trade between Timor and
China, Ptak speculates that it could be either accidental, or the rise of Majapahit on Java in the second half
of the fourteenth century may have interrupted the trade routes. Though Chinese documentation on the
South Seas trade increases exponentially because of maritime activity connected with Cheng Ho's famous
expeditions, there is no hard evidence that his ships directly touched Timor. Ptak summarizes that, in the
period before Portugal's conquest of Malacca, it is fair to assume that sandalwood was shipped to China by
both Chinese and non-Chinese merchants on the main commercial routes running via the Celebes, the
Moluccas, and the Sulus, before 1400, and via Java, and Malacca after 1400. 9
Indeed, this is confirmed by an anonymous Chinese manuscript entitled Shun Feng Hsiang Sung or "Flair
Winds for Escort", a nautical compendium 'composed about 1430 with additions up until or after l571.
Timor figures as the southernmost destination out of 100 voyages mentioned, albeit connected by the
Page 14
western route across the South China sea. Sailing instructions for the route from Patani to Timor reveal
direct passage off the east coast of the Malay peninsula, via Tioman, Karimata, south towards Bantam on
Java, east through the lesser Sunda islands, entering the Sapi strait between Sumbawa and Komodo island,
continuing east skirting the southern shores of Flores but with Sumba in sight direct to the western end of
Timor (Ch'ih-wen). From here the Chinese traders chose a course that would take them either to the north o
south coast of the island, in the latter case sighting Solor (Su-1, ta-shan). The voyage from Bantam, after
skirting the north coast of Java, follows close to the same itinerary. Besides naming Kupang (Chu-Pang),
the Shun Feng Hsiang Sung, indicates five other toponyms on the north coast of Timor visited by Chinese
ships. Mills, who has studied this question, identifies these places as Tanjung Sulamu at the entrance of
Kupang Bay, Batek Island, Wini, and, proceeding eastwards, perhaps Tanjung Tuwak Mesi, Maubara,
Loiquiero, and the northeast extremity of Timor. Six places are mentioned on the south coast of Timor, at
the end of the Roti Strait, in the vicinity of Noilmina Bay, and Amanubang.l0
Antonio Pigafetta, scribe aboard the Victoria, sole surviving ship of Magellan's circumnavigation, also
passed specific comment on Timor's sandalwood trade and the role of Chinese in this trade.11
All the sandalwood and wax which is traded by the people of Java and Malacca comes From this place,
where we found a junk of Lozzon which had Come to trade for sandalwood... and the goods which are
commonly taken in trade for the sandal are red cloth, linen, steel, iron and nails.
Of this it can be adduced that, by acting as intermediaries, the "people of Java" delivered up sandal and wax
to Malacca thereby connecting Timor with the major arc of Chinese trading-tributary networks in the South
China sea zone, while the presence of the "junk of Lozzon", Suggests a resumption of a more direct route to
China, albeit via the less favoured eastern route according to prevailing winds and the trading season. We
do not know the size of this trading junk, but it could have been considerable. Chinese sea-going junks of
the early 1600s were frequently 400 to 800 tons capacity often carrying crews of up to 500. The point is,
however, that China's retreat into isolation after the great maritime. voyages of the Ming, coupled with the
dramatic irruption of Portuguese seapower into the South China Sea, meant a fundamental shift in the way
that trade was Conducted, including the trade in sandal, notwithstanding the obligatory accommodation on
the part of the Iberian power with local tributary networks.
The European Discovery of Timor
With Afonso d'Alberquerque's conquest of the Muslim Sultanate of Malacca astride the strategic straits of
that name on 15 August 1511, Coming only three' years after the Conquest of Goa, Portugal was poised at,
perhaps, the greatest moment in its historical world expansion, namely the thrust eastwards, to the source o
silk and silver in China, and Japan, and to the source of fabled spices in the Moluccas islands. Ideological
vindication for this dramatic thrust eastwards received additional stimulus with the news that the Treaty of
Tordesillas (1494) had just awarded Portugal the whole hemisphere from the Atlantic to the China Sea,
although it is significant that the island famed for its sandalwood is not mentioned in this document. Within
months of the conquest of Malacca, Alberquerque received Royal orders to send an expedition to the
Moluccas, to determine which side of the meridian they lay, to establish relations with local rulers, and to
secure a Portuguese monopoly over the spices and sandalwood trade.
To achieve this mission, Antonio de Abreu, hero of the siege of Malacca, was chosen to head a fleet of
three vessels. Second-in-command was Francisco Serrao accompanied by Francisco Rodriques, the pioneer
cartographer of the East Indies.
Legend-but not history -also has it that Fernao Magellan accompanied this mission which departed Malacca
in November 1511. Arriving in the Moluccas, Serrao was left behind while Abreu and Rodriques turned
southwest coasting along the interlocked group of islands comprising Wetar, Timor, Alor, and Solor "all so
close together as to appear like one entire mainland". But whether or not they actually sighted Timor
remains a matter of some conjecture. According to Mclntyre, Timor was sighted and marked on a chart, but
the landing was made at Solor. This author finds it possible that a number of degredado or deported
convicts were unloaded at Solor, the genesis of the Solor-Timor Colony.12
Portuguese historians Armando Cortesao and Humberto Leitao, both of whom made careful study of the
Page 15
relevant rota or sailing directions, refute evidence that Timor was sighted on this journey.
While Flores and Solor were charted and represented by Rodriques in the form of pictograph
representations of mountains and even human settlements, and while the expedition undoubtedly Coasted
past the northern coast of the lesser Sunda chain to the east of Flores, it is not the same as saying that direct
observation of Timor was made. Nevertheless, as these authors confirm, one can adduce from various letter
and documents that within three years of the first mission out of Malacca, direct contact had been made wit
Timor by the Portuguese. 13
While Timor along with the Moluccas was undoubtedly known to the Portuguese from the time of their
arrival at Malacca, or even earlier as sandal from Timor was one of the trade items entering the marketplace
in Goa, the name of the fabled island is first mentioned in Portuguese documentation in a letter written by
Rui de Brito Patalim to King Manuel on 2 January 1514. 4
The apocothery and envoy of the first Portuguese mission to China, Tome Pires, noted in his Suma Orienta
in 1515, a route "entre esta illa da Solor e de Bima e o canal para as ilhas de Timor", and that junks go there
for sandal.15
Timor, along with Solor, is also mentioned in several paragraphs in the manuscript of Duarte Barbosa
entitled "Livro em que da relacao do que viu e ouviu no Oriente", written in 1516. 16
Additionally, a report drafted for the King of Portugal from the Captain of Malacca, Afonso Lopes da Costa
successor of Jorge de Brito, is explicit in revealing direct contacts with Timor: "os nossos junques que varo
pera banda de Timor e Malaquo". From this, and other fragmentary documentation such as price figures for
sandal that appear in correspondence sent from Malacca, we can confirm that within a few years of the
conquest of Malacca the Portuguese had set on a course that would lead to the exploration of the islands
east of Java and that the key motivating factor was direct access to the source of the lucrative sandal trade.
17
Needless to say, Portuguese intelligence on the Sunda archipelago expanded rapidly in this period. In
several paragraphs of the Suma Oriental, Tome Pares crystallizes extant commercial knowledge on Solor,
Timor and Sumba, specifically mentioning the presence of "heathen" kings, Solor's food resources along
with all-important sulphur, and, with much emphasis, the singularity of the sandal reserves on Sumba and
Timor. As Pires declaims: "The Malay merchants say that God made Timor for sandalwood and Banda for
mace and the Moluccas for cloves, and that this merchandise is not known anywhere else in the world". 18
While documentation on specific Malacca-Timor voyages undertaken by Portuguese in this period are
extremely thin, one, that of Jorge Fogasa undertaken in 1516, undoubtedly commissioned by Jorge de Brito
(1515-17) is recorded in the form of a letter from Malacca to King Manuel. We lean that the expedition
successfully brought back to Malacca lucrative amounts of sandal. But it was also apparently the case that
Fogasa resorted to force in the act of collection, perhaps also sowing the seeds of future conflict. As, the
letter continues, "they left a land in revolt, since the Portuguese men bludgeoned the merchants of the land"
19
It is noteworthy that no specific mention is made in early documents of the e1.eCtion of a padrao or stone
monument on Timor, the typical Portuguese practice and symbol of conquest, nor does it appear that the
Portuguese ever consummated any single act of conquest on Timor in stone or by treaty. Moreover, the
Portuguese record of this age offers no explicit description of Timor. Unless further documentation comes t
light, this honour owes to Antonio Pigafetta. Unquestionably, the arrival off the village of Amabau
(Ambeno) near Batugede on the north central coast of Timor on 26 January 1522 of the Victoria captained
by Juan Sebastian del Cano along with a crew of 46 Spaniards and 13 native crew acquired on the course
of the voyage through the Philippines and Moluccas islands, heralded the discovery of rumor in Europe. As
with other islands and kingdoms in the archipelago visited by the Victoria, Pigafetta's description of Timor
is singular-especially concerning trade, local economy and kingship-Wand bears retelling in full:
On Saturday the twenty-fifth of January, one thousand five hundred and twenty-two, we departed From the
island of Mallua [Alor]. And on the Sunday following we came to a large island five leagues distant from
the other, between south and southwest. And I went ashore alone to speak to the chief man of a town
named Amabau, that he might give us provisions. lie answered that he would give us oxen, pigs, and goats;
but we could not ag1.ee together, because he desired for an ox, too many things of which we had little.
Wherefore since hunger constrained us, we retained in our ships one of their principal men with a son of
Page 16
his, who was from another town called Balibo. And fearing lest we kill them, they gave us six oxen, five
goats, and two pigs, and to complete the number often pigs and ten goats they gave us an ox, for we had set
them to this ransom. Then we sent them ashore very well pleased, for we gave them linen, cloths of silk and
of cotton, knives, mirrors, and other things.
It is notable that despite an 18-day sojourn on the island, Pigafetta fails to mention the presence of certain
dietary staples, suggesting, perhaps, that eon was introduced by the Portuguese in historical times. While he
did not speak of Timor as a new European discovery, he did, however, pass allusion to the presence on the
island of the "maladie Portugaise", "Saint Job's" disease or venereal disease that could only have been
passed on by travellers from the "New World", in other words by Iberian sailors.
On the people of Timor, their form of government and the enduring myth of Timor gold, Pigafetta
continued:
This lord of Amabau, to whom I spoke, had only women to serve him. They go all naked like the others,
and wear in their ears little gold rings hanging from silk threads, and on their arms, up to the elbow, they
have many bracelets of gold and of cotton. And the men go, like the women, but they have and wear on
their neck certain gold rings as large and round as a trencher, and set in their hair bamboo combs garnished
with gold. And some of them Wear other gold ornaments...
On the other side of the island are four brothers, its kings. And where we were there are only towns, and
some chiefs and lords of them. The names of the habitations of the four kings are: Oibich [Behale],
Lichsana [Liquisa?], Suai, and Cabanazza [Camanassa]. Oibich is the largest town. In Cabanazza (as we
were told) a quantity of gold is found in a mountain, and they purchase all their things with certain small
gold pieces which they have.
For once and for all Timor becomes part of the Western geographical imagination, as much an extension of
Cartesian space:
All this island is inhabited, and it is very long from east to west but not very wide from south to north. It is
in the latitude often degrees towards the Antarctic Pole, and in the longitude of one hundred and sixty-four
and a half degrees from the line of partition, and it is named Timor. 20
Long years would pass before Timor would enter the written record in Europe, a matter of discretion as
much naval and mercantile intelligence.21
Still, cartographic images of Timor and Solor heralded the islands to a world audience.
Beginning with Rodriques' map of c.1513, which marks Timor with the inscription, "onde nasce o
sandalo", the island is also depicted in the Atlas Miller in 1519, the Pedro Reinel map of 1520, the Diego
Ribeiro's world map of 1529, and the socalled Dieppe maps or mappe monde. With the production of the
Pierre Descaliers' map of 1550, the Lesser Sunda Islands from Flores to Timor are well delineated.
As heralded by the publication in 1615 of Declaracao de Malacca, Timor also had a special place in the
cartographic design or at least imagination-of the Malaccaborn Luso-Malay cosmographer and "discoverer"
of Australia, Manuel Godinho de Eredia. But more was at stake than mere cartographic representation.
Unquestionably, the Portuguese (and Spanish) monopoly over the basic facts of navigation in eastern water
took a plunge with the "defection" of Dutchman Jan Huyghen van Linschoten, five years Secretary to the
Viceroy of Goa, whose massively documented and copiously illustrated ltinerium ofte Schipvaert naer Oast
ofte Portugaels lndien, published in Amsterdam in 1596, aided the Dutch in their advance, even though his
information may not have been decisive.
The Solor-Flores Zone
Although well established in the Moluccas by 1522 where treaties secured between the Portuguese and the
Sultan of Ternate guaranteed a monopoly over the clove trade, at least until a resurgent Ternate drove them
out in 1574, Portugal was as yet unable to establish a permanent settlement on Timor. Rather, in 1556, two
years after founding a church in Malacca, members of the Dominican order, named after their early
thirteenth century Spanish founder, Domingos de Gusmao, chose to first settle the small island of Solor to
the northwest of Timor. This act owed to the pioneering evangelism of Father Antonio Taveira. While the
Page 17
Society of Jesus had spearheaded evangelization in China, Japan, and other parts of Southeast Asia, the
appointment of Dominican superiors to the newly founded dioceses of Malacca and Cochin, an initiative
made possible by a papal bull of 1558 creating the bishopric of Goa, led to the reservation of the Lesser
Sunda islands to the attentions of the Order of Preachers.22
As with Timor, Solor, also known as Solor Velho or Lamaquera, Was known to the Portuguese from the
time of their arrival in Malacca or even before. Fortified by the Dominicans to afford protection to local
Christian villages against Muslim raiders from the Celebes, Solor emerged as the main entrepot for
Portuguese trading activities in the eastern archipelago or what is described here as the Flores Solor zone,
providing a haven from the malarial coasts of Timor and a good anchorage where ships could wait out the
Changing monsoon winds.23
For these and other reasons, we have a far better picture of the early years of Portuguese activity in Solor
than on Timor even a hundred years later. That Solor is better documented / than Timor also owes to the
publication and survival of various missionary texts and church histories that began to be published in
Europe in the early decades of the seventeenth century, among them, as mentioned, Joao de Santos',
Ethiopia Oriental and Luis de Sousa's Historia de S. Domingos.
In this formative period, the Estado da India, a reference to Portugal's eastern empire based on Goa, appear
to have had relatively little interest in directly con trolling the islands, leaving the Dominicans to exercise
both religious and temporal power. In any case, by the early 1560s, with the arrival of principal missionarie
and the construction on Solor of a monastery, the Dominicans claimed some 5,000 converts in Solor, Timor
and Flores.24 while Dominican texts are not in agreement as to the founding date of the Solor fort,
according to Leitao, planning for its construction was obviously a priority as the isolated settlement came
under threat from marauding Muslim warriors, and in 1566 a stone and lime Construction was in place.
From an early date units of armed guards were contracted with one of their number nominated as Captain
and Confirmed as such by Malacca or Goa.
The link with Goa, then the site of the major Portuguese arsenal in the East, was strengthened in 1575 with
the arrival of an armed ship along with captain and twenty soldiers.25
In 1595, the Estado da India assumed the right to appoint the Captain, a matter fiercely contested by the
Dominicans who saw their privileges reduced. The first incumbent under the new system was Antonio
Viegas.26
The seasonal character of trade, or in Anthony Reid's phrase, "the seasonality of voyaging" has to be
remarked upon, especially as the Solor-Flores zone is monsoonal and the long distance trade linking the
islands to Goa and later Macau depended upon the rhythm of the trade winds. Invariably over long time the
caravels departed Goa in April or September laying over in Malacca until the end of the year for the
southward-blowing monsoon. Certain of the cargo of prized Indian fabrics would be traded in Java for
Chinese copper coinage in turn exchanged on the journey eastwards for rice and low quality cotton goods
in Sumbawa, later to be bartered for spices in Banda and Ternate. Some of these voyages reached Solor and
others touched rumor seeking out sandal, returning to Malacca with the southeast monsoon between May
and September. Unquestionably, this seasonality not only ensured the development of entrepots where
traders waited out the changes of winds but, in the case of Solor and Timor, eventually led to permanent
settlement by priests and officials 27
The religious and commercial importance of Solor is also nagged in the Livro das Cidades, e Fortalezas, a
handwritten Portuguese account dating from 1582.
Solor is described as hosting a number of Dominican priests along with a fortaleza or small fortification
from where the Captain of the Solor fort, answered to Malacca and to where trade to the value of 3,000 to
4,000 cruzados annually was directed. Timor was identified as the lucrative source of red and white
sandalwood and gold. Trade in these items with India via Malacca was said to be worth 500 cruzados.
More valuable still was the trade between Macau and Timor reckoned at 1,000 cruzados, 28
although this would not yet have been direct.
By any measure, the Solor story is incredible for the number of times it changed hands. In 1598, the fort of
Laboiana (Levahojong or Lavang), after the principal settlement on the northern side of the island, was
partly burnt in an abortive rebellion mounted by native forces against the Captain Antonio de Andria,
although soon rebuilt and restored. We know that it was well located close to the sea but on high ground
with deep valleys on either side. In 1602 Muslim Buginese attacked the fort with a force of 37 ships and
Page 18
3,000 men. Only the chance arrival of a Portuguese meet lifted the siege. Needless to say, the risks
undertaken by the Dominicans pioneers often led to an early death, by disease, shipwreck or more
gloriously, martyrdom at the hands of their Mouro or Islamic opponents.
Certain images of the rectangular-shaped and bulwarked fort and churches of Solor have been bequeathed
to history. Among them is the gravure of Solor reproduced in Pedro Barreto de Resende's Livro do Estado
da India Oriental published in 1646. Not to put too fine a point on it, the Solor fort, along with that of Tidor
and Macau, represented the easternmost trading post of the Portuguese in a system of fortified cities and
islands stretching from Sofala, Mombassa and Mozambique island on the African coast, to the fortress of
Muscat and Ormuz in the Gulf area, to Diu, Goa, Cochin and the Coromandel coast of India, to various
points on Ceylon and the Bay of Bengal to Malacca astride the straits of that name. But having won out
against Muslim rivals in the Indian ocean, the Portuguese were badly exposed in the eastern archipelago to
European rivals in what appeared as a zero sum game in the scramble for riches over souls.
Inevitably, the arrival in the East Indies in the last years of the sixteenth century of ships belonging to
Protestant Holland brought the Portuguese and Dutch into direct conflict in the Far East. Although Dutch
merchant ships used to trade to Lisbon before transshipping their goods to northern Europe, this cosy
arrangement came to an abrupt end with the 1585 "Act of Abjuration" on the part of the United Provinces
signalling a virtual war between Holland and Spain. Between 1585 and 1600 ten prohibitions against trade
with Spain and Portugal were issued by the States General. In 1589-90 English and Portuguese meets
clashed off India and, with the arrival of Captain James Lancaster at Bantam on Java in 1601 England also
entered into direct competition with Holland and Portugal for the eastern trade. Eager to Control the source
of nutmeg and other spices at the source, the Dutch carried the fight to the Moluccas driving the Portuguese
out of Tidor in 1604-06, only to have Spain fill the Portuguese role. But neither was the Portuguese position
enviable in Malacca, where they fought running wars against Muslim rivals in Aceh and Johore, and from
1606, began to bear the full brunt of the Dutch challenge. The Dutch, notably agents of the newly founded
Dutch East India Company (VOC) which visited 1"imor for the first time in 1613, also sought to west
control over the lucrative sandalwood trade in the Lesser Sunda islands.
In this year a Dutch meet under Apollonius Schotte succeeded in capturing the Portuguese fort on Solor, bu
not before the doughty Dutch captain had sailed into Botton (Buton) a strategic island off the southeast
coast of the Celebes midway between Java and the Moluccas, where he signed a treaty with the local
authority, probably only converted to Islam some 23 years prior. Arriving off the fort on Solor on 17
January 1613, Schotte's ships bombarded the fortification, while troops landing to attack from the rear burn
the town around it, capturing the fort from Alvarez, the Portuguese commander, the following April.
According to the terms of surrender, the Portuguese were free to return to Malacca. Alvarez obliged,
although a number of so-called "black" Christians deserted to the Dutch side. Altogether some thousand
Portuguese, "blacks" and mestico, along with seven Dominican priests, took refuge in Larantuca close by
on the eastern tip of Flores, where the Dominicans had earlier established a college in 1599. From Schotte's
description Solor and Flores hosted a complex socio-religious demography. On Solor he identified three
villages of "new" Christians, with another six on Flores, each Christian village ruled by a military officer
and priest. His account also offers one of the earliest references to the presence of guns in these
Christianized communities, alongside such traditional weapons as bows and arrows, shields and sabres.
Besides a large mass of unconverted villagers, he found five Muslim villages on Solor variously subject to
the Sultanates of Macassar and Temate. Leader of the anti-Portuguese camp in the islands he identified as
one Kitebal, a forced Christian convert whose father had been killed by the Portuguese and who entertained
correspondence with Muslim rulers on Botton, Macassar and Bintan and also with the king of Mena on
Timor. 29
Renamed by the Dutch, Fort Henricus, the Solor fort was placed under the Command of Adriaan van der
Velde, who, according to historian Manuel Teixeira, destroyed the church and Misericordia allowing the
converts to lapse back into idolatry. Abandoned in 1615, the fort in Solor was reoccupied in 1618 by
Captain Crijin van Raemburch, installed as Opperhoofd or Chief. In May 1620 van Raemburch launched
an unsuccessful attack on Larantuca still the major centre of Portuguese influence in the islands. In 1621,
the Portuguese, in turn, failed to retake the island, now defended with Muslim help. A Dutch attack against
Larantuca in 1621 also failed. Meanwhile, bad morale in the Dutch camp led to numerous desertions
including, in 1624, Jan Thomaszoon, van Raemburch's successor as commander of the Solor fort.30
Page 19
In a fateful turn of events, and to the great dismay of the Dutch, the new Captain of Solor, Jan de Horney,
likewise deserted to the Portuguese of Larantuca in February 1629. This act prompted the VOC to again
abandon the Solor fort. 31
Jan de Hornay's desertion induced the Dominicans to reoccupy the fort in April 1630. This was achieved by
a group of missionaries arriving from Malacca via Larantuca, numbering Antonio de Sao Jacinto and
Christovao Rangel, later Bishop of Cochin. Working with Rangel and the mission, the new Portuguese
Captain Major of Solor, Francisco Fernandes, set about the restoration of the damaged fortress and convent
This he achieved with the help of Macau which provided finance in the form of 700 patacas, six Chinese
craftsmen including a fundidor or cannon-maker, muskets, and several of the esteemed cannons
manufactured in Macau by the master cannonmaker, Bocarro. Fortified with 15 cannons, the Solor
defenders successfully repelled a Dutch attack under Tombergen on 18 June 1636.
Even so, the Dominicans soon abandoned the fort which remained untenanted for the next ten years at
which time, in February 1646, it was reclaimed by the Dutch.32
As revealed by a letter of 1642 from the controller of customs at Goa to King Joao IV of Portugal signalling
the discovery of copper on the island, a request to dispatch a caravella (caravel) to take over of the fort cam
too late or was ignored. 33
Forced by the Dutch from Solor in 1636, the Portuguese moved their base to Laruntuca, often confused in
period maps and writings as Solor itself, albeit in the same trading zone. The Dominicans also fortified the
island of Mbinge (Ende) in Flores in the late sixteenth century, then an active site of commerce in
sandalwood and slaves.
Ousted in 1630 by acts of local intrigue, certain of the surviving Portuguese or at least Portugalized
community settled in the tiny, nearby kingdoms of Sica and Paga, surviving under notional Portuguese rule
until the nineteenth century. Overall, the Portuguese settlement at Flores in the 1620-30 period was an
integral part of a commercial network in which traders from Cochin, the Coromandel coast, Malacca,
Macau, Manila, and increasingly, Macassar, all participated. 34
In 1647 the Dominicans, namely Antonio de Sao Jacinto, commenced building a fortification at Kupang
which, as Boxer observes, was rightly sited at the best harbour and most strategic point on the island. With
Sao Jacinto's recall to Goa in 1649, the Captain-Major Francisco Carnerio took over the fort.35
Only following an earthquake in Solor in 1653 were the Dutch encouraged to take over the Portuguese
fortification, renaming it Concordia, thus beginning their domination of west Timor right down until
Indonesia's full independence in 1949. From 1654-65, the Dutch entered into the first major "contracts"
with the rulers of five Small states on the northwest coast of Timor that ring the Bay of Kupang, the
so-caned "five loyal allies" of the Company. 36
It was small solace for Portugal that even after a Treaty of Peace was signed between King Joao IV and the
United Provinces on 12 June 164l, Dutch meets continued to harass the Portuguese off Goa and Ceylon,
and, more damaging, one year following Portugal's restoration of independence from Spain, carried the
siege of Malacca, effectively blockaded since 1633. This devastating blow to Portuguese power in the east
also led certain of the Portuguese to relocate to Macassar under the protection of the Sultan of Gowa, while
others made their way to Larantuca. But the Dutch were also determined to destroy this network to its
advantage. After repeated attacks, the VOC succeeded in defeating Gowa in the Battle of Macassar in
1667.
While this victory signalled a shift in the local balance of power between Portuguese and Dutch, on the one
hand, and the Dutch and Muslims, on the other, again Larantuca received a further infusion of Portuguese
refugees.
Lach and van Kley have drawn attention to detailed information on Solor published in Lisbon in 1635. Of
particular interest is the account of Miguel Rangel (1645), written to demonstrate that the Dominican fort o
Solor was necessary to ensure free access to Timor's sandalwood and to protect the Portuguese and native
Christians living there and on the neighbouring islands of Timor, Flores, and Ende. While Rangel waxes
eloquent over Solor's salubrious natural endowments and trading advantages, his memo on the presence of
all materials required for the manufacture of gunpowder, along with the presence of suitable timber for
house and shipbuilding, offers certain insights as to the original choice of Solor as a place of settlement. 37
Besides Solor island itself, the Portuguese found in all the islands of the Solor group an abundance of trade
commodities that complemented the specific natural resources required to support mercantile and religious
Page 20
communities in this isolated and hostile region of the archipelago. In fact, Solor was a dry and barren island
and, besides the presence of game, produced little of its own food resources and was dependent upon
imports from other islands. As Leitao points out, none of the islands were properly speaking vassal of any
other power. Neither was there any form of centralized kingship on the islands. Rather, each settlement was
ruled by a chief, on Solor know as sangue-de-pete and on the other islands atacabel or atuluque. 38
But then, as now, the islands of the Solor-Flores zone were remote in the archipelago, separated by
dangerous straits and swift running tides. Barnes, who carried out research on one of the islands of the
group between 1969-71, describes the population as fractured and distributed among many quite small
societies and linguistic groups on a multitude of islands. The only unity he found was that the peoples of
Andonara, Solor, and Lemblata spoke several mutually intelligible dialects of the Solor or Lamaholot
language. Most of these peoples, he found, were simple slash-and-bum agriculturalists, living in mountain
villages. The staple was dry rice or maize with some secondary crops for sale, depending upon access to
markets. Some villages depended upon trade, 39 facts confirmed by the author in the course of a two-day
visit to Kalahbahi on Alor Island in August 1974.
Vi11iers' study on Portuguese trading links with the Solor group of islands is the most useful in English
language. The largest of the islands, Flores, he writes, was the best endowed by nature, and especially
capable of producing on irrigated fields a substantial surplus of rice, alongside yams, beans, sweet potatoes
sugar cane, and millet. Flores also produced gamuti, a strong fibre used for ropes and ship's cables. In
Flores, the Dominicans soon put to good use the sulphur produced by the volcanoes in the Straits of Flores
and the Bay of Ende, along with saltpetre to be found in Larantuca to Produce gunpowder of "high
quality". 40
The island of Ende (sometimes Ende Menor or Torre) on the south coast of Flores was, according to Boxer
the most important for the Portuguese after Solor. Fortified in 1595 by Fir. Simao Pacheco and supporting
three churches, one inside the fortress and two outside, the Portuguese were driven out by native rebellions
in 1605 and again in 1630. Dominican sources speak of a relief expedition sent to the Christian village of
Ende in 1660.41
But, as mentioned, it was Larantuca which emerged as the major fortified Portuguese settlement in the
Solor islands, especially after the decline of Solor. This was accomplished by the Dominican Father Rangel
who, with the blessing of the Captain-Major of Larantuca, Francisco Fernandes, returned B70m Macau
with money, workers, a gunpowder machine, iron-plated doors, and artillery.42
English privateer William Dampier, who visited Timor in 1699 soon after his not-too-successful voyage of
discovery to Australia leant secondhand that Larantuca was "more populous than any Town on Timor; the
Island Ende affording greater Plenty in all manner of Fruit, and being much better supplied with all
Necessaries, than Laphao". 43
Such confusion over nomenclature could be excused on the part of Dampier, as Flores was known
variously by seventeenth century navigators and writers as Servite, Ilha Grande, Larantuca, Ende, Ende
Grande, Solor, Solor Grande, Solor Novo and Mangerai.
Unlike Solor, the island of Adonara (sometimes Dnara, Lamala, Crama or Sebrao) was densely populated
with seven or eight villages along one coast, most animist, but including one that converted to Christianity
although, by the seventeenth century, converted to Islam. This beachhead of Islam was an obstacle to
Portuguese dominance on Adonara but the Islamic element provided a reliable trade link to the Portuguese
on Larantuca in times of peace. Fast of Adonara, the island of Lomblen (also know as Lobela, Levo-leva or
the modem Lembata), was seldom visited by the Portuguese. Except for a Muslim village, the population
was entirely pagan. Nevertheless, Lomblen produced a surplus in foodstuffs, and kept up a trade in wax,
tortoiseshell, whale products, and slaves. Pantar island, (also known as Galiao, Putar, Also, Gal6cio and
Pondai along with the other small islands in the Straits of Alor, did not apparently support any Christian
communities. Pantar, was, however, known as a source of very pure sulphur. Alor (Malua), where
cannibalism was said to be practised, even up until the mid-t3eflentieth century, hosted neither Muslim nor
Christian communities. Portuguese interest in Alor was confined to the collection of wax, slaves and
tortoiseshell. The Portuguese also fanned out to the islands of Roti and Sam off the western tip of Timor,
making Solor and, particularly, Larantuca, key marketplaces for the archipelago-wide trade in slaves. By
1599, according to the Ethiopia Oriental of Fr. Joao de Santos, the Dominicans had built a total of 18
Churches in the Solor islands, five in Solor, eight in F'1ores, three in Ende, and two on Adonara. 44
Page 21
Boxer contends that it is not easy to ascertain who was even in control of affairs in Larantuca as there were
always many candidates for the Captaincy among the mixed Larantuqueiro community of Portuguese
soldiers, adventurers, Macanese traders, Dutch deserters, Chinese smugglers, and various racial admixtures
Nevertheless, it is clear that the principal contestants were, as described in the following chapter, the two
Eurasian swashbucklers, Antonio de Hornay and Matheus da Costa. 45
With Larantuca and Solor as fortified bases, hosting substantial Christianized communities with basic
ecclesiastical institution established, with thriving marketplaces and manufacturies to support the seaborne
trade, the Estado da. India established a commercial network, linked with the annual ships to Malacca but
capable of a high degree of self-sufficiency and economic autonomy outside of the requirement for cannon
and certain specialist trade Commodities such as iron goods and cottons. But, with the fall of Solor to the
Dutch in 1613, Larantuca was developed as the principal Centre of Portuguese influence in the Lesser
Sunda Islands.
By the 1620s, Larantuca was linked to Macassar, where the Portuguese were also established, and, in turn
to Macau, especially in the trade in sandal.
The Dutch and the Sandalwood Trade
While obviously the Portugaise Were Well informed from the earliest days as to the sources of sandal on
Timor, their Calvanist rivals were not far behind. As Jan Huyghen van Linschoten, mote in his ltinerario
"Timor has whole wildernesses of sandalwood and from thence it is carried to and throughout India, where
it is used by Indians, Moors, Heathens and Jews". 46
Linschoten also observed that three species of the aromatic wood grew in Timor, namely red-yellow
sandalwood which predominated in the east of the island, otherwise much in demand in India for various
medicinal, cosmetic, and religious purposes, a citrono species regarded as of low quality found in the west
of the island, and, in the centre, a yellow variety in high demand in Macau.47
Given this knowledge it is not so surprising that in the account of the Esrste Shipvaart, the first voyage to
the East Indies by the Dutch (1595-97), sandalwood was recommended as an article offering good
profits.48
Neither were the English backward in their knowledge of Timor's sandalwood.
John Saris, who resided in the great trading mart of Bantam on the north coast of Java, between 1605 and
1609 prior to setting up English East India Company operations in Hirado in Japan, wrote of rumor that "it
affords great store of Chindana, by us called white saunders, the greatest logs being accounted best". Of the
trade in sandal along with "great cakes" of wax brought from Timor to Bantam by Chinese traders, Saris
observed from market prices fetched in Bantam that it brought "great profit" when traded against such item
in high demand in Timor as chopping knives, small bugles, porcelain, coloured taffaties, and pieces of
silver.
While, as Saris mentions, one of his men actually ventured to Timor with Chinese traders to investigate the
trade at first hand, 49
The English did not succeed in following up the sandal trade with Timor at the source.
Ormeling asks, with good reason, what w-as Dutch interest in a commodity that had virtually no market in
Holland? He explains that, from the beginning, Timor sandalwood provided a means by which the
Company could break into the highly attractive trade with China. The failure of Governor General Coen's
attempts to seize Macau in (1617-23, 1627-29) prompted the Dutch to drive the Chinese, Portuguese, and
local Muslim merchants out of the Timor trade, leaving Batavia as the major sandalwood emporium in the
East. In this strategy, the status quo of old would re-emerge whereby the Chinese would buy the sandal
direct from Java. In fact, however, the Dutch failed to dislodge the Portuguese from Timor and never
managed to impose their monopoly. On Timor, the VOC's influence was restricted to Kupang, and
environs. Moreover, the Dutch were outmanoeuvred by the Chinese sheltered under the Portuguese nag at
Lifau. As Adriaan van der Velde bewailed in 1614 after its first capture from the Portuguese:
The Chinese offer in exchange such articles as porcelain, beads, gold, etc, which are in great demand on
Timor and with which the Dutch cannot compete. In addition they offer the people of Timor more than we
do, since all the wares in China are abundant and cheap. 50
Page 22
Rangel, writing in 1633, notes that Macau-based merchants reaped profits as high as 200 per cent on the
sandalwood trade. In these transactions the Solor-based Portuguese merchants used gold while Chinese
merchants used silver, or for smaller transactions, claris or clarins (small pin-shaped silver coinage) From
Goa.51
Bocarro, the chronicler in-chief of the Estado da India, also recorded in 1635 that large profits were being
made on voyages from Macau to Solor in the sandalwood trade, especially since dues were not paid on
what was imported or exported:
Owing to the blockade of the Strait of Singapore by the Hollanders, they can no longer Come and go this
way, but go direct from Macao in well fitted-out pinnaces, which at arriving at Solor take in some native
Christian soldiers, Most of whom keep themselves out of their pay, with which they go to the island of
Timor, thirty leagues distant from Solor, and there lade sandalwood, never failing to have frequent
skirmishes by land and sea with the Hollanders, who likewise go thither to seek the same sandalwood;
however the Portuguese always come off best, for since those of Macao are wealthy and not lacking in
artillery, their pinnaces are very well found, whilst the soldiers they take on in Solor are very good, and
flight very resolutely against the Dutch. 52
There is no question that the Dutch blockade mentioned by Bocarro actually intensified the Portuguese role
in the Southeast Asian trade, even though the mighty four-masted ocean-going caravels, that reached 2,000
tons in the case of the Goa-Macau-Japan trade, came to be replaced from 1618 onwards by far smaller and
swifter galiotas or galliots, pataxo or pinnace, naveta or Portuguese rigged junks, fragata (frigates), and
cargo or dispatch vessels, in the 200 to 400 ton range. There is also the sense that, apart from driving impor
costs upwards, Dutch aggression against European rivals actually redounded in favour of the Chinese
merchants who alone acted as intermediaries for Batavia and Dutch-controlled Solor. No less, given the
failure of the Dutch to capture Macau or gain direct access to the Chinese mainland, the construction of For
Zeelandia on Taiwan in 1634 notwith- standing, the VOC were obliged cargoes to the Chinese markets.53
to rely on Chinese traders to carry the precious
Conclusion
From our discussion of Chinese trading networks reaching to Timor, it is clear that from an early period the
island was deeply enmeshed in a wider tributary-trading network, although we know next to nothing as to
how the impingement of outsiders might have altered domestic power relations on the island. But, by the
closing decades of the sixteenth century, it is clear that the Portuguese had not only displaced Asian trading
rivals in the Flores-Solor-Timor zone, but, through the work of the missions, quickly established themselve
as the dominant ideological/ civilizational force in a zone hitherto untouched by the great religions.
Established as a Royal monopoly, the Solor voyages and the sandal trade ineluctably welded Solor and
Timor into a Portuguese-dominated East Asian maritime trading network. The boom years, 1570-1630,
identified by Reid in his magisterial study on archipelagian commerce, also fitted the pattern of the sandal
trade from Timor, but, as demonstrated below; as an item of predominately Chinese and Indian demand, the
sandal trade continued to nourish on Timor in Europe's century of crisis. The situation on Timor was thus
unlike the spice trade of the fabled Moluccas, where the Dutch monopoly established in Banda in 1621 and
on Ambon some thirty years later actually reduced supplies reaching Europe and where Clove trees outside
the Dutch monopoly zone were actually destroyed in order to manipulate prices.54
As Ptak has pointed out, while far less important than pepper, sin, or silver in the overall East-West trade,
and trade centred on sixteenth and seventeenth century Macau, sandal, of which the Timor area was the
major source, was nevertheless in high demand over large parts of Europe and Asia including Japan.55
It is clear from the foregoing that the evolution of Portuguese authority in the archipelago during and after
the "long" sixteenth century, responded to or worked within several important restraints, all of which we
address in the following chapter. As described by Portuguese historian Artur Teodoro de Matos, these are
fourfold; first, the Confrontation between Portuguese power and that of the Muslims of Macassar in zones
over which both claimed nominal sovereignty; second, the threat posed by the Dutch East India Company;
Page 23
third, internal revolts fomented by the powerful Timorese kingdom of Wehale; and fourth, the actions of an
indigenized or creolized group on Timor, notionally loyal to the Portuguese Crown, but in fact acting
independently. 56
Notes
1. Pr. Porfldo Campos, "Algumas notas sobre Timor: 0 deseobrimento da Ilha", in Boletim Eclesidstico da
Diocese de Macau, 3KXVI, No.419, February 1939.
2. See, for example, Satoshi lkeda, "The History of the Capitalist World-System vs. the History of East
Southeast Asia", Review, XIX, 1, Winter 1996, pp. 49-77, in part an introduction and examination of the
writings of Japanese scholars, Takeshi Hamashita and Heita Kawakatsu, notably the former's sense of
regional-economy or worldiegion of which the Chinese tributary trade systenl COrreSPOnds to an
intennediate layer of analysis existhg both before and a Rer the creation of the European world-system.
3. John Crawfurd, History of the Indian AjnChljpelago, (Vol.IID, Edinburgh, 1820, p. 42 1.
4. F.J. Ormeling, The Timor Problem, J.B. Wolters - Gronigen, Djakarta, Martinus NLhoffs-Gravenhage,
1956,p.96.
5. Crawhrd, History of the Indian AYIChljuelago, pp. 148- l49.
6. Ormeling, The Timor Problem, p. 96.
7. Yumio Sakurai, "The Structure of Southeast Asian History," paper delivered International Symposium
Southeast Asia, Global Areastudies for the 21st Century, Kyoto, Japan, 18-22 October 1996, p. 11.
8. Roderich Ptak, "The Transportation of Sandalwood From Timor to Macau and China during the Ming
Dynasty", Review of Cultujne, 1987, p. 32.
9.1bid.
10. J.V. Mills, "Chinese Navigators in lnsulinde about A.D. l500", Archljuel, No.18, 1979, pp. 69-93.
11. Antonio Pigafetta, Magellan 's Voyage: A Narrative Account of the First Circumnavigation, Yale
University Press, New Haven and London, 1969, p. l41.
12. Gordon Mclntyre, The Secret Discovery of Australia souvenir Press, Australia, 1977, pp. 42-45.
1 3. prhe arguments and evidence of Armando Cortesao, The Suma Oriental ofnmi PLneS, Hakluyt,
London, 1944 and Humberto Leitao, Os Portugueses em Solor e Timor, de 1515 a 1702, ,Lisboa, 1948 are
discussed dispassionately by Antonio Alberto Banha de Andrade, "Perspectiva hist6riea de Timor",
Estudos de Ciencias Politicas e Sociais, No.80, pp. 45-58.
A usefill eighteenth century account of the discovery of Timor by two Christianized Malay merchants from
Malacca is given in "Relacao do estado de Timor e das coizas que ne11e passarao desde o anno de 1762 a
the o de 1769, mais execiflCada que a do cap 1 d 2 tomo do-Sistema Marcial Aziaticos", in Tassi-Yang
Kuo (Series II, Vol.III and IV), 1 899-1900, pp. 7-l2. Unf7ortunately this account lacks precise dates.
14. Rui de Brito Patalim, cited in Francisco Ferllandes, "Das Miss6es de Timor", Revista de Estudos
Luso-Asiaticos, No. 1 , Septembro, 1992, citing Teixeira, Macau e Sua Diocese, Macau, 1974, Chap.X,
Timor, p. 5,pp. 9-18.
15. Tome Pires, The Suma Oriental of lbmd PLneS, (1515) trans. A. Cortesao, Hakluyt Society, 1944.
16. Augusto Reis Machado, (introduction and notes), Livro em que da relacao do que viu e ouviu no
oriente: Duarte Barbosa, Divisao de Publieac6es e Biblioteca, Agencia Geral da Col6nias, MCMXLVI.
17. The enigma of Timor's Western discovery has long antecedents. Drawing upon an array of published
and unpublished sources, French explorer and author de Freycinet, writing in 1818, found it "extraordinary
that, having an Aived in the Celebes in 15 12, no record could be found of Portuguese contact with Timor
prior to 1 525. L.C.D. de Freycinet, Voyage autour du monde, execute sur les corvettes S.M. Turanie et la
Physicienne pendant les anndes 181 7-1820, Paris, 1827, p.528. De Freycinet consulted seventeen classic
texts on European exploration in Asia, including Pigafetta, de Barros, de Bry, Crawhrd, Burney, Valentyn
and P. SanDomingo, Histoire des conquetes des Portugues dans les lndes orientales.
18. The Suma Oriental of I'omd Pires (Vol. D Armando Cortesao (trans), ftakluyt Society, London,
1944,p.204..
19. Extract of the letter of Pedro de Faria to King Dom Manue1, Malacca, 5 January 1517 [alias 1518] in
Ronald Bishop Smith, I'he First Age of the Portuguese Embassies, Navigations and Peregrinations to the
Kingdom and Islands of Southeast Asia (1509-1521), Decatur Press, Bethesda, Maryland, 1968, p. 56.
Page 24
20. Pigafetta, Magellan 3g Voyage, p. 141.
21. Mclntyre, The Secret Discovery. According to some accounts, a Castelano, part of the Magallen
mission was abandoned on Timor and later brought to Malacca by Portuguese junks then engaged in the
sandal trade, involving the barter of iron goods against sandal. See Luis Filipe F.R.Thomaz, De Ceuta a
Timor (Diffusao Fjditorial, Lisboa, 1 994, p. 593) citing a document found in the Arquivo Nacional da
Torre do Tombo, cII-lO1-87, on an inquiry made at Malacca, 1 June 1522.
22. John Villiers, East of Malacca, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Bangkok, 1985, cited in Sanjay
Subrahmanyam, The Portuguese Empire in Asia, 1500-1700: A Political and Economic History, Longman,
LJOndon, 1993, p. 209.
23. A Jesuit account of 1559 written in Maluku (Molucca) offers such basic data on Solor as food supply,
language and Culture of the people, the presence of Christianity and Islam. Solor, in this account, was
visited by both Portuguese and Chinese. See Fr. Baltasar Dias SJ to Fr Provincial Antonio de Quadras SJ ,
Goa, 3 December 1559, Malacca, in flubert Jacobs SJ (ed.), Documenta Malucensia (1542-1577), Rome,
1980
24. Villiers, East of Malacca.
25. Leitao, Os Portugueses, p. 91.
26. Charles R. Boxer, Fidalgos in the far East, 1550-1770, Fact and Fancy in the tlistory of Macfromartinus
NLhoff, The Hague, 1948, p. 175.
27. AJnthony Reid, Southeast Asia in the Age of CommejnCe 1450-1680 Volume livo: Expansion and
Crisis, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1993, pp. 64J55; Thomas, "The Image of the
Arehljuelago ".
28. Francisco Paulo Mendes da Luz, (compiler) Limo das Cidades, e Fortalezas que a Coroa de Portugal
Tem Nas Partes da India, e das Capitanias, e mais cargos que nelas ha, e da lmportancia delles, (Circa 1
582), Centro de Estudos I{istoricos Ultramarinos, LJisboa, 1 960.
29. See Schotte, "Relation du Voyage" in Recueil des Voyages qui ont semi lj 'Etablissement et atLX
Progris de la Compagnie de lndes Orientales Formie dans leg Provinces Unies des Pays-Bas, Tome IV,
Etienne Roger, jhsterdam, 1705, pp. 207-214. Schotte is also cited in Donald F. Laeh and Edwin J. Van
Kley, Asia in the Making of Europe, (Vo1.III, Book 1), University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1993, pp.
l459-1460.
30. Manuel Teixeira, Macau e asua Diocese: Missoes de Timor, Tipografla da Missao do Padroado, Macau
1974, p. 16.
3 1. Subrahmanyam, The Portuguese Empire, p. 210.
32. Teixeira, Macau e asua Diocese, p. 23.
33. AL[U Timor cx.1 doc. No.2: lO7-1642 Dezembro 220-4 Goa: Carta do [vedor da Fazenda do Estado
do India] Andr6 Salema, ao rei [D. JoaoIV].
34. Subrahmanyam, The Portuguese Empire.
35. C.R. Boxer, "Portuguese Timor: A Rough Island Story: l5 15-1960", 1Iistory lbday, May 1960, p. 352.
36. J.J. Fox, Harvest of the Palm: Ecological Change in Eastern Indonesia, Ilarvard University Press,
Cambridge, 1977, p. 67.
37. Lach & Van Kley, Asia in the Making of Europe, pp. 1456-1459'.
38. Leitao, Os Portugueses, p. 72.
39. Robert H. Bames, "Concordance, Structure, and variation: Considerations of Alliance in Kedang", in
J.J. Fox, The Flow of Life: Essays on Eastern Timor, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1 980, pp. 68-
97.
40. Vmiers, East of Malacca.
41. Leitao, Os Portuiueses.
42.Ibid.
43. William Dampier, A Continuation of a Voyage i_o New Holland, etc. in the Year 1699, James and
John Khapton, at the Crown in St.Paul's Churchyard, London, 1699, p. 184.
44. Villiers, East of Malacca.
45. Boxer, Fidalgos in the Far East, p. 181.
46. Jean Hugues Ljinschoten, 1Iistorie de la Navigation, 2eme edition, Amsterdam, 1619, pp. 124-l25 cited
in de Matos, Timor Portuguese: 15 15-l769, Instituto Historico lnfante Don Henrique, Faeuldade de Letras
Page 25
da Universidade de Lisboa, Lisboa, 1974, p. 169.
47.Ibid.
48. Orlneling, The Timor Problem.
49. John Saris, The First Voyage of the English to Japan (translated and Collated by Takanobu Otsuka),
Toyo Bunka, Tokyo, 1941.
50. Ormeling, The Timor Problem, p. 101.
51. Rangel cited in Lach and Van Kley, Asia in the Making of Europe.
52. Antonio Bocarro, "Descrigao da Cidade do Nome de Deus na China", 1635 in C.R. Boxer, Macau
naopoca da Restauraca?o (Macau Three Hundred Years Ago), Imprensa Nacional, Macau, 1942, pp. 45-
46.
53. See Roderich Ptak, "The Transportation of Sandalwood from Timor to China and Macau c. l3501600",
pp. 105.
54. Reid, SoutheastAsia, pp. 22-23.
55. Ptak, The I3(ansportation of Sandalwood
56. Artur Teodoro de Matos, Timor Portuguese: 1515-1769, pp. 78-79
3
On the Island of Santa Cruz
As described in chapter 2, down until the early seventeenth Century, it was Solor and Flores, not Timor,
that was the focus of Portuguese and Dutch Commercial activities in the eastern archipelago. Timor,
including the ports of Lifau, Kupang, Bahao, in the bay of Kupang, and Dili, was visited periodically by the
Portuguese during the Solor period, but there was no permanent Portuguese establishment on the island and
no population on the island under Portuguese authority. The Dominican mission, however, was more
adventurous in this sense. It remains to be studied as to how and why the island of Timer, dubbed Santa
Cruz by the early missions, came to emerge by the end of the seventeenth century at centre-stage of
intra-colonial rivalry in the archipelago? It also remains to determine whether, as in the Solor phase,
Portugal in its conquest of Timor was also obliged to accommodate to local and regional power networks a
much overarching Chinese trade networks that made the venture commercially viable?
World Incorporation or Asian Tributary Power?
The phenomenon of European expansion, of which Timor seems to exemplify, has drawn heated debate
between two broad schools of world history. This has been summarized by Frank and Gills, as turning upon
500 years of history or a 5,000 years perspective. The 5,000 year perspective allows for a seamless view of
history stretching back to antiquity, acknowledging, that the "new world" was in fact home to a
world-systems prior to its incorporation from 1492. By contrast, Wallerstein and others regard capital
accumulation over the past 500 years as the motor force of world-system theory and continuous capital
accumulation as the differentia specifica of the modern world-system. In the latter view, world empires or
tributary systems were dominated by ideological questions as opposed to the economic law of value in the
accumulation of capital. For Frank, the debate is really about continuity versus discontinuity in world
history. 1
For Wallerstein, the East Indies remained external to the European system between 1500 and 1800. The
Portuguese did not break the international Asian character of trade and only conducted trade on terms
established by the Asian nations.
In making this claim Wallerstein also finds support in arguments of the prewar Dutch scholar and opponent
of Eurocentric historiography, J.C. van Leur. Asia, in / the Wallersteinean view therefore remained an
external arena in a relationship between two zones "not within a single division of labour" involving the
Page 26
trade in luxury goods versus trade in bulk or necessities. According to Wallerstein, luxury exports refers to
the disposition of socially low-value items at prices far higher than those obtainable for their alternate
usages. Such traffic then is only applicable between two separate historical systems holding different
measures of social values.2
Such obviously was the case of prized nutmeg and Cloves from the Moluccas which entered trade chains
reaching to Europe, but this was also the case of sandalwood From Timor which entered the "external
arena" in India and China via Java or Malacca as a product of luxury consumption in religious ceremonies.
The Wallersteinean view that the East Indies remained outside the European system up until around 1750,
and that the Portuguese and Dutch relations with the Asian states was essentially conducted on Asian terms
has been challenged by Victor Lieberman. But while van Leur was correct to signal the maritime outpost
character of the trade, Lieberman asserts that even in line with Wallerstein's other criteria, archipelagic
Southeast Asia was already on the way to peripheralization by 1650 or 1700. Not to burden this discussion
with more facts and theory, Lieberman offers the example of the Manila galleon trade which "deadened"
Spanish interest in developing a native economy. Throughout the archipelago, he offers, the VOC
succeeded through "brutal assaults and sustained naval attacks" where the Portuguese failed in winning
monopolies. But the "historic achievement of the Portuguese", he continues, was to accelerate the political
and commercial fragmentation of the western archipelago disrupting and destroying, particularly the
integrative thrust of the Malacca Sultanate.
The only exception to the rule that local economies were actually contracting, he offers, is the case of Aceh
3
In this discussion we should not also ignore certain of the assumptions of the school of general crisis of the
seventeenth century, given early voice in Voltaire's pioneering global history, Essai, that uprisings across
Europe found their match in India, China and Japan. While there is more than a little coincidence in these
events, we cannot ignore the impact even in the Timor-Solor-Flores zone of the consequences of such
climactic European events as the Dutch revolt against Spain, the Spanish conquest of Portugal in 1580, the
running war by the Dutch against the Iberian powers in South America and the Far East, Portugal's official
renewal of war with the Dutch in 1621 and the Portuguese overthrow of Spanish rule in 1640-68.4
But to offer a totally European-determinate view of events of this period would be to seriously
underestimate the strength of what Japanese scholar Hamashita has called the "tribute trade system". Asian
history writ large, he sees as "the history of a unified system characterised by internal tribute or tribute-trad
relations, with China at the centre". He sees this regional conception of history as the premise of an
understanding of modern Asia.5 While, to be sure, we cannot ignore China's and Japan's variable responses
to the new Euro-centric trading patterns, at the same time, we should not ignore the new rising maritime
centres of power, namely Islamic Macassar and other centres. While for Frank and Gills, the general
distinction between the 500 years and 5,000 years debate concerns continuities, the question which
concerns us here is whether Portugal ruptured or accommodated existing Asian maritime trading networks
in the eastern archipelago?
Mena and the Conquest of Wehale (1589-164)
Although the record on the first Church contacts with Timor remains obscure, even alongside that of Solor,
it appears likely that the first port of arrival in Timor to receive the solicitations of the Dominicans was
Mena near Atapupu in west Timor. Manuel Teixeira writes that in 1589-90 one Fr. Belchior da Luz or de
Antas disembarked in the port of Mena, was well received by the local raja, and constructed a church. But
after six months' evangelization he decided to withdraw.
According to this account, while the polygamous raja did not convert, he nevertheless offered up his
daughter to the faith and she accompanied Belchior back to Malacca where she was baptized.6
While the facts surrounding the first mission in Timor remain unclear, the early nineteenth century French
traveller, de Freycinet, who made a rigorous study of extant Dutch and Portuguese printed materials, places
this at 1616 when, obliged to nee their fortresses on Solor and Flores, certain missionaries arrived at Setern
on Timor and commenced evangelization. According to this account, a more concerted effort was made in
1630 with the arrival in Timor from Larantuca of members of the Dominican order who, inter alia, baptized
the raja of Silaban, a kingdom located between Atapupu and Batugede.7
Page 27
Even so, as shown below, it would be 50 years before the Order of the Preachers ventured back to Mena. It
was no coincidence, then, that Mena was attested by Garcia da Orta in 1563, and Cristovao da Costa in
1578, as the source of the best sandal on Timor.8
While the Portuguese were content with their foothold on Solor as local collecting point for trade goods
from Timor, up until 1613, they also occupied a small fort on Kupang in west Timor. In that year, as
mentioned, the fort was surrendered to the Dutch who garrisoned it with a force of 50 men. According to de
Freycinet, fresh from victory over the Portuguese at Solor (20 April 1613), Apollonius Schotte proceeded to
Mena, then the seat of one of the more powerful kingdoms at least in terms of its control over the export of
sandal. Moving on to explore the bay of Kupang, Schotte, agent of the venerable Dutch East India
Company, also entered into various treaties with local rulers and, by Consent or duress, obtained permission
to establish fortresses at Mena and at Kupang. To this end, he left behind a number of men at both places
prior to his departure.9
All Dutch Claims to Timor date from these treaties.10 Thus with the occupation of the Kupang and Mena
forts, the Dutch took up a permanent presence on Timor, even though they temporarily abandoned their
position on Timor and Flores in 1616.
Schotte's own account offers certain elaboration. During the siege of Solor prior to his own arrival on
Timor, he dispatched to Timor on 7 February the Half Moon under the command of William Jansz along
with a Captured Portuguese galiota.
On Timor this expedition captured a Portuguese naveta, its cargo of 250 "bares" of sandal, along with 13
Portuguese, "blacks" and mestico. Another Portuguese galliot was looted of its sandal and destroyed, its
crew left to the mercy of the natives.
Schotte describes how, after seeing off the largest group of Portuguese on Solor for Larantuca and Malacca
he embarked for Timor on the Patane, recently arrived from Amboina, accompanied by the Half Moon and
the galliot, for the specific purpose of drawing up treaties with kings of the interior. Landing on Timor on 4
June 1613 he requested an audience with the king of Mena and the king of Asson seeking to forge an
alliance on the model of that already accomplished with the kings of Temate, Buton and Solor. Both, he
declared, were the strongest kings on Timor, pagan, albeit more credible than the Moors. Both promised to
deliver sandal. Mena offered to load the Half Moon with sandal, while Schotte offered to build a fort for
Mena. In these successful negotiations Schotte was assisted by several interpreters including Jean G. de
Vrye. He also offered certain trade goods as presents. Although two of his agents, William Jocobiz and
Melis Andriez had earlier made contact with the king of Amanubang, said to command much trade in
sandal, Schotte was at a loss for time to actually conclude any treaty. Schotte also received envoys of the
king of Kupang who offered to convert to Christianity along with all his subjects, "as he also promised the
Portuguese, before our arrival". But in dealing with Kupang, Schotte gained valuable intelligence from a
captured letter written by Father Vicario, a Dominican on Solor, which waxed eloquent over the advantages
offered by Kupang for commerce on the Coast of Timor, "a Portuguese design we should follow", and
which also remarked upon the general hostility of the natives which, Schotte Calculated, could be turned to
the advantage of the Dutch.11
In 1627, as mentioned, the function of Governor of Solor was taken over by the Dutch protege, Jan d
'Hornay. Turned renegade and siding with the Portuguese, the d'Hornay clan, as explained below, later
emerged as the de facto sovereign power with their base on Larantuca. This state of affairs lingered on, at
least until l640, when Portugal made a temporary comeback in Asia as a result of separation of the
Portuguese and Spanish Crowns. But, in this same year, Macassar rose in revolt against the considerable
Portuguese presence in that port and later mounted an invasion of Larantuca, then under the Captain-Major
Francisco Fernandez. At this time Macassar traders were involved in the sandalwood, wax and slave trade
in the islands and may even have established several trading villages on Timor. Dominican sources state tha
the Muslim raja (Sultan) of Tolo on Celebes, Karrilikio (Camiliquio), then advanced upon Timor attacking
both the north and south coast with a meet of 150 prauh or sailing vessels along with 7,000 men where he
sought, without success, to turn the natives against the Portuguese. After three months of ravages along the
coastal littoral of Timor and some success at winning Muslim converts or at least the notional loyalty of tw
rajas on Timor, Karrilikio retreated.
His endeavours, however, gave stimulus to the Portuguese mission in Larantuca to transfer their activities t
Timor. 12
Page 28
In the venture, Antonio de Sao Jacinto, the Dominican friar and Vicar-General of Solor, accompanied by 70
soldiers, departed Larantuca for Mena which he found destroyed and the raja dead. In the interim, the
deceased raja's wife had taken over as queen but on account of the Muslim invasion, fled to the interior
some 12 leagues distant. Having made contact with the queen, the Dominican father won over her
confidence and, back in Mena in 1641, accepted her conversion. Her people followed suit. At this time the
kingdom of Lifau was governed by a brother-in-law of the queen, Amanubang, a future thorn in the side of
the Dutch. He, too, requested conversion and, before too long, several churches were constructed, both on
the coast and in the interior. Meanwhile, the Dominicans tuned their attentions towards the western part of
the island. In this endeavour, the Flores-based missionary, Luiz de Paixao, was assassinated at Kupang. The
following year, Antonio de Sao Domingo baptized the king of Kupang and numerous of his people. The
Portuguese then referred to Timor as the island of Santa-Cruz, a name which endured over long time. 13
According to de Freycinet owing to the contestation brought about by a number of kingdoms, otherwise
influenced by Karrilikio's brand of Islam-although this seems dubious-He Portuguese were moved to
advance reinforcements from Larantuca to Mena. Led by Francisco Fernandez, this manoeuvre took the
form of four landings of two bodies of men made on 26 May 1641 comprising, in all, some 90 soldiers and
clerics. In what might be regarded as the first act of armed conquest on Timor, this force engaged in Comba
an army of the raja of Wehale at a river on the perimeter of the kingdom of Mena. Victory in 1642 over
Wehale also brought with it the conversion of a number of local rajas and their followers. 14
According to a contemporary account, "The news of the destruction of the mighty potentate of Belos spread
rapidly through the other kingdoms in the neighbourhood".
Wehale's defeat, as historian Jill Jolliffe remarks, "marked the beginning of a concerted attack on Timorese
society" leading many liurai, little kings or holders of unlimited land to become baptized.15
For Abilio de Araujo, less sanguine as to the receptivity of the natives of Timor to their evangelization and
erstwhile incorporation, the assault on Wehale represented the opening shots of an almost uninterrupted wa
of resistance by the Timorese against Portuguese power. 16
There is no question, then, that the evangelization of Father Antonio de Sao Jacinto marks the definitive
establishment of the church on Timor. But, as the reinos embraced the faith, they also swore loyalty to the
Crown of Portugal confirmed by the obligation to pay up to the head of the Dominican mission certain
items of tribute along with manpower in the case of threats by rivals outside the fold. Indeed, the historical
personality of Antonio Sao Jacinto, as much the link between the Crown and commercial advantage, is
confirmed by the existence in Portuguese archives of a carta or letter sent by the missionary to King Joao IV
concerning the foundation of Christianity on Timor along with the purported discovery on the island of
"great copper mines". So frequent in fact are exaggerated references to Timor's mythical copper and even
gold resources in Dominican writings that there is reason to believe that the religious order played this card
in the full knowledge that the disastrous loss of the Japan trade would lead to a compensating interest by th
Estado da India in the Solor-Flores-Timor zone.17
Writing in 992, the Timorese scholar Father Francisco Fernandes has described how the system of winning
rei cristao or vassals was multiplied outside the Lifau region to embrace, by 1644, the reinos of Kupang,
Acao, and Luca, on the southeast coast. In 1647, a Vicar-General of the church was appointed in Timor,
although it was not until 1697 that the first Dominican Bishop, D. Frei Manuel de Santo Antonio, actually
took up his office in Timor. While in Timor, as in Solor, the Dominicans exercised both spiritual and
temporal power, with the successful arrival of the first Governor in 1702, the Dominicans were freed from
affairs of state, devoting themselves to missionary activity, founding a seminary in Oecusse in 1738 with
another established some years later in Manatuto east of Dili.18
While the early history of the church in Timor is dominated by the Order of the Preachers, it was not for
want of trying that their rival order, the Jesuits, did not carry their mission to Timor. In fact, an attempt mad
in 1658 by two Jesuit missionaries, Joao Nogueira and Pero Francisco, to preach the gospel in Luca-then
receptive to Christianity-Came undone, at the hands of the King of Ade into whose kingdom on the
northeast tip of Timor they had strayed. The leader of a second expedition did achieve success in baptizing
a number of children in the Kingdom of Motael, where he found installed a company of Christian soldiers
relocated from Larantuca for the purpose of defending Motael against Muslim incursions. 19
A little over a decade later, interdenominational rivalry took a turn for the worse.
Fearful of a Jesuit takeover in the person of Francisco Vieira de Figueiredo, the celebrated Macassar-based
Page 29
Portuguese trader, the Larantuca Dominicans had him murdered in December 1667. As one Church
document records, more than one ruler on Flores and Timor (Amarasi wished to have Fathers with "black
robes and with a round hat", an allusion to Jesuit garb. Some saw Vieira as their saviour. But others rose in
opposition against him. Jesuit documents hint at foul play by jealous Dominicans who, having lived there
for 100 years "refuse to lean the native language to [the] great detriment of people's salvation. They do not
prevent Muslim preachers from Islamizing the heathens, but they would expel other missionaries.
They are steadily occupied in building ships for their commerce and in making profit, leaving the souls
uncared for". 20 But, even as the missions feuded with each other, church-state relations in Lifau continued
to be uneasy. Frei Manuel de Antonio, for instance, found himself expelled from Lifau in 1722 by
Governor Antonio de Albuquerque Coelho.
Kupang (1642-99)
Drawing on Fran?oise Valentijn's account, de Freycinet explains how, after the Dutch seizure of Malacca in
1642, Portugal's Protestant rival took a more assertive position in the eastern archipelago. Notable, in this
respect, was the abortive attack launched in 1644 on Kupang also known as Cuppao, where the Portuguese,
or, at least, the Dominican Father Antonio de Sao Jacinto, whose resourcefulness in winning converts in
Mena and Kupang has already been noted, constructed a rudimentary fortress two years earlier. Later in the
same year the Dutch returned with a force of 300 along with a motley force of foreign mercenaries but
again were unable to take Kupang. Only in 1646 were they successful in their takeover of the Solor fort on
27 January 1656 the Dutch returned under General Arnold de Vlamingh van Outshoorn who forced a
landing in the bay of Kupang at the head of an "imposing" force of European and Indian troops. Vlamingh
then advanced on the village of Amarasi to engage the Portuguese and their allies, namely those under
Antonio d'Hornay. In the ensuing battle, Vlamingh suffered the loss of 170 European soldiers and was
obliged to retreat to his base in Solor.21
Four years earlier, in 1652; the Dutch had accomplished their main objective in ousting the Dominican friar
from Kupang, seizing their unfinished buildings, and converting them in a stronghold. Even so, the Friars
managed to keep the Dutch at bay by calling upon the "Black Portuguese", another name for the
Larantuqueiros, or mixed blood Portuguese-native Community which had emerged in Larantuca and
Solor.22
In 1660 the Dutch mounted an unsuccessful attempt by a 26-ship squadron to destroy Larantuca, deemed
the major arsenal for the Portuguese in the east. It was in response to this harrowing situation that the
Viceroy of Goa, Antonio de Melo e Castro, resolved in 1665 to create the post of Capitao-mor of Timor to
coordinate the struggle against the Dutch. The first to hold this position was Simon Luis. But determined
that Kupang would be the major Dutch trading post in the eastern islands, Batavia finally got its way in
1688 when the Dutch took Control of the town and several neighbouring kingdoms.23
Renamed Fort Concordia, Kupang became the major Dutch base and stronghold in the Lesser Sundas over
long time.
Dampier, who visited Kupang in 1699, observed a "neat little church or chapel" within the walls of the fort
He also found a garrison of about 50 soldiers, a similar number of native troops, along with well-supplied
vegetable gardens. He also observed that the Dutch reserved two sloops for the purpose of inter-island trade
and commerce with the Coastal peoples of Timor. In an interesting aside, he commented that, unlike the
Portuguese, the Dutch in Kupang invariably mastered Malay language as a lingua franca in the business of
Commerce.24
Lifau in Oecusse
Eventually, 50 years of destructive conflict between the two European powers was brought to an end by
mediation. Under the Treaty of Peace, signed between Portugal and Holland on 6 August 1661 at The
Hague, it was determined that each power would reserve to itself the territories already occupied on Solor
and Timor.
The Dutch kept Kupang but-Was observed by Dampier- were also obliged to furnish two armed sloops for
the service of the Portuguese governor, one to transport the taxes collected in Timor, the other to defend the
Page 30
coast against the ldepre4ations of Macassar. 25
While Lifau (variously Lifau, Liphao, Leiffauw) in Oecusse on the northwest coast of Timor gradually
emerged as a favourite port of call for the Portuguese, especially sandalwood traders from Macau, by the
1650s they still had no permanent settlement on the island. As was the practice in Macau prior to gaining a
permanent presence in 1 557, the Portuguese traders arriving in Timer would build temporary dwellings in
which to live for some weeks or months while waiting to conclude business or awaiting the change of
season. One of the strongest voices calling for the direct conquest of Timor was the Macau-based trader,
Pascoal Barreto.
His petition to King Joao IV from Macau in December 1645 makes interesting reading. Whether accurate o
not Barreto was convinced from commercial intelligence received in Macassar that Timor was rich in,
besides timber, gold and a particularly high grade of Copper. Observing that, with the decline of the Japan
trade, Macau was bereft of this last commodity otherwise used in the manufacture of cannon, and that,
notwithstanding the various attempts by Macassar, Timor neither paid tribute nor had it been conquered by
any nation. Although Barreto himself was poised to sail to Timor from Macassar in the same year, he
detoured to Manila instead upon learning of the restoration of the monarchy.26
While the Treaty of Peace of 166l offered a respite and opportunity to the Portuguese in the Far East, it
would be 40 odd years before decisive action was taken. A carta or letter sent by the Senate in Macau to the
Spanish Governor in Manila on 12 April 1692 argued strongly as to the necessity of establishing both
government structures and a mission on Timor.27
Accordingly, at regular intervals, I beginning as early as 1695, the Viceroy of Goa attempted to appoint a
Portuguese official as Governor at Lifau. At least until the opening years of the following century, as
discussed below, a group of Christianized mestico rulers and their local allies saw to it that each successive
appointee was expelled, besieged, or overthrown. 28
Thus the first Governor to set foot on Timor, Antonio de Mesquita Pimentel, was expelled in 1697 by
Domingos da Costa scion of the powerful clan of that name, while his successor, Andr6 Coelho Vieira, was
arrested by the same person in Larantuca and sent back to Macau.
By 1697 Lifau was evidently well enough established, although hardly well defended, to attract the
unwanted attentions of a French pirate vessel. Fresh from seizing the Dutch fort at Kupang and burning the
tow, this pirate then proceeded to pillage Lifau for what it was worth. 29
When, in 1699, William Dampier visited Lifau in the course of his three-month sojoum on Timer, he found
that a settlement, a community and basic governmental structures had been firmly established. After
Kupang, under Dutch control, Lifau emerged as the second most important trading port on the island.
While, in Dampier's estimation, Lifau could not hold out against 100 men, and while powder and bullets
were scarce and dear, the settlement was, nevertheless, deemed capable of mustering 600 men in 24 hours
"all armed with Hand-Guns, Swords and Pistols". But, he continued, "They have no Fort, nor Magazine of
Arms: nor does the Vice-Roy of Goa send them any now."
Dampier found in Lifau but three Portuguese, two of whom were priests, the balance of the population
made up of Portuguese mestico and a few resident Chinese trading wax, gold, slaves and sandalwood
against rice and porcelain and certain European commodities imported each year on a meet of about 20
vessels from Macau. As Dampier well understood, the trading season was limited from late March to late
August, but with the arrival of the monsoon, Lifau no longer offered a safe anchorage. Characteristically,
boats from Macau would leave towards the end of the year sailing direct to Batavia before making the
journey east through the archipelago to Timor arriving early the following year. The return journey assisted
with the southwest monsoon was also via Batavia.
On government, Dampier observed, the real authority lay with the Captain-Major, a man named Antonio
Henriquez, a Portuguese sent by the Viceroy in Goa.
Despite his title this person was deeply involved in forging military alliances with natives against their
adversaries. At the time of Dampier's visit, Henriquez was actually resident in a place described as Porta
Nova on the "eastern end of the island", a reference to Larantuca On Flores. The second-in-command, one
Alexis Mendoza, a mestico, Dampier referred to as a "Mongrel-Breed of Indians and Portugueze" as were
the next most subordinate authorities. He continued, "For though they pretend to be under the King of
Portugal, they are assort of lawless People, and are under no Government". 30
Neither, Dampier observed, had Goa reciprocated by sending a supply ship. This reference to Goa is not
Page 31
without interest as the Estado da India was ostensibly responsible for keeping up contact with the islands by
sending an armed frigate with supplies to Larantuca or Lifau. But, by the eighteenth century, only one or
two voyages from Goa actually touched Timor. Thereafter, Governors, Captains-Majors, soldiers and
supplies invariably arrived in Timor via Macau.31
While, as seen, in the last decades of the seventeenth century Lifau came to be established under an ad hoe
system of military and religious rule, as of 20 February 1702, the settlement came under tighter control as
seat of the Portuguese government ton Timor. The first to hold this office in Lifau was Antonio Coelho
Guerreiro (1702-05), going by the title of Governor and Captain General of the islands of Timor and Solor
and other regions in the South. As a Crown-appointed office, it follows that the documentation on Timor, o
at least that surrounding his appointment, also expanded apace. Notably, Governor Guerreiro bequeathed
the first map of Lifau, the Planta da Praia de Lifau. Dated 1702, it reveals a fairly complex urban structure
supporting military, civil and ecclesiastical elements, including the Ermida de St. Antonio along with a
hospital.
Boxer, who has traced Guerreiro's Career, offers that his was an important appointment, especially given hi
background as Colonial Secretary of Angola and later as Secretary of State in Goa. Even so, when
Guerreiro arrived in Macau from Goa in June of 1701 to take up his appointment, he was not given a
specific brief, besides neutralizing Dutch and Chinese control over sandalwood and taking a firm stand
against the rebellion of the da Costas. He sailed from Macau in January 1702 with less than 100 soldiers to
enforce his authority. He also came equipped with military and other equipment for the rundown settlement
and Fortaleza at Lifau.
His cargo also included 200 piculs of rice necessary to tide over the settlement from certain starvation. In
any case, Guerreiro sought and gained a short-lived alliance between the Crown and Portuguese country
traders in the form of two of Macau's ships and manpower for military operations in Timor, which also
included unauthorized conflict with the Dutch. 32
While Governor Guerreiro evidently succeeded in imposing order upon the rebellious mestico population o
Lifau and in raising the prestige of the Crown, it is also true that he was closely besieged in Lifau for nearly
three years by a rebellious chieftain of the da Costa family, an allusion to the rising power of the mestico, a
discussed in a following chapter. Guerreiro also took it in hand to equalize the power of the friendly chiefs,
some of whom claimed sovereignty over others, by conferring the rank of dato, a traditional title, or colone
where appropriate, on tribal heads and nobles, a practice, according to Boxer, which continued down to
modern times. Even though Governor Guerreiro sent glowing reports to Goa on Timor's riches he finally
abandoned the struggle and left Lifau in "disgust and disguise" at the end of 1704. This is known from the
reference to a certain "Portuguese gentleman" who shipped out of Lifau with the English sea captain
Alexander Hamilton bound from Batavia to Goa, as mentioned in his A New Account of the East Indies.
33
Church documents reveal not only that certain governors fled or were expelled from Lifau, but that great
tension beset church and crow. Looking back upon his experience at Lifau, Fr. Manuel de Santo Antonio
mote, he had "not a moment of peace in Timor", an allusion to tension between himself (or successors) with
a succession of Governors, beginning with Antonio Coelho Guerreiro (1702-05), Jacome de Morais
Sarmento (1708-09), Manuel de Sotto Mayor (1709-13), Manuel Fereira de Almeida [not mentioned on
official lists of Governors, but a possible rival to Domingos da Costa (1713-18)], Francisco de Mello de
Castro (1718-20) and Antonio de Albuquerque Coelho (1722- 1725). According to an account published in
the official bulletin in Goa, church papers reveal many accusations and recriminations. Certain of these
quarrels involved clashes of personality, namely that between the Bishop and Mello de Castro several days
after they arrived in Lifau together by ship from Goa, or matters of substance between Church authorities,
such as in 1708 when the Bishop requested the dispatch of missionaries of orders other than the
Dominicans. In the event, a memo written in the Limos das Moncoes States that such problems between
civil and ecclesiastical authorities meant little time for the Bishop to devote himself to spiritual matters ove
the outlying regions of Timor. In a word, "A hist6ria de Timor naquella epocha he um tecido de desordem e
de anarchia". 34
Generously, Boxer offers that, by this stage, Lifau had "assumed the kind of status of Alsatia, largely
populated by cutthroats", a reference to the slave traders and slave raiders, and French and German
deserters from the Dutch army, among other roughnecks, who assembled in the place. Neither, from all
Page 32
accounts, did the Dominican mission raise the moral tone of the desolate outpost. Yet, he continues, while
Lifau never seems to have progressed far beyond its pioneer beginnings, it nevertheless constituted the
centre of Portuguese power in the island and its establishment marked the transfer of Portuguese power
from Flores to Timor, 35
Ushering in some 250 years of actual Portuguese presence on the island. 36
Macau, the Chinese, and the Sandalwood Trade
As one student of Timor's sandalwood trade has written, by the second half of the I sixteenth century,
Malacca was overtaken as the preferred sailing route to Timor/Solor by Macassar on Celebes. Malacca,
embroiled in war with Aceh and Johore, lost its attractiveness as a commercial centre. Macassar,
meanwhile, grew to the second in size and rank to Macau within the Portuguese east, especially after the
loss of the Japan trade.37
While we have Commented upon the rupture between the Portuguese and Tolo over the latter's expedition
against Timor in 1641, eventually in 1648 the Estado da India ordered leading Portuguese trader Francisco
Vieira de Figueiredo to reach a new modus vivendi with Tolo that would preserve he Portuguese trading
position in Macassar while reserving the Solor-Flores-Timor zone to Portugal and its allies. Eventually
Portuguese trade at Ma6assar with Manila, India and Timor became the mainstay for the city of Macau in
the period between the 1640s and 1660s, but with the Macassar Dutch treaty of 1660 and the Dutch
Conquest of Macassar in 1667, the Portuguese once again lost an important ally, market and emporium in
the archipelago.38
Necessarily, both Chinese and Portuguese merchants adapted to the new circum stances. Certainly, the
Chinese were well apprised of the importance of Solor in this trade along with all the superior anchorages
on the coast of Timor. To the extent that the Chinese engaged in the trade in the decades following the
opening of Solor, the Portuguese definitely sought to keep them out. Also, as discussed in a following
chapter, the rise of power by the creolized group and the abandonment by the Portuguese of Lifau in favour
of Dili facilitated Chinese control of the commodity shipped out of Kupang or Atapupu under only nominal
supervision.
The role of Chinese, including Macau Chinese, alongside Portuguese in the sandalwood trade with Timor
goes back to the Malacca period and only ended when that city succumbed to the long Dutch blockade and
eventual siege. According to de Matos, by the end of the sixteenth century, the Malacca-Timor voyages
were auctioned out for the princely sum of 500 cruzados.39
Ptak believes that while the ratio of Chinese shipments to Portuguese remains unclear, the Portuguese share
began to increase after 1600. A letter by the Bishop of Cochin, F.
Pedro da Silva, dated 1609, suggests that, while the ordinary price for sandal in Macau was 20 patacas a
picul, during years when little shipping arrived from Timor ,[via Malacca] the price soured to 150 patacas.
Profits increased over the years.
According to the estimate of Bishop Rangel in 1630, profits on the trade ran at 150 to 200 percent, aptly
earning Timor the reputation of "Ilha do sandalo". 40
It is only in 1634 that we first find mention in the Limos das Moncoes do Reino of direct sailings from
Macau to Macassar and Solor. Timorese and Solorese sail ors may have joined the crew of Portuguese ship
at this time. Among the martyrs of the ill-fated Portuguese Embassy sent to Nagasaki in 1640 were Alberto
a 16 years old Timorese deck hand and slave and Antonio, a 40 year-old slave from Solor, both "owned"
by Macau-based members of the Portuguese crew. But just as the crew of the Japan boat were drawn from
a mixed Company of Portuguese, Spanish, Arabs, Chinese, Indians, and Africans along with peoples from
the Philippines and Indonesian islands, so it is fair to assume that the India and Macau boat arriving in
Timor brought to these shores several times a year peoples of variety of races and religions. 41
According to de Matos, until 1638 the sandal trade was carried out by the Royal treasury in Macau, and,
until 689 the voyages were carried out by private persons or the Capitao-mor on a voyage assigned for three
years. While the trade was not necessarily the monopoly of individuals, it was the monopoly of Macau for
the citizens of Macau and at the expense of the Chinese of Canton who traded sandal from Timor with
Batavia. It was thus a great loss to the Macau treasury that native rulers carried the trade to Babao where it
entered the Dutch trade.42
Page 33
The significance of the Timor-Macau trade is confirmed by other sources, notably, a Dutch work of l646
states that 1,000 bahar of sandal was taken to Macau annually. But overall, writes Ptak, the Macau-Timor
trade was "favoured by the relative lightness of taxes and dues" and not placed on a strict monopoly basis
like the voyages to Japan or the quasi-monopoly status of the Malacca voyages through which the earlier
Timor trade had been mediated. 43
From Macau archival sources we know that in 1689 numerous terms of assent were drawn up by the Macau
Senate for Chinese merchants to send ships direct to Batavia, or for the Timor and Solor voyage. In that
year five pautas or sealed lists were offered by Macau, albeit mandated by the Viceroy of Goa. These were
literally vermilion seals embossed in the arms and crown of Portugal. Pedro Vaz de Siqueira was one such
individual awarded the Timor voyage in that year for his ship Rozario, that would also be used on future
occasions (1698) to transport soldiers to Lifau. In 1693 the Convent of S. Francisco also won a pauta do
navio, suggesting a church interest in the trade. The following year the Senate discussed conditions of
employment of Malays on the Timor voyages, a possible suggestion that Timorese who had achieved a
non-slave or free status also visited the Chinese city, albeit a status that required regulation. 44
Whereas from 1678 to 1689, the Timor voyages were organized either by the Captain-major of Macau or
by private individuals on a three year basis, on 20 October 1689, the Senate of Macau passed the following
resolution on the sandalwood trade with Timor with specific reference to estimates made by the pilots and
Supercargoes:
...each of these ships can load 1,800 piculs of sandalwood cargo, above and below decks, and From these
1,800 piculs, after 622 piculs have been deducted for the liberties of all the crew, there remain 1,178 piculs
in each ship, of which one third of all the crew, there remain 1,178 piculs in each ship, of which one third o
the lading is allotted to the owners, in consideration of the great expenses which they incur with the ships,
and the measurement duties which they have to pay, which amount to 392 piculs, thus leaving to divide
among the moradores 784 piculs in each of the said ships, making a total of 1,578 piculs net, to divide
among the said moradores in the manner stated in the lists compiled of the Bague. 45
Each year one or two ships would depart Macau according to the monsoon laden with cargoes of refined
gold, ivory, iron, cloth and silk, the ships would load, besides sandal, wax, tortoiseshell, cinnamon, and
slaves, at the ports of Citrena, Lifau, Dili, Hera, and Tolecao, on the north coast of Timor. Each ship would
carry between 1,8002,000 sandalwood "peaks". Whenever possible the ships would call in at Batavia
trading cloth against rice needed for the Lifau garrison. Occasionally the ship would call in at Malacca,
Madura, Bali, Larantuca and other local ports. 46
From about 1695 the Senate in Macau organized a system of trade with Timor and Solor that would
continue with minor modifications for nearly a century. As Boxer describes it, every year one, two, or three
small ships left Macau annually for Timor, sometimes stopping in Batavia, sometimes direct.
One third of the cargo space was reserved for the shipowner, the remaining two-thirds being distributed-
-albeit differentially-. A-among the citizens of Macau from captain-General, to widows and orphans. All
shipowner in Macau were given a turn in this trade according to the system of pautas arranged between the
Senate and Goa.47
Just as the Timor and Solor trade in sandalwood, gold, beeswax, and slaves, became the principal economic
resource for Macau during the eighteenth century, so the organization of this trade fundamentally altered
local social, and political organization in Timor. According to Souza, the Portuguese country traders from
Macau successfully minimized the VOC and Chinese penetration of the Timor market throughout the 1670
and into the 1690s. Attempts by the Crown to impose its authority upon the local and mestico population
did not seriously disturb the preferential supply of sandalwood to Portuguese country-trader shipping from
Macau at that time. While Competition did arise from Chinese junks sailing from Batavia to Lifau, the
Portuguese country traders were still able to corner superior grades of sandal as well as the largest quantitie
bound for the Chinese market.
Only the quantities of sandal reaching the market, according to a VOC report of 1690, were in decline by
that year, however.48
Yet from the account of Alexander Hamilton published in 1727, the rebellion by Lifau (1688-1703)
practically ruined the Macau trade, exhausting men, money and ships.49
Page 34
There is truth in this account as, in 1705, owing to the inability of the city to pay the annual ground rent to
the Chinese authorities, the Macau Senate offered the collateral for the Timor voyage deposited in the
church of St.Pauls.50
While the Crown was satisfied to accept the submission in 1708 of Domingo da Costa, the most important
rebel leader, winning by diplomacy what they could not achieve by arms, support from the country traders
lessened to the degree that Governor Guerreiro failed to stop over-cutting of sandal and competition from
owners of Chinese junks. By the 1710s, Souza writes, the Batavia market had assumed greater importance
for Macau's country traders at Timor's expense. Despite appeals for aid from Macau in the 1720s in the face
of another rebellion, the Macau Senate determined the Timor trade unprofitable given Crown administrativ
mismanagement including the imposition of custom's duties. The result was that, upon the insistence of the
Crown, Macau continued to send only one of its ships on an annual basis for the rest of the period. 51
Ljungstedt, writing from Macau in 1 836,lObserved that while profit from the sandalwood trade had greatly
fallen off, the Macau Senate was nevertheless moved in 1720 to cut the poorer merchants out of the trade, a
measure in any case overthrown by the court of Goa.52
In a possible retort to Goa, the Macau Senate in December 1723 complained to King Joao V over the
imposition of new laws and an alteration in the price of sandal by the Governor of Timor (Antonio de
Albuquerque Coelho) -doubtless at the behest of the Estado da India- pleading a fall in commerce at the
expense of the people of Macau. In March 1726 the Crown upheld the petition from the Macau Senate
ordering Goa to protect the sandal trade and to fall in line.53
In any case, with the edict of Chinese Emperor Yung-ching in 1723 lifting the prohibition on Chinese
entering foreign trade and the participation by Chinese merchants in the triangular Timor-Batavia-Canton
trade, the voyage from Macau to Timor became unprofitable. Ljungstedt remarks that a yearly vessel
dispatched from Macau to Timor was reduced to conveying soldiers, officers, exiles, and ammunition, whil
loading government paper, treasure etc. to be remitted by way of Macau to Goa. 54
From a Dutch perspective, the VOC sandalwood trade came to an end during the eighteenth century. In
l752, following successive losses, the Company decided to waive its monopoly and allow anyone to cut
sandalwood who was willing to pay one-third commission. In the event, the trade passed completely into
the hands of the Chinese who remained in control for more than a century.55
The question remains, what then did the Dutch get out of it? According to a French report of 1782, not
much! Every year one or two sloops would call in to Kupang from Batavia bringing varieties of cloth
(coarse linen) and making the return journey with wax, tortoise shell, sandal, and "cadiang", a kind of bean
used on board Dutch vessels to vary the diet. No particular gain and no particular loss were incurred by the
Dutch establishment, or, in the words of the author, "la recette egale la depense" (the profits just answer the
expenses). 56
Conclusion
While from about 1570 down, captains-major and, from 1696, governors for Solor and Timor, were
regularly appointed, as we have seen, many were unable to exercise their authority, and others never
reached the islands at all. We have also commented upon the conflict on Solor and, in turn, Timor, between
the Dominicans and the state-appointed captains. While, as Boxer has pointed out, Goa sought to intervene
in this question by offering up patents of Governorship to selected Portuguese residents in Larantuca for
appointment to Lifau, the new centre of Portuguese power in the Flores-Solor zone, inevitably Goa was
obliged to acknowledge the de facto leadership of one or other of the indigenized bosses on Timor. In any
case, de Hornay was henceforth left alone until his death and, in Boxer's estimation, not such a bad ruler
after all given the cireumstances. The real test for Goa, in any ease, was whether he could deliver up the
necessary contributions, which in fact he did. While on paper, as seen, it was the Viceroy in Goa that
determined the distribution of voyages, in practice direct support from Goa was almost always more
fictional than real. Boxer writes that only in two or three instances in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries did Goa send government vessels direct to Timor. 57
But, to answer the question posed at the beginning of this chapter, the Wallerstein-Hamashita-Lieberman
Conundrum, as to whether Portugal accommodated or ruptured existing tributary and trade networks, at
least in the period before the full onslaught of Western (British, Dutch and French) capital in Southeast
Page 35
Asia, and the development of a plantation economy on Timor, we can say that the Flores-Solor-Timor zone
emerged as a discrete territorial and maritime entity under which Portugal and its local allies derived major
profits from a reconstituted trade activity, albeit one in which they did not hold monopoly rights. Why?
Because Asians - Chinese, Muslims and Timorese- never entirely relinquished the trade to the Portuguese,
but adapted to the new circumstances.
Sandal, which had over the centuries served as a milch cow for Timorese and foreign traders alike,
eventually went into steady decline, not so much because of vulnerability to foreign competition or world
market conditions, although as show below, that also occurred towards the end, but because of overcutting.
Indeed, there is a sense that the sandal trade was counter-cyclical to the don trend in the classic spice trade
beginning with the Dutch seizure of Banda in 1621. In fact, the sandal trade continued to surge in the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, with demand outstripping supply.
Sandal was simply the commodity which rescued the Macau treasury from utter Penury after the collapse o
the Japan trade. However, and this is important, unlike the case of trade in spices in the Moluccas, Timor's
sandal fluidly entered the circuits of Chinese trade on largely non-European terms, as mentioned, a
commodity on which neither the Portuguese or Dutch ever gained a monopoly.
While Reid -as with van Leur- acknowledges the existence of sandal as a trade item, Timor and the Solor
zone is not included as one of his Southeast Asian "hubs of commerce", indeed simply not mentioned,
possibly because it did not appear to support a large urban Centre and did not appear to spawn a merchant
class, at least not at the source, although this view, too, might underestimate the merchant activities of the
Dominicans and Larantuqueiros on Solor, Larantuca and Lifau. But also, as we have emphasized, the basic
facts of the Timor trade in sandal contradicts the theory of irremediable decline, at least in the seventeenth
century. 58
Eventually, as discussed below, it would be the strident independence of the Larantuqueiros which obliged
the first-native born Portuguese governor to withdraw from Lifau to Dili in 1769, irrevocably moving the
centre of gravity of Portuguese power on the island although not entirely displacing Chinese trading
activities away from the Flores-Solor-Lifau networks. Rather than being a major arena of war between the
Portuguese and Asian rivals, the Flores-Solor-Timor zone was one in which many participated at much
profit. It is true the Lusitanian "peace" in the zone was assured by military supremacy and a system of
fortified posts, but it is also true that the major Challenge to Portuguese command over the seas in this early
expansion and "incorporation" stage was from their European as opposed to traditional religious or
civilizational rivals.
Notes
1. See Andre Gunder Frank, "World System History", paper presented at annual meeting of the New
England Historical Association, Bentley College, Waltham, Mass., 23 April 1994; A.G. Frank and B.K.
Gills, The World System: Five LIundred Years or Five Thousand?, Routledge, l993.
2. Immanuel Wallerstein, The Modern World System lfI: The Second Era of Great Expansion of the
Capitalist World-Economy 1 730-1840s, Aeademie Press, San Diego, l989, p. 132.
3. Victor Lieberman, "Wallerstein's System and the International Context of Fjarly Moder11 Southeast
Asian History", Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 24. No. 1, 1990.
4. Geoffrey Parker and Lesley M. Smith, The General Crisis of the Seventeenth Century, Routledge &
Kegan Paul, London, 1978.
5. Takeshi Hamashita, "The Tdbute trade System and Modem Asia", in A.J.H. Latham and Heita
Kawakatsu (eds.), Japanese Industrialization and the Asian Economy, Routledge, 1jOndon, 1994, pp. 9 I -
107.
6. Manuel Teixeira, Macau e a sua Diocese: Missoes de Timor, Tipografia da Missao do Padroado, 1 962,
pp.11-12.
7. L.C.D. de Freycinet, Voyage autour du monde, execut if sur leg corvettes S.M. l 'Uranie et la
Physicienne pendant leg annies 1817-1820, Paris, 1827.
8. Roderich Ptak, The Transportation of Sandalwood from Timor to Macau and China dudng the Ming
Dynasty", Review of Culture, 1987, p. 34.
9. de Freycinet, Voyage, p. 529.
Page 36
10. James J. Fox, "Colonial Kupang: Debauchery and Grace in the Dutch Port", in Kal Muller, East of
Bali: from Lombok to Timor, Periplus F.ditions, Berkeley, 1991 , p. 246.
11. Appolonius Schot, "Relation du Voyage", in Recueil des Voyages qui ont servi a L 'itablissement et
aux Progras de la Compagnie des lndes Orientalesformae dans leg Provinces- tfnies des Pays-Bas, Tome
IV, Etienne Roger, Amsterdam, l705, pp. 207-214.
12. "F'undagao das primeiras christandades nas ilhas de Solor e Timor", mss in Biblioteca Nacionale,
Lisboa, antigo Fundo Gera1, no.465, trancribed From Vol. IV of "Documentacao....Insulindia", cited in
Joao Diogo Alarcao de Carvalho Branco, A Ordem de S. Domingos e as Origens de Timor, do Autor,
Lisboa, l987, pp. 9-10, and see de Freycinet, Voyage.
13. de Freyeinet, Voyage, p. 539
14. Ibid., p. 532.
15. fI. G. Schulte-Northolt, The Political System of the Antoni, Martinus NLhoff, The Hague, 197l, p.
154, cited in Jill Jolliffe, East Timor, Nationalism and Colonialism, University of Queensland Press,
St.Lucia, l978,p.26.
16. Abilio de Araujo, Timor Leste: Os Loricos Voltaram a Cantar, Lisboa, 1977, pp. 82.
17. AHU Timor ex 1 doc no.3, 20 December 1643, Batavia.
18. Francisco Fer11andez, "Das Miss6es de Timor", Revista de Estudos, 1juSO-Asiaticos (Macau), No. 1 ,
Septembro 1992, p. 15.
19. Fr Mathias da MayasJ, Provincial of Japan to Fr.Goswin Nickel, General, Rome; annual letter, Macao,
February 18, 1661, in Hubert Jacob SJ (ed.), The Jesuit Makassar Documents (1 615-1 682), Monumenta
Historicasocietatas lesu, Vol. 134, Jesuit flistorical Institute, Rome, 1988, p. 52.
20. Fir. Antonio Franeisco SJ to Fr Giampaolao Oliva, General, Rome, Macao, 5 December 1670, in The
Jesuit Makassar Documents, p. 234.
21. de Freycinet, Voyage, p. 532.
22. C.R. Boxer, "Portuguese Timor: A Rough Island history: 15 15-1960", 1Iistory lbday, May 1960, p.
352.
23.Ibid.
24. William Dampier, A Continuation of a Voyage to New Holland etc. in the Year 1699, James and John
Knapton, London, 1699 p. 185
25. de Freycinet, Voyage, p. 5, 45.
26. AfIU Caixa 1, doc 53, 1 December 1645, Pascoal Baneto to D. Joao. The full text of this letter has been
published in Frazao de Vasconcelos, Timor: Subsidios Hist6ricos, Divisao de Publicac8es e Biblioteea,
Agencia Geral das Colonias, 1Jisboa, 1937, pp. 19-21.
27. AHU Macau ms 89 Caixa 2 doc.14, "Senado da Camara de Ma}au to Governador de Manila", l2April
l692.
28 J.J. Fox, The Flow of Life: Essays on Eastern Timor, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1980, p. 64.
29. de Freyeinet, Voyage, p. 545.
30. William Dampier, A Continuation, pp. 176-178.
31. C.R. Boxer, Fidalgos in the Far East:1550-1770: Fact and Fancy in the History of Mac from artinus
NLhoff, The Hague, 1948, p. 196.
32. Boxer, Fidalgos in the Far East, p. 196.
33. Ibid. and see Boxer, "Portuguese Timor", p. 353.
34. "A Missao de Camboja" hart 1), Boletim do Governo do Estada da India, No.56, 1865, pp. 57j9.
Yearly from 1605-55, the monsoon books or Crown letter orders or dispatches were sent from Lisbon to the
Viceroy India.
35. Boxer, Fidalgos in the FarEast, p. l88.
36. Artur Teodoro de Mates, Na rota das Especiarias: De Malaca a Australia/On the Seaway to Spices:
From Malacca to Australia, Imprensa Nacional-Casa da Moeda, Lisboa, l995, pp. 120-121.
37. Villiers, EastofMalacca, pp. 72-73.
38. George Bryan Souza, Ike Survival of Empire: Portuguese I3Vade and Sociey in China and the South
Chinasea, 1630-1754, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1986, pp. 109-111.
39. A. Teodoro de Matos, "Timor and the Portuguese trade in the Orient dudng the 1 8th Century", in A. T.
de Matos e i,uis F'ilipe F. Reis Thomaz (eds.), As Relacoes eni7le a India Portuguesa, a Asia do Sueste e o
Page 37
ExtYlemO Oriente, Actas VI Seminado lnternacional de Hist6ria lndo-Portuguesa, Macau 22 a 26 0utubro
de 199 1 , p. 437.
40. Roderich Ptak, u The Transportation oft Sandalwood", pp. 34-35.
41. Benjamin Videira Pires, A Embaixada Mirtir, Instituto Cultural de Macau, Imprensa Official, Macau,
1988.
42. de Matos, "Timor and the Portuguese Trade", p. 438. These documents comprised orders and
dispatches
received yearly at Goa from Lisbon in the monsoon of September-October with replies From 1 574-1614.
43. Ptak, "The Transportation of Sandalwood", p. 35.
44. SeeAjnquivos de Macau 3as6rie Vo1. IX, No.4.Abri1 1968.
45. C. R. Boxer, Portuguese SocieO; in the Topics: The MuniclPal Councils of Goa, Macao, Bahia, and
Luanda, 1510-1800, The University of Wisconsin Press, Madison and Milwaukee, 1965, minutes of the
municipal council meeting of the 20 October 1689, append. 10, p. 170.
46. de Matos, "Timor and the Portuguese Trade", p. 439.
47. Boxer, The MuniclPal Councils of Goa, pp. 57-58.
48. Souza, The Survival of Empire, p. l82.
49. Alexander Hamilton cited in C.R. Boxer, Fidalgos in the Far East, pp. 186-7. Boxer believes the
source of this account is Jht6nio Coelho Guerreiro, forlner Governor of Lifau.
50. Arquivos de Macau, 3o S6rie Vol. !X, No.4, April l968.
51. Souza, The Survival of Empire, p. l85.
52. Anders Ljungstedt, An Historical Sketch of the Portuguese Settlements in China and of the Roman
Catholic Church and Mission in China and Description of the CiO, of Canton, James Munroe and Co.,
Boston, 1836, p. 9.
53. AHU Macau Cx3 No.14i December 26, 1723, uSenado da Camara de Macau to D. Joao V" and Dom
Joao V to Vice-rei e capitao-general do Estado da India, Joao de Saldanha da Gama", 3 Marco 1726,
Lisboa.
54. Ljungstedt, An Historical Sketch, p. 97.
55. F.J. Orlneling, The I'imor Problem, p. 102.
56. Guillaume-Thomas Raynal, Histoire Philosophique et Politique Des Etablissemens et du Commerce
des Europaens dans les Deux lndes, prome Premier, Jean-Leonard Pellet, Gen6ve, 1782, pp. 225-226. jh
English language version of Raynal's account appears in J. Justamond, A Philosophical and Political
History
of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies, John Exshaw and William
Halhead,
Dublin, MDCCLjXVI.
57. Boxer, Fidalgos in the FarEast, p. 196.
58. Anthony Reid, Southeast Asia in the Age of Commenee 1450-1680.. Volume Two: Expansion and
Crisis, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1993, p. 328.
4
The Topasse Rebellion and the Siege of Lifau
The notion that Portuguese power in the archipelago would one day be challenged by their erstwhile
Catholicized mixed-race descendants-the topasse-is not entirely without precedent in eighteenth century
history-the case of the slave revolt of French Haiti in the late eighteenth century comes to mind-but was an
almost natural outcome of a long historical process that saw the development of Portuguese communities,
invariably Catholic, invariably of mixed race, and invariably speaking a Portuguese creole, in a long
Page 38
crescent girding the Indian ocean and studding the archipelago, wherever the Portuguese established forts
cum trading posts. Even today the legacy palpably remains in Goa, Malacca and Macau.
But in the seventeenth century- Bocarro's 0 Livro do Estado da India Oriental of 1635 offers one such
enumeration-Portugalized communities were generalized over all key trading routes along the coast of Indi
including the Bay of Bengal, Aceh, through the Straits of Malacca, to the further reaches of the archipelago
at Tidor and Ternate, and, central to our discussion, at Solor. The scholarship of David Lopes, drawing
upon history and linguistic analysis, reveals the degree to which Portugalized communities developed in
such places as Bengal, Ceylon, Coromandel, Pegu, Siam, and, even after the Dutch capture of Malacca,
such communities multiplied in Macassar and even in Batavia under the Dutch.
Needless to say Portuguese was the lingua franca of trade across a vast zone even where the Portuguese
presence on the ground, such as Nagasaki, was sporadic or seasonal.1
The question is raised by the foregoing as to how native Timorese responded to this cultural invasion on
the part of a new mixed race-mixed culture group, localised on the one hand, but outside of truly
"indigenous" forms of cultural relations as represented by the reino and liurai. This chapter seeks to set don
the main facts concerning the first encounters between the Portuguese, the topasse and the Timorese in the
period leading up to the dramatic escape of the Portuguese from the beleaguered capital of Lifau on
Oecusse in 1769 and the subsequent founding of Dili signalling a new stage in the colonial conquest of
Timor. At the same time, we are careful to qualify the rebellions of this epoch in line with our argument tha
in Timor, unlike in the African colonies, the Portuguese virtually surrendered control to topasse power,
postponing even the attempt to establish the basis of a colonial capitalist economy, thus setting off this
period of winning alliances and consolidating control on the northern coastal littoral of northeast Timor from
a later stage of colonial conquest and pacification.
The Rise of Topasse Power
While we have discussed the rise of Lifau as the major locus of Portuguese power on Timor, increasingly
the Portuguese presence was beholden to the proxy power of a creolized and Catholicized
Portuguese-speaking Eurasian group. As alluded to by Dampier, these people were the product of mixed
Portuguese, Chinese, Dutch, and native liaisons, known variously as Schwartz Portuguese (Black
Portuguese), Topasse or Larantuqueiros. While the latter term is an obvious reference to the Larantuca and
Solor communities from whence this group originated, the etymology of topasse is more obscure. In any
case the term originally had wider currency in a Portuguese Indian context, reflecting the likely derivation o
the term from the Malayalam word for two languages or interpreter, topashe or, in Hindi, dobashi.2
A very early reference to the term occurs in correspondence written in October 1545 from the Kingdom of
Kandy in Ceylon to the King of Portugal, referring to a "Topaz who had come as the topaz of the factory".
3
In 1604, the Dominican friar Gabriel Quiroga de San Antonio encountered topasse on the Coromandel
coast of India.4
From a letter written by the Viceroy of India to the Portuguese Court in 1619, we lean that, in the absence
of Portuguese guards in the Malacca fort, topazes were preferred to the exclusion of "troublesome"
Japanese, Javanese or Malays.5
In Dutch writings, the existence of toupas alongside mesticos are mentioned in Spielbergen's voyage of
1648, and, on the occasion of the Portuguese surrender to the Dutch at Cochin on 7 January 1663, where
the rights and liberties of toepassen prisoners were set down. In 1690, Engleburt Kaempfer, a German
physician in the employ of the Dutch, observed a "village inhabited by a Portuguese race begot by black
women" in Ayutthaya, a former capital of Thailand.6 Additionally, in his 1727 book, English Captain
Alexander Hamilton mentions 200 topasse or Indian Portuguese settled and married in Cambodia.7
So while Larantuqueiros appears to be the more accurate or at least location-specific term, the generalized
expression topasse seems to have later become synonymous with the Catholicized mixed-race families on
Flores and Timor. In any case, within a generation this creolized group emerged as even more dominant
than the Portuguese in the Flores-Solor-Timor zone. As Subrahmanyam explains, the distance from Goa
and obscurity of these islands meant that in the latter half of the seventeenth century the Larantuqueiros
evolved their own local structures of power and leadership, largely autonomous of Goa and beyond the
Page 39
interference of Macau.8,
According to Boxer, the desertion of the Dutch commander of Solor, Jan de Hornay, to Larantuca in 1629
injected new blood and vigour into the Larantuqueiros.
De Hornay turned Catholic and married a Timorese slave girl with whom he bore two sons. This, Boxer
comments, was the origin of the de Hornay or d'Ornay family who, later transplanted to Timor, provided
some of the most powerful chieftains, alternatively "champions and enemies of Portuguese rule". Another
Larantuca family called the da Costas also provided a line of powerful chiefs, in turn rivals and later allies o
the de Hornays. Notably, one of Jan de Hornay's sons, Antonio de Hornay (1613-93), virtually ruled
Larantuca, Solor, and Timor as an independent prince between 1673-93 even though acknowledging the
suzerainty of the Portuguese Crown. 9
As mentioned, the 1642 raid on the Wehale kingdom by Francisco Femandes, the Solor-born topasse,
established the topasse as the new power on the island even ahead of the Portuguese. With their base in
Lifau in Oeeusse, the topasse succeeded Wehale as the new focus of political alliances on the island. James
Fox has written that many of the kingdoms that had aligned with the Wehale immediately formed new
alliances with the topasse.10
Not only did these two clans and their followers, especially Antonio de Hornay, wage bitter war between
themselves but they also engaged the Dutch and Portuguese, especially in the struggle for control over the
sandalwood monopoly. In 1656 the topasse all but eliminated a Dutch military expedition dispatched to
pacify them. In the 1690s Domingos da Costa of that family took the place of Antonio de Hornay as head
of the Larantuqueiros,1l
And, in 1708, was at least temporarily reconciled with Portuguese power.
Undoubtedly Dampier offers up the most colourful picture of the topasse at Lifau, although he does not use
this term. Indeed, of the population at Lifau he found it hard to distinguish who was Portuguese and who
was native, especially as their language was Portuguese and their religion "Romish". In a telling comment
on power relationships, he offered that "They seem in words to acknowledge the King of Portugal for
sovereign; yet they will not accept of any officers Sent by him". At the time of his visit the Captain-Major
appointed by Goa was actually resident at a place called Porta Nova, a reference to Larantuca, or constantly
engaged in battle with native allies of the Dutch in the interior. Local authority was in the hands of an actin
Governor or lieutenant called Alexis Mendosa, "a little man of the Indian-Race, Copper-coloured, with
black lank hair". This bilingual individual, who impressed Dampier as a "civil brisk man", resided some
nine kilometres inland from Lifau. Another topasse lieutenant resided at Lifau. While feigning to be under
the King of Portugal, Dampier believed that in reality they were "a sort of lawless people...under no
government". As evidence, he recalled that in the recent past, the Captain-major had clapped a
governor-designate arriving from Goa in irons and returned him to the ship with instructions that Lifau had
"no Occasion for any Officers, and that he could make better officers here". 12
Another rare source on Lifau arises from the picaresque tale of Balthazar-Pascal Celse, visitor to the court
of Louis XV and the supposed son of Gaspar da Costa, the topasse chief of Animata, a tale which entered
into various manuscript and print versions in France. In 1734, Antonio Moniz de Macedo, the incoming
governor of Timor, told how he was received with absolute confidence by Gaspar da Costa, described as
"coronel regente, capitao-mor daquella provincia prizidente da praca de Liffao". Animata, located several
kilometres south of Lifau was said to be an agglomeration of over 1,800 dwellings populated by both
Portuguese and locals. Six years later, Gaspar further endeared himself to the Portuguese by offering
assistance to the Bishop of Malacca in the construction of a seminary in Lifau.
While funds were slow in coming, this he sought to achieve by leaning on his tributaries in the Kingdom of
Boboque and lnsana. But, by April 1751, Gaspar along with the principal chiefs of Animata were victims o
an uprising in Serviao fomented by the Dutch.13
Another version has it that, in 1749, taking advantage of a lull in fighting, the topasse turned on the Dutch
at Penfui. On 18 October the Kupang fort leant of an advancing army of the Amarasi led by the topasse
Lieutenant-General Gaspar da Costa and a number of liurai, including some of the Belu tribes. Virtually
bottled up in Kupang by superior forces of the enemy, the Dutch called upon the support of marjdikers from
Solor, Roti and Sam, along with allies from among the Timorese at Kupang.l4
Writing in 1688, the Dutch traveller, Johan Nieuhof described the marjdikers or "accorrmodators" as a
"mixture of diverse Indian nations", so-named because they "accommodate themselves easily to the
Page 40
manners, customs and religion of such they live among". As opposed to the Portugualized topasse, a breed
apart in the sense of their Catholic identities and testy loyalty to the Portuguese crown, the marjdiker, as
described by Nieuhof, rose in stature as a merchant class, participating actively in the inter-island trade,
dressing in the Dutch manner and even residing in stately homes in Batavia.15
In the event, Dutch victory over Gaspar da Costa in a battle that took a staggering 40,000 enemy lives
along with the capture of the raja of Amarasi, represented, according to Jolliffe, "a crucial stemming of the
tide" of topasse power in Timor, but at the same time also definitively marked the establishment of Dutch
power on the island. In this sense the Penfui battle served as prelude to a series of Dutch attacks on various
centres of Timorese power, including Amarasi in 1752 and the topasse centre of Noimutu, notably that led
by a German-born commander named Hans von Pluskow.16
The Dutch assault on the western tip of the island also served another nefarious purpose, namely the
trafficking in slaves from Timor, as mentioned, always in great demand in the archipelago, especially on
Dutch-run plantations in the Moluccas. In 1752 the Bishop of Malacca, D. Fr. Geraldo de Sao Joseph,
writing from Lifau, lamented the pernicious practice of the Dutch in Kupang in selling Timorese slaves to
Chinese and "Moors" alike, a crime he pointed out which would lead to excommunication for Catholics. 17
But where the Dutch won only pyrrhic victories through the exercise of force, they were more successful in
the exercise of native diplomacy and the winning of commercial allies. Sowash also acknowledges that in
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it was the challenge posed by the Black Portuguese or topasse
along with the European allies which provoked the Dutch into taking such countermeasures. Notable was
the action of the Company in 1755 in sending Johan Paravacini, an official of Italian origin, to conclude
new treaties with fifteen rajas from among the rebellious tribes in Timor, Solor and Sumba. While this pact
known as the Contract of Paravicini, signed the following year, did not settle the question of frontiers, it
nevertheless marked a key stage in the consolidation of Dutch political authority in the archipelago.18 At
the same time, it also offered crucial commercial guarantees for the Company. 19
Drawing upon a reading of annual letters sent from Kupang to Batavia by the Company, now found in
Dutch archives, Fox offers that the difficulty with the early contracts, such as with the five loyal allies in th
Bay of Kupang in 1654-55, was confusion as to precisely who signed them on behalf of whom. One
example of such ambiguity was the case of the exile to Cape Town in 1771 of an executive ruler of the as
punishment for ordering the massacre of a gold-mining expedition, inferring that in Company logic, a
scapegoat simply had to be found.
In any case, Fox is probably correct in asserting that there was initial advantage for the Dutch in signing
treaties with as many specific rulers or claimants as came forward with promises of loyalty, especially as th
Company presence in Kupang was never more than a couple of dozen Europeans at any one time, and not
all of them Dutch. By contrast, the contract of Paravicini was a far more complex document elaborating on
mutual obligations of signatories.20
The Cailaco Rebellion (1719-69)
But in 1719, following several acts, of revolt, including the slaying of two missionaries and the desecration
of churches, chiefs representing Camnace (Camanance), Lamaquitos, and a dozen neighbouring reinos
extending as far as Lifau, met together in the house of the regulo of Camnace to Celebrate a "blood pact"
according to local rites. This secret and highly ritualized event, performed by a dato-lulic or sacerdote
gentilico, also involved the swearing of loyalty among the participants, an act accompanied by the ritual
sacrifice of a cockerel and a dog and the drinking of its blood. According to one Portuguese construction of
this event, this "loathesome and diabolical" pact sought to extinguish both the name of Christ and the
Portuguese from the island.21
As such, the Camnace Pact, as it was called by the Portuguese, also initiated what would eventuate as
almost 50 years of war between the rebels and the Portuguese.
Three years later, in 1722, under the Governorship of Antonio d'Albuquerque Coelho, the reino of Luca,
actually centred far away on the central south coast in the Viqueque region, launched war upon the
Portuguese, calling on his people to attack a troop of moradores or a locally recruited militia drawn from th
topasse headed by the Captain-Major Joaquim de Matos, en route from Lifau to Cailaco to collect the fintas
in practice a tax-in-kind. But, while the rebels may not in principal have gone to war over the practice of
Page 41
paying fintas, the violence with which they were collected tipped the balance in favour of rebellion.22
Although the system adopted by the first Portuguese on Timor to win loyal vassals also involved the
extraction of some kind of tribute, the system of fintas or tribute-payment to be paid en natura by the
kingdoms deemed loyal, was introduced in the period between 1710-14. Fintas included sandalwood, oil,
wheat or whatever commodity that was exportable in the respective reino. The first codification of the
system was set down by Governor Antonio Moniz de Macedo (1725-29; 1734-39), with respect to both
sexes and with reference to both reinos and sucos, in a ruling made at Batugede on 10 July 1737. Yet the
system was arbitrary, lacking in any kind of census data, and very often the costs of collecting the fintas
exceeded the returns. Recognizing this weakness, Governor Moniz de Macedo attempted in 1734 to
substitute a head tax, but was obliged to abandon the idea.
Writing of the finta system as it worked in the nineteenth century, Governor de Castro termed it "vexatious
arbitrary and disordered". 23
According to Lawson, the finta system along with the practice of granting military titles acc9rding to
positions of power, were key aspects of a strategy to break the independence of the kingdoms. As the
Cailaco rebellion dramatizes, this strategy of intervening in existing political, social, and economic
relationships among the petty kingdoms, also sowed the seeds of later revolts. 24
Faced with rebellion by the indigenous and the mestico population, Timor appealed to Macau for aid in the
form of renewed trade. Macau pleaded hardship, contending the trade was no longer profitable. While a
trade connection did continue, it was only in the form of one of Macau's ships on an annual basis, 25
suggesting the extreme isolation of Timor within the Portuguese seaborne empire. But the isolation of the
Governor was compounded by his own tenuous relations with the Dominicans, a rift which at first
facilitated the progress of the rebels, although dissension in their ranks, would, in turn, offer advantage to
the Portuguese.
Camnace, one of the more influential and powerful kingdoms on the island, could thus draw upon support
from numerous of the leading regulos from Serviao and Belu to join in a revolt against Portuguese authority
It was not until 1725, however, that the major act of rebellion occurred. This was triggered by the refusal of
the reinos of Lolo Toe to pay the fintas to Joaquim de Matos. The Captain Major, in turn, was obliged to
retreat to Batugede at risk of his life. Led by Camnaee, the reinos of Lemac Hutu, Cailaco, Leo-Hutu, Sanir
Atsabe, Lei-Mean, Ai-Funaro, Diribate, Hermera, among others, joined in. According to colonial lore, these
pagan reino then went over to a rampage destroying religious images along with churches, slaying two
missionaries along with numerous Christian converts. In the event, Governor Antonio de Albuquerque
Coelho left Timor in 1725 for Macau, having faced down the church, Francisco de Hornay's topasse
rebellion, the Dutch (he protested to Batavia), and the Chinese, by sending several voyages to undercut
Chinese sloops working the sandal trade. From Goa he published a report on Timor, A Ilha de Timor em
1726". 26
This perilous situation for the Portuguese prevailed until the arrival from Larantuca of incoming Governor
Antonio Moniz de Macedo in 1725. He sought a meeting with the rebels to obtain their submission, while a
the same time took stock of the beleaguered colony's defences. By the time he arrived in Timor, however,
the reis of Serviao, Camnaee, and Belos had taken up arms, obliging Lamac Hitu and Cailaco to fall in line
Moniz de Macedo then proceeded to punish the rebels charging Goncalo de Magalhaes, Captain-Major of
the province, to launch attacks on rebel positions in order to force their retreat deep into the mountains. It
was then decided to attack Cailaco, considered the rebel headquarters.
According to Basilio de Sa, Portuguese historian of this rebellion, there were two reasons why the chiefs of
Cailaco persisted with the rebellion; first, their certainty that all the neighbouring reinos would lend suppor
and second, the myth of the impregnable "Pedras de Cailaco", a reference to the pedras or natural rock
fortress or protection offered Cailaco by the formidable escarpments rising to 2000 metres altitude. Cailaco
at the time of the battle, took its name from the principal reino of this region located athwart the central
cordillera dividing the island from north from south. This was described as a kingdom of 40,000 inhabitant
standing in "sovereign isolation" and dominating the Marabo valley, the source of three northern mowing
rivers, the Marabo, the Lau-Heli (Lamaquitos), and the Lois. 27
To assault Cailaco, the Portuguese commenced to concentrate their forces in Batugede under the command
of Joaquim de Matos, drawing upon support from the Laratuqueiros and other forces arriving from Serviao
By the end of October 1726, the Portuguese massed their forces at the foot of Cailaco Mountain. From Dili
Page 42
already a port of call of the Portuguese, another force advanced on Cailaco on 23 October via the heights of
Ermera under the command of Goncalo de Magalhaes, making up a combined force on the Portuguese side
of 4,000 loyal tribesmen. This force also included a company of Sica forces under the command of
Sergeantmajor Lucas da Cunha. In the face of a "heroic" resistance of 40 days by the defenders, and
assisted by fortuitous torrential rains, the Portuguese forces were obliged to break off the encirclement. On
December the military campaign against Cailaco ended with the return to their respective reino of loyalist
forces.28
From another account, on 13 January 1727, certain of the rei, among them one Dom Aleixo, conceded
defeat, swore allegiance to the Portuguese, and commenced to pay fintas. 29
It is important, as Basilio de Sa highlights, to view the "conspiracy" of the House of Camnasse and the
revolt of Cailaco as part of a "prolonged and persistent revolt" running from 1719 to 1769 when the
decision was made to abandon Lifau for Dili.30
Indeed, according to de Castro, by 1731 the rebels were still master of all places on the coast of Timor with
the single exception of Lifau and Manatuto and within an ace of throwing out the invader and restoring thei
ancient empires of Sonobai, Menace (?) and Nayale (?). 31
In any ease, it was not until 19 September 1731 that Camnace sued for peace.32
While this assertion remains undocumented and while it is difficult to envisage a return to a pristine past on
the part of any number of loose coalitions of Timorese reinos at that stage, especially because of the
dominance of the topasse and their monopoly of the lucrative sandal trade, it is certainly the case that the
Portuguese were on the ropes and fighting.
This is a specific reference to the plight of incoming Governor Colonel Pedro de Mello (1729-31), who
arrived in Timor from Macau with a force of 50 European and Macanese troops. Evidently given the brief
to explore further east and pacify the coastal littoral, Pedro de Mello pushed towards Manatuto via Dili,
arriving on 18 October 1730. In Dili he failed to dislodge local tribes people in revolt, and, on 13 January
1731, barely succeeded in breaking out of an 85 days siege of Manatuto that saw his men reduced to
foraging. In this defence he faced off a massed attack by 15,000 Timorese, albeit indicting some losses on
the enemy before making good his temporary exit to Lifau.33
Pedro de Mello's own account of this siege survives in the form of a three-page illuminated letter written in
the Governor's hand and dated 20 February l731, reino of Manatuto, "province of Bellos in Timor". Despite
suffering grave losses of men and materials, Pedro de Mello nevertheless won certain allies from among the
chiefs in this pioneering act of conquest in the hitherto neglected eastern part of the island, an action which
no doubt psychologically prepared the Portuguese for the shift of capital from Lifau to Dili, and the shift of
the centre of gravity of the colony from Serviao in the west to Belos in the east that would occur some half
century later.34
Overall, then, the Cailaco rebellion merits attention for several reasons, not only as an example of "heroic"
defence on the part of the reinos of central Timor against the injustice of paying fintas, a stand kept up until
the very seat of government was relocated from Lifau to Dili, but also because it is, in the words of a Basili
de Sa, one of the few "abundantly and minutely documented episodes in the history of Timor". 35
It is also superbly and graphically illustrated in the "Planta de Cailacao" still preserved in metropolitan
archives. Dating from 1727, the authorship of the "Cailacao map" remains unknown but is believed to have
been executed by a Canarim or Goanese, then much in demand as scribes and illustrators. A veritable
Bayeux p1'apestry of running guerrilla battles, the artist offers graphic representation of village stockades
decorated by decapitated heads, mountain defence systems of the Timorese, Portuguese tranqueiras or
fortresses under the Cross of Christ nag, as well as period costumes and such details as grazing horses and
birds in night. Joaquim de Matos is also shown in the thick of battle along with his troop of moradores. As
such, the Cailaco map stands as a unique pictorial reproduction of the scene of battle and the modes of
warfare of this distant age. We can also observe from the Cailaco map, that, unlike the Portuguese-enlisted
forces, Larantuqueiros included, indigenous Timorese forces had yet to acquire the matchlocks introduced
to the archipelago by their antagonists’ 200 years prior. Replete with portugalized toponyms the pedras and
the rivers are well identified.
Ruy Cinatti has commented that the map also stands as a unique document in which to assay the botany of
Timor as it was in a past age. Notable, in this sense, are the depictions of casuarinas along riverine zones,
varieties of palm trees and acacias on open savannah landscape, with tamarinds, pandanus and fig trees
Page 43
represented in zones of secondary forest.36
The Siege of Lifau (1769)
While we have passed comment upon the sorry state of Lifau as described by Dampier in 1699, it
nevertheless represented the major outpost of the Estado da India on Timor in an ecclesiastical and
governmental sense. As described, the "praca" or establishment at Lifau consisted of a fort constructed of
dried stones supporting a small artillery, literally surviving in the absense of outside assistance upon fintas
the form of foodstuffs supplied by loyal regulos. But when Governor Pedro de Mello regressed to Lifau in
early 1731 following his near debacle in Manatuto, he found the establishment guarded by a single
company of soldiers, facing off a siege on all sides by topasse power allied to rebellious Timorese reinos.
Such were the extreme privations of the garrison that they survived on "roots, leaves and pulverized horse
bones." In these sad conditions, continues de Castro, the decision was made to embark all baggage, and
artillery and to set fire to the place leaving it to the rebels while relocating the seat of government to some
more propitious location. Happily, writes de Castro, the timely arrival in Lifau from Macau of Governor
Pedro de Rigo Barreto da Gama e Castro (1731-34) changed this course of affairs. The arrival of governors
it should be remembered, inevitably involved a change of guard and the replenishment of supplies. Lifau
was both restored and spared, at least temporarily. 37
It is of great interest that Goverl10r da Gama e Castro then set sail for Dili, where, following up the
contacts made by his predecessor, entered into negotiations with rebel Chiefs. Moving on to Manatuto, the
governor revived the garrison and, by his presence, stiffened the resistance to the rebels in that isolated but
strategic outpost. Manatuto, which by this stage evidently hosted some kind of religious or church presence
also sent an envoy to Dili to enter into negotiations with the rebel chief Francisco Fernandes Vaerella,
otherwise known as Captain-Major and Lieutenant-Superior of Serviao.38
From this name and grandiloquent title we can assume that this person represented topasse power.
Impatient with the delay in negotiations, the governor departed Manatuto for Lifau where his presence was
obviously required, but not before visiting Batugede, earlier abandoned ahead of the rebellions. Putting
"temerity ahead of prudence", the governor made landfall and sued the local rebel leader, D. Lourenco da
Costa, to pay his respects to the representative of the Crown in return for a pledge to redress the grievances
which led to the alienation of this evidently Christianized topasse leader. Da Costa obeyed. Evidently
literate, he demanded to see the patent of governorship. Satisfied, he swore fidelity. According to de Castro
it was this event which neutralized the revolt proving the worth of Governor da Gama e Castro's strategy of
carrot (negotiations) and stick (force of arms) Style of doing business. Still, in September the same year, he
faced down an outbreak ofrebe1lion in Varella assisted by Vermassee. A peace pact signed on 16 March
17'32 offered the governor only a short-lived reprieve as, from this date onwards, numerous other acts of
rebellion sundered the peace, in familiar pattern. 39
Among other incidents besetting the stability of Lifau mentioned by de Castro was the act of poisoning
Governor Dionisio Galvao Rebello (1760-66) by Francisco d'Hornay, Antonio da Costa, de Quintino da
Conceicao and Lourenco de Mello, stand out. More the pity this act is not better documented, but we know
from the Sarzedas document that, with the death of the Governor on 8 November 1766, de Hornay took
over. Three years later he would be master of Lifau. In any case, it is noteworthy that, in the two years
period between 1766 and 1768 before the new-and final governor in Lifau-could arrive, Lifau was
governed by the Dominican friars Antonio de Boaventura and Jose Rodriques Pereira. Whether or not this
loss of prestige on the part of the Crown owed to the ad interim government of the Dominicans, as de
Castro suggests, in fact this was the situation confronted by the incoming governor in 1769. 40
Undoubtedly the ascendance of Francisco d'Hornay, the topasse raja of Oecusse, supported by his relative
Antonio d'Hornay, augured ill for Portuguese power in Lifau, especially after the reported reunion of the
two topasse chiefs in Malacca in 1766 and their pledge to expel the Portuguese from Timor. While they had
no immediate success in this goal, especially as the rajas of Belu were, alternatively, engaged in fighting
both the Dutch and the Portuguese, there was no question that the Portuguese were highly vulnerable in
Lifau. Only the reino of Manatuto offered help to Lifau in the form of men and provisions, undoubtedly a
reassuring factor behind the decision to abandon Lifau for the east.
While we have commented upon the establishment of a church in Manatuto in an early period, it would be
Page 44
relevant to assay the state of the missions in the east, as the winning of rei vassalos usually went hand in
hand with the success of the church. From a letter written in 1752 by D. Fr. Geraldo de Sao Joseph, Bishop
of Malacca and Timor, we learn that, besides Lifau and Manatuto, churches were then established in
Animata, a former site of the Cailaco rebellion, Tullicao, also in Serviao, Vemassey (Vemace) and Lalaya
(Lalea), both east of Manatuto and Caggruium (?), Laculo (Laclo) and Lacora (Laicora) between Dili and
Manatuto.
No doubt this was an improvement upon the situation faced at the height of the Cailaco rebellion when the
missions were almost decimated, but, as the Bishop lamented, the baleful influence of barlaque and other
"superstitions" proved a major check on missionization. The Bishop duly drew up a "minimal plan" for
conversions, targeted at teaching children the basics of the Holy Creed and the sign of the cross. 4l
Certainly, as de Freycinet commented, in certain circumstances the Timorese proved themselves loyal, as
opposed to hostile, to the Portuguese presence. He cites the case of Governor Vicento Ferreira de Carvalho
who, in 1759, imprudently sold Lifau to the Dutch. But, when the Dutch sought to establish their presence
in the territory, namely via the agency of von Pluskow, they were, in turl1, met by a show of arms by the
local raja and population who assassinated the hapless agent of the Company, while taking it upon
themselves to restore Lifau to the newly arrived Portuguese Governor from Goa.42
This would have been Dionisio Goncalves Rebelo Galvao (1760-66) who arrived the following year,
temporarily superseding the authority of Francisco de Hornay. But, in another account, the hero of defence
of Lifau against Dutch "adventurers" advancing from Kupang was Governor Sebastiao de Azevedo e Brito,
a future lieutenant colonel of the brigade in Goa who replaced Ferreira de Carvalho.43
In any case, with the assassination of von Pluskow by the topasse in Lifau, the Dutch resigned themselves
to what would transpire as a long-standing policy of non-interference in the affairs of either the Portuguese
or the topasse. 44
After a two years absence a new governor was appointed in Lifau. This was Antonio Jose Teles de
Meneses (1768-75). Such was the desperate food situation confronting the new Governor in Lifau that, in
1769, he requested the Senate in Macau to dispatch 1000 picos of rice and even a quantity of cooking
utensils.
Although Macau responded by dispatching the Santa Catarina, this ship got way laid on business and did
not make it to Lifau. The Governor made another desperate appeal to Macau. Otherwise all
communications were cutoff with the interior.
Beset by intrigues mounted by the topasse forces of Francisco d'Hornay in league with local chiefs, and
finding the city encircled by the rebels and the Fortaleza in weakened condition, Governor Teles de
Meneses made the fateful decision to abandon Lifau to the rebels. This was effected on the night of 11
August 1769. Taking advantage of the presence offshore of the S. Vicente and the Santa Rosa which had
arrived from Macau, the entire settlement comprising 1,200 inhabitants, over half of whom were women
and children, were evacuated by sea to Dili. Baggage and all war materials were also loaded. But in
abandoning the west to the rebels the party took the opportunity to stop over on the way to Dili at Batugede
where the fort was strengthened. The party duly arrived in Dili on 10 October thus founding a new capital
and bringing don a chapter in the early Portuguese settlement of Timor. While Lifau faded into obscurity,
Dili has remained the capital ever since. 45
While, in Boxer's phrase, this eastward transfer of the capital represented the "nadir of Portuguese power
on the island", 46
It is only true in the sense of abandoning the west to the topasse and the sandal trade to the Chinese workin
out of Kupang and later Atapupu. Yet, it can also be interpreted as a new beginning. Such a strategic shift
of capital may have been reconnoitred decades earlier. Dampier was told of small harbour 14 leagues east o
Lifau called Ciccale. This was described as having a narrow entrance open to the northerly winds between
two rock ledges, one east one west, dry at low water. This could only have been an allusion to Dili's drying
reef and secure harbour.47
De Castro writes of the move from Lifau, that Dili in 1769 offered certain advantages. It was a more secure
port, at least offering the natural defence of coral reefs, and in hat sense superior to Lifau, Oecusse,
Batugede, Manatuto, Laga and even Kupang and Atapupu. It was also sheltered from strong winds from
the west and east.
Also, being situated on a vast plain, there was sufficient space for the cultivation of rice necessary to feed
Page 45
the population.48
Crucially, Dili's location on an open plain offered a natural defence against the local inhabitants. In any
ease, European armies preferred open spaces rather than rough terrain.
But with the desertion of Lifau in 1769, as witnessed by the visiting French ensign F.E. de Rosily three
years later, real power had passed into the hands of Francisco d'Hornay and Domingos da Costa. The de
facto partitioning of the island between the Portuguese, the Dutch, and the two topasse bosses is confirmed
by de Rosily's revelation that topasse authority extended along the coast from "two leagues east of
Touloucoita up to ten leagues from Kupang amounting to 25 or 30 leagues of coastline and at the same time
are deeply entrenched on land; they also control several ports between them including the best and most
frequented, namely Laphau and Coucy...These two kings obey no other authority...they are
independent".49
Some 15 years earlier, in 1755, the visiting French commander Pierre Poivre had also commented upon the
independence of the topasse vis-a-vis the Portuguese, especially in the way in which they tolerated the
presence in Lifau of a large-undoubtedly seasonal-Macassar colony, also engaged in the sandal trade.50
During colonial times Pante Macassar was the name given to the major settlement in Oecusse located
several kilometres east of the historic Lifau site and running parallel with the beach or pantai, as it is known
in Malay.
Conclusion
The emergence of a new source of power around a creolized group has no parallel in this hemisphere
although, as mentioned, might in a sense be compared to the slave rebellion of Haiti leading to the
establishment of a Republic. Yet there are significant differences as well. The topasse of the remote oceanic
island were hardly influenced by the message of the French revolution. Theirs was an opportunistic push
against both the Portuguese and the Timorese in the quest for a new local equilibrium of power,
commensurate with their intermediary role as cultural brokers, as interpreters between two disparate culture
- the peoples of the eastern archipelago and the European - and to restore their status as key brokers with th
Chinese and the Dutch in the sandal trade. The great rebellions of the eighteenth century also Coincided
with a period when the influence of the Church was in decline, a situation that would not be reversed until
well into the next century.
While inter-ethnic warring, slave-raiding and head-hunting had long antecedents in Timor society, the
precipitous entry into Timor of outsiders-topasse as much European-from the seventeenth century onwards
provoked strong resistance by hose whose lives were most disrupted, namely indigenous Timorese. Unlike
Goa or Malacca, where the conquest of a Sultanate or sophisticated power structure disrupted local tributary
arrangements, and where the Portuguese substituted themselves as sovereign masters, and unlike the ease o
Macau where the Portuguese ingratiated themselves to local Chinese mandarins and the Chinese
trade-tributary system through bribery, later institutionalized as ground-rent, the case of Timor was far mor
African. By this is meant that, in the real absence of a single dominating system of state power -not even
Wehale- the conquest or incorporation of one tribal lineage or raja left many other tribal and speech groups
on the outside.
Again, while this view of history may have its attractions, there is no sense that rebellion was coordinated
across the island, just as there was no one Timor nation in the seventeenth century. Timorese did not speak
a common language, there were no books, high priests or centralized kingship Capable of organizing
concerted resistance. Yet fierce organized resistance on a local or even regional level, as illustrated by the
fly in amber representation of the Cailaco rebellion, was a characteristic in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries. One question that requires further research is that of the acquisition of military skills and
technology on the part of the topasse who, as seen, fought alongside the Portuguese at Cailaco but turned
upon them at Lifau. Were these scions of Portuguese sailors and merchants privy to foreign military
methods, and, equally, were they able in close battle to match firelocks against firelocks which gained
increasing currency as trade items in the archipelago by the eighteenth Century?
There is a real sense then that the symbolic links on the part of the topasse with the Portuguese crown, even
if their drive for independence often put them at loggerheads with the Portuguese locally, actually enabled
the Estado da India to uphold its presence in Timor long after they were expelled from other parts of the
Page 46
archipelago. This we have seen was achieved by the balancing role played by the topasse between the
native Timorese rulers, the Dutch, the Chinese and even the Macassans in the struggle for Control over the
sandalwood trade. At this time we can say that the island of Timor was split between three powers,
Portuguese in the northeast, the Dutch in the southwest, and the topasse in the north central part of the
island in control of sandalwood as the key resource.51
Notes
I. David Lopes, Expansa?o da Lingua Portuguesa no Oriente nos siculos XVI, XVTI e XVTfI,
Portucalense F,ditora, Porto, I 969.
2. For the etymology of the term, see Oxfojnd English Dictionary (2nd edition), Vol.XVIII, Clarendon
Press, Oxford, 1959.
3. P.FJ. Pieris and M.All. Fitzler, Ceylon and Portugal, Verlag der Asia Major, Leipzig, 1927, p. 53
4. Gabriel Quiroga de San Antonio, Brave et Wiridique Relation des Evdnements du Cambodge, S. Pablo
de Valladolid, l604 (Paris, l914), p. 184..
5. See Appendix V, "The Japanese in Malacca" in C.R. Boxer, "The AEfair of the 6Madre de Deus", I
{ansactibns and PjnOCeedings of the Japan SocieO;, Vol.XXVI, 1 928-29, p. 84.
6. Fjngleburt Kaempfer, The History of Japan, London, 1727, p. 3 I I
7. Alexander I{amilton; A New Account of the East Indies, London (2 vols.), l727 (1744).
8. Sanjay Subrahmanyam, The Portuguese Empire in Asia, 1500-1 700: A I:olitical and Economic History
Longman, I10ndon, 1993, p. 210.
9. Boxer, "Portuguese Timor".
10. James Fox, "Forgotten, neglected but not peaceRll: A History of Timor", Canberra I'imes, 27
November 1975, cited in Bill Nicol, I'imor: I'he Stillborn Nation, Visa, MelbouriAle, 1978, p. 14.
11.Ibid.
12. William Dampier, A Voyage to New IIolland, etc in the Year 1699, James and John hapton, at the
Crown in St.Paul's Churchyard, London, l699, pp. 177-178.
13. See june Lombard-Jourdan, "Infortunes d'un Prince de Timor accueilli en France sous Louis XV",
Archipel, Vol. 16, 1978, pp. 91-133 and Artur Teodoro de Matos, Timor Portugues: 1515-1 769,
Contribuica?o para a sua Historia, Instituto Hist6rico lnfante Dom rlenrique, Faculdade de Letras da
Universidade de Lisboa, 1974, pp. 395, 404.
14. JilLo11iffe, East Timor: Nationalism and Colonialism, University of Queensland Press, St.Lucia, l978,
pp. 29-30.
1 5. Johan Nieuh of, Voyages and Travels to the East Indies 1653J670 (original English edition, London,
1704), reprinted with introduction by A. Reid, Oxford University Press, Singapore, 1988.
l6. rI.G. Schulte Nordholt, The Political System of theAntoni, Martinus NLhoff, The Hague, 1971 , p. 3 I
cited in JilLolliffe, FJaSt Timor, pp. 30-31.
17. "Pastoral do Bispo de Malacca: D.Fr. Geraldo de Sao Joseph", 24 de Junho 1752, BGF,I, No.25, 31
MarAo1865.
1 8. William Burton Sowash, "Colonial Rivalries in Timor", Far Eastern Quarterly, Vol.VII, No.3, May
1948,p.232.
19. I.H. Doko, Perjuangan Kemeredekaan Indonesia di Nusa li9nggara, PN Balai Pustaka, Jakarta, 1 98 I.
20. James J. Fox, 1Iawestof the Palm: Ecological Change in Eastern Indonesia, Harvard University Press,
Harvard, 19779 PP. 67-72.
2l. 0 Documento Sarzedas, Conde de Sarzedas - Vitorino Freire da Cunha Gusmao, 28 Abri1 1811, in
Solor e Timor, Agencia Geral das Co16nias, Lisboa, 1943, pp. 138-169.
22. Affonso de Castro, As possesso?es portuguesas na oceania, Imprensa Nacional, Lisboa, 1 867, pp. 58
& 68 andpp. 374-378.
23. Affonso de Castro, As possesso?es.
24. Yvette Lawson, "East Timor: Roots Continue to Grow", University of Amsterdam, 1989.
25. George Bryan Souza, The Survival of Empire: Portuguese Lhade and Sociey in China and the South
China Sea, 1630-1 754, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1986, pp. 181-183.
26. See Cunha Rivara, "A Ilha de p1"imor em 1726. Carta do Goverllador de Albuquerque Coelho ao V.
Page 47
Rey da India", Boletim do Governo do Estado da India, No.69, l865, pp. 453-454, cited in C.R. Boxer,
Antonio de Alberquerque Coelho (1 652- 1 745), Tipografia da lmaculada Coneeigfromacau, l939.
27. Artur-Basilio de Sa, A Planta de Cailaco 1727: Valioso Documento para a Hist6ria de Timor, Pelo
lmperio, 1Jisboa, 1 94.9, de Castro, Aspossesso?es, p. 88 and see document by Antonio Jose Telles de
Menezes, Dili, 3l Mar 1770. ,
28. 0 Documento Sarzedas.
29. Basilio de Sa, A Planta de Cailaco 1727.
30. Ibid.
31. de Castro, "Resume Historique...", pp. 470-471.
32. 0 Documento Sarzedas.
33. C. R. Boxer, Fidalgos in the Far East 1550-1 770, Oxford University Press, ftong Kong, 1968, cited in
Jo11ifFe, East Timor, p. 29 and see C.R. Boxer, "0 Coronel Pedro de Melo e a SublevaSao Geral de Timor
em 1729-173 1", Boletim Eclesidstico da Diocese de Macau, No.405, Dezembro de l937, pp. 342-375.
34. This article reproduces the illuminated and signed letter sent by Governor Pedro de Mello fiom
Manatuto.
35. de S., A Planta de Cailaco.
36. Ruy Cinatti Vaz Monteiro Gomes, Exploraco?es Botanicas em Timor; Estudos, Ensaios e
Documentos, Lisboa, l950, pp. l3-14.
37. de Castro, "Resume Historique", pp. 471-473.
38. Ibid.
39. Ibid. I
40. Ibid, and see Documento Sar2Tedas.
4l. Pastoral do bispo de Malacca D. Fr. Geraldo de Sao Joseph, 24 de Junho 1752, BGFJI, No.25, 31
Marao, l865.
42. de Freycinet, Voyage, pp. 715-716. Also see J.J. Fox, The Flow ofLLa. Essays on Eastern I'imor,
flarvard University Press, Cambridge, l990, p. 65. For a reference on the governor who sold Lifau to the
Dutch, see A AuflOra Macaense, Vol. 1, No.51, l844.
43. "Relacao do estad6 de Timor e das coizas que nelle passarao desde o anne de l762 athe o de 1769,
mais expecificada que a do cap. 1 do 2 tome do Sistema Marcial Aziatieo", in lb-Ssi-Yang Kuo (Series II,
Vol.III and IV), l899-1900, pp. 8-9.
44. Jolliffe, East limor, pp. 30-3l.
45."Mundanga da capital, de Lifau para Dili", Of7lCio do governador Antonio Jose de Meneses, de 3 1-
31770 in de Castro, As possesso?es, reprinted as "LugareS Selectos da Biblioteea Colonial Portuguesa", in
Boletim da Age'ncia Geral das Col6nias, No.54, Dezembro de 1929, pp. 132-136.
46. Boxer, "Portuguese Timor", p. 354.
47. Dampier, A Voyage to New Lrolland, p. 178.
48. de Castro, Aspossesso?es. .
49. Anne Lombard-Jourdan, "Un memoire in6dit de F.Fj. Rosily sur l'ile de Timor", Archipe1, Vol.23,
l982, p. 93.
50. H. Cordier, "Relation abbreg6e des voyages faits par le sieur Poivre...", Revue de I 'histoire des
coloniesfrancais, t, 1918, pp. 60, cited in Lombard-Jourdan, Ibid.
5 1. Artur Teodoro de Matos, Na Rota das Especiarias: De Malacca a Australia, Imprensa Naciona1-Casa
da Moeda, 1Jisboa, 1995, p. 128.
5
Dili: The Foundation s
In the broader scheme of metropolitan developments it is clear that, unlike Goa and Macau, the distant
oceanic colony of Timor was isolated in the extreme.
Whereas Goa was to suffer the full consequences of the Inquisition during the reign of Joao V (1707-50),
Page 48
Timor was spared. Even the long delayed news received in Timor of the precarious position of Portugal at
the hands of Napoleon's armies and the fight of the Prince Regent to Brazil, seemed to have passed Timor
by. Especially, there was no British takeover in Portuguese Timor as happened briefly in Macau in 1808
and, as mentioned, in Dutch Timor between 1811-16. No doubt, Dili as took the threat made in 1822 by the
ascendant Liberals in Macau to suspend the annual subsidy to Timor very seriously, for most of the century
the new establishment remained both vulnerable and dependent upon the Macau connection.
While the facts surrounding the foundation of Dili in October 1769, some 200 years after the pioneering
actions by Dominicans in the Solor-Flores zone, and 100 years subsequent to the fortification of Lifau, are
not well documented, we know that once established in the new praca or Capital of Dili, the Portuguese
looked to fortifying their defences, not only against an external enemy, but also against the Timorese.
As documented in this chapter, defences would have mattered little without diplomatic success on the part
of the Portuguese in winning allies from among strategic liurai. No less, as this chapter argues, attempts to
implant a colonial administration in the eastern part of the island in a period even prior to the establishment
of die first British settlement in Australia, would have been doomed without the creation of a customs
regime along with other governmental institutions in the endeavour to regain control over the island's trade
that had, lamentably, slipped into the hands of Portugal's traditional rivals, the Dutch, the topasse and the
Chinese.
Alliances
In a process which remains unelaborated, soon after the Portuguese planted their nag in Dili, some 42 reis
made their way to the new capital to swear loyalty.1 In one account, the key collaborating reino or regulo
that made Governor Teles de Meneses' gambit possible were D. Felipe de Freitas Soares of Vermasse and
D. Alexandre of Motae1, the latter who offered temo or written terms of loyalty on the cession to the
Portuguese Crown of what amounted to all the cultivable land on the Dili plain as far as the encircling
mountains, along with wood for the construction of public buildings and men and horses to help defend Dil
against external aggression.2
Although it is hard to document, there is no question as, discussed in the context of the topasse rebellion,
that the survival of the Portuguese in this distant part of the archipelago rested at least as much upon their
ability to strike alliances with local tributaries, the luirais or regulos in Timor, as upon their military prowes
Just which regulo, and how many regulos, is always difficult to reconstruct, as opinion varies between
sources and over time. Notwithstanding the setback in Lifau and the earlier trials in Dili and Manatuto, it
appears from all the evidence that Dili in the foundation period achieved more success in winning over
allies from among the regulo than it did by mid-century when rebellion again became endemic. It may not
just be a case of better documentation for the later period, but also a case of the withering of bonds created
between the church and the regulos reaching back to the Dominicans. Compared to the early period, when
the mission was established in Manatuto and even Viqueque, in the latter period, the church had virtually
withdrawn itself to the "comforts" of Dili. Thus, former Governor Antonio Joaquim Garcia writing in 1870
observed that, whereas in 1776, 44 reinos paid taxes to the value of 23,000 pardaus (gold), during his term,
a mere 23 reinos paid 2,000 florins. 3
An anonymous memorial published in 1844 in the Macau newspaper, Aurora Macaense, is illuminating.
Observing the Serviao-Belu distinction, this writer drew up a balance sheet on Dutch, Portuguese, and
topasse power on the island in the decades following the shift to Dili. Maubara, in this account, was under
the Dutch nag where, in 1756, a fort was constructed during the governorship of Manoel Doutel de
Figueiredo Sarmento (1750-56). 4
Within decades of the foundation of Dili, then, the Portuguese were masters of the northern coastal littoral
from Batugede in the west to Lautem near the eastern extremity of the island. Fjqua11y, the Portuguese had
won key allies in such interior locations as Motael, south of Dili; Dailor, south of Motael, along with Atsab
and Maubesse; east and southeast of Dili, Ermera, Liquisa, and Leamean; west of Dili, Hera and Vermasse;
and, on the frontier with Serviao, Cova and Balibo; and southeast of Dili across the cordillera, Somoro,
1Jaeluta and Viqueque. But there were also many gaps in this system of alliances, notably on the south
coast, and among many interior locations in the east.
The loyalty question, along with basic facts surrounding the establishment of the colony, was also
Page 49
addressed in a long report on Timor drawn up by Bernado Jose Maria de Lorena, count of Sarzedas and
Governor of Goa (1807-16). This was addressed to incoming Governor Vitorino Flreire da Cunha Gusmao
(1812-15) in an attempt to set the record right on what, as he learnt from the Goa archives, was a deplorable
state of affairs in the Oceanic colony. Especially because of the loss of the Dili archives in 1779, the
Sarzedas document, to which we shall refer in this chapter, represents the most complete account of this
period. Governor de Castro also quoted it in his work.5
Not all rebellion was from the traditional enemy, however, but also stemmed from subordination within the
ranks. Dili's second governor, Caetano de Lemos Telo de Meneses (1776-79), faced down a challenge from
two Timorese and a Portuguese, presumably from within the military. As punishment, he had their private
property confiscated and transferred to the fazenda or treasury. Goa was not amused at such arbitrariness
and, in an order of 25 Apd1 1779, had the unfortunate governor condemned to Mozambique where he died
a degredado or banishee.6
It is unclear, but it is also possible that the unfortunate governor became embroiled in Church affairs, alway
at bursting point as, in 1777, when the Bishop of Macau fired a missive alleging scandalous behaviour on
die part of the governor.7
Meneses was succeeded as governor on 15 June 1779 by Lourenco de Brito Correia (1779-82).
Reportedly, all reinos in the new colony were then at peace, with the exception of Luca, on the distant
southeast coast in the region ofViqueque.8
Commencing in 1781, and continuing through the rule of Governor Jose Angelo de Almeida Soares (1782-
85), revolt in Luca, also called the guerra de loucas or war of the doidas or mad, was led by a so-called
prophet or maniaco (lit. mad) who deemed himself invulnerable. As described by de Castro, leading a
"rude, ignorant and superstitious people", he marched on Viqueque. Contemporaneous with the Senobai
rebellion against the Dutch in west Timor, this rebellion was only successfully crushed by Governor Joao
Baptista Vieira Godinho (1785-88). 9
The first governor at Dili to win some apparent success in forming alliances with local reinos in the conflic
against the Dutch, Godinho was deemed a good governor by the standards of the time, especially as he was
responsible for winning back Lifau into the fold. This superior act of diplomacy was accomplished by
arranging a meeting on Solor with Lt. General Pedro Hornay, to give him his state conferred title, and his
nephew, Dom Constantino do Rosario, the rei of Solor.
Although Portugal did not then have a permanent official presence on Solor, the latter pledged his loyalty to
Portugal, offered help to defend Dili, and usefully offered to support the new colony with provisions. In the
opinion of the count of Sarzedas, Godinho's retirement the following year and replacement with an interim
governor arriving from Goa was a matter of regret.10
Incoming Governor Joaquim Xavier de Morais Sarmento (1790-94) encountered rebellion in all the reinos
of Belos. While it is unlikely that generalized revolt on such a large scale actually occurred, in 1778 Belu
and Manatuto revolted and, in 1790, it was the turn of Maubara and Senobai. The Manatuto affair saw the
church along with a group of Timorese rebels, including, D. Matias Soares, Boaventura Soares Doute1, and
Francisco Soares Doutel, a group of possibly Christianized illustrados or literates, squared off against
Governor Feliciano Antonio Nogueira Lisboa (1788-90), who had imprudently resorted to force in the
attack on Manatuto. In this obscure affair, D. Mateus Soares threatened a complete "sedition" by Belu.
Francisco Lulls da Cunha, the ecclesiastical authority in Manatuto, was obliged to nee to Batavia by ship,
and the goven10r replaced. In any case, incoming Governor Sarmento arriving from Goa restored order.11
Information is limited but, according to the Sarzedas document, GoverI10r Jose Vicente Soares da Veiga
(1804-07) took the almost unprecedented action of sending a rebel Timorese into exile. This was D. Felipe
de Freitas, the bastard son of the rei of Vemasse, who was sent to Goa.l2
By the new century, the reino of Motae1, south of Dili, had risen as a powerful independent force and,
when Governor Vitorino da Freire da Cunha Gusmao arrived in Dili in 181 1, he found the administration
split in two, between the liurai of Motael and the church in Manatuto.13
While we do not know the specific Causes of these last mentioned rebellions, sequels to the war of the
doidos recurred, just as the messianic theme in rebellions in Timor has recurred until the present age.
In the absence of more nuanced Portuguese documentation on relations with the reino, the detailed schema
on "kingdoms of the island of Timer", as drawn up by de Freycinet in 1818, is illuminating. This schema
identifies reinos according to those under, respectively; Portuguese sovereignty (23), those deemed
Page 50
"tributary" (24), and those deemed "allied" (18) over 200 years. Again, as with the earlier list of reinos,
certain are obscure as to name and location. In any case, this list is of great interest, both in offering up the
nomenclature of reinos, albeit yet to be standardized in print, and in revealing the early divisioning of the
island between colonialisms, important if we are to arrive at an understanding of the development of
Timorese identity or identities. Freycinet's list also shows the longevity of certain of these reinos, and how
certain lost rank, were superseded, or disappeared into the Dutch sphere of influence owing to their
peripheral location, or as a result of future territorial struggles between the Dutch and the Portuguese. De
Freycinet offers only five kingdoms then dependent upon Holland, some of them obscure, but certain of
considerable extent; namely, Amanubang, Amarassi, Anfoan, Bacannassi, Kupang, Muni and Stolo.14
Although, as noted below, the visiting Frenchman de Rosily claimed to have seen a citadel in Dili in 1772,
this was probably the remains of the first earthern wall constructed by Governor Teles de Meneses, as it wa
not until 22 September 1796 that an order was given to construct a fortaleza in Dili. This was under
Governor Joao Baptista Vesquaim (1784-1800). Two reasons were given for this initiative to be facilitated
with the assistance of loyal reis and at the expense of the Fazenda Real or royal treasury. First, the Maubara
and Sonobai - to whom the Dutch had offered powder - were in full rebellion against certain rei vassalo of
Portugal, and second, Dili was deemed vulnerable to attack from, variously, the French, Dutch, and British,
especially as the latter had recently taken over Banda and Amboina as part of British takeover of Dutch
possessions in the archipelago during the Napoleonic interregnum. Although Kupang was temporarily
reprieved when, in 1799, armed slaves and tribesmen drove out the British occupiers, Governor Jose
Joaquim de Sousa (1800-04) saw to it that a tranqueira of loose stone with clay bulwarks was constructed in
Dili, fortified with cannon of various calibre. At this time, the military was reorganized into three
companies, the Guarda, the Fortaleza de S. Francisco, and S. Domingos.15
While, as seen, the Portuguese were hard put to win enduring allies from among the Timorese, much less
the topasse, they were successful in co-opting a (mostly) loyal cadre of mercenary forces. From the time of
the founding of Lifau, these forces comprised three elements; the moradores or civilian military forces, the
Bidau, and the Sica. The Bidau and Sica originated, respectively, from Solor and Sica on Flores drawn
from Christianized elements also intermarried with Goans and Africans most probably, as discussed below,
drawn from the colony's slave population. The Bidau resided over long time in the suburb of that name in
Dili as a cohesive group speaking a distinctive Portuguese creole. Equally, a Company of moradores based
in Manatuto enabled the Portuguese to maintain control over this important centre over long time.
Ordinarily, these forces received no stipend or even armaments but were called up in time of war.16
At the time of de Freycinet's visit, the colony also deployed a number of regular soldiers, comprised in part
of Europeans and cipayes or sepoys from India, reinforced by native conscripts supplied by the rajas along
with the moradores. Of the officer Cadre, 50 to 60 strong, certain resided permanently in Dili, while others
were posted to outlying regions.
De Freycinet mentions 40 military posts spread out along the coast, in addition to a camp d'observation in
the interior manned by 2,000 native forces under Portuguese officers for the purpose of neutralizing any
Dutch ambitions. The Calibre and effectiveness of the colony's defenses, however, was somewhat called
into question by the state of Dili's fortifications, described as highly vulnerable with cannon in bad
condition. Owing to a chronic shortage of personnel, many of the lower ranks of the administration were
actually staffed by deportados from Goa. 17
The Rise of Commerce
The northeastern parts of Timor along with Dill were observed in 1772 or a couple of years after the shift
from Lifau by F.E. de Rosily then a young ensign on board a French voyage of discovery in the Indian
Ocean led by Captain Saint-Allouarn. Dili, he observed, was the seat of the Governor "with around 40
whites, Indians and many sepoys, most of whom orginated from Goa and Mozambique". Dili, he
commented, had already established a citadel and was the seat of a bishop, in addition to a military
commander and "religious commissioner" at Manatuto. In fact, as de Rosily observed, all the villages along
the coast hosted a church. He also commented upon the presence in Manatuto of a "commandant Chinois
de Macau" and "sindic et agent de commerce des Portuguese", a reference to the Capitao China or Chinese
community leader. The currency then in use, was the lndo-Portuguese pardao, 18
Page 51
the gold coin introduced into Solor and Timor by the Dominicans.
It is not sure how many Chinese were among Governor Teles de Meneses' evacuation but, gradually, small
colonies of Chinese developed under, variously, Dutch and Portuguese protection in Kupang, Lifau, and,
with the shift of capital, Dili.
The activities of the Macau-based traders and the character of the sandalwood trade at various uncontrolled
points along the coast led to the first permanent settlement by Chinese in Timor. As Ormeling describes it,
always involving "lengthy preliminary discussions with native rulers". By 1775 a distinct Chinese quarter
was established in Kupang, with the food trade controlled by the Chinese. Later, the Chinese moved inland
from Kupang and Atapupu as travelling traders. With time, some 300 Chinese families of mostly Macau
origin, spread out over Kupang, Atapupu and Dili, came to dominate Timor's entire import-export trade,
especially in sandalwood destined for China via Macassar and beeswax destined for the Javanese batik
industry, but also in demand by Chinese who used it in the manufacture of candles. Through the first half o
the nineteenth century there were still signs of direct trade between the Chinese living in Kupang and their
native Macau. Notably, the annual Macau-Dili vessel still called regularly at Kupang bringing provisions fo
the Chinese.19
In fact, de Rosily observed two Portuguese vessels from Macau in Dili harbour during his sojourn. Each
was of 300 tons. Arriving in March they returned in late June having taken on sandal, honey and a few
slaves.20
It is clear that the rise of the Chinese connection served to make the venerable Goa connection with Timor
and Flores increasingly tenuous. Owing to die interventions and jealousies of Macau, Dill ceased to be in
direct shipping communication with Goa after 1790 and thereafter all official communication with the
Estado da India, which did not fully relinquish its jurisdiction over Timor until late the following century,
passed through Macau. From this time on, governors, judges, soldiers, and other officials appointed by Indi
arrived in Timor after the long circuitous passage via Macau.
Indeed, from 1811, Goa progressively ordered the Leal Senado of Macau to advance funds to cover Timor
in six areas, namely, war material, such as gunpowder transported from Goa; support for the Dominican
mission to the amount of 750 taels (of silver) annually; further support to the church in Timor derived from
the fruits of a lottery established in Macau in May 1810; a 1000 pataca advance to governors, commencing
with the appointment of Governor Freire de Gusmao (1811); payment of official travel expenses along with
expenses incurred by deportados; and,, crucially, for the viability of the colonial administration,
commencing in 1820, Macau was required to offer a 6,000 pataca annual subsidy in support of the Timor
colony.21
The problems of early colonisation in Timor were not entirely lost upon the Portuguese world, at least in
Macau where Timor was best understood. The Aurora Macaense report also offered certain critical
observations and recommendations, especially over the practice of dumping its most incorrigible, uncouth,
and uneducated convicts in the new colony, a practice that commenced during the Lifau period. According
to the report, these individuals included those guilty of serious crimes and otherwise lacking "honour".
While, acknowledging the importance of the garrison provided by Goa, the report also called for officer
graduates and missionaries of good calibre if Timor was to be lifted from its low base. Also observing that
the missions on Solor and Larantuca had been practically abandoned, it urged the restoration of these
outposts through the provision of new shipping lines that should also be extended to the south coast of
Timor. The report also strongly argued for assistance from Macau in the form of commerce, immigration,
agriculture, stonemasons, and shipwrights.22
In part, it is clear that this report answered back at Governor Teles de Meneses' retrograde act of
suppressing the inter-island trade conducted by the missionaries, a decree still in force at the time of de
Freycinet's visit. As the Frenchman commented, the prohibition prevented the Timorese from using the
mission ships for their trading activities thus obliging them to treat with the Dutch and the Macassans to the
great disadvantage of Dili.23
As the Aurora Macaense report concluded, only the revival of the missions would succeed in winning over
the vacillating regulos on Timor, thus fending off the depredations of both the Dutch and the Macassans.
But, in this scenario, Macau would have to pay the bill until trade paid the colony's way. 24
We lean from the Goa archives that, by 1813, Dili's (non-native) population had increased to 1,768 persons
or 40 per cent over the statistic for the 1770s (750 persons of whom 375 were slaves). According to Bauss,
Page 52
this statistic included 688 African slaves or 38 per cent of the population. Although we have not seen other
evidence of this African component of Dill society, it is also true, as Bauss confirms, that the Portuguese
slave trade across and beyond die Indian Ocean involved the transportation of 200 to 250 Mozambiquan
slaves annually until 1830.25
By mid-century, however, in large part owing to the Macau connection, Timor began to attract a settled
community of free emigrants. While the practice of sending degredados from Macau to Timer goes back to
the early years of the foundation of Dili (the archival record mentions one case in 1803), the latter category
numbered those who had already served their time.
As seen in a fo11owing chapter, numerous observers would applaud the contribution made by the Chinese
community to Timor's development.
Beginning with Governor Joao Baptista Vieira Godinho (1785-88), Dili tried in vain to abolish the sandal
monopoly held by Macau. This governor supported an open trade between Timor and Goa as Timor
imported goods from Batavia which could just as well be imported from Goa. Timor, on the other hand,
exported goods much in demand in India, including tobacco, "superior to American and similar to
Virginia".
He also cited such promising trade commodities then available in Timor as saltpetre, canella, tombac,
nutmeg, copper and oil. In any case, it is probable that, from 1768, the annual voyage from Macau to Timer
was temporarily suspended owing to the insurrection at Lifau. By 1785, however, the Dili customs
authority was established, theoretically giving Timor full control over this important source of state
revenues. Such control was important as, by the end of the century, the wages of die Governor and officials
were paid out of custom's revenues derived from Dili. This new dispensation evidently encouraged certain
Portuguese and Armenian families, alongside Chinese, to set up business in Dili. In short time customs post
were established at various points on the north coast either under Portuguese rule, or to signal Portuguese
rule to those who might have reason to doubt.26 Even so, it was not until 15 June 1799 under Governor
Jose Anselmo Soares that a Fazenda Real was established in Dili.
The Sarzedas document gives some idea of the relative volumes of trade in the early decades of Dili.
Measured in paradaus, customs receipts on wine and tax paid in money and kind amounted to 24$530, 66
avos in 1793-94 and 38$244, 74 avos the following year. But by 1808-10 the amount collected was even
less and only 16 reinos were actually paying fintas. The document records vastly diminished returns on
extraction of sandal during governorship of Antonio de Mendonca Corte Real (1807-10). This owed to two
factors, first the interruptions occasioned by Sonbai's war against the reino of Oculosi and, second, as also
discussed below, the predatory actions of English whaling ships in local waters in Capturing all voyages of
commerce, whether Dutch, Macassan or Chinese.27
As all imports into Timor and all exports from the colony were channeled via Dili and, from 1830-41,
through customs posts at Cutababa, Lamessane, and Metinara, and, as the colony was dependent upon
custom's revenues to help defray official salaries, it can be said that, overall, customs revenues represented
barometer of the colony's economic health. Although government income was supplemented by fintas
imposed upon reinos vassalos, the amounts actually collected from this source were largely insignificant
even through until the end of the century. Figures published in de Castro's study (customs revenues in Dili
reveal that, from 1830 until 1837Jhere was actually a diminution of receipts (from 9,559 rupiahs to 3,957
rupiahs), but 1838 saw a quadrupling over the previous year to 11,804 rupiahs rising to 21,598 rupiahs in
1841. This erstwhile mini-boom was followed by a slump in the 1840s, which, as shown in a following
chapter, would represent the nadir for the colony, and an abyss from which it would only emerge in the late
1850s with the successful adaptation of the coffee industry to Timor under Governor de Castro, and his
immediate predecessor tJu1'S Augusto de Almeida Macedo (1856-59). It should be mentioned that, as with
other Portuguese colonies, Timor was declared open to foreign shipping in 1844. The "free port" status of
Dili, notwithstanding, most imports into Timor were Subject to a 6 per cent ad valorem tax, while exports
were subject to a 5 per cent tax.28
In the period before Timor was developed as a plantation economy, what products produced in Timor were
then in world or regional demand and, indeed, what trade products entered Timor as items of consumption?
De Rosily offers that the products most in demand were, besides cloth, firearms, powder and sabres traded
against slaves, horses, buffaloes, honey and sandal. Key brokers in these exchanges were the Macassans
who arrived in Oecusse every two years in theirptlt2uhs of 20-30 tons. Trade paces for firearms were two
Page 53
buffaloes or one good horse for one rime. The Frenchman also recorded the presence of coffee and sugar
cane, albeit grown au naturel.28
Writing some decades later, de Freycinet offers the following list of trade items in Timor; slaves, up to 100
piastres for a women, according to beauty, one third of that for a man; cane11a sold to Goa in 1799; leather
and a certain amount of copper exported from Dili to Macau; cachalot and especially ambergris, much
sought after by English and American whalers; bamboo; exported to China; tobacco; grown to supply the
needs of foreign vessels, along with fruits, corn, rice and fresh vegetables; trepang; a small quantity
collected at Kupang, along with rattan and bird's nests; honey; great quantities exported; salt; long an article
of trade; buffalo skins and live animals, including buffalos and horses all exported. Certain other potential
export products such as sago and cotton were for local consumption only. 30
Crawfurd, writing in 1820 and drawing on information gathered during his period as British Resident to th
court of die Sultan of Java, emphasizes the importance of three key trade items from Timor in the
archipelago-wide trade. The first was sandalwood, which fetched a price in Java of 8 to 13 Spanish dollars
or 45 per cent cheaper than that of Malabar and exported to the Java and the China market at a volume of
hot under 8,000 piculs. The second was bees’ wax, collected naturally at the expense of the honey. The
annual quantity of wax exported from Portuguese ports in Timor was 20,000 piculs sold for five Spanish
dollars a picul and destined for markets in Bengal and China. Third, was whale-fishery, a reference to the
seas around "the Spice islands, and particularly towards Timor, and that part of the Pacific Ocean Which
lies between the Archipelago and New Holland, [and where] the Cachelot or Spennaceti whale abounds".
Evoking the picture drawn in Melville's classic Moby-Dick on the activities of roving searchers after
cachelot in die narrow Straits between the islands of the eastern archipelago, Crawfurd mentions that during
the British interregnum in the Moluccas, between ten and twelve English ships would put in annually at Dil
port to re-provision.31
Writing half a century later, de Castro observed that of the 50 to 60 ships entering Timor ports armua11y,
most were whalers, and most vessels were Australian and American. None were Portuguese. The regional
trade was conducted by Macassan sailing prauhs or Dutch schooners.32
Although coffee was introduced into Java in the early eighteenth century, and subsequently established as
plantation economy by the Dutch in both the West Indies and the East Indies, the potential of Timor for
coffee was slow in being realized.
While the first reference to coffee among Timor's lists of products dates from the time of Governor Soares
da Veiga in the opening years of the nineteenth century, the first, albeit unsuccessful attempt to establish
coffee plantations probably relying on tribute labour, was made in 1815. This was under the governorship
of Victorino Freire da Cunha Gusmao, described by de Castro as a man of great intelligence and imbued
with the spirit of a reformer. Besides coffee, he also promoted the cultivation of sugar cane and established
rum factory.33
De Freycinet, while duly recording experiments in coffee and sugar growing, was less sanguine as to
developments in this area, observing that coffee was merely "an object of pure curiosity" in Timor at that
time.34
The pioneering efforts of the Dominicans, notwithstanding, it are notable that the first Systematic efforts to
take stock of Timor's mineral resources were made at this time. Governor Jose Pinto Alcoforado de
Azevedo e Sousa (1815-19) dispatched 200 then on an expedition looking for oil in the reinos of Bibicussu
Samoro, Turiscain and Tutuloro.
His successor, Manuel Joaquim de Matos G6is (1831-32), engaged an expert to explore for gold, copper,
saltpetre, and other resources.35
Vials of the Governors
In a situation where neither of the two European powers on the island actually controlled territory far
beyond the immediate vicinity of the main settlements, it would be surprising if the first Governors in Dili
did not experience serious challenges to their authority. Arriving during Governor Souza's term of office,
the French mission under de Freycinet's command offers up a rare glimpse of Dill society at this age.
From the separate accounts of Jacques Arago, artist aboard the Uranie, and Rose de Freycinet, the
commander's wife, we lean of an effusive reception for the French voyagers and European allies, including
Page 54
sumptuous dinners toasted with Madeira wine, and coordinated cannon salutes. As Rose describes it, and as
recorded in a watercolor by French artist Pe11ion, the de Freycinets might have been excused for believing
they were entering some Portugalized version of an oriental court. Escorted by slaves bearing giant parasols
they entered the palace gardens to the sounds of music, wherein they were presented to governor and
official entourage along with their Timorese wives. These daughters of rajas, Rose observed, were dressed
in old-fashioned French style, albeit much discommoded by shoes; 1adies' maids were richly attired in
Timor fashion with gold ornament, while crouching slaves extended betel nut on demand. In suffocating
heat, the European party danced minuets into the night while the ladies of Dili danced a la Malay. 36
It is of interest, as Arago offers, while the governor was "young, amiable, jovial, and...well informed", he
was also a political "exile" in Dili for whatever reason. Neverthless, alongside the "despotic yoke" of the
Dutch at Kupang, government at Dili appeared "mild". Local rajas who thronged the Governor were treated
with distinction, admitted into his apartments at all hours, and frequently received at his table. It was
apparent to Arago, although he could hardly have been disabused, that Dili's greatest strength was "the
affection of the inhabitants for their governor". He also observed with candour that, lacking Kupang's
"civilized" Chinese quarter, which included school and temple, Dili largely offered the appearance of, a
palm leaf thatched village, the only exception being the governor's palace, a new church (St. Anthony's),
the fort, and stockades.37
But this was also a turbulent time in Timor. Because of the death of incoming Governor Miguel da Silveira
hyena in 1832, interim government Was entrusted to F.Vicente Ferreira Varela who, in conflict with two
other members of the junta, had them arrested and took charge of government until the arrival of a new
governor, Jose Maria Marques.
What this suggests is that, notwithstanding the weakened missionary role of the church in Timor, the
authority of the church was such that, in its ongoing feud with the state, it could not easily be dismissed, at
least, as seen below, until the full weight of the liberal revolution in Portugal led to the expulsion of the
missions in 1834.
Not all threats to the Portuguese were intema1, however. Pelissier has written of a little known incident tha
occurred in September 1847 continuing the following year, the year of revolution in Europe. This concerns
the activities of Macassan or more likely Buginese pirates or slave-traders on the coast of Timor at a place
called Sama in the district of Lautem. It is not that this incident was rare or particularly threatening to the
colony, but in Pelissier's picaresque description, actually exposed die weaknesses of coastal defences under
Governor Juliao Jose da Silva Vieira (1844-48). This state of affairs saw the Buginese get the better of an
arresting party, killing one alferes or sublieutenant and two soldiers. Later, a disproportionate force of 3,000
men drawn from loyal reinos confronted 70 Buginese who resisted attack for four and a half months.
In this debacle of truly Conradian proportions or at least evocative of more than one of this writer's eastern
novels, the governor suspected Complicity between the reino of Sarau and the Buginese interlopers and
ordered an expedition to punish the reino. This was accomplished with great vengeance over a period of
eight months, an act that also involved collecting 2,000 rupees inderrmity.38
In 1848 incoming Governor Olavo Monteiro Torres (1848-51) bequeathed a colony literally abandoned by
his superiors with forces diminished to 120 soldiers, mostly Timorese. P61issier writes that, before
succumbing to Timor's notorious fevers, this governor had not received a single order or decree from
Macau. But he, too, became involved in an obscure rebellion involving a disaffected moradores in the reino
of Ermera, future district of Maubara. In what may have been the largest campaign since the battle of
Cailaco, a force of 6,000 razed Ermera to the ground, killing the liurai and 60 of his subjects. In even more
obscure circumstances, the Governor called upon the liurai of Oecusse to rally against Balibo which had
also risen in revolt. The actions of the latter in planting the Portuguese flag in Janilo, in turn, brought down
recriminations from the Netherlands which feared losing inland access from Atapupu.39
It remained for incoming Governor Jose Joaquim Lopes de Lima (1851-52) to put an end to the revolt of
the rebel liurai of Sarau, Dom Mateus, and conspirator alongside the Bugis, by pressing into action the
gunboat Mondego while, at the same time, deploying on land the arraias, a troop of warriors mobilized by
the Portuguese or offered by the liurai to the Portuguese. Following a successful campaign, all that remaine
was to transport back to Dili the heads of the victims to await the customary and macabre "festival of
heads", by now a ritualized part of Portuguese lore a the Oceanic colony. It seems unclear but it is possible
that, at a time when Lopes de Lima was still governing, the Mondego was dispatched to Suai on the south
Page 55
coast bringing artillery and munitions to reinforce the garrison in a part of the island that had hitherto
resisted paying the finta and where smuggling sapped tile coffers of the customs service. Although the
circumstances of this mission are obscure, the reino of Lamaquito was attacked.40
As Pe1issier declaims of this period, the years 1852-59 remain a "black hole" it terms of our knowledge,
except to say that these years saw no more stability than others. A single Portuguese account of this period
describes the revolt of a reino Called Manumera, albeit not figuring in any list of reinos, suggesting to this
author the Portuguese penchant for inventing toponyms, a practice then replicated by copyists. To this spare
knowledge we also learn from the Macau journal 0 Independente that the rebel liurai of Vermasse (Do m
Domingos de Freitas Soares) who declared war in 1859 was deported to Lisbon.41
Conclusion
There is no question that the first governors in Dili built upon the labours of the Dominican pioneers in the
east in wining loyal allies from among key reinos. We could go as far as to conclude that if it was not for th
support offered by such key allies as the reino of Motael, the moradores of Manatuto, and others, the ability
of the Portuguese to even survive in Dili is in doubt, especially as die Timer voyage from Goa via Macau
was sporadic at best and took up to one year to achieve after waiting out the change of the monsoon in
Macau. While the documentation passes lightly over the early struggles that beset the incoming governors i
the new colony founded at Dili, it is surprising that there was no repeat of battle of the Cailaco during this
period although, as observed, there were plenty of intimations of what would later become almost
inter-generational wars against the malai or Portuguese.
Yet, the Portuguese played it both ways. As various European travellers observed, the most indelible
Portuguese contribution to the landscape during this period was the series of fortaleza stretching from
Batugede to Lautem, suggesting the imperative never to repeat the lessons of Lifau. Only the most
rudimentary of urban structures developed during this period outside of Dili. Likewise, the enduring symbo
of the missions, to which many Timorese had identified, came to be replaced with the new symbol of
temporal power, the custom house and the fortaleza, located along the north coast wherever the illicit trade
appeared to be most focused. But, even with the gradual recovery of commerce on the island in the wake of
the topasse rebellion and the establishment of Dili, so much of the new revenue generated fell not into
government coffers but into the hands of adventurers and freebooters working the long unguarded coast.
From a governmental point of view, the new colony had yet to redeem its promise. Even the modus vivendi
arrived at with key allies among neighbouring reino masked the hidden menace of revolt which, as shown
below, belied the confidence of the Portuguese in their own project, and always threatened to unravel to
their mortal peril.
Notes
1. 0 Documento Sarzedas, Conde de Sarzedas-- -Victorino Freire da Cunha Gusmao, Governador e
Capitao Geral das llhas de Solor e Timor, Goa, 28 de Abril de 18ll, in A. F'aria de Morais, So'lor e Timor,
Agencia Geral das Co16nias, Lisboa, 1944, pp. 138J69.
2. J.S. Vaquinhas, "Communicado: Timor", 0 Macaense, Vol., III, No.99: 3, 6 de Mareo de 1884.
3. BPMTVo1.m, No.45, 31 October 1870.
4. "Mem6da sobre as Ilhas de Solor e Timor", AujnOtla Macaense, Vo1.I, 6 de Janeiro de 1844.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. AfIU Maeau ex ll dcN= 3, January i4, 1777.
8. 0 Documento Sat?edas.
9. AHonso de Castro, As possessoes portuguesas na oceania, Imprensa Naciona1, Lisboa, 1867, p. 378.
10. 0 Documento Sarzedas, and jm Timor ex dcK: No.20, l8 abd1 1784, Goa.
11. 0 Documento Sarzedas.
12.Ibid.
13. L.C.D. de Freycinet, Voyage autour du monde execute' Fur les coweites S.M l'Ufmie et la Physicienne
pendant les annee's 1817-1820, Pads, 1827.
Page 56
14. Ibid.
15. 0 Documento Sarzedas.
16. The fortunes 6f the Bidau, Sica and the monadores can be traced in the pages of the BGM and BPMT.
1 7. de Freycinet, Voyage, p. 7 1 2. See Planta tlydrotopographica da FtTaga e Porto de Di11y ten'eno
circumvizinho na llha de pnmor. Levantado pelo pI'enente Coronel de Artiharia LeaO Cabreira 1 841
[250x72mm].
l8. Anne Lombard-Jourdan, "Un m6moire in6dit de F'.B. de Rosily sup l'ile de Timor (1772)", Anchipel,
Vo1.23, 1992, pp. 75- 104. This article also carries comments and elaborations by L.F.R. Thomaz.
19. F.J. Orlneling, The Tl'mOr Pnoblem, J.B. Wolters, Groningen, Djakarta, 1957, pp. 130-3.
20. Lombard-Jourdain, "Un memoire in6dit de F.E. de Rosily".
21. Archival source AH LS 402 Doc 41 cited in Antonio Vale, "Macau nas Ordens R6gias (1810-1820)",
Asianostna.. Revista de Cultura Portuguesa do Oriente, No. 2, Novembro de 1994, pp. 33-73.
22. "Mem6ria Sobre as llhas de Solor e pI'imor", Aunonl Macaense, No.51, Vo1.1, 1844, pp. 1 16-17.
23. de Freycinet, Voyage, pp. 535N6.
24. "Mem6ria", AuflOtla Macaense.
25. Rudy Bauss, "A demographic study of Portuguese India and Macau as well as corrments on MozamN
bique and Timor, l750-185o", The Indian Economic and Social History Review, 34, 2, 1977, pp. 199 &
215, who cites "Mappa dos moradores nesta praea Di11i, 1 8 13", correspondencia de Macfromonsoon
Collection HAG, 1308, folio 256.
26. A. Teodoro de Matos, "Timor and the Portuguese Trade in the Orient during the 1 8th Century" in
A.T. de Matos e L. F. R.Thomaz (eds.) As RelaEO?eS enttle a India Portuguesa, aAsia do Sueste e o
Extremo Oriente, Actas do VI Seminario lntemacional de Hist6ria lndo-Portuguesa, Macau 22-26 Out.
1991 , MacaujLisboa, 1993, pp.
437-45.
27. 0 Documento Sarzedas
28. de Castro, Aspossesso?es, pp. 336-60.
29. LOmbard-Joudain, "Un memoire in6dit de F.E. de Rosily", p. 98. De Rosily, concerlled to sound out
the possibilities of acquiring slaves from Timor to work in the plantations on the F'rench Indian ocean
colony of Mauritius, chided the Portuguese for not more actively exploiting thi s trade opportunity. He
reckoned that such reluctance could owed either to a Portuguese preference for slaves from Mozambique, o
to their reluctance to publicize this trade itemton Timor least il attract gurmnners and adventurers.
30. de Freycinet, Voyage, pp. 693J594.
3 1. John Crawfurd, History of the Archipelago, Edinburgh, 1820, pp. 421-22, 438-39, 447.
32. de Castro, Aspossessoes, pp. 336-60.
33. rbid.
34. de Freycinet, Voyage, p. 693.
35. P. Manuel Teixeira, Macau e a sua diocese.. Missoes de Timor, pnpografla da Missao do Padroado,
Maeau, 1974.
36. Manbe Bassett, Realms and Islands: The World Voyage of Rose de FjniyCinet in the Corvette Urmie
1817-1822, Oxford, London, 1962, pp. 103-107.
37 J. Arago, Nam2tive of a Voyage Round the World, Treutte1, hndon, 1823, pp. 213i
38. Rend P6lissier, Timor en Guerjne, Le Crocodile et les Purtugais (1847-1913), P61issier, Orgeva1,
1996, p.
25, citing de Castro, As possessoes.
39. Ibid., p. 29.
40. Ibid. In another version, while en route from Timor to Batavia, the Mondego, under the Command of
Lieut. ManueLos6 da Nobrega, was attacked by pirates and -a young oifleer killed. pllo avenge his death,
two of the pirate ships were captured, I 9 killed, the rest put to night by swimnhg and die pirate stKkade
destroyed @GPMTS, Vo1.VIII, No.2, 10 January 1852].
41. P6lissier, Timor en Guerre, pp. 40-41.
Page 57
6
Colonial Process in Nineteenth Century Portuguese Timor
Whereas the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries witnessed the discovery and first settlement of Timor by
the Portuguese along with the establishment of the Christian mission in the colony, it was only in the
nineteenth century that he colonial power saw to the establishment of a colonial economy. In part this was
pragmatic, owing to the burden imposed by Timor upon, respectively, Goa and Macau and in part fitted
with modem colonial logic that colonies should pay for themselves. But separated by long distance from
metropole and sub-metropole (Goa and Macau) and given the backward state of the local economy, the
rebellious character of the local population, as much the particularity of local forms of tributary rule based
upon reinos, along with the ambitions of colonial rival Holland in the eastern archipelago, Lisbon despaired
of its wayward colony, treating it as a dumping ground for deportados and Governors alike.
Outside of church-state relations, always testy in Timor, not much of Portugal's Liberal revolution of the
early decades of the nineteenth century found local echoes in Timor, as was definitely the case in Goa and
Macau. Such ambivalence in attitudes by the metropolitan government reflected in the many experiments in
colonial administration foisted upon the unfortunate half island, at times administered from Goa, and at
times, dependant upon Macau for orders as much as cash to pay official salaries. This chapter seeks to trace
the character of colonial rule in nineteenth century Timor as much the rise of a colonial economy
fundamentally based upon the export of fleeholder and then plantation coffee.
Public Administration and Governance
Whereas the period from l769, following the shift of the capital from Lifau up until 1 836 can be described
as a discrete administrative phase, insofar as Dili served as the Capital of Portuguese power on Timor and
the Governor served as "Governor of the islands", the various arrangements by which Timor was
administered through the nineteenth century are more complex, essentially reflecting experiments as much
as economic and military realities which, in various ways, made Timor dependent upon, respectively Goa,
Macau and metropolis.
From 1836 until 1844, then, Timor along with Solor was administratively dependent upon the Estado da
India and governed by a Goverl10r delegate of the Viceroy seated in Goa. Judicial power was exercised by
an ouvidor or judge named either by Goa or the Governor of Timor. This changed with the decree of 20
September 1844 separating the City of Macau and its dependencies, namely Solor and Timor, from rule by
the Governor General of India (Goa). Timor and Solor thereby became part of the Province of Macau,
Solor and Timor. Yet, as Governor de Castro commented, this important administrative rationalization
hardly altered the form of government in Timor.1
In a short-lived experiment ushered in by a royal decree of 30 October 1850, Timor and Solor were
reconstituted as an independent colony outside of the control of Goa or Macau and answerable only to
metropolitan Portugal. According to de Castro, this decentralizing measure allowed for the creation of a
conselho do governo comprised of a judge, head of mission, chief of the armed forces, two natives and a
junta da fazenda or customs service.2
Scarcely a year later, in 1851 (Royal decree of 15 September) the status quo ante was restored with Timor
and Solor again linked with Macau. The conselho do governo was dissolved and the junta de fazenda was
replaced by an adjunct. As the government gazette commented, the separation of Timor from Macau "must
necessarily result a great convenience to the good of the system of administration of the peoples of these
distant possessions, for which it is certain that direct shipping with the Metropole can be considered null". 3
According to a Royal decree of 25 September 1856, it was again decided to make Timor and Solor
subordinate to the Estado da India. It was conceded that the 1844 separation of the islands from Portuguese
India (Goa) and annexation to Macau did not bring advantage but, rather, because of communication
problems with Macau and its inability to render urgent assistance, proved a liability.4
Even so, according to de Castro, the annexation of Timor to India produced the same results as that of its
former linkage with Macau, namely that Timor continued in misery and only survived upon a subvention
solicited from metropolitan Portugal.5
Page 58
This administrative situation endured until 1863 (decree of 17 September) when Timor was declared an
Overseas Province of Portugal and was administratively reorganized along the lines of other colonies, such
as Macau, and Sao Tome and Principe. At the apex stood the Governor assisted by a secretary, a judge of
law, a representative of the prosecutor, and a Notary. Under the new dispensation, Dili was elevated from
vila or town to cidade or capital city and seat of government status. One judge, one representative of the
crown prosecutor and Exchequer, and one sheriff served the new comarca or jurisdiction in Dili. Only in
judicial matters was Dili subordinate to the Judicial District of Appeal in Goa. Commensurate with its new
status the military presence in the colony was boosted to 400 soldiers.6
According to a decree of 18 March 1869 Macau and Timor together were offered only one seat in the
Cortes or Portuguese parliament, effectively blocking a local voice from Timor, although in response to a
vigorous protest on this question from certain Portuguese authorities in Timor, the additional seat was
subsequently granted.7
Needless to say, the franchise for the election of this representative was not only highly restrictive, but also
based on blood. In an election carried out in Timor in 1871, out of695 votes cast, Doctor Thomas de
Carvalho, a resident professor of the Lisbon medical school, received 687 votes and was duly appointed.
While 29 eligible votes in the Batugede electoral district were recorded, for want of any literate person at
that post, they were not actuary recorded! 8
But in 1866 (decree of 26 November), with the loss of Solo-Timor reverted to dependency of Macau
status, otherwise known as the "Province of Macau and Timor". While the Governor in Timor was
subaltern to the Governor of Macau, authority was given the Governor, in emergency or when there was
insufficient time to receive orders from Macau, to exercise executive power with the advice of a council
including the most senior military officer in Dili, the Superior of the mission, the judge, and the treasurer.
Judicially, however Timor remained part of the District of Nova Goa.9
This administrative rationalization prevailed until 15 October 1896 when Timor was finally declared an
"Autonomous District", albeit still dependent in many ways upon Macau or metropole for financial
subventions and even Goa in the way of administrative personnel. Under this dispensation the Governor of
Timor was accorded the same status as his Macau counterpart, namely full civil and military powers, albeit
directly subordinate to metropole. Also under the new dispensation Timor reclaimed the right to send its
own representative to the Cortes.
Colonial Budget
Was Timor a drain or a boon to colonial coffers? According to Pelissier, analogous to the situation in Tahit
and New Caledonia under French rule, only the metropolitan subvention kept Timor afloat. In examining
the disbursement of expenditure, the lion's share, 53 per Cent in 1866, was Consumed by the military, with
about one quarter going to general administration. A minuscule amount went to education, of which most
was consumed by four bursaries, two for Goa and two for Lisbon.10
Yet it is clear that from 1868-1881 budget receipts record a steady upward trend. Notably, the figure for
1881 is 43,722 reis compared to 9,786 reis in 1868. These receipts were matched by customs receipts on
firearms and gunpowder rising steeply from 3,237 rupiah (rupee) in 1879-1880 to 12,953 in 1881. Again,
scrutiny of customs receipts for the period 1884-89 reveals that external trade increased considerably despit
contraband. Although a system of customs posts had been established on the north coast of Timor between
1800-42, these had been allowed to run down. Accordingly, to prevent seepage from the customs net, new
customs posts were erected in 1889 west of Dili at Aipelo, Liquica, Maubara, Batugede and Oecusse, and
east of Dili at Manatuto, Baucau, and Laga. There was no customs presence on contra costa nor did the
customs service deploy any meet worth mentioning. Still, however the matter is viewed, Pelissier contends,
the trend in customs receipts was steadily upwards. But why in these circumstances did Governors of Timo
in this period continually plead lack of money, even in a situation where Macau continued to send an annua
subvention? There is no clear answer, he suggests, not even if military expenses are included as Macau
covered requisition costs. Was it a question of corruption, waste or mismanagement? Pelissier is silent.11
The minutiae of colonial bookkeeping escapes this author, especially given the varieties of Currencies then
in use in Timor, but some of Pelissier's unanswered questions can undoubtedly be found in the still extant
but faded handwritten pages of the Junta da Fazenda or Delegacao da Fazenda de Macau em Timor,
Page 59
preserved in the Macau archives. Typically, the Fazenda met fortnightly at 11 am in the Governor's palace
with the Governor serving as President and attended by four staff, a judge, a secretary, a treasurer and a
contador or controller. Typically, the previous meetings' minutes would be acknowledged prior to an
examination of receipts, current account and expenses in the colony. One typical session held on 19
December 1878 noted 28,500 rupiah in receipts from the reino of Viqueque, expenses incurred by the
Portuguese consul in Singapore on behalf of the steamer D. Joao, 28,785 rupiah expenses incurred for the
military in Batavia, and 23,427 rupiah expenses incurred by the Portuguese Consul in Surabaya on behalf
of the bolony.12
In colonial lore, colonies were meant to pay for themselves, although in the case of Timor the administrativ
twinning with Macau always offered an excuse for sloppy accounts and/or lack of effort mitigation it can b
said that there were always unanticipated demands made upon the budget such as with the claims by the
consulates, and that receipts were often more fictive than real, especially with respect to the reino.
While the resilience of pre-capitalist social formations on Timor blocked the classic colonial project of
magnetization and the transition from a tax system based on kind to one based upon cash, there is no
question that since the advent of Dominican rule in the archipelago the Portuguese quickened the use of
fixed currencies in external exchange. Invariably the coinage in common use was gold or silver-based,
including the official Pataca Mexicana. Copper-based Coinage was unknown in Timor.
But, as one Portuguese official explained in 0 Macaense in 1883, the units of currency in use in the late
nineteenth century were not only varied but of shifting values. Pounds were exchanged for 12-15 Java
rupiahs (also known as florin), in turn equal to 320 reis. Yet, it appeared, the gold pardau handed down by
the Dominicans was favoured in local exchanges in Timor. Thus with one gold pardau, then equal to 3
rupiahs, (the silver pardau had no established value), the following purchases could be made; a parang, two
steel knives, one handkerchief, a goat, 70 catties of sandal; while a horse could be purchased for 5-10
pardaus, buffalos, 1-4 pardaus (corresponding to 5 rupiahs). According to the custom established by
Governor Juliao Jose da Silva Vieira, the reinos paid fintas at the rate of one sarong or one white cloth per
pardau or rupiah. 13
By 1897, in line with Timor's new "autonomous" status, for the first time the Timor Exchequer known as
the Fazenda Publica de Timor was created independent of Macau thereby transferring full responsibility for
all customs matters to Timor. Financially, though, Macau was still required to support Timor with an annua
dotacao (endowment) of 60,000 patacas.14
Colonial Rationalization
Still, much remained to be accomplished in the rebuilding of Dili. In a much-quoted statement, English
naturalist Wallace described Dili in the early 1860s as "a most miserable place". The only building of
notable appearance, he conceded, was the Governor 's house, a mere "white-washed Cottage or bungalow".
15
Affonso de Castro, who was Governor at the time of Wallace's visit, also wryly observed that, except for
the strong house and the church, the town had no buildings worth mentioning. At this time the population o
Dili was a mere 3,000 including Europeans, Indians, Chinese and natives.16
Outside of Dili, the colony could boast only a few substantive public buildings such as at Batugede,
Manatuto and at Lautem, where work was in progress on a Fortaleza at least from 1851.
While there had never been a census conducted in Timor at this date, and unlikely that any administration
on the island had the capacity to conduct one, certain foreign observers in this period had offered up what
Governor de Castro believed were wildly inflated figures. Working from estimates of the population in each
of the 47 reinos then under Portuguese administration, he reckoned the population under Portuguese
authority was around 150,000, and for the whole island, double that amount.17
More accurate counts awaited the pacification of the island when future Governors saw too it that the
collection of head taxes demanded an accurate census.
We have remarked that, owing to the Macau connection, Timor began to attract a settled Chinese
community of free emigrants by the early decades of the century. Writing in 1861, A. Marques Pereira,
Superintendent of Chinese Emigration in Macau stated, "Few as they are (the Chinese of Dili) are the most
useful part of the population of that city". 18
Page 60
As show below, not only did the Chinese establish, themselves in commerce but were also in high demand
as masons, wood workers, or for other ski11s otherwise lacking among the Timorese. Later in the same
decade the captain of a visiting Portuguese corvette, who also delivered up a blistering account of the
colony, praised the Chinese of Dili as "the only part of the population which carries on trade, which builds,
which works, which lastly lives". 19
This aside was not only directed at the Timorese, usually dismissed in colonial lore as "lazy natives", but at
the Portuguese, whom he labelled incompetent alongside the Dutch.
In 1863, de Castro's successor, Governor Jose Manuel Pereira de Almeida (1863-64), embarked on a major
public works program in Dili, albeit reflecting colonial rather than native priorities. These works included
the construction of a wall on the fort, military barracks and offices, and extensions to the Governor's palace
In this period, the Castro-Lahane hospital (today an Indonesian military squat) was completed along with
the Lahane road and bridge. As reported to the Chamber of Deputies in Lisbon, the prison was completed
and, indeed, tenanted, while a "college of education" for the sons of regulos was also completed. A
Goa-trained doctor was appointed to serve the battalion. 20
This sense of progress was written into an official report on Timor drafted in 1863 and presented for
metropolitan consumption. In this account the colony was applauded for "tending to emerge from lethargy
in which it had lain for so long". This turnaround was attributed to the economic measure by which, for a
subsidy of 500 florins monthly, Dutch steamers on the Moluccas run had been induced to call at Dili, thus
providing a much needed outlet for exports. This report also coincided with the apparent return to normalcy
of the colony following the crushing of the expensive Laclo rebellion of that year, as discussed in a
following chapter. In any case, as usual, it was Macau which defrayed the cost of such military operations.
21
Impressive even by the standards of other colonialisms, the foundations of state-sponsored schooling were
laid in this period. From an official report of 1864, some 60 students served by a teacher of Royal
appointment then attended a primary school in Dili. 20 students taught by a Goanese missionary attended
another school at Manatuto. The commander of the Batugede fort also offered instruction to 15 pupils at tha
location. A College of Education had also been established in Dili for the sons of regulos, although it
awaited the arrival of textbooks along with the appointed instructor, the metropolitan-educated Timorese
Father Jacob dos Reis e Cunha, although as seen below, he would later be appointed to the mission.22 The
importance of this college was recognized by Governor de Castro who declared the institution the only way
of dealing with the customs of these "barbaric" people and instilling the basic tenets of Portuguese style
civilization.23
But from this tentative beginning in instruction in the first and second grades, it is clear that the future
development of a comprehensive educational infrastructure would depend upon the development of the
colony itself, by no means assured decades ahead.
In October 1866 news arrived in Macau that Dili had been virtually reduced to ashes by a fire On 24
August consuming the military barracks, the church, the munitions store, the Public Treasury, the
government palacio, and 15 private properties, mostly built of palapa. It also destroyed what remained of th
archives dating back to the Lifau period. Only some furniture from government house along with
ammunition was saved. Happily, it was reported, nobody died in the conflagration that began in a Chinese
house. In Macau, the Governor of that territory addressed an appeal to patriotism to help rebuild the city of
Dili. To this end, he raised 2,630 patacas, about one-fifth generously offered by the Chinese of Macau.24
Along with medicines for the military hospital and the inevitable cargo of "incorrigibles", visiting Macau
governor, Jose Maria da Ponte e Horta brought with him to Dili images and ornaments for the new church.
He also used his visit in late 1867 to elaborate upon the need for a government-backed development
company for Timor, albeit with support from patriotic-minded Portuguese and the assistance of Chinese
from Macau. 25
A year later it was reported that reconstruction of the city was going on very slowly for want of such more
durable materials as tiles and skilled workers. Reconstruction of the church, however, was undoubtedly a
priority. It was described as 40 metres in length and 10 metres wide with walls of stone. It had eight
windows on each side with two in the front and two behind. On the day of the consecration of the church,
popular celebrations were held in Dili, including jousts, dances (tabedaes), and songs (batandas). Images
and decorations for the restored church were brought in from Macau.26
Page 61
While reportedly of fine appearance, and strongly constructed in limestone, the church again fell into
disrepair in later years as a consequence of earth tremors.
Writing of his term of office of one year and four months, former Governor Antonio Joaquim Garcia (1868
-69) memoed that, owing to the state of war, the epidemic of cholera and smallpox, general lack of means,
including lack of workmen, he was simply unable to carry out improvements in Dili, much less the rest of
the colony. Yet, he remonstrated, "I handed over the District in better condition than I received it".
Comparing Dili to such dynamic centres of commerce as Batavia, Surabaya, Macassar and other cities in
the Netherlands East Indies, he deplored the lack of public establishments in Timor and entered a plea for
work to begin on the hospital, to complete the barracks and to rebuild the governor's residence. The existing
hospital, he revealed, could only accommodate' a few patients and was otherwise in a bad state of hygiene,
while the barracks were deplorably airless, with the soldiery obliged to sleep clothed and booted on the
earthern moor for want of beds and blankets. Many of the public buildings in Dili, he observed, were ridden
with white ants and in a state of collapse, an unnecessary situation given the abundance of good timbers in
the reinos.27
While the documentation on Dili is obviously more focused, a brief account of conditions in other major
centres is offered by the captain of the corvette, Sa da Bandeira, who, having arrived in Dili during the
height of a cholera epidemic in 1869, backed off in near horror in the direction of Kupang, stopping off at
Maubara, Batugede and Oecusse. Maubara, he described as composed of "a small number of temporary
structures of straw and palm fronds", one belonging to the commander of the district. The Fortaleza or
stockade constructed of loose stone and sited close to the seashore was defended by a single rusty cannon.
Batugede, he described as a little larger than Maubara "but just as miserable". The Fortaleza was of
rectangular shape with a small bulwark at each angle defended by a few antique cannons mounted on
wooden trestles. Of conditions in Oecusse he wrote, "The most fertile imagination could not conceive of a
greater state of misery" in which the soldiers were obliged to live, namely in barracks constructed of palapa
otherwise considered very poor even by the standards of horses. While his description of Dili has hardly
more nattering, he was even more surprised to find upon dropping anchor off Kupang, that his 21gun salute
was not reciprocated for lack of guns and even soldiery, a matter he nevertheless rationalized as an
admirable example of Dutch-style "economical administration". 28
Work on the barracks and prison in Dili was still going on in 1871 with labour as well as materials supplie
by the reinos, the only cost to the state being the prison bars supplied by Macau.29 The Plano do Porto e
Cidade de Dilly, a 90 x 40 map of the port and town of Dili produced by T. Andrea and T. Machado in
1870 reveals that the physical recovery of the town had made some progress by that date, notably, the
hydrographic charting of the harbour was complete and the anchorage protected by a fortaleza called
Carqueto on one side and a lighthouse on the other. The basic street grid is also apparent on this chart, as is
the dominating outline of the reconstructed Nossa Senhora da Conceicao fort, a structure of classic
Portuguese design straddling the foreshore as far as the river in the west.
Additionally, this map features another Fortaleza known as Rozario, a lighthouse, a military hospital and a
ponte, or jetty named after D. Luiz I.
By 1879, in the account of a visitor from Macau, Dili was a "pequena cidade florescente" with a
population of 4,114 of whom 2,498 were Catholics. A single main road connected the eastern bairro or
suburb of Bidau with Sica in the east, in turn connected at perpendicular angles by a number of other
rough-made streets, all lined by a number of private houses of modest appearance. Sica, in turn, was
connected by road with Motael. Occupying centre-place in the tom was the prison, constructed of limestone
although badly ruined. Other public buildings in Dili included the palacio, poorly sited Close to the swamp
albeit indicated as "ruins" in the 1 870 map, the church, the barracks, the hospital, the custom's house, the
arsenal, and the school house of good appearance, although hastily constructed. Bidau was described as the
major centre of Chinese trade where most of the commercial houses of the town were concentrated. At this
time, Bidau was also the home of the moradores militia and supported a small chapel of mean appearance.
The Lahane zone was well established. 30
As indicated by a map of Dili port by A. Heitor executed in 1892, houses with tiled and even zinc or tin
roofs had made an appearance in Dili by this date along side the traditional palapa style construction. By
1893 the first blueprints of the Lahane quarter were drawn up by Portuguese civil engineers along modern
lines, revealing a veritable colonial enclave settlement hugging the contours of the foothills of Dili but
Page 62
separate from the malaria and "miasma" ridden lowlands of the old colonial port city and bazaar. But
whereas the locus of government was now focused on Lahane, Dili remained the commercial quarter. Stree
maps of Dili from this year preserved in the Macau archives indicate the presence of substantial Chinese
commercial houses on the intersections of respectively Rua do Comercio and Estrada de Lahane and
Travessa das Figueiras, namely those belonging to Lay Ajuk and Lay-Lan-chu. Similarly the merchant
house of Baba Fong Seng was well established on Rua do Jose Maria Marques, parallel to the leafy seaside
Rua da Praia Grande. Rua de S. Domingos, Connecting these two thoroughfares was also the address of the
Collegio lrmas de Caridade Canossians.
In a rare published aside on social life and social conditions in Dili in the 1880s, Gomes da Silva paints a
picture of a desperately isolated European community, lacking-besides the church-even the basics of Civil
society at least alongside cosmopolitan Macau. In the absence of such social institutions as theatres,
libraries, orchestras, billiards, clubs or unions or even a central meeting place, the only distraction for
newcomers was to "make politics", to debate the pros and cons of local authorities, in any case with two or
three exceptions were always present in the colony on short-term commissions. By all accounts the other
major distraction was drinking. Portuguese wines were rarely found; rather the sugarcane-based alcoholic
drink of canipa was favoured along with the native sugar palm-based tuaca (tuak). By that time Dili
produced "good" wheat bread, while tea was imp ported from Macau. We have few images of local dress
from this period, but from Gomes da Silva's account, officials attired themselves in Macau-style vests and
wore woven-palm leaf style hats. European ladies affected the current Dutch style of apparel, while Chines
preferred kebaya. At home, Java-style was the mode for the official caste.31
Public health
Notorious as a graveyard for residents and travellers alike, Portuguese Timor attracted various negative
epithets from European visitors. As Wa11ace observed of Dili in 1861, "Dili surrounded for some distance
by swamps and mud-mats is very unhealthy, and a single night often gives a fever to newcomers which not
infrequently proves fatal". 32
As noted, it was not until after Wa11aee's visit that a public hospital was erected at Lahane in 1864. From
an official source, fever and dysentery had spread to the interior in the early months of 1868 with seasonal
rains turning the state of the colony for the worse.33
Dili was again wracked by a cholera epidemic around 1869. Arriving in Dili in early 1870, the captain of a
Portuguese frigate remarked: "The cholera had ceased but the havoc wrought by it had been substituted,
whatever the cause, by pernicious fevers which, in their fatal intensity, had nothing to envy in the previous
epidemic". 34
The difficulty of mounting a mass smallpox vaccination program was highlighted in a report of 187l which
observed, inter alia, that it was difficult to convince native people to allow themselves to be vaccinated.
Moreover, as most people in Dili had already contacted the disease, vaccination was in any case not very
effective. 35
Six years later, illness (cholera?) took the life of two of the crew of the visiting Australian schooner
Victoria while striking down most of the crew and passengers. McMinn, a British-Australian observer
writes of the Dili hospital, to which the sailing master was admitted, that it was one of the finest institutions
in the place, being large, airy, and clean, with plenty of attendance. This housed three wards; one for
officers, One for Chinese and one for natives charged at respectively, four, three and two rupees a day.36
As reported in the Macau press in October 1887, numerous victims of illness, namely dysentery and beri
beri, were being treated at the Lahane College and in the Casa de Beneficencia of the mission.
Many African soldiers had fallen victim to beri beri. 37
It was undoubtedly in response to this harrowing public health situation that in 1883 a medical officer was
appointed in Dili as head of the Timor branch of the Macau-Timor Health service. This was J. Gomes da
Silva, a man of great intelligence and energy. More the pity his reports were no acted upon. Despite the
vastly improved city plan that he described, Gomes da Silva found many shortcomings in public health
facilities. For example, the hospital lacked many basic facilities including an infirmary for mothers. Of all h
Cemeteries he examined, only that reserved for Chinese met basic public health criteria. One sad truth, he
revealed, was that unlike the Dutch military who had developed a system of bathing on alternative days,
Page 63
and unlike erstwhile uncivilised Timorese and African soldiers who bathed in the Lahane river, he
European soldier in Dili simply did not babe. Little wonder then that the percentage of mortality in military
hospitals in Timor was hen three times the rate of Macau or equal to that of Mozambique. Even the
availability of quinine, he observed, did not always alleviate the dangers of fever. 38
Writing of the state of health of the colony in the 1880s, Anna Forbes, whose observations on Timor are
often more perceptive than those of her naturalist husband commented:
No traveller will of choice visit Dilly, for its reputation as the unhealthiest port of the archipelago is not
undeserved, and the report that one night passed in its miasmal atmosphere may result fatally deters any
who would, except of necessity, go there. Those who are appointed here make up their minds, shortly after
arrival, that they will go as soon as possible.... Feverstricken people and places are recognisable at a glance
the pale faces and enduring air of the residents explain the lifeless town and dilapidated buildings.39
Again, between December 1893 and February 1894,at least 1,000 people died from the direct or indirect
affects of a cholera outbreak. In Maubara this was attributable to the rotting corpses strewn around after the
bloody suppression of the rebellion, but Dili, Manatuto and other centres were also affected.40
Cholera, malaria, TB, dysentery, still endemic in the twentieth century, were undoubtedly a major scourge
and demographic check in the last.
State of the Missions
No discussion on colonial process would be complete without a sense of the development of Civil-state
relations, particularly -in the case of Timor- on the status of the missions and their pastoral and educative
role. While we have mentioned the pioneering role of the Dominican mission in the Solor zone and on the
island of Timor, in the period following the shift of capital from Lifau to Dili, the number of missionaries o
Timor suffered a gradual decline, never more than eleven, and by 1812 reduced to two including the Bishop
who resided in Manatuto. In 1831, The visiting missionary group from Portugal bound for Macau observed
that only five or six priests remained on the island. 41
For 20 years, commencing in 1834, all remaining missionaries were ordered expelled from Timor leaving
the crown-appointed Governor as the exclusive mediator between the administration and the people. This
measure, decreed by Dom Pedro IV and ushered in by the Liberal revolution in Portugal itself a now on
from the ideas unleashed by the French revolution-further set back the albeit restricted legacy of the
Dominicans in Timor, In any case mainly Goanese whose reputation over the years had become deeply
sullied. While the church was one institution that would indelibly imprint Timorese identity in the future, th
ecclesiastical legacy was somewhat mixed at this juncture, especially given the propensity of the church to
enter into compromises with local traditions and superstitions, a shortcoming which appalled the reigning
religious orthodoxy in Macau. In this period the pioneering Portuguese mission on Solor and Flores was
reported to have been abandoned.42
0n paper, at least, the anticlerical mood was overridden on 26 December 1854 in the form of a Royal
decree allowing for the dispatch of priests from Portugal and India to both Timor and Mozambique because
of "lack and detriment to civilization and disgust of inhabitants deprived of religious consolation and
worship". 43
Even so, as Governor de Castro wrote in 1861, the mission in Timor itself was almost abandoned. Only two
missionaries remained and they seldom left the relative comfort of Dili, whether for illness or other reasons
while the mass of the population lived in "paganism" and "superstition". 44
In general terms, this situation prevailed until 1874 when, in line with the Apostolic Letter Universis Orbis
Eclesiis of 15 June, Timor was transferred from the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of Goa to the Diocese of
Macau and, in the same year, Pe. Antonio Joaquim de Medeiros, Rector of the S.Jose Seminary in Macau,
was appointed as visador with the brief to proceed to Timor to take stock of the missions with a view to
their rehabilitation. Even so, archival records for March 1877 and again 188 1 reveal the state of discord
between the civil and ecclesiastical authorities in Timor. In 1882 the Bishop complained at lack of
government support for the mission.
In any case it owed to the government Charter of a "celebrated" Dutch schooner that the party of seven
Page 64
selected missionaries, all European, were able to arrive in Timor on 2 July 1877, after a harrowing 53 day
voyage through typhoon-infested seas. Two others, including P. Medeiros, arrived on another ship. After
some acclimatization, the newly arrived missionaries were strategically dispersed to Batugede, Oecusse,
Manatuto, and Lacluta, each with their jurisdiction over specified reinos. As Vicar General and Superior of
the church, Pe. Medeiros was stationed in Dili. Additionally, four other missionaries were stationed in Dili,
one of whom was charged with the Catholic communities of Bidau and Hera, another charged with running
a primary school (Motael), while a Chinese missionary, a native of Canton, was charged with catechizing
Chinese school children and otherwise serving the Chinese community in Dili. A native Timorese
missionary, P. Jacob dos Reis e Cunha, son of a regulo who had attended seminary in Macau, was
appointed roving missionary with jurisdiction over the south coast between Luca and Alas. 45
Duly appointed Vicar General of the Missions in Timor, Bishop Medeiros went about his task with vision
and energy. But he also had his work cut out for him. He estimated the number of Christians in Timor as
around 40,000 only. In his ten years service to the church in Timor the Bishop oversaw the establishment o
an experimental agricultural station in the hills south of Dili, the establishment of the Jesuit College of
Soibada, or what one Timorese student of the church in Timor has described as a Coimbra in miniature afte
the famous university in Portugal, and the establishment of another college in Lahane which also served a
similar purpose in training the sons of regulos as future catechists and officials. 46
Although earlier built of "putrefying" palapa, the Bishop had the Lahane mission handsomely
reconstructed at the cost of 16,000 rupees. Opened in 1879, the complex of buildings housed living
quarters, a school, a library -the first in Timor- and served as the archive of the mission in Timor.
Inaugurated in 1879, the Dili church, built at a cost of 15,000 rupees, reflected, in the words of the Bishop,
"the elegance of classical Architecture". With a view to expanding the base of mission work Bishop
Medeiros opened two colleges in Dili in 1879, one for the education of boys, directed by missionaries, and
another for girls by personnel seconded from the lnstituto Canossiano in Macau.
While the Timorese were especially reluctant to surrender their daughters to such establishments, with time
the sons of regulo and other traditional Timorese leaders joined this circle. In this work the government
cooperated, especially in providing certain basic services to the missionaries such as subsidized, housing
and transport for the missionaries. From 1877, (decree of 12 November), the missionaries working in the
interior were legally required to open schools. At a later date the Canossians opened schools in Bidau and
Montael along with a Casa de Beneficencia. In Manatuto the Canossians attracted some 180 students to
their school. Also, in August 1879, the evidently renovated church building was inaugurated.47
While we have commented upon the beginnings of state sponsored education under Governor de Castro,
Bishop Medeiros had a low opinion of the quality of this service. Writing in 1881, he observed that teacher
ignored even the rudimentary principles of pedagogy while schools basically lacked pens, ink and paper. 48
The matter was stated with some clarity in the Macau newspaper, A Voz do Crente in February 1891,
"Dilly continues to be the poorest city of our colonial dominions but which continues to dissipate
ignorance". This report listed the establishment of eight schools in Dili with a combined total of 320 pupils
namely a government school in Dili with 50 students (including 10 female), the Lahane College, the Case
de Beneficencia, the Escola de Bidau, and the Escola de Motael.49
Additionally, in 1890, elementary schools were established in Baucau and Manatuto.
The use of Coffee and Economic Boom
Typically, the cyclical patterns of boom and slump experienced in he Thor economy by the mid-nineteenth
century, represented changes in economic developments within Timor as much world market conditions.
By 1858 coffee was already figuring in export statistics as a high volume, high value export alongside more
traditional exports such as wax, honey, leather, wheat, sandalwood, turtles, and horses. While travellers to
Timor in the early decades of the nineteenth century were distressed to observe a trade in slaves, by 1854
slavery was definitely proscribed by metropolitan decrees although such measures were hardly applicable t
the reinos where, as discussed in the opening chapter, the practice lingered on as a form of bondage or
household labour into the modem period.
In 1867 Timor's coffee economy began to boom in what one official report described as an "extraordinary
manner". In August and September of that year, revenue derived from Dili's custom's house"- a sure
Page 65
indicator of economic health in the colony- exceeded more than that collected for the whole of 1866. In
September alone, five Dutch ships, and one English ship (a total of 661 tonnage), arrived in Dili from
Kupang, Melbourne, Amboina, and Macassar, loading both coffee and sandalwood.50
In the same year, the government set to place the coffee industry on more rational lines. Coffee seeds were
collected in state-held plantations to enlarge nurseries while new nurseries were established in different par
of the island.51
The first hand observations of the plantations in early 1877 by the Australian visitor, G. R. McMinn, are
not without interest.
The plantations are situated on the northwestern slopes of the hills, and are thoroughly irrigated from spring
situated above them, the water being led don by bamboo shoots supported by forked stakes. The plants are
put in 18 feet apart and grow to from twelve to sixteen feet in height.
Generally bananas are planted between each two trees for the purpose of shielding the young plant and
watering it with the dew it collects.
Observing that the industry was exporting around 1300, tons per annum, McMinn nevertheless offers the
backhanded rider, that, "had the land been in the hands of go-ahead people ten times this amount would
have been produced ere this". 52
Modem historian of Portuguese Africa W.G. Clarence-Smith writes in a study on Timor that while coffee
appears to have been introduced into the colony by the Dutch in the Maubara enclave in the middle of the
eighteenth Century, it took a century for it to become Timor's leading export commodity, only dominating
the export economy from the early 1860s. He summarizes that coffee cultivation was at first confined to
coastal areas to the west of Dili, especially Maubara and Liquisa and only gradually spread into the interior
part of the island. Smallholder production of coffee, he continues, was predominant until the end of the
Century with some stimulus offered by Governor Affonso de Castro in the 1860s to oblige the Timorese to
provide coffee in lieu of traditional forms of tribute and also, as mentioned, some attempts at distribution of
seedlings. Rather, he attributes the rapid expansion of coffee Cultivation in the 1860s to rising world
prices.53 [see Table 6.1]
Table 6.1: Coffee exports in metric tonnes (1858-65)
1858-59 19,461
1 859-60 24,461
1860-61 46,058
1861-October 62 91,976
1865 145,000
Source: (de Castro 1867)
Clarence-Smith observes that while coffee only accounted for 7 per Cent of officially recorded exports by
value in 1858-60, the figure for 1863J65 was 53 per cent.54
By contrast, sandalwood, Timor's historic principal export had dwindled to an insignificant Sum by the
1860s. Such was the effect of the discovery of sandalwood in other countries on world prices that it was no
longer even considered economical to export. Other traditional exports such as honey, (to Australia), and
horses, diminished rapidly in this period. Exports of horses slumped from 942 in 1859 to three in 1865,
attributed to competition from horse exporters in Sumba and Roti in the Dutch colony, although exports of
buffaloes in the same period offered some Compensation. 55
Economic Decline
But while custom's revenues were sufficient to meet the salaries of regular soldiers, the colony of Timor
was not yet sufficiently healthy to dispense with the periodic subsidy from Macau. As Governor Joao
Climaco de Carvalho (1870-71) disingenuously remarked in a letter to Macau in early 1871, Timor's
economy had improved to the extent that it had received a subsidy of 5,000 patacas from Macau.
Later that year in a letter to the Governor of Macau he pleaded for a regular monthly subsidy of 1,500
Page 66
patacas to meet the monthly salary of officials in Timor otherwise six months in arrears.56
As described by the captain of the corvette Sa da Bandeira which arrived back in Dili on 20 April 1870
"the state of the District had improved little or nought during our short absence". The Captain, who earlier
in Surabaya had to undergo the humiliation of requesting financial assistance from the Dutch Governor
General, wrote that. "Not a single real existed in the District's coffers, and revenue from the Custom's
House was and promises to continue to be very diminutive". Owing to various rebellions, and the appalling
state of the military forces and their wretched auxiliaries, he found Portuguese authority at low ebb, a matte
not helped by the incapacitating illness of Governor Francisco Teixeira da Silva (1866-69). 57
As Governor Garcia observed in 1870, the colony's revenues were almost entirely linked to receipts from a
"precarious customs-house" and with the balance to the "insignificant" amount of tax (2,000 florins) paid by
a decreasing number (23) of loyal regulos. Yet he was adamant that Timor was blessed with abundant
agricultural and mineral riches, including copper in Vermasse, sulphur in Viqueque, gold, salt and coal in
Laga, etc., to sustain a viable trade and economy. But, he recommended, what was needed to prevent
leakage from the Dili custom house, which evidently was then extensive, and also to transport coffee beans
from Maubara to Dili, was a steam warship, or, failing that, a two-masted schooner.58
While the incessant internal wars always managed to upset the bold initiatives of the state in setting down
plantation industry on modern lines, Clarence-Smith writes that the quality of Portuguese Timor's coffee
was high and it invariably fetched a good price. While coffee exports from 1879 to 1892 regularly topped
the 10,000-ton mark and sometimes doubled that figure, by the 1890s a long stagnation set in lasting until
the 1930s. Exports of coffee regressed to below 5,000 tons for some years even though the commodity
continued to dominate the colony's economy (at the expense of sandalwood and copra). This decline owed
as much to the debilitating coffee plant disease hemilia vastatrix from the mid-1880s to the consequence on
the world market of Brazilian overproduction.59
Where the state had evidently failed to rationalize the industry in the way of either increasing export
revenues or in improving the livelihood of the Timorese cultivator, the Church intervened. As revealed by a
scientific Study on coffee in Timor published by the Roman Catholic Seminary in Macau in 1891, the
Portuguese mission had sought to lean from the Dutch experience with big plantations in Java, while also
acknowledging the superiority of the Timor-grown product. From scientific tests Carried out in Hong Kong
this study concluded that the best aromatic coffee produced in Timor was that grow on the slopes above
Fatumasse, Maubara and Liquisa. At his time, Maubara and Liquisa along with Motael near Dili were the
major production centres with Vaquenos serving as distribution centre. In 1888, the mission had introduced
into Timor via the Buitenszurg gardens in Bogor in Java a Liberian variety of coffee. This was tested at a
small plantation established at Vematua at only 1200 metres above sea level.
The author of this work argued that extension of this variety, as a supplement to the well-established
montahna variety, to Batugede, Hera and Manatuto, would enrich the livelihoods of the coastal peoples.
Three obstacles stood in the way of improvement of the industry, however; ambitions of coffee merchants,
ignorance of the cultivators, and excessive government regulations. To overcome these obstacles, the study
invited the initiation of agricultural instruction for cultivators, government inspection of plantations and the
coffee trade, and the institution of a system of classification of grades of coffee. The study also invited the
involvement in Timor coffee of private capital from Macau. 60
Twenty years earlier Governor de Castro, much attracted by J. W. B. Money's study on Dutch methods in
Java (Java, or flow to Manage a Colony), and much admiring of the Culture System of forced deliveries as
initiated in Java by Dutch Governor van den Bosch, grasped the idea that an increase in agricultural
productivity would attract more European trading houses and shipping and, in turn, translate into the
"penetration of civilisation and the end to barbarism" in the colony. To enter this cycle, the development of
agriculture was essential as a first Step. 61
In fact, however, it was Jose Celestino da Silva who, during his 15 years as Governor of Timor (1894-
1908), laid the foundations of a functioning coffee plantation system in the colony. He also introduced
rubber plantations in Hatolia, Uato Lari and Luca. But where the church study stressed the role of private
capital in a regulated environment, the incoming Governor held to the view of a dominating role of the state
in all spheres of activity, land, labour, and capital. Where the church study argued for careful scientific
Preparation and experimentation, Celestino da Silva rushed in, where the church also looked to the
livelihood of the peasant cultivators, Celestino da Silva only thought big.
Page 67
Clarence-Smith contends that Celestino da Silva believed in the superiority of plantations over
smallholdings and that it was he who recognized the potential for plantation development of the Ermera are
southwest of Dili. Right from the beginning of his long term in office, Celestino da Silva followed the
Dutch Culture System practice of state intervention in the livelihoods of the peasantry. This variation of
forced cultivation involved certain familiar Colonial capitalist practices, wars of pacification, land alienatio
for European settlement, forced deliveries, the use of military organized coercion and the introduction of
more scientific techniques. Despite the elements of coercion involved, as Clarence-Smith observes, coffee
exports fell rather than rose during this period. Portuguese administration was too thinly spread or
undercapitalized to turn the situation around. 62
Writing of the last decade of the century, the Portuguese writer, Bento da Franca, described industry and
agriculture in Timor as in a primitivo estado. In the absence of a local Portuguese commercial bourgeoisie,
trade was tied up by Dutch or mestico adventurers, many Chinese, and some Arabs. Owing to Timor's
extreme isolation compounded by the lack of shipping lines, the market for coffee and sandalwood was
limited and anyway at the mercy of the Macassans.63
In any case, it was only in the 1930s that the coffee plant disease hemilea vastarix was confirmed in Timor
This was an important breakthrough, even though, as shall be seen, it was only in the postwar years that the
industry was rehabilitated along scientific lines to overcome the problem of disease. Still, as Felgas
determined, coffee took over as number one, not only because Timor offered a suitable climate but also
because of it could be cultivated in a forestry condition, a reference to the practice of cultivating coffee tree
under the overarching canopies of, typically, the giant casuarina trees (Albizzia moluccans)- the "mother
trees"- where it thrives sheltered from drought and torrential rains. To be sure, as Felgas points out, outside
of the plantation sector, Coffee growing by the native population "cannot depend on capitalist
organization". 64
Conclusion
Colonial process, it is tempting to conclude, was sui generis; namely there could not be development
without pacification. But even where pacific relations were established between the colonial power and
native tributaries, there could not be development without enhanced extraction. Whereas in the past, when
Timor's economy depended upon exports of sandal and it was sufficient to extra fintas for the sustenance of
the garrison, by the nineteenth century, the survival of the colony required the collection of both a capitatio
tax and custom's revenues on exports. But, in a primitive economy, where the circulation of money never
entirely replaced barter in the trade system, it was also part of colonial logic to introduce wage labour,
offering the wherewithal for extraction in money form. But to introduce forms of wage labour also required
the setting down of infrastructure and an export economy based upon plantation labour. It was the genius of
the early governors on Timor to anticipate the decline of sandal as an export and to follow the example of
the Dutch in introducing a new export crop, coffee, while, at the same time, examining the prospects for
minerals exploitation. This formula could have been Timor's saviour but only given the injection of capital.
As we have seen in this chapter Timor remained an economic drain throughout the nineteenth century,
notwithstanding the belated success of coffee exports. While we have traced the rise of Dili as a typical
Southeast Asian colonial capital, albeit with Portugalized characteristics, development remained a highly
restricted concept, whether measured by the state-sponsored education project, the missionizing project, the
ability of the state to attract private investment in the way of a Timor Development Company, or even in th
ability of the military to achieve a decisive victory at arms on the half-island. Indeed, as shown in a
following chapter, the other side to restricted development in nineteenth century Timor was the realities of
armed resistance, the Timorese funu which came close on more than one occasion in driving the Portuguese
back to the sea.
Notes
1. Affonso de Castro, Aspossessoes portuguesas na oceania, Imprensa Naeional, Lisboa, I 867, p. 370.
2. Ibid.,p. 365.
3. BPMT, 22 November l85l.
Page 68
4. BPMT, 18 February 1867.
5. Castro, Aspossesso?es, p. 367.
6. Ibid.,p. 367.
7. BPMT, Vol.XVI, No.17, 25 April 1870. .
8. BMP1',Vol.XVII. No.21, 22 May l871, p. 83.
9. BMPT, l8 February l867.
1 0. R6ne P6lissieTimor en Guerre: le Crocodile et les Portugais (1847-1913), P61issier, Orgeval, France,
1996, pp. 66-69.
11. Ibid.,pp. 97,pp. 113-114.
12. AHM Financas No.417, Cx1 10, CotaAHnF/318.
13. J. dos Santos Vaquinhas, "Estudos Sobre Timor", 0 Macaense, Vol.II, l52, 25 de Outubro de 1883.
l4. See J. Fen'aro Vaz, Moeda de Timor, Baneo Nacional Ultramarino, Lisboa, 1964. This usehl
publication enumerates Chronologically the various subventions made over to primor by, respectively, Goa
Macau, and metropole.
15. AIB:ed Russel Wallaee, prhe Malay Archipelago: The Land of the Orang-utan and the Bird of Paradise
(1869), Dover, i,ondon, 1964, chap.XII. -
1 6. de Castro, As possesso?es. i
17. Affonso de Castro, "Resume Historique de 1'Etablissement Portugais a plhor, des Us et Coutumes de
ses flabitants", TLdschrlft voor lndische Tal-Land-en Volkenkunde, Vol. I 1 , 1 862, pp. 465-70.
18. BPMT, 18 July l864.
19. BGM, Vol.IX, No.52, 30 November 1863, p. 210.
20. BGM, Vol XII, No.41, 8 October 1866, p. l67.
21. BPMT, Vol.XVII, No.25, 9 June 187l, p. loo.
22. BPMT, Vol.X,No.29, 18 July 1864, pp. 115-l18
23. deCastro, As possesso?es.
24. BGM, Vo1.II, No.41, 8 October 1866. p. 167.
25. BMPT Vol.XIII, No.4.0 and BMPT, 11 July, Vo1.XIV, No.28, 11 July 1868.
26. BPMT, 21 October 1867.
27. BMPT, Vol.XVI, No.45, 31 October 1870.
28. BMPT, Vo1.XVI, No.26/27, 1870.
29. BMPT, Vol.XVIII. No.25, 9 June 187l, p. loo.
30. J. Gomes da Silva, Relat6rio do Sewico de Sa2ide da Pnovl'nCia de Macau e Timor; em tlelaGa?O aO
annO de 1886, Typographia Mercantil, 1 887, p. 37, and for an embellished and possibly derivative
account, see Raphael das Dores, Apontamentos para um Diccionario ChotlOgraPhico de limor, Imprensa
Naciona1, Lisboa, 1 903.
3l.Ibid.
32. Wallaee, The Malay ArchL9elago, chap.XII.
33. BMPT, Vo1.XIX, No.25, 20 June 1861.
34. BPMT, No.49 of 1870.
35. BPMT, Vol.XVII, No.24, 12 June l71, p. 95.
36. McMinn, G.R., "Reminiscences of a Voyager: From Port Darwin to Kisser and Timor in l877",
Northern li?rritoTy Times and Gazette, Palmerston, Vo1.IV, No. lO6, p. 3, 13 October 1877 as annotated
by Kevin Sheriock (Darwin Public Library).
37. A Voz do Crente (Macau), 1 October 1887.
38. da Silva, Relat6rio.
39. jhna Forbes, Insulinde, William Blackwood and Sons, 1887.
40. P6lissieTimor en Gumle, P. l28.
41. Jose Pereira da Costa, "Communicacao sobre a relacao da viagem", Stvdia, Lisboa, No.48.
42. uMem6ria sobre as llhas de Solor e Timer".
43. BGPMTS, 28 April 1855.
44. de Castro, "Resume Historique", p. 476.
45. Jaime Goulart, "Reorganizagao das Miss6es de Timor", Boletim Eclesidstico da Diocese de Macau,
No.423, 1939, pp. 854-864.
Page 69
46. Francisco FerIlandes, "Das Miss6es de Timor", Luso-Asidticos (Macau), No. 1 , September 1992.
47. D. Joao Paulino d'Azevedo e Castro, Os bens das Misso?es Portuguesas na China, Redaccao do '
Boletim do Governo Eclesiastico de Macau, Macau, 1917, pp. 162-83.
48. Goulart, "Reorganizacao das Miss6es de Timor", p. 858.
49. A Voz do Crlente (Macau), 7 Fevereiro l887.
50. BPMT, 18 November 1867.
5l. BPMT, 30 September 1867.
52. McMinn, "Reminiscences". I
53. Clarence-Smith, "Planters and Smallholders", p. l7.
54. Clarence-Smith, "Planters and Snlallholders", p. 1 5.
55. de Castro, Aspossesso?es, pp. 355-356.
56. BPMT, Vol.II, No.21; 24, 22 May, 12 June 1871.
57. BPMT, No.49 of l870.
58. BPMT Vol.XVI, No.45, 31 October 1870.
59. Clarenee-Smith, "Planters and Smallholders", p. 1 5.
60. anon, 0 Caf2f em Timorpor um Missiondrio, Impresso na Typographia do Semanario, Macau, 1991.
61. de Castro, Aspossesso?es, pp. 362-363 and chap. IX.
62. Clarenee-Smith, "Planters and Smallholders", p. 20.
63. Bento da Franea, Macau e os seus llabitantes, p. 251.
64. Helio A. Esteves Felgas, Timor Portugue's, Agencia Geral do Ultramar, Lisboa, l956, p. 39.
7
Dutch-Portuguese Rivalry over Timor
From a world history perspective it is clear that Dutch-Portuguese rivalry over the island of Timor was but
part of a broader contest arising out of the complex political situation of die devastating Thirty Years War i
Europe out of which, in Wallersteinean language, Holland emerged as hegemonjc core state par excellence
At die heart of this conflict, the rebellion of the Dutch against Spain was the attempt of the United Province
to capture the stream of silver and gold mowing from the New World into Lisbon and Sevi11e. As one
historian of Macau has written, "the capture of Macau, Malacca and Nagasaki would mean tapping the rive
at one of its main sources". While the Dutch add English had long mounted sea raids on Iberian shipping
and coastal towns in Europe, the battle took on global dimensions as the arena of conflict shifted to the
Americas and to the Asia Pacific region. Notably, in 1603, Dutch Admiral, Maatelief successfully ousted
the Portuguese from the Moluccas thus capturing the source of the lucrative spice trade, and, the following
year, practically annihilated the Portuguese meet off Malacca, a prelude to the eventual Dutch capture of th
fortified trading city in 1641. Even though Macau successfully defended itself against successive Dutch
assaults commencing in June 1622, the Batavia-based VOC emerged as the major beneficiaries of the final
expulsion of the Portuguese from Nagasaki after 1643. By 1630, on the other side of the globe, Pernamuco
and northeastern Brazil would also be wrested from Portuguese control by the Dutch.1
But on Timor, even the delayed news of the Portuguese-Dutch Peace Treaty of 1641 did not put an end to
Dutch pretensions over territory claimed by Portugal, especially at the key north coast trading ports of
Atapupu and Maubara.2
In fact, the contest between the two European powers over the allegiance of the Timorese continued
unabated until the final acts of a negotiated boundary settlement were concluded early this century. Yet, as
this chapter seeks to unfold, the diplomatic dialogue between Portugal and Holland over territorial control
on Timor was fraught with misunderstanding and misjudgements, just as the administrative styles and
political cultures of the two antagonists were literally worlds apart. No less, an understanding of
Dutch-Portuguese rivalry over Timer and the century-long process of consolidation of boundaries and
divisions of colonial spheres of influence is central to the question of Timorese identity or identities as they
gelled against the background of European intervention in internal affairs on the island.
Page 70
European Rivalries
While, as seen, with the end of Dutch participation in the sandalwood trade, the Company in Kupang
barely balanced their books, the question remains as to what induced them to stay on? The French historian
Guillaume-Thomas Raynal, writing in his 1782 compendium on world history, observed that the only
possible justification for a Continued Dutch presence on Timor (and Celebes) could have been what in
modern language would be called "strategic denial". 3
The "big strategic picture" of Timor as portrayed by Raynal became even more focused at the end of the
century. At this time Kupang became embroiled in the intramural conflicts that beset both the VOC in its
trials with the Batavian government at home, and the British who sought in part to occupy Dutch
possessions to prevent a French takeover. Such concerns also related to a broad push by France into the
Indian Ocean, the Pacific Ocean and the South China Sea with respect to Indochina. We have noted in this
respect the voyage by Pierre Poivre to Timor in 1755. In part ensuing from the controversy surrounding the
"Prince of Timor" at the court of Louis XV, various private merchants sought, albeit unsuccessfully, to gain
royal sanction for voyages to Timor. Poivre had also -unsuccessfully- sought to gain the sanction of the
French East India Company to open a "new vein of commerce" with Timor.4
Official French interest in Timor took a new turn, however, with the arrival in 1772 off the northeast coast
of Timor in the proximity of modern Baucau of the Gros Vente, as mentioned above in the context of the
reports by de Rosily, part of a French voyage of discovery to the west coast of Australia. In any case, the
French vessel only gained the reluctant permission of local Portuguese authorities to re main in Portuguese
waters for the purpose of allowing the Crew to recuperate from illness. Such caution was not misguided as
in the course of a 38-day sojourn, the French expedition had gathered substantive political, commercial and
military in te11igence. De Rosily, who went on to an illustrious career in French naval circles, advocated a
takeover, to be justified in part by the potential of securing a supply of slaves for French plantations on Ile
de France (Mauritius). 5
While this advice was not acted upon, French commercial and political interest Timor was to be again
awakened, as explained below, by the voyages of Baudin, Peron, and de Freycinet some 30 years later.
In 1795, three years after this French vessel touched Timor, the night of the House of Orange to England
and the creation of the Batavian Republic in Holland led to a new alliance between Holland and
revolutionary France against Britain.
Britain then sought to occupy the remaining Dutch possessions with the blessing of exiled chief director of
VOC, William V. A first attempt by the British in 1797 to take over Kupang, still under VOC control,
however, was foiled by the actions of a local Dutch commander supported by armed slaves. When, at the
close of the century, the Dutch government took over the possessions of the moribund VOC, west Timor
was included in this transfer. Surviving another British challenge in 1810, the Dutch only surrendered
control of Kupang the following year. By early 1812 the British nag new over the Dutch portion of Timor.
Only on 7 October 1816, with the restoration of the House of Orange following the Napoleonic debacle in
Europe, did Britain return the colony to Dutch administration.6
Boxer observes that, when HMS Glatton left an English nag at Solor as a mark of sovereignty, the
Portuguese Governor in Dili with the support of a local chieftainess promptly secured its removal and a
formal acknowledgement of Portuguese sovereignty. 7
With the end of the Napoleonic wars the threats to Dutch hegemony in the archipelago came less from the
dangers of late arriving colonialisms than the commercial challenges posed by the British, especially after
the foundation of Singapore by Stamford Raffles in 1819 as the preeminent British centre of trade and
military power in the archipelago. The Dutch responded to their feared loss of trade by seeking to exclude
British traders through the imposition of high tariffs on their imports. Commensurate with Raffles'
mercantilist designs on the archipelago based on a British-centred concept of free trade, the Royal Navy
sought in October 1838 to establish a military colony at Port Essington on the remote Coburg peninsula,
across the Timor sea in northern Australia. This scheme has been described by Peter Spillet as a military
base to secure British possessions in the area and to provide a supply and trading centre for British shipping
passing east and west through the Torres Straits. But from the outset the new colony depended upon Dutch
and, especially, Portuguese goodwill. Within a month the British dispatched a vessel to the Dutch-ruled
island of Kisar off the northeastern tip of Timor to requisition fresh food. But Dili was the nearest European
Page 71
outpost to the new settlement of Victoria, and on 1 February 1839, the Essington sailed to Dili returning
with buffaloes, Timor ponies, and some English newspapers. F'o11owing the actual act of possession of
Port Essington on 13 February 1839, leader of the British party, Captain Bremer, proceeded to Dili on the
Britomart where he was received by the governor, Colonel Frederico Leao Cabreira (1839-44), with full
honours befitting his status. Accompanied by George Earl, linguist and botanist and John Armstrong,
botanist, Bremer spent five days in Dili, consolidating links between ancient allies -in part a reference to th
Methuen treaty of 1703 under which England offered protection for Portugal in exchange for gaining trade
concessions- while sounding out commercial prospects, in particular making an albeit unsuccessful pitch to
encourage Chinese merchant participation in the new colony. While the Port Essington colony was soon to
founder there is no question that Governor Cabreira sensed the proximity of an ancient ally to be of
advantage in his one-sided duel against aggressive Dutch colonialism in the east archipelago.8
The Portuguese-Dutch Territorial Contest
As revealed by Fran?ois Valentijn’s map published in his Oud en Niuw OostIndien (1726), the Dutch had
achieved a relatively detailed grasp of the basic geographical features of Timor and the Sunda islands by
that date. However, it was only in 1760 that the VOC produced a large scale map of Timor, in what might
have been the first attempt to cartographica11y demarcate Dutch from Portuguese territory on the island.
Doubtless prompted by the confused events in Lifau several years earlier leading to the death of von
Pluskow, the map, according to one interpreter, links "the situation on the island in the year 1757, in terms
of agriculture, geography and politics". For its time, the map contains a large amount of topographic detail,
not only highlighting Timor's rugged interior terrain, but also describing rice fields, coconut trees and other
land use. Habitations are indicated along with major forts identified with, respectively, Portuguese or Dutch
nags.
Notably, the boundary between Portuguese and Dutch territory is marked in two positions to reflect the
fluctuation in their respective control of the island.9
Whatever else, the existence of the map confirms the axiom that the expansion of geographic knowledge
went hand-in-hand with the expansion of political control, or at least ambition.
To a great extent the rise of Kupang in the west, commensurate with the consolidation of Dutch control
after the Napoleonic interlude, came at the expense of the new town of Dili. As de Freycinet observed first
hand, while the Dutch in Timor did not control as many tributary kingdoms on the island as did the
Portuguese, they nevertheless could count upon control over certain of the most productive, among them
Simao, Roti, Savu, and part of Solor. 10
Only with the restoration of Dutch rule in Kupang on 7 October 1816 was the colony in a position to attack
the leading rebel ruler in the west, Amanubang, a figure who had been baptized, educated in Kupang, and
who had even travelled to Batavia. Even so, a first expedition mounted against Amanubang in 1815 met
with failure and the following year Dutch forces sustained a further loss of 60 lives against six casualties on
the side of the rebels. At the time of de Freycinet's visit to Kupang, the two sides were squared off with the
rebel chief at the command of 6,000 forces and Resident Hazaert commanding around 10,000. 11
According to Moor, a British contemporary, Amanubang's success was in part determined by his ability to
wage a kind of running guerrilla war, plundering unsuspecting neighbours before retreating with his subject
populati9n into caves in the interior. The power of the Dutch and the Portuguese, however, were so
weakened by the opportunistic actions of backing opponents of their enemies that their authority was only
recognized by those chiefs who needed assistance against their adversaries. 12
While the results of the campaign of pacification launched by Dutch resident Hazaert were mixed, his
scheming to annex certain parts of the island under Portuguese rule brought him into direct conflict with
Dili. Such was the episode of 20 April 1818 when 30 soldiers descended upon Atapupu, the then important
river port adjacent the Portuguese fort at Batugede. Having overcome by force of arms the local defences,
Hazaert's band ran down the Portuguese ensign and replaced it with the Dutch colours. Indeed, the Dutch
nag over Atapupu was witnessed by de Freycinet when sailing through the Straits of Ombai. But this coup
de main was not achieved without preparation. Notably, the Chinese of Kupang had laid the groundwork
among the local population for a change of government. In particular, discontent on the part of the Chinese
merchants arose over a Portuguese government requirement to pay taxes on goods exported and imported
Page 72
through Atapupu.
This was no isolated event but a sequel to the punishment meted out to this mutinous element by the
Portuguese in 1786 and again in 1808. 13
Next to Dili, Atapupu served as one of the few ports on the northern coastal littoral of Timor, and as
anchorage of preference for small vessels. The river port was also a major source of customs revenue for th
Portuguese crown. Finding no satisfaction in dealing with Hazaert, and eager to uphold the
Dutch-Portuguese entente in the archipelago, the matter was raised with Batavia. Inter alia, the Portuguese
complained of Hazaet's attempts to take over the Batugede fort, to entice loyal kingdoms to rebel against th
Portuguese, and in the use of Chinese as fifth columnists in this venture. The concerned Portuguese
Governor, d' Azevedo e Sousa, remonstrated that, if the matter could not be settled by conciliation, then it
would be settled by force. He claimed to be able to muster 1,000 men under arms or even 8,000 if
necessary. Further, he demanded of the Dutch, compensation for the financial loss afforded to the
Portuguese treasury by the loss of the port of Atapupu.
In this brief, he attached the necessary documentation confirming the ancient Portuguese sovereignty over
Atapupu, Batugede and the kingdoms dependent upon these places. This was signed at Liquisa for the
Timorese side on 16 May 1818 by Dona Usula da Costa (Queen of Liquisa), Mone Thaa, Agostino
Carvalho (datos of the reino of Liquisa), Sole Crae (labo of Liquisa), and various Timorese of the rank of
toumougom, a counterfoil document was also signed on 20 November 1818 by Governor de Azevedo e
Sousa.14
In answer to the Portuguese protest, Hazaert was called to account in Batavia and a commission of enquiry
was sent to Timor. However, the commission found that Hazaert was in the right in opposing the [British]
occupation of Kupang and Atapupu in 1812 and that the Portuguese had entirely misrepresented the 1818
affair. Hazaert was duly acquitted and, in 1820, restored to office. A figure described by James Fox as
having an extraordinary impact upon the Course and development of the indigenous peoples of Timor, it
seems that nothing could damage his career, neither the British interregnum, nor the period of suspension
following the Atapupu affair. 15
Of this affair, de Freycinet remarked that he had reason to surmise that the Dutch Resident and the Kupang
Chinese would undoubtedly continue their intrigues and, that the Portuguese colony, otherwise so
obviously stripped of its. former splendour, and all but forgotten by the mother country, would continue to
lose both its territories and influence, at least until a more invigorating administration took over.
Alternatively, he conjectured, the Portuguese would back die Amanubang revolt with men and arms.
Nevertheless, he conceded, the Portuguese establishments in Timor rested on a far sounder base than those
of the Dutch colony.16
As Sowash summarizes, such was the intractability of border problems between the two colonial powers
on Timor, the natives were almost completely independent. As he describes the situation, such was the
warlike disposition of the Timorese, aided and abetted by each colonial power in their resistance to the
other, that chaos was often the result. Moreover, many of the interior peoples failed to recognize European
domination even up until the twentieth century. The imprecision of boundaries only abetted this situation,
especially as many tribes recognized the sovereignty of both powers or alternated their allegiance. As a
result, neither administration had the resources to stem a situation of petty internal wars, slave trading,
head-hunting, arson, and cattle stealing. Moreover, mischief makers were wanted to escape punishment by
drifting to the other side of the island. It was not until the middle of the nineteenth century that the two
colonial powers even saw to it to restrict the importation of firearms.17
From de f1'reyCinet's careful study of the various reinos on Timor under, respectively, Dutch and
Portuguese control, as cited, it is clear that Portugal held by far the largest territory at the time of his visit.
On Flores and Solor the Portuguese could also count on the loyalty of the reinos of Sica, Noumba,
Larantuca, and Maubesse. Two kingdoms on Ombai (Alor), Lomblen, and various establishments on
Cambi, were also dependencies of Dili. By 1814, the islands of Pantar and Adonara also recognized
Portuguese suzerainty. 18
Governor Lopes dc Lima and the Great Sell-off
The leopard-spot character of Portuguese dependencies in the Dutch-controlled archipelago was bound to
Page 73
be challenged, however, especially as the technological/pacification balance shifted in favour of Portugal's
Protestant rivals. Yet, even by the rules of Western imperialism, certain matters -namely boundaries and
spheres of influence- had to be adjudicated, lessons evidently forgotten by Holland's colonial successor stat
when it Came to redrawing the map of Timer with great violence in the period after 1975.
In 1847, Governor Juliao Jose da Silva Vieira became involved in a dispute with the Governor and
Resident of Kupang over acts allegedly committed by the regulo of Oecusse, a Hornay descendant, in
asserting claims on Ombai and Pantar, territories deemed by the Dutch to be theirs. To regularize the
question of sovereignty over these islands, the Dutch Governor General in Batavia mandated D.C.
Styen Parve to Dili in March 1848 to negotiate the matter. Governor Silva Vieira answered back:
"considerar Portuguese todos os territorios que tinham a bandeira portugueza e hollandez QS que
arvorassem a hollandeza". 19
But while instructing the regulo of Oecusse to hold his position, Governor Silva Vieira conceded possession
of the disputed islands to the Netherlands, pending conclusion of an accord in Europe. It could not have
been lost upon the Governor that the Dutch then deployed mere 50 soldiers in Timor, vastly inferior to the
Portuguese contingent.
But it was also the case that, as ever, the Portuguese were in no position to actually finance a physical
presence on these obscure and impecunious outposts. 20
In 1 850 the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands transmitted a note to their Portuguese
counterparts insisting on the need to settle the question of boundaries and ownership. The following year
commissioners were appointed by both sides with a view to entering into negotiations. One wonders,
however, as to the state of preparation on the Portuguese side as to answering such a complex operation.
While officials on the ground were no doubt privy to much local information, the major extant Portuguese
chart of this period was as much antiquated as inaccurate. At least that is my opinion of the Planta das ilhas
de Solor e Timor e outros adjacentes, a 57x37cm map drawn up by Joaquim Pedro Celestino Soares in
January 1836 from information contained in the sailing directions of Horsburgh, the British
surveyor-general in Singapore. Yet, by all accounts, neither were the Dutch better informed as to local
realities in these islands.
On 23 June 1851 a new governor arrived in Timor at the end of a long voyage from Lisbon via Rio de
Janeiro aboard the gunboat Mondego, which he captained.
This was Jose Joaquim Lopes de Lima, a former Governor of Goa, now bearing the title
capitao-de-mar-e-guerra and Governor of Timor and Solor. In November 1851, the Portuguese government
announced that Lopes de Lima was to be decommissioned from government and vested with the position of
commissioner in the forthcoming discussions with the Dutch. According to Montalto de Jesus, the
controversial Portuguese historian of Macau, it was out of sheer deference to Lopes de Lima's status that,
under the decree of 30 October 1850, Timor and Solor were detached from Macau and turned into a
separate province.21
In the ensuing discussions, the Resident of Kupang, Baron van Lynden, travelled to Dili and during the
month of July conferred with Lopes de Lima assisted by the loyal regulo of Motael, a man considered to
have intimate knowledge of local alliances and networks on Timor as well as in the islands. Pelissier, who
has researched Dutch sources on this question, offers that Lopes de Lima was not only in a bind, but a
doomed man. Dili was bankrupt, and certain trade-offs were in order. At this time the Larantuca customs
offered up a mere 50 rupees a year, insufficient to even cover the cost of maintaining six cannons and six
soldiers which constituted the fort. Even though Larantuca was visited twice a year by an official party from
Dili, the local regulo had made common cause with Buginese pirates further weakening the Portuguese
position. The commercial relationship between the other claimed islands and Dili was even more tenuous.
22
While answering to the metropolitan government, there is no question that Lopes de Lima exceeded his
authority by making over to the Dutch the coveted Larantuca district in Flores along with the Solor group o
islands, and in Pelissier's felicitous phrase became the "felon majeur" of Portuguese nationalist
histodography.23 To be sure, as Boxer observes, Lopes de Lima was only empowered to negotiate ad
refejnendum, and, by inference, not act without reference on the question to Lisbon.24
Amidst a popular outcry, the Portuguese government repudiated the Convention drawn up in 1854, by
reconstituting the Province of Macau, Timor and Solor, and instructed the Governor of Macau to send a
Page 74
substitute for Lopes de Lima. But appointed by the Crown, Lopes de Lima refused to transfer power to a
substitute appointed by Macau. The matter was settled by the dispatch of the gunboat Mondego, the arrival
on 8 September 1852 of the new governor, Do m Manoel da Saldanha Gama, and the arrest and
transportation of Lopes de Lima out of the colony. Montalto de Jesus writes that Lopes de Lima died en
route in Batavia not so much from malaria contracted in Timor as of intense moral sufferings.25
As Governor de Castro commented, plenipotentiary Lopes de Lima was imprudent in the extreme in not
obtaining adequate compensation for the ceded territories, 26
A view more than echoed in official Portuguese circles.
Though repudiated, the Convention was not actually abrogated on account of noncompliance with the
demanded recoupment of the first instalment of 80,000 florins. In any case, Portugal vetoed the clause in th
Dutch treaty pertaining to the mutual exercise of religious liberty by both parties, seen by the Portuguese
side as weakening the status of the Catholicized populations. But, as a Dutch source records, this stumbling
block was eventually removed, paving the way for the signing of a definitive treaty.27
Drawn up on 20 April 1859, ratified by the Portuguese Chamber of Deputies in 1860, and executed in
1861, the Lisbon Treaty on the demarcation of Portuguese and Netherlands possessions in the Solor and
Timor archipelago comprised a number of complex elements. This was despite or because the demarcation
represented the first formal divisioning of the island on an east-west basis by way of linking an estuary on
the north coast with one on the south as part of the boundary.
Accordingly, various reinos were named as being on one or the other side of the border. Cova and Suai
were deterfmined as part of Portuguese territory, while Juanilo and Lakecune were determined to be Dutch
Additionally, while Portugal recognized Dutch control over the enclave of Maucatar, the historical enclave
of Oecusse remained under Portuguese control. The Netherlands also dropped all pretensions to Kambing
or Atauro Island. The boundary was not surveyed, however, as neither side possessed sufficient authority in
the concerned zones. Further confusing the issue, native peoples on either side of the boundaries continued
to assert their respective rights to territories on the other side.
While the divisioning of the island of Timor would come to haunt the destiny of the Timorese, it was the
least controversial part of the deal. Stemming from Lopes de Lima's transgression, Portugal was obliged to
cede to the Netherlands the historic enclaves in the eastern part of the island of Flores, namely Larantuca,
Sica (Sikka) and Paga, as well as the island of Adenara (Adonara), including the state of Wour6, the island
of Solor including the raja of Pamang Kaju. Portugal also dropped pretensions over Lomblen, Pantar and
Ombai, ending Portuga1's 300-year "rule" in these communities. Portugal was to be offered 200,000 florins
indemnity in three instalments. The status of Maubara was also broached but the Dutch were in no hurry to
retrocede this enclave back to the Portuguese, only achieved in April 1861.28
All in all, from a Portuguese perspective, one could hardly think of a more derisory settlement, but also from
an indigenous perspective one that is no less troubled.
Meanwhile, the Dutch promptly moved in to occupy Larantuca and Solor where they remained despite the
outcry in Lisbon. Even so, for matters of economy, the Dutch evacuated the fortress at both Larantuca and
Solor in 1869. Three years later, according to a Dutch account, the government went over td a policy of
renouncing interference in native affairs, leaving local Chiefs to squabble over the spoils from
"slave-trading, piracy and looting", a sad envoi indeed to the former glory of these topasse strongholds.
Only when the recalcitrant behaviour of the "dwarf state" of Larantuca got out of hand, did the Dutch
bother to dispatch the odd man-of-war. Catholicism was only revitalized on Flores with the arrival of Dutch
clergy in 1862. Sporadic resistance to the Dutch continued on Flores up until the early 20th Century, at leas
until the principal nuisance, the Catholic raja of Larantuca Was expelled in 1905.29
Small consolation to history, indeed, that Portuguese influence lingers on in local folklore in Larantuca an
other parts of Flores in the form of Catholicized communities. Notable in this sense is the Konfreira or
Larantuca-based religious organisation which acquired paramount importance to the town's faithful in the
way of the handing down of prayers in oral form during long years from the end of the seventeenth century
when the town was left without clergy. It is of mere than passing interest that the Portuguese nag was
defiantly mown in Sica until the end of the nineteenth century, even during the period of Dutch rule. The
last Portugalized raja of Sica, Dom Sentia da Silva, gave up his political power or more likely his
tradition-conferred privileges-"with independence.30
Telkamp, citing a Dutch source, observes that, despite this arrangement, some native districts on the island
Page 75
of Ombai (Alor) in 1886 still paid an annual tribute to the Timorese prince of Likusan and of Liquisa which
consisted of rice, Corn, cotton or small livestock.31
Armando Pinto Correia, a Portuguese official who served in Timor during the early interwar period, offers
that in the old days the people of Timor had strong family links with Kisar, also home of a colony of
Dutch-native descendants. There were frequent visits, barlaque links, trade in gold and buffalos and even
the transfer of finta, by the raja of Vonreli (on Kisar) to Vemassim on Timor. Governor Celestino da Silva
who, piqued at the evident refusal of the raja of Kisar to convert from Protestantism to Catholicism,
prohibited all official contacts only interrupted such links in the 1890s.
Nevertheless 15 years later, barlaque relations were re-established with the Baucau region when the raja of
Kisar arrived at Baucau beach accompanied by a flotilla of 20 cocoras or small sailing boats.32
But metropolitan indignation at the loss of the territories required consolation.
A new Portuguese plenipotentiary appointed in 1 858 proposed to Holland to cede all of the island of
Timor to Portugal, in exchange for the cessions already made on F'1ores and the islands, plus some
unspecified Portuguese territory in Africa. Although the Dutch in principle were not averse to exchanging
territories where it suited them, the notion of a great Lusophone Timor, it is perhaps to be regretted, did not
meet with acceptance.33.
It is of more than passing interest that, in 1884, a delegation was dispatched from Dili to Atauro, to raise th
Portuguese nag. The single island in the Chain retained by Portugal after Lopes de Lima's infamous
exchange, Atauro lay some 20 kilometres north of Dill. Obviously, on die question of sovereignty, then
sorely tested in Macau versus China, there was no room for half-measures and evasion. The prospect of a
foreign nag dying across the Ombai strait from Dili was not a prospect relished in the Portuguese colony.
But still, it would not be until 1905 that the island commenced to pay finta and only in April of the same
year was the island militarily occupied. 34
In 1885 the situation in Dutch Timor deteriorated when, Sonbai, one of the larger states in the central part o
the island, fell into anarchy with the death of the raja. Following an invasion of Kupang in the temporary
absence of the Dutch Resident and garrison, the Dutch retaliated by abandoning their old policy of
noninterference. Governor-General J.B. van Heutsz immediately dispatched troops and placed central
Timor under military control. Even though the rebel chiefs on Timor were bound to the Dutch by ancient
contracts, under a new dispensation binding across the outer islands, they were now obliged to sign Korte
Verklaring or Concise Declarations acknowledging Dutch dominion and strictly forbidding relations with
foreign powers. In the years 1889 to 1892, alleged mistreatment of Timorese in the Dutch-held zones by
Portuguese officials created additional friction.35
Even so, as reported in the Macau press on 29 July l893, certain chiefs in Maubara looked to support from
the Dutch in Atapupu to back their claims of mistreatment by the Portuguese commander in Maubara. Such
recidivist claims in the name of the Dutch nag were, however, quashed with the support of the 729-ton,
three-masted, mixed steam and sail gunboat Diu dispatched to offer "protection" to the inhabitants against
"rebels" against Portuguese authority. The political and commercial importance of Atapupu under the Dutch
was seen as stemming from its favorable location as the major port of export, via a monthly Dutch mail
packet, for all the reinos located to the southeast, namely Cova, Savir, Lamaquitos, and Suai. Although
comprising the reinos of Failure and Juanilo, otherwise separating Batugede from Oecusse, Atapupu itself
was described as an "insignificant" town hosting only one state building, watched over by one controleur,
and lacking either civil or military institutions of any kind.36
Problem of the Enclaves
Eventually, such problems pushed the two sides to resolve the border question, notably by doing away
with the troublesome enclaves on Timor.37
A new Convention -the Lisbon Convention- was signed in Lisbon on 10 June 1893 followed by a
Declaration of 1 July 1893. This Convention provided for an Expert Commission to draw up proposals for
another convention to secure a clearly marked boundary and to readjust the various enclaves, 38
Or more specifically "to cause the enclaves now existing to disappear". The Convention also specified that
the traffic in arms was to be interdicted, native fisheries were to be given protection, most-favoured-nation
privileges were granted by both powers, and the Dutch would renounce certain claims against Portugal
Page 76
arising from previous incidents. Both contracting parties also promised preference to each other in the even
of disposal of their rights in Timor. 39
In 1896 (decree of 29 October), die Portuguese government named a commissioner, namely the
"capitao-de-mar-e-guerra," Jose Cristiano de Almeida, to work with the Dutch in demarcating the
boundary. While the mixed commission proceeded with its work in 1898-99, it nevertheless broke down
over disagreements. The two sides came together again in a conference at The Hague in 1902 in an effort to
resolve the problems encountered by the mixed commission.40
The main point of contention concerned whether Oecusse-Ambeno was included in the 1 893 agreement on
the exchange of enclaves. Portugal answered the Dutch argument for surrender of this territory, site of the
historic Lifau settlement, with the contention that, as it constituted a long seacoast and several ports, it
hardly constituted an enclave any more than Belgium or Portugal. Rather, the much smaller district of
Noimuti fitted the definition of enclave as specified in the 1893 treaty. Besides Noimuti, Portugal also
offered to cede the border districts of Tahakay, Tamira-Ailala, Maubessi, Maoe-Boesa and Lamaras, in
return for the cession of the Dutch enclave of Maucatar. The Dutch climb-down over Oecusse-Ambeno,
however, was not at the expense of claims upon certain forests of sandalwood on the eastern perimeter of
the territory, otherwise claimed by Portugal, and only yielded when Holland threatened to carry the questio
of enclaves to a court of arbitration. The results of this conference were embodied in The Hague
Convention of 1 October 1904 signed at The Hague. In addition to territorial clauses on the exchange of
enclaves, both powers agreed not to cede their rights on Timor to third powers, guaranteed religious liberty
in the districts exchanged -a concession by Portugal to its Protestant rival- and promised to submit to
arbitration any question arising from the treaty or its execution.41
While the Portuguese parliament duly ratified the Hague Convention and exchanged instruments of
ratification later in the month, still, in 1909, disputes arose again over surveying the eastern boundaries of
Oecusse-Ambeno along the line chosen in 1904. At the heart of the dispute was the Noimuti enclave or
"exclave" and the Bikumi strip. This dispute was further complicated by the action of a liurai of Oecusse in
arresting a chief of Toenbaba. In 1911, however, the Portuguese and the Dutch came to the brink in a
Contest that Pelissier describes as reminiscent of that of one hundred years earlier. This time around,
however, as the Portuguese learned the hard way, the military superiority of the Dutch was overwhelming,
just as the resolve of the Dutch Governor General, A.W.F. van ldenburg (1909-16) was determinant. And
so, when the Portuguese made incursions into Maucatar in February 1911, they were met the following
June with a force of Europeans backed with Ambonese infantry. When on 11 June Portuguese forces
occupied Lakmaras on the main border, Batavia decided to reinforce infantry to assure control of the land
route between Maucatar via Lakmaras. On 18 July Dutch forces, reinforced via Atapupu, invaded
Lakmaras. Sources conflict as to casualties, but three Mozambiquans were killed while the alferes or
sub-lieutenant, Francisco da Costa and his party was taken prisoner. Having overwhelmed Portuguese
defences the Dutch sued for peace. In any case, notes were exchanged between Lisbon and The Hague.
Generally it was agreed to honour the terms of the 1904 Convention. The status quo on Bikumi and
Toenbaba was upheld on the eastern boundary of Ambeno although undefined. Noimuti, Tahakay, Tamira
Ailala, and Maucatar, however, remained undefined. Many semi-obscure clashes continued through 1911
leading to some exodus of 500 refugees from Portuguese to Dutch territory. By the end of the year,
however, as explained in a following chapter, the Portuguese would be overwhelmed by the Manufahi
revolt.42
Eventually, both sides agreed to submit the problem to The Hague Court of Arbitration [Arbitration
Convention of 3 April 1913]. On 25 June 1914, Charles Lardy, a Swiss member of the Court, brought
down a ruling known as the "sentence arbitral". Otherwise favouring the Dutch contention, all enclaves
were abolished except for Oecusse. Sensibly, Maucatar was transferred to Portugal and Noimuti, Tahakai,
and Taffliroe were transferred to Holland.43
Even though the groundwork of the various border commissions was complete by April 1915, it was only
on 21 November 1916 that effective transfers of the territories were made. But the attitude of local peoples
varied according to reinos. The population of Tamira Ailala wished to remain Portuguese but in Tahakau
the Dutch were welcomed, while in Maucatar around 5,000 of the population deserted the plains and
decamped to Dutch Timor. Pe1issier believes that the population of Noimoti upheld divided loyalties.44
To be sure, as Telkamp comments, "cattle-lifting, spontaneous migration of tribes and other border incident
Page 77
were signs of popular protest at the rather arbitrary delimitation of the frontier and oppressive Portuguese
rule". 45
With the exception of some incidents in the Pacific and Indian oceans, Timor - was obviously a great
distance from theatres of war. Nevertheless, as Sherlock has highlighted, Portuguese Timor also became the
object of intra-imperialist ambitions. While the Netherlands had remained neutral in the war, Portugal had
acted against the Germans in southwest and east Africa and, after February 1916, joined the Allied side.
The matter became real in August 1914 with the arrival of the German cruiser Emden off the eastern tip of
Timor. In an act of high theatre occurring under the watch of the feisty Governor Filomeno da Camara, the
head of the Tutuala posto boarded the Emden ordering it out of Portuguese waters.46
Of concern in official Portuguese circles was that Holland would enter the war against the Allies including
Portugal, thus exposing Portuguese Timor in the extreme. Notably, in April 1916, Lisbon received
information from Batavia that German ships were present in the Netherlands East Indies, awaiting supplies
of arms with a view to advancing on Timor. To this end, in mid-1916, the Governor requested the dispatch
from Macau of the gunboat Patria to meet the expected crisis, as shown in the following chapter, the same
gunboat used against the Boaventura rebels.47 Further anxiety stemmed from conflicting signals in the
course of 1917 as to concentrations of Dutch troops near the border, a period when Anglo-Dutch relations
were at low ebb.48 As Hastings has established, Anglo-Australian concerns stemmed from a mistaken
belief that Portugal would do a deal over Timor and sell the colony to some foreign power, Holland,
Germany or Japan. Notably, at the end of the war, certain Australian interests lobbied Prime Minister
Andrew Fisher to possess the colony.49
Again, in 1928, as revealed in an Australian Defence Ministry paper, the purchase of Portuguese Timor wa
mooted with especial reference to Timor's oil potential and possible strategic importance to Imperial
defence. The official Australian position as voiced by Prime Minister S.M. Bruce is as revealing as it is
guarded:
My government desires, however, to approach H.M. Government in Great Britain with the request that,
should there be any possibility at any time of Portuguese Timor being disposed of by the Portuguese
Government -a position which no doubt would be brought to the notice of H.M. Government- steps might
be taken to prevent it falling into undesirable hands. 50
While such preposterous designs were never acted upon directly indeed an examination of Portuguese
archives reveals no such wavering as to their resolve to keep the flag flying in the Southeast Asian outpostin
future decades, as Shown below, Australia would act upon British advice as much its own interests in
seeking to checkmate what was perceived as unseemly Japanese commercial interests in the colony, an
attitude that eventually led to the Australian invasion of Portuguese Timor days after Pearl Harbour and
prior to the subsequent full-scale invasion by Japan.
As mentioned in the introduction, the diplomatic wrangling over the boundary questions also gave stimulu
to the mapping of Timor by the respective powers.
Such Cartesian imperatives also went hand in hand with technological mastery and administrative control.
At least this was made evident to officers aboard the gunboat Patria involved in numerous coasting
operations in 1912 when pressed into action against rebels in Oecusse, Baucau and on the contra costa or
south coast, literally uncharted terrain. As Jaime do lnso, a naval lieutenant aboard this vessel later observe
there were great discrepancies between Dutch and British maps of Timor, and like charts for the rest of the
eastern islands, were "incomplete and erroneous". Much remained, he laconically remarked, to build on
pioneering cartographic work undertaken in 1898.51
Still, the evolution of Dutch Cartography on Timor was erratic. For example, the Administrative lndeeling
van de Afdeeling Timor (1:500,000, 1911) was drawn on the basis of information derived from
reconnaissance and explorer's sketches.
Relief offered sparse hachures showing "little relationship to the actual topograph”y! , Depictions of
drainage patters were "inaccurate" and coastlines were "greatly out of position". Similar inaccuracies were
reckoned as to the locations of major settlements including headquarters of the Residents. By contrast, the
Schetskaart van Timor (Nederlansch Gebied), 1:250,000, 1920-1941) published by the Topographische
Dienst was based on sketch and patrol surveys of 1919. The topography of Timor was shown by contours
Page 78
and gradient lines for Dutch Timor and form lines for Portuguese Timor. Otherwise this map was viewed a
comprehensive as to representations of drainage patterns, coastline, and other physical features, including
the transportation patterns and even international and tribal boundary information. Between 1924 and 1941
the 7bpographische Diest published 21 sheets covering Dutch Timor (Graadafdeelinsbladen van het Eiland
Timor 1 - 1 00,000). Superseding earlier versions, these full colour charts were based upon reconnaissance
topographic surveys, using theodolite and spirit compass. Described in an American report as "the best
physical map available on Dutch Timor", it depicts contours at 50 metre intervals, draining patterns,
coastlines, roads, land use, vegetation pattern and native villages. The best official prewar map of Timor
was the 1:20,000 scales Carla da provincia de Portugal of 1927. Produced in three Colours and printed in
Paris this map was still little better than a wall chart. The best prewar map on Portuguese Timor, according
to the US report, was that published by the Asia Investment Company, Ltd. (Timor Portuguese, 1:250,000,
1937), which, as shown below, emerged in the prewar period as a Japanese front in Portuguese Timor.
Even so, this map offered only a "generalized conception of topography" with "highly selected" cultural
features. Roads, while indicated, were questionable as to accuracy of location. In 1941 the Dutch
Topographische Dienst copied the map in colour adding place names and a city sketch of Dili at
1:20,000.52
Conclusion
Our study of Dutch-Portuguese rivalry on Timor over long time is not disconnected with the broad
question of the making of Timorese identities. It is clear that, from the first contacts with Timor by the two
European powers, complex webs of alliances and dependencies were struck that can be described as
intergenerational over long time. On Timor these European engendered networks coincided broadly with
the mental divisioning of the island into the semi-mythologized Serviao and Belos divisions. But in the case
of the original alliances struck on Timor by Schotte, the principle that the enemy of my enemy is my friend
appeared to have been well grasped in Timorese statecraft, although it might also have been well
apprehended by concerned Timorese that the Dutch approach to crucial issues of trade appeared to have
been disconnected from questions of religious loyalty such as engendered in the archipelago by the
entreaties of the Dominicans. So, to restate the obvious, the Portuguese system of alliances were almost
always double edged in the sense of requiring this or that traditional ruler to swear allegiance to the Crown,
the most obvious test being whether he or she would accept the Catholic faith, itself subject to certain basic
tests. While each of the European powers offered "protection" to its indigenous clients and camp followers
against the depredations of mutual enemies, each sought guaranteed deliveries of sandalwood and other
commodities. The quid pro qua accepted by native princes or coalitions of princes was a guaranteed market
and access to status enhancing trade goods.
What is amazing about this pattern of alliances is that the template of European control over respective
territories on the island endured over long time with minimal change. This is all the remarkable considering
the rise of Holland as world hegemonic power wielding disproportionate economic and military power both
in the European core as much in the colonial periphery, implying also that Portugal's colonial possessions
were bound to be consigned over long time to a semi-periphery status. But(where change occurred to
ancient loyalties on Timor or in the archipelago it was usually as the result of extraneous factors, and not th
fruit of military conquests as might have been expected with Portugal's absolute loss of rank within the
European core. Such was the case of the Chinese treason at Atapupu, the unconscionable act by Lopes de
Lima in unilaterally dispossessing Portugal of its historical possessions, or, as in the case of the border
demarcations, the results of international flat clearly beyond the mental horizons of the concerned Timorese
who had always upheld kin or trade relations in a fairly fluid manner outside of the legal constraints implied
by boundary markers.
In any case, with the Luso-Dutch transfers of territory, Portuguese Timor acquired the boundaries intact
down until the Indonesian invasion of 1975. Because of this ancient divisioning of the island, two Timorese
idioms emerged, one connected with a Dutch colonial project, but equally to a pan-Indonesian nationalist
idiom as it developed in the early decades of this century, and no less obviously, an identity on those parts
of the island controlled by Portugal that spoke with a strong Lusitanian identity, incorporating even African
Page 79
and Indian and Macau Chinese elements which, because of language, faith, and the state-engendered
control of Timor's external links, became increasingly disconnected from the cataclysmic events of
independent Indonesia and the rest of post-colonial Southeast Asia.
Notes
1. Cesar Guillen-Nujiez, Macau, Oxford University Press, Hong Kong, 1984, pp. 16-17.
2. L.C.D. Freyeinet, Voyage autour du monde execute' Fur leg corvettes S.M. l'Utmie et la Physicienne
pendant les anne'es 1817-1820, Paris, 1827, pp. 537-715.
3. Gui11aume-Thomas Rayna1, HistoLne Philosophe et Politique Des Etablissemens et du Commence des
Eunopaens dans leg Deux lndes, Tome Premier, Jean-I,eonard Pellet, G6n6ve, 1782, pp. 225-6.
4. Anne LOmbard-Jourdan, "Infortunes d'un Prince de Timor Aceuei11i en France sous Louis XV",
Archipel, Vol.16, 1978, pp. 91-l33.
5. Anne I,ombard-Jourdan, "Un m6moire in6dit de F.E. de Rosily sur 1'ne de Timor (1772)", Archipel,
Vo1.23, 1982, pp. 75-lO4.
6. William Sowash, "Colonial Rivalries in primor", The Far Eastern Quarterly, VII, No.3, May 1948, p.
23l.
7. C.H. Boxer, "Portuguese Timor: A Rough Island Story: 1515-1960", History Tbday, May 1960, pp.
354-355.
8. Peter G. Spi11et, Forsaken Settlement: An Illustrated Histoty of the Settlement oftHctoria, Port
Essington, North Austjnalia, 1838-1849, Landowne Press, Melbourne, 1972, p. 35.
9. "A Manuscript Chart of the Island of Timor", http://www.1owendah1.Com/p91.htm. According to the
description oHered on this site, along with a graphic reproduction in mhiature, the chart was drafted in
either Batavia or Amsterdam by an anonymous mapmaker. It is drawn in ink and wash on paper bearing the
watermark ofJ. Honig & Zoonen and pasted to the size of91 A 58.5 cm with names and detail in Dutch but
with late 18th and early 19th Century annotations in F'rench. Drawn to the scale of 1 :450,000.
10. de F'reycinet, Voyage, pp. 555-557.
11. Ibid,p. 537.
12. J.H. Moor, Yotices of the Indian Archipelago andAdjacent Countries, Frank Cass, 1837.
13. de Freycinet, Voyage, pp. 538-539.
14. Ibid.
15. Fox, Harvest, p. 127; E.S. de Klerck, History of the Netherlands Indies, (Vo1.ID, Brusse, Rotterdam,
1938,p.96.
16. de F'reycinet, Voyage, pp. 538-539.
17. Sowash, "Colonial Rivalries", p. 232.
18. Freycinet, Voyage, p. 556.
19. Bento da Franga, Macau e os seus Habitantes: RelaEO?eS com Timor, Imprensa Naciona1, Lisboa,
1897,p.267.
20. Rend P61issieTimor en Guerre, Le Crocodile et les Portuguese (1847-1913), Orgeval, l996, pp. 2830.
21. C.A. Montalto de Jesus, Historic Macao: Intemational Traits in China Old and New, Salesian Printing
Press and Tipografla Mercanti1, 1926. Although credited with certain improvements during his spell as
Governor of Goa (September 1840.42), Lopes de Lima was deposed by military revolt, an event, however,
which evidently did not damage his career. He went on to author a massive official study of Portuga1's
colonial possessions entitled Ensaios sobre a Estattstica das Possess6es Portuguesas da AJh'ca Occidental e
Oriental na China, e na Oceania. I can con finn the publication of three volumes of this work published by
lmprensa Naciona1, Lisboa, I 844, but not the adveTised volume three on Macau, p11imor e Solor.
22. P61issier, Tl'mOr en Guenne, p. 33.
23. Ibid., pp. 33-36.
24. Boxer, "Portuguese Timor", p. 355.
25. Montalto de Jesus, Historic Macao, pp. 413-415.
26. Affonso de Castro, As possess6es portuguesas na oceania, Imprensa Nacional Lisboa, p. 180.
27. FJ.S. de Klerk, History of the Netherlands Indies, Vo1.II, Brusse, Rotterdam, 1938, p. 318.
28. H. Krieger (ed.), East Tl'mOr and the lntemational Community: Basic Documents, Cambddge
Page 80
University Press, Melbourne, 1997, pp. 1-3.
29. de Klerk, History of the Netherlands Indies, p. 384, 471.
30. Kal Muller (ed.), East of Bali: From LDmbok to Tl'mOr, Periplus Editions, Berkeley/Singapore, 1991
pp.l40-141.
3 1. Gerald Telkamp, "The Economic structure of an outpost in the outer islands in the Indonesian
Archipelago: Portuguese Timor 1850-1975", a, P Creutzberg, Between People and Statistics, MaTinus
NLhoff, p1'he Hague, l979, p. 72.
_ 32. Jh11ando Pinto Correia, Tl'mOr de Le'S a uS, Agencia Geral das Colonias, Lisboa, 1944, p. 299.
33. P61issier, Tl'mOr en Guenle, PP. 38-39.
34. Ibid., pp. 219-220.
35. Sowash, "Colonial Rivaldes"; de Klerk, Histoiy Of the Netherlands Indies, p. 472.
36. A Voz do Ctlente (Macau), 29 Julho 1893 and 12 Mareo 1882.
37. Sowash, "Colonial fuvalries".
38. anon, Portuguese Tl'mOr, Historical Section of the F'oreign OfTICe, HM Stationery Office, 110ndon,
1920, pp. 7-9.
39. Sowash, "Colonial mvalries", p. 233; Xiieger, East Tl'mOr and the lntemational Communiy, pp. 2-3.
40. Ibid., p. 234.
41. Ibid. ,
42. P6lissieTimor en Guerre, pp. 238-239, 248-252.
43. Krieger (ed.), East Timor and the International Community, pp. 5-17.
44. P61issieTimor en Guerre, p. 302.
45. Telkamp, "The Economic Structure", p. 72.
46. Kevin Sherlock, "Timor during World Wars I and II: Some Notes on Sources", Kabar Sebemng, 1988,
Nos. 19+20.
47. rbid., pp. 50-51.
48. CxIO8-525/0, 0 Governo de Timor; requisieao dos servigos da Canhoneira Pdtria naquela Provincia, 1
June, 1916 and CxIO8-5250, Governor of Timor, Dili to Governor, Macau, 14 Abril l916.
49. Peter Hastings, "The Th10r Problem - II, Some Australian Attitudes, 1903N1941", Australian Outlook
29, No.2, l975, passim.
50. AA Vie MP124/6 482/201/206, Defence Minister paper on Timor Oil fields in "Timor Oil fields".
51. Jaime do lnso,rimor-1912, Cosmos, Lisboa, l939, p. 97.
52. Oifice Of Strategic Services, "Map jhalysis of Java to Timer", Washington, 9 August l945, Reel 5 of
21.
8
The Anti-Tax Rebellions (1860-1912)
There is merit in viewing the rebellions commencing in 1860 as of a qualitatively different order than those
of the earlier epoch though there may be certain leitmotif or themes running through all anti-colonial
rebellions in Timor. Certainly, as Lawson has commented, the Lisbon treaty of 1859 with the Dutch
signalling the end to almost two centuries of fighting and war between the two colonial powers in Timor
gave the Portuguese the opportunity to start with the actual occupation of the territory. But, as Lawson
acknowledges from her reading of De Araujo, territorial control coincided with important economic
changes, namely the need by the colonial power to organize land and labour on a new basis, especially as
the traditional source of income, sandalwood, had been badly depleted by centuries of over cutting without
reforestation badly affecting sources of government income. 1
We should also not ignore shifts in technology that made the crushing of rebellions possible by the
nineteenth century, namely the albeit delayed shift from sail power to steam power commensurate with the
Page 81
deployment of Better trained, organized, and requisitioned colonial troops. At the same time, the ability of
the rebellious liurai to keep up the resistance must also have been facilitated by the licit and illicit trade in
firearms, averaging imports of a round 1000 annually until prohibition was enforced in the 1880s.2
As we have seen in Chapter 5, it was to coffee that Governor Affonso de Castro turned and with labour
supplied by forced cultivation along the lines of Dutch Governor van den Bosch's infamous Culture System
as implemented in Java from the 1830s. Veritable "coffee wars", as Pelissier styles them, de Castro's new
dispensation was clearly based upon the erroneous assumption that the subjects would willingly deliver up
their labour power in the grandiose project of rescuing the fisc. To be sure, the position of Governor of
Timor was no sinecure in the year between 1867- 1894. A dozen insurrections and revolts, the assassination
of a Governor and other intrigues guaranteed that this would be so. But was all rebellion necessarily
anti-colonial?
Not at all. Pelissier contends that conflict between tile reino was as frequent as wars waged against the
despised malai.3
While we are concerned in this chapter of find logic in the succession of rebellions that washed over the
island of Timor, especially in the way of finding a correlated behaviour between outside pressures and
native responses, we should not at the same time ignore the quality of Warfare in Timor, the Timorese-funu
which, to outsiders, offered up highly ritualized and irrational features but which also revealed a leitmotif
across generations or at least imparted an inter-generational quality to rebellion in Timor.
Colonial Pacification and Rebellion in Timor
It is notable that one year after the 1859 Lisbon treaty, the colony was divided into ten districts by
Governor de Castro. To this end, first ten and then eleven district military commands were established to
head districts assisted by a secretary. As the embryo of the modem politico-administrative system on Timor
these commands were centred on, respectively, Dili, Manatuto, Viqueque, Lautem, Vemasse, Alas,
Buursuco, Cailaco, Maubara, and Batugede. Oecusse was added in 1863.4
In theory, according to Pelissier, the system was that of indirect rule. The Batalhao Defensor forces or the
mixed force of Portuguese, Goanese, Macanese, and Mozambiquans created by Governor Luis Augusto de
Almeida Macedo were, by law, forbidden to interfere in the internal administration of the reinos, and
required the prior consent of the liurai before central government orders could be executed. While de
Castro's new dispensation represented a departure from established Portuguese colonial doctrine, as Pelissie
points out, in practice, the low calibre of officers and soldiers in the field meant that the autonomy of the
reinos was of ten breached with impunity.5
It was also the case, as Lawson observes, that the leaders of a bout 50 petty kingdoms were not consulted
at all. Rather, they were confronted with "new forms of administrative interference". In addition, the liurais
were ordered to grow coffee and expected to yield 20 per cent of their harvest to the Portuguese authorities
The Portuguese also interfered in the Timorese subsistence economy. Those kingdoms not cultivating
coffee were obliged to offer up one-tenth of their rice-harvest. But while rice was not the most important
crop in many areas, it was important for all kinds of Ceremonies and feasts. In line with the Dutch model,
the Timorese were obliged to sell their coffee to the Portuguese authorities for a price set by the colonial
administration. Equally, the onus was placed upon native chiefs to oblige their people to cultivate coffee on
their land and to deliver up their labour to state-owned plantations.6
Lawson comments that the "granting of Military ranks, levying of fintas, forced cultivation of cash crops
and the division in districts controlled by Portuguese military officials...were not only measures which
gradually embedded the kingdoms into a colonial system, the liurais also became more directly dependent
upon the Portuguese authorities". She continues: "Forced cultivation of cash crops, forced and contract
labour, illegal recruitment and starvation wages, became all parts of a far from admirable colonial policy". 7
The finta, Pelissier writes, actually became the central "symbol of Submission" for the native population, a
political tax cutoff from all demographic and political reality.
Fixed at an insignificant Sum of 2,803 rupees anntla11y, it grew over the years until in 1866 the reinos had
defaulted to the/tune of 60,000 rupees or double the totality of Budget receipts of Timor and twenty times
over their annual fixed assessment. In Pelissier 's acerbic comment, "What better demonstration of the
absence of Submission to colonial power than the powerlessness of the fisc to facilitate the montagnards to
Page 82
pay up?”8
But this was three years before the Royal edict of 25 February 1869 abolishing slavery in Portugal and
possessions. It remains to be seen what such concessions to metropolitan liberalism this brought the
Timorese!
Rebellion of 1861
In 1861, almost immediately after de Castro's new -rationalization came into effect, the petty kingdoms of
Laclo, and Ulmera, both near Dili, revolted. Governor de Castro met these rebellions with force. It also
happens that, thanks to Governor de Castro's penchant for setting the record straight, the 1861 revolt
remains one of the best documented, although it is also the case that on the question of causation, the
governor is less forthcoming. In de Castro's words, not a ripple disturbed the tranquillity of the colony when
in January 1861 he left for Java to "recuperate". The following month, however, Duarte Leao Cabreira,
appointed Governor ad interim, learnt of the default by workers on public works project in a reino to the
west of Dili, signalling an act of insubordination, albeit a form of Passive resistance. The following month
news was received in Dili of Preparations for war on the part of the reino of Laclo situated about 40
kilometres east of Dili astride strategic communications between the capital and Manatuto. An emissary wa
then dispatched to enquire about dissatisfaction provoked by a certain lieutenant colonel. The spark, which
ignited rebellion, according to de Castro, was the provocative actions of a veteran Portuguese sergeant
killed and decapitated after entering enemy territory. 9
On 6 April Governor de Castro staged a timely return and assumed command.
He did not return empty-handed from the Dutch colony. This was a time of rare good relations between the
ancient adversaries and de Castro brought with him some badly needed weapons and ammunition. Cabreira
a veteran soldier in the colony, expert on Timor affairs, and also one of the pioneers of coffee plantation,
was dispatched to Manatuto to establish a base of operations against Laclo while the Governor sought to
rally the loyal reino of Liquisa to advance on Ulmera, leading centre of rebellion located some 15 kilometre
west of Dili. But even when Cabreira installed himself in Manatuto one and a half months later, he could
only rely upon forces from Vermasse. Manatuto's sympathies were with Laclo, and, in the west, a number
of reinos, especially including Maubara recently retroceded from the Dutch, held common cause with
Ulmera.10
On 10 June the Governor called down a state of emergency in Dili and distributed arms to citizens while
preparing Dili's defences. So drastic was the situation that even the Capitao China was called upon to "arm
all Chinese, their children and their slaves". 11
The Governor could also handily call upon the support of 40 jundus or Indian soldiers, exiled to Timor
following their defection from British forces after the Sepoy rebellion of 1857.12
Although de Castro had taken the pre caution of calling upon reinforcements from Goa in the form of troop
and sup plies, he knew that this would be long in coming.
Taking no chances, and calling upon his close contacts in the neighbouring colony, de Castro requested
reinforcements from the Dutch authorities in the Moluccas. In a rare gesture of intra-colonial collaboration
in this part of the world, the Governor General in Batavia authorized the dispatch of the steam corvette
Citadelle d'Anvers, arriving in Dili on 22 June. Although the request for troops was declined, the
demonstration effect of this new type of Naval power was salutary. After three days in Dili, the corvette
moved east along the coast to Manatuto.
The Manatuto camp rallied and drove the rebels from their forward positions. In the event, the battle again
Laclo, first commenced in April, did not conclude until 26 August after a succession of armed assaults on
the part of the colonial columns and running guerrilla warfare on the part of Laclo. Even though the re gent
of Laclo sued for peace, de Castro wished to make an example of This rebel lion by reducing the Laclo
camp to ashes and offering carte blanche to his native retainers to bum, pillage, and collect heads. The state
of Siege on Dili was lifted, and the order du jour sounded publicly by drum and read in loud voice
proclaimed amnesty to surviving rebels who requested mercy and who disposed of their arms.
It only remained for the victorious troops to return to Dili with the bones of the unfortunate sergeant, later
buried with state honours. 13
What is more remarkable in de Castro's account is the kind of Ceremonial triumphalism with which victor
Page 83
was celebrated, even if more battles awaited before the monsoon rains set in. As de Castro lugubriously
describes the scene: "In the middle of the public square, an arch of Triumph was erected, surmounted by
nags and banners, one inscribed with two verses from Cam6es". De Castro himself was installed in a
strategically placed tent from which muttered the nag of Portugal. In front of him filed a guard of honour of
Mountain tribesmen and irregulars. Fifty mounted warriors uttering blood-curdling cries staged a pass-by.
All paused for three hurrahs, one for the King of Portugal, one for the nation of Portugal and one for the
Governor. For the piece de resistance, Timorese women performed a tabedaes dance around the severe
heads of the prisoners (actually only six prisoners and ten severe heads, unusually small for a campaign of
Six months). Such "fantastic" scenes were replayed in the Manatuto camp in honour of the victorious
"cutters of heads". 14
Yet before we condemn de Castro for his apparent acquiescence in barbarity, we should reflect, as seen in a
succeeding chapter, that this bizarre ceremony was also replayed in Dili by Governor Filomeno da Camara
in the age of the Republic.
But no sooner had this stage of the campaign wound up than revolt ignited in the west. Faced with the
quandary of the approaching rains and the matter of fact that Timorese were reluctant to supply warriors at
time when they customarily tended their gardens, de Castro announced that he would personally command
the forces, thus calling upon the loyalty and fidelity of the chiefs to the Crown and its representative in
Timor. On 18 September 1,200 armed native forces assembled on the great square in Dili, the largest
assembly ever seen, Despite setbacks and some indiscipline, the Governor's Party arrived in the reino of the
rebel raja. Now joined by men of Liquisa, the Governor rallied 3,000 men, eventually pressed into a final
assault on rebel headquarters. Taken prisoner, the raja and his son were transported to Dili where another
elaborate surrender ceremony was staged, with the captive raja obliged to kneel before the nag and
governor and obliged to pay heavy indemnities. This was concluded with the inevitable festival of heads.
As de Castro wrote of this rebellion: "Il faut employer la force non-pour tyranniser, mais pour obeir aux loi
et contraindre au travail un peuple indolent". 15
Several months later (March 1862) a corvette arrived in Timor from Macau, too late for the purposes of
crushing the 1861 rebellion, but bringing much needed money and troops, ant helping, in de Castro's words
"to consolidate our domination, to boost the precarious state of our administrative personnel, to favour all
the sources of commerce and industry in our colony". 16
This was an. allusion to the governor's plans to open coffee plantations in each reino, starting especially
with Liquisa and Manatuto. It was in the context of this rebellion that de Castro decided to appoint military
detachments in each district to break the relative autonomy of the kingdoms.
But what was the real cause of this rebellion, involving two peoples, one Tetum speaking and one Mambae
speaking? There seems to be no specific link between the two, unless it was a broad opportunistic push at
driving the malai into the ocean at a time when the Governor was absent from the colony and when colonia
defences did not look impressive. Or, in the case of Ulmera, was it a revolt against the imposition of corvee
as de Castro hints, at a time when the state commenced to place great demands upon locally recruited
corvee labour to conduct public works at Lahane? Or, as Pelissier speculates, was the Ulmera revolt
connected with the actions of Dom Carlos, the liurai of Maubara, who could not even be convinced by a
visiting Dutch warship from Kupang to accept the de jure retrocession of his kingdom back to Portugal? 17
In June 1863, Laga in the Makassai country revolted in what may be regarded as part of the great revolt of
Laclo. In retaliation, colonial forces dispatched by Governor Jose Manuel Pereira de Almeida destroyed the
population centre of the revolt. These actions, led by a "battle experienced corporal" resulted in the capture
of the rebel chief of Laclo, one of the original instigators of the 1861 rebellion. But this Governor lasted
only one year of his term, otherwise forced to withdraw from the colony two months before his successor
could arrive in the face of a revolt by the guard over nonpayment of Salaries and opposition to his alleged
dictatorial attitude. In a sequel to this affair, European and Timorese members of the Batalhao Defensor
mutinied against an inner circle of Goanese officials, killing an Indian alferes, the Capitao China, and
driving the Indians to Batugede.18
Until incoming Governor J. Eduardo da Costa Meneses arrived in 1864, the colony was governed by a
council comprised of the commander of the garrison, judge, and head of customs and mission. A former
Governor of Sao Tome, Costa Meneses sought to solve the financial crisis, the catalyst behind the rebellion
by taking out a loan with the Governor General of the Netherlands Indies. Virtually deserting office by
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returning to Lisbon on sick leave, the Governor was arraigned before a court for abusing his privileges on
the loan question. He died during the enquiry.19
The British traveller Bickmore, who visited Dili a few months after this event, learnt that, passing through
Macassar on the way home, the hapless Governor had no means to pay his passage back to Europe.20
It was lea to Governor Francisco Teixeira da Silva to redress the deleterious effect caused by the mutiny, by
annulling the promotions and salary increases brought down by his predecessor.21
Later, it was the turn of -Fatumasse to revolt and, in turn, to be put down. In this operation the colonial
forces were assisted by the regulo of Ermera.22
The following year the Portuguese Chamber of Deputies heard a harrowing account of the state of affairs in
Timor as presented by the Minister of State for Marine and Overseas Affairs:
These repeated uprisings and raids require that we arrange ourselves in a situation which might facilitate th
fulfilment of the obligations contracted on receiving sovereignty and dominion over the country. It is
important to pay serious attention to toning down the customs of the natives in progressively modifying the
cruelty of their practices, in moulding them to our ways, in instilling in them respect for the laws, above all
in confronting them with loving Catholic instruction [amoravel catechese catholica] so potent a course for
those crudities and cruelties, and so essentially useful.23
Citing de Araujo, Lawson observes that in 1865 the military troops of Governor Teixeira da Silva were
attacked by Timorese fighters in Cotubaba on the north coast and within the Batugede military district.
Meanwhile, the major reinos of Cova and Balibo also joined forces and revolted. In response, the coastal
areas of the colony then under revolt were bombarded by the thirteen-gun steam corvette, Sa de
Bandeira.24
Clearly, this action represented a new balance of forces in the colony with the technological means for
victory changing in favour of the European power, at least in the coastal districts. Yet, as seen below,
despite the obvious technological superiority of the Portuguese, such kingdoms as Cova managed to stay
independent into this century. In any case, the Portuguese presence was still very thin on the ground and
largely concentrated in the northern littoral. The south coast remained virtually uncharted territory, at least
until the final conquest of 1912.
Rebellion in Vemasse, Lermean and Saniry (1867)
As observed in August 1867 by Governor Teixeira da Silva, the people of Vemasse, a reino on the
northeast coast including Laga in the Makassai country, rebelled against Lalcia in the way of Staging a
siege or encirclement. The Governor, accompanied by a force of Soldiers joined by "guards" supplied by
friendly reinos of Montael, Hera, Laculo, and Manatuto, marched on the scene of revolt, lifted the siege,
and ended the standoff. This was done by replacing the reino of Vemasse, the main cause of Vemasse's
grievances, by his deputy who swore allegiance to Portugal and signed a bond of good relations with the
people and his neighbours. The Governor also persuaded the near "independent" reinos of Futoro and
Saran to pledge allegiance, 25
Although as subsequent history proved, such pledges secured under duress of ten proved spurious.
Fifteen years later, however, disputes between the regulos of Laleila and Vemasse again dared up. This
time the blame was placed at the feet of the commander of the military district of Vemasse who was
dismissed for negligence.
The anthropologist Forman writes that the incorporation of the Makassai only took place in the last decade
of the nineteenth century. According to local lore, the ancestors to heirs to the princedom of Letemumo
arrived in the Vemasse region from Larantuca via Oecusse in the expectation that the Portuguese would
establish their capital in the area. A century later, in this version, they were rewarded by the Portuguese
when one Don Domingos da Costa Freitas, alias Gali Kai, a Galoli speaker, was made "little king" of
Vemasse. Along with certain paraphernalia of office, he was accorded right to tribute from the inhabitants
of his kingdom. While, as explained above, this pact with the Portuguese evidently broke down with the
rebellion of 1867, two years later, Gali Kai's son, Don Francisco da Costa Freitas, a native aide de camp of
the Governor, was named head of the kingdom of Baucau, which incorporated the Makassai of the north
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coast. In turn, his son-in-law, Tomas de Costa Soares, was elevated to the "little king of Letumumo in the
same year.
Forman explains that although the "little king" system was done away with at the turn of the century, Dom
Francisco retained the prestige of his office until his death in 1922, then assumed by Dom Tomas, until his
death in 1929.26
In what was described in an official Portuguese report as an anti-tax rebellion-and there is no need to doub
that description- the Kingdom of Lermean, speakers of Kemac, rebelled against Portuguese authority in
early 1867. At that time Lermean was a reino in the central part of the island, notiona11y under the military
command of Maubara. In an unequal demonstration of Military prowess, Governor Teixeira da Silva called
upon military power to crush the rebellion. In the resulting battle that saw a 48-hour defence by the rebels
against overwhelming fire-power, 15 villages were occupied and burned. While Timorese casualties are not
mentioned in this report, the Portuguese side suffered two killed and eight wounded. The captured lands
were then partitioned out to neighbouring kingdoms. The report continued, "the example being set, the chie
of the Kingdom of Artessabe [Atsabe] -it was hoped- would also render vassalage and pay taxes". 27
In 1868 the Portuguese dispatched a military force to Saniry (Sanir) whose reino refused to pay taxes. Sanir
also speakers of Kemak, were notionally tributary to Balibo and came under the Batugede military
command.
Rebellion in Cova (1868)
Rebellion in Cova had evidently been simmering for many years and was deemed sufficiently threatening
to the status quo in the colony that in the course of 1868 a major exercise in military power was required to
pacify the disputed area. This also occurred on Governor Teixeira da Silva's watch, although carried on by
his successor.
The Tetum-speaking reino of Cova extended its authority to the north coast of the island including parts of
Dutch Timor. One worrying aspect for the Portuguese must have been that the rebels in Cova were joined
by a number of regulos from the west and from die interior who had otherwise sworn loyalty to Holland. A
this juncture, Governor Teixeira da Silva declared martial law in Dili, and proceeded to organize a
considerable force to storm the rebels. The fort at Batugede, otherwise located in Cova domains, was
mobilized to serve as centre of Military operations.28
On 20 August 1868, Portuguese forces attacked and destroyed three fortified settlements located within the
rebel kingdom. Led by regular forces dispatched from Dili, and backed by irregulars from Manatuto,
Viqueque, and Luca, under the command of the "loyal" regent of Manatuto, the Portuguese attacked the
rebel headquarters with bombs and rockets indicting heavy Casualties while sustaining one killed and one
wounded on their side. 29
That was not the end of the story, however. Within the month, the Portuguese forces were obliged to retrea
to the security afforded by Batugede. As described in the official report, "well-entrenched rebel fortes
indicted a punishing eighty-three casualties, including chief of the Laclo irregulars". Governor Teixeira da
Silva responded to this debacle by dispatching two howitzers and two campaign pieces, a reinforcement of
1,200 men drawn from die regular any, the loyal moradores, and atom the loyal reinos of Barique, Laleia,
Ermera, Cailaco, and Alas. The strategy he planned was to move on Cova in a pincer movement deploying
800 men to the north of Batugede, with the balance deployed in another direction.30
A month later, the Cova campaign was declared "unfinished". This time, additional forces were called upon
From Oecusse, Ambeno, Cailaco, and Ermera with a view to assembling at Batugede before delivering a
decisive blow to the rebels. 31
Defeat of the rebel forces was never in doubt, however. All that remained for the colonial power was to
finesse the victory. This was to be achieved both ceremonially and symbolically. On the appointed day in
May 1871, the then Governor of the colony, Joao Climaco de Carvalho, arrived with entourage in Batugede
for a rendezvous with the Queen of Cova and the Queen of Balibo, who had sided with the former in the
rebellion. As the Governor wrote before the event, the "submission" ceremony was to be held with the
"greatest possible solemnity...and customary formalities". But, while the Queen of Balibo and entourage
showed up at the appointed time on 29 May, the formidable Queen of Cova, Dona Maria Pires, made no
such appearance. While the Queen of Balibo fell in line with Portuguese demands, it is clear that the terms
Page 86
of "vassalage" dictated by the victors were unremitting. This is revealed by the text of the submission signe
and pledged by the Queen of Balibo, Dona Maria Michaelia Doutel da Costa, at Batugede on 1 June 1871.
On this occasion the traditional leader of Balibo expressed her repentance for "disobedience" to Dom Luiz
I, King of Portugal, swore upon the Holy Gospels "vassalage, fidelity and obedience" to the King and his
legitimate representatives in Timor, swore "to Pay the taxes of the kingdom", and pledged "to give help in
war, and to render whatever other service may be ordered of Me by the same Sirs Governors". 32
In fact, it was not until early 1881 that the Governor of Timor could categorically inform Macau that the
Kingdom of Cova had submitted to Portuguese authority. An interesting gloss on the modus operandi of
Native forces alongside colonial regulars in quelling the Cova rebellion is supplied by the Captain of the
corvette Sa da Bandeira that arrived in Dili on 20 April 1870 after an eventful voyage from Macau via
Surabaya. In seeking to explain the 1868 debacle of Cotubaba, 9 which brought down "disrespect and
discredit upon Portuguese authority", this report observed that the native auxiliaries were only offered
gunpowder and some arms and were otherwise lacking in materials except those which they may have
acquired at their own cost one can imagine the disciplinary consequences of the requirement which obliged
them to forage for their own food. Further, according to the report, "for the most part, the regulos of Timor
were linked by barlaques or pagan marriages". Thus the irony should not be lost that "the Portuguese are at
war with a regulo who is a vassalo mano of another; that the other one gives us men for the war, but gives
as many or more to his ally. Thus it frequently occurs that men from the same regulo are in both camps; and
it is easy to imagine how they resolve the difficulty: when it comes to the point of fighting each other they
fire into the air". As the rapporteur of this account observed, "It is a case of God is good, but the Devil isn't
bad either". 33
Revolt of the Moradores (1887)
Undoubtedly, the Portuguese colony of Timor reached a nadir in 1887 when the hapless Governor Alfredo
de Lacerda e Maia (1885-87) was assassinated by a group of Moradores on 3 March 1887 in an ambush
perpetrated on the road from Dili to Lahane.
Dili was described in the Macau press as in a state of "completo terror". 34
From the time of the founding of Lifau, as mentioned, the military forces in Timor comprised three
elements, the moradores, the Bidau and the Sica, deemed second line I forces. But where the Bidau and the
Sica, as mentioned, resided with their families in a distinct quarter of Dili, and even spoke a particular
creolized version of Portuguese, the moradores were native Timorese raised as levees. They were neither
salaried, uniformed, or offered provisions. They were recruited from loyal reinos in numbers proportional t
their population. In the 1880s die moradores were divided between Dili, Batugede with a detachment of 70
and Manatuto with a detachment of 56.
At the time of the rebellion, the main front line defences of the colony included batalhao defensor force
made up of 100 to 150 European soldiers to whom answered an equal or larger numbers of Indian and
Timorese soldiers.35
The incoming Governor, Ant6nio Joaquim Garcia, was mandated to enquire, prosecute, and imprison those
implicated in the crime. While the motive appears to have been the excesses committed in the name of the
Governor by his secretary, Francisco Ferreira, identification and arrest of the culprits, as opposed to
scapegoats, was not easy. Nor was it easy to disband the moradores, as had been suggested. First, certain
had headed for the hills where mass rallies of armed men were reported in Liquisa and much "agitation" in
the reinos, especially Manatuto. Second, in the absence of genuine public opinion in Timor, Macau, via its
vibrant media, wished to uphold the rule of law and avoid vengeance and dictatorial rule. In the event,
certain of the accused -or scapegoats- were placed aboard the gunboat Rio Lima, dispatched to Macau, and
there imprisoned in the formidable Monte fort. Others, notably Lucas Martins, the regulo of Motael, was
acquitted by the Tribunal or court of Goa, thanks to the "brilliant" defence by a Timorese missionary.36
Needless to say this event shook the Portuguese establishment in Timor more than anything. In the words
of French historian Gabriel Defert, Governor da Lacerda Maia's assassination actually marked the
beginning of an insurrection jointly conducted by numerous liurais but led by Dom Duarte and his son Dom
Boaventura of Manufahi.37
Page 87
Revolt of the Maubara (1893)
Claims on land and tax were also part of the new order of Demands imposed by colonial capitalism in the
periphery. Portuguese Timor by the early decades of this century was no exception to this axiom.
According to Dunn, rebellion in Timor in the modern period stemmed from a general decline in political
and economic conditions. Specifica11y, most of the native rulers reacted angrily to attempts by Governor
Ant6nio Francisco da Costa (1887-88) -successor to the ill-fated Governor Lacerda Maia- to assert a tighter
military and administrative control over the land, especially by the introduction of a more effective tax
collection. The revolt of the Maubara commencing in 1893 during the watch by Governor Cipriano Forjaz
(1891-94) was a case in point. The Maubara, one of the most important kingdoms to the west of Dili,
unleashed a series of uprisings that devastated much of the central section of the colony.38,
In this affair, according to Esparteiro, a Portuguese military historian, the regulo of Maubara, in full
rebellion, attacked the postos of Dare and Fatuboro and killed several troops of the guard. He then
proceeded to offer up the captured territory to the Dutch. At this point the government once again called
upon the gunboat, Diu.
Leaving Macau on 13 June, the Diu arrived of Dili eight days later, having made a course across the South
China Sea through the Sulu and Moluccas straits. Decades earlier such a rapid response would of Course
have been impossible. Within short time the Diu launched a naval bombardment on Fatuboro. Equipped
with Krupp cannons and rapid-firing Hotchkiss guns, the Diu made short work of a rebel counter-attack.
The process was repeated off Dare, but, in this case, a landing party, comprising 37 African soldiers, 220
men of Liquisa, 60 men of Maubara, 96 moradores and 204 others, succeeded in lowering the Dutch nag
and restoring Portuguese authority. Meantime, early the following month, Manuel de Azevedo Gomes,
captain of the Diu who also held the position of commander of the Macau naval station, issued an ultimatum
in the name of the King of Portugal, addressed to the r6gulo of Atabai, also in revolt. The demonstration
effect of the onslaught on Maubara was evidently salutary as on 14 July the regulo of Atabai swore
allegiance to the Portuguese authority as well as to Cotubaba and, accordingly, agreed to pay up various
indemnities in the form of Money, buffaloes, and pigs, to both Cotubaba and the Portuguese, as appropriate
The Diu, having made its statement with blood, withdrew as dramatically as it arrived, in the direction of th
Flores Sea, arriving back in Macau on 2 August.39
The macabre result of the Maubara massacre was recorded with rare candour by Jose da Silva, head of the
newly created Dili branch of the Macau and Timor health service. Noting the correspondence between the
putrefying animal and human corpses strewn around Maubara and the sudden incidence of Cholera in the
colony, nor just Maubara but also Tibar, Atapupu and Alor, he commented that, just like the colonial wars
fought by the Dutch in Sumatra (against the Padris and the Acehnese) and the British in Egypt, so it was
probable that the cholera epidemic then current in Timor had its direct origins in the military campaign
against Maubara.40
Guerra de Manufahi (1894)
After a veritable roulette of Governors, the situation of anarchy and economic devastation was inherited by
incoming Governor Celestino da Silva (1894-1908), by which time the banner of rebellion had been taken
up for the Timorese by Don Boaventura of Same (Manufahi). 41
Lawson observes that military and administrative measures taken by Governor Celestino da Silva were
eventually decisive in Portugal's attempts to gain full territorial control over the colony. As a matter of
Course, the governor increased the number of Military posts and launched numerous "carnages" in his
pacification war on certain kingdoms.42
These took the form of three major offensives; in October 1894 against Lamaquitos, Agassa, Volguno and
Luro-Bote; in March 1895 against Fatumane, Fohorem, Lalaba, Cassabau, Calalo, Obulo and Marabo, and
the most intractable, that mounted in August 1895, directed against the reino of Manufahi. It is notable that
under Celestino's rules the terms of vassalage of a number of rebel reinos was drawn up. These included,
besides Maubara (November 1893), Hera and Dailor (January 1894), Fatumane (September 1895), and
Boebau and Luca (April 1896).
These ritualized documents sworn in the name of the King of Portugal, cannot always be taken at face
Page 88
value, especially when they were signed under duress. Nor did such written documents guarantee that
resistance would not be continued in other forms on other occasions. Lawson observes that in 1895 the
kings of Manufahi, Raimean, and Suai united various population groups or kingdoms by means of Blood
pact. Citing de Araujo, she continues that, meanwhile, the king of Manufahi, Dom Duarte, sent his son,
Dom Boaventura to Cailaco, Atsabe, Balibo and other kingdoms to find support for a large scale revolt the
kingdom of Manufahi, attacked from three sides by colonial forces along with some 12,000 Timorese, held
off, at least until 1896 when the colonial power succeeded in taking several strategic positions.43
The cost of victory was not cheap. On the one hand, the Batugede fort was temporarily occupied by rebels
from Fatumean at a time when the local garrison was called upon to defend other sectors. On the other
hand, as the Macau archives reveal, in July 1896 Celestino da Silva requested Macau to pay 15,000-20,000
patacas to cover the cost of Munitions used against the rebels. War, Celestino da Silva lectured his
metropolitan audience in a report written in 1896, is very different in Timor compared to other colonies,
"unique" even alongside the African colonies.
Specifically, he referred to unique topography, and the unique character of the Timorese. A narrow coastal
plain giving way to an extraordinary mountainous topography inhibits the transport of Munitions while
combat took the form of a series of running assaults mounted from fortified positions on mountain heights
Where European forces soon wilted under the suffocating heat, Timorese warriors easily survived on a dail
ration of Com, rice and water. The ability of the Timorese to form alliances of conveniences among the
different reino, he considered a major military problem. And while Portuguese were regarded as eternal
foreigners or malai, so were the moradores considered malai-meta. While Celestino blamed the Chinese of
a tapupu and other smugglers for inflaming the rebellions, it is hard to attribute a single cause to this long
simmering sequence of rebellions. But, he counselled, the avoidance of future wars depended upon the
calibre of the military and civilian officials as well as the good works of the missionades.44
There is also the sense that Celestino was about setting the record straight for posterity, or at least in
heading off his detractors, whom, as we shall see, went for his jugular. The other side of Celestino's
pacification mission was of course his desire to open up the country for exploitation of what he recognized
was its vast potential as a plantation production and export base for coffee grown on its good soils with
docile and cheap labour. As a way of overcoming what he called the natural "indolence" of the native, it
was imperative that the government open up schools in various parts of the country to teach the basics of
agriculture science.45
Needless to say, Timorese casualties in these African-style pacification campaigns were enormous.
Eventually, in 1900, facing a general massacre) having lost the support of Defeated allies, and suffering
from an evident cholera epidemic, the kingdom of Manufahi surrendered. While certain colonial opinion
believed this victory a decisive blow for the pacification of the colony, in 1902 the Portuguese were again
confronted with rebellions in Ainaro, and with rebellions breaking out in Letefoho, Aileu (1903), Quelicai
(1904), and Manufahi again in 1907.46
Meanwhile, as discussed in the following chapter, the fintas were replaced by a per capita tax to be paid in
cash, the nonplus ultra for the implantation of a truly colonial economy. In a further administrative
rationalization aimed at reducing the authority of the liurai, the Portuguese intervened in the area of conflic
resolution, taking the matter out of the hands of the liurai and placing all judicial questions in the hands of
Colonial authority.47
Conclusion
Teofilo Duarte, Governor of Timor from 1926-28, wrote of Governor Celestino da Silva's expeditions
against rebel forces as involving "an enormous expense of Money and the adoption of Special precautions"
unknown even in other colonies.
Notably, Celestino da Silva's special method involved large scale operations drawing upon large numbers o
forces deployed over large distances without the benefit of Such modern means of communication as the
telegraph or telephone.48 Yet it is also clear that, beginning with Governor Celestino da Silva, the time-old
balance between the praca or establishment, and coalitions of Loyal vassals, was radically altered under a
new doctrine which saw the state definitely going over to a version of Pacification on the African model. T
restate the problem from the perspective of colonial logic, without the raising of Primitive capital, colonial
Page 89
capitalism could not work. But therein lay the dilemma for the European colonizer, the more the recalcitran
native cum labourer cum wage earner was pushed into an alien work regime and cultural milieu, the more
he or she resisted. History is replete with examples of rebel heroes thrown up by the clash of cultures and
the forces unleashed by world incorporation, albeit imperfect in the case of Timor. Yet worse was to come
for the isolated Lusitanian outpost.
It should also be recalled that not all warfare in Timor was anti-colonial or anti-malai. According to the
anthropologist Schulte Nordholte, while the roots of conflict in Timor invariably stemmed from
"historically-grown hostility", the immediate causes of war also arose from disputes over borderland in turn
arising from conflicting claims over sandal trees with bird's nests or areca palms. Thus, between 1760 and
1782, the Mold and the Miomafo of south central Dutch Timor clashed over gold-mining, while, between
1864-70 the Sonbai and Amfoan Sorbean of the Kupang princedom clashed over the issue of a reca palms.
Cattle raiding and unwi11ingness to give up tribute-paying territory were also causes of conflict. As Schult
Nordholt writes, and a theme taken up in the conclusion: "it is clear from the whole of the background of
warfare that there must always have been head hunting raids". Indeed observes, many Timorese alive in
1946 had participated in headhunting. Nevertheless, he continues, "It is impossible to say anything definite
in respect of Wars in which various princedoms formed alliances against others, because the large scale wa
waged during the past few centuries had much to do with foreigners who had settled on the coasts of Timor
and therefore are beyond the scope of autochtonous structures". 49
Notes
1. Yvette Lawson, "East Timor: Roots Continue to Grow: A Provisional Analysis of Changes in Foreign
Domination and the Continuing Struggle for freedom and Independence", University of Amsterdam,
August 1989.
2. R6ne Pelissier, Timor en Guerre, Le Crocodile et les Portugais (1847-1913), Pelissier, Orgeva11996.
See figures, p. 64.
3.Ibid.p.65.
4. Affonso de Castro, As possessoes portuguesas na oceania, Imprensa Nacional, Lisboa, 1867.
5. Pelissier, Timor en Guerre.
6. Luna de Oliveira, Timor na historia de Portugal, Agencia Geral das Coldnias, cited in Lawson, "East
Timor".
7. Ibid.
8. Pelissier, nmor en Guerre, pp. 65-6 citing de Castro, Aspossessoesportuguesas na oceania, Imprensa
Naciona1, Lisboa, 1867, p. 378.
9. Affonso de Castro, "Une rebellion a Timor en 1861", Tjdschrlji voorlndische Taalland-en Volkenkunde,
Vo113, 1864, pp. 389-409. ,
10.Ibid.
1 I. Teofilo Duarte, Timor: Ante-Camara do lnjTernof amalicao, Lisboa, 19BO, p. 227.
12. Pelissier, nmor en Guerre, p. 45.
13. de Castro, "Une rebellion".
14. Ibid., and Pelissier, nmor en Guerre, p.47/
15. rbid., p. 409.
16. Ibid.
17. Pilissier, 27mor en Guerre, pp. 43-59.
18. Ibid., pp. 50-58.
19. Ibid.
20. Teofilio Duarte, Timor: Ante-Camara do Inferno?I, Famalicao, Lisboa, 1930, p. 27, and see Albert S.
Bickmore, Travels in the East Indian ArchlPelago, D. Appleton and Co,, New York, 1869, p. 122.
21. Pelissier, Timor en Guerre, p. 58.
22. BGM, Vo1.X, No.28, 11 July 1864.
23. "Reporton Affairs Overseas presented to the Chamber of Deputies by the Minister of State for Marine
and Overseas Affairs, BPMT, 11 July 1864. Translation by Kevin Sherlock.
24. Abilio d'Araujo, TTimor Leste.. Os Loricos Voltaram a Cantar: Das Guerras lndependendistas a
Page 90
Revolucao do Povo Maubere, Lisboa, 1977 cited in Lawson, "East Timor: Roots Continue to Grow".
25. BMPT, Vol.XIII, No.13, August 1867.
26. Shephard Forman, "Politics during CQlonial Times: The Quelicai Region", Timor Information Service
No.24, April 1978.
27 BMPT, Vo1.XIV, No.4, 27 January 1868.
28. BMPT, 7 September 1868.
29. BMPT, 26 October 1868.
30. BMPT, 9 November 1868.
31. BMPT, 7 December 1868. This campaign also saw a judgement)fought down in Macau on 22 May I
870 against five Portuguese soldiers for -despotism, night and abandonment of Post", a reference to
questionable actions taken on 2 November 1868 in escaping the theatre of Battle by sea and leaving their
comrades to face the rebels without powder or shot [BPMT, Vol XVI, No.22, 30 May 1879 and BMPT,
Vo1. XVI, 12 September 1870, Supp.No.37].
32. BMPT, Vol.XVIII, No.27, 3 July 1871.
33. "Voyage of the Corvette Sa de Bandeira to Timor", BMPT, No.49 of 1870.
34. See articles in A Voz de Crente (Macau), 24 March, 5 April, 30 April, 24 December 1887 and 24
March1888.
35. Pelissier, Timor en Guerre, pp. 106110.
36. A Vozdo Crente, op. cit.
37. Gabriel DefTert, Timor EstI Le Genocide Oublie Droit d'un peuple et raisons d'Etat, L'Harmattan,
Paris, 1992, p. 284.
38. James Dunn, Timor: A People Betrayed, Jacaranda Press, Milton, 1983, p. 19.
39. jhtonio Marques Esparteiro, "A Canhoneira (Diu' e a Guerra de Timor", Boletim Geral das Col6nias,
Ano XXVI, No.309, Mar de 1951, pp. 2-47.
40. BGPMT, No.11894, p. 3.
41. Abilio de Araujo, Timor Leste, pp. 198-9, cited in Lawson, "East Timor: Roots Continue to grow".
42. Ibid.
43. Ibid. .
44. Governor [Celestino da Silva], Relatdrio das Operac6es de Guerra no Districto Autonomo de Timor no
Anno de 1896, Imprensa Nacional, Lisboa, 1897, and see version in Boletim da Agencia Geral das
Coldnias, No.23, Maio de 1927, pp. 89-loo.
45. Ibid.
46. Lawson, "Roots Continue to Grow".
47. Ibid.
48. Teoflo Duarte, Timor: Ante-Camara do inferno!?, pp. 42-49. .
49. H.G. Schulte-Nordholt, The Political System of the Antoni, Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, 1971, pp.
317, 328, 346
9
Revolt of the Manufaistas
There is no question that the- revolutionary process in Portugal culminating in 1910 with the ousting of the
monarchy and the establishment of a republic was matched in Timor by a degree of violence even
unanticipated during the reign of "King" Celestino da Silva. This is a reference to the revolt of the
Manufaistas also known after its principal leader as the Boaventura rebellion of 1911-12, perhaps the most
costly in terms of Blood and treasure yet mounted in Timor. But, as various analysts have questioned, was
this rebellion of a different calibre to those which preceded it? Was it merely a reaction to paying the
head-tax, was it a backward looking rebellion in the attempt to drive away the malai and to restore feudal
privileges, or did it carry with it what might be called proto-nationalist assumptions, especially in the way
that certain of the Dili-based letrado (learned or lettered) made common cause with the erstwhile primitive
Page 91
rebels? It is also the case that, while this rebellion remains poorly researched, the quality of Colonial
documentation, in the form of Newspaper reports, eye witness accounts and official missives is superior, at
least in quantity, compared to those of earlier periods.1
Timor and the Advent of the Republic (1910)
In Timor, as in Macau, the drama associated with the news of the proclamation of the Republic in October
1910 met, correspondingly, with strong opposition in certain quarters leading to the resignation in both
colonies of the governor and, in both cases, to the expulsion of the Jesuit missionaries.2
Unlike in Macau, however, where the Chinese populations were preoccupied with the climactic events
surrounding the Chinese revolution of 1911, in Timor, native responses to the seemingly inexplicable end t
the Portuguese monarch were bound to redound upon public security. In one version, news of the end of
the monarchy and proclamation of the Republic in all of Portugal and its colonies was first heard in Dili in
the form of rumour spread by an itinerant Australian. The matter was confirmed of T1cially via telegram on
7 October and, the following day, via the Portuguese cruiser S. Gabriel, then in Darwin harbour. On 30
October, Governor Alfredo Cardoso Soveral Martins, who nevertheless was obliged to relinquish his own
office, formally proclaimed the advent of the Republic in the Province of Timor before an assembled
audience of high officials, church, military, and captains of industry and commerce. The old and venerable
blue and white Royal ensign was run down and the new red and green nag of the Republic was run up to a
21-gun salute. It was not until 5 November that the democratic character of the new order was laid down in
a series of Public orders and pronouncements. As Governor Martins explained with understatement, this
would require certain cosmetic changes such as change of Military uniforms, letterheads on official papers,
forms of address, and, of Course, removal of Symbols and emblems of the Crown.3
One important exception to this rule, as explained in the following chapter, was the expedient measure of
allowing old pataca banknotes embossed with Royal insignia to circulate in Timor right through the
interwar Period.
But Pelissier is correct in his observation that this climactic about-face by the Portuguese administration in
doing away with the symbols of the monarchy was achieved over the heads of the Timorese as if it were an
exclusive matter for metropolitans and civilise. Thus while the officers and functionaries greeted the
proclamation of Die Republic with euphoria, the historic event was matched by the confusion of the liurai.4
Certain among the native population of Timor did not take the change of regime lightly.
For generations the liurai had treated the Royal ensign as a lulic or relic or paraphernalia. There is no
question that this was encouraged by the Portuguese to win the submission of the liurai. As Luna de
Oliveira explains, it was no easy matter for officials of the new regime to explain the revolution and its
goals. Pending the arrival in the colony of the First Governor of the Republic, Filomeno da Camara Melo
Cabra1 (1911-17), certain officials conspired against the Republican ideal. Such a conjuncture also gave
way to native intrigues backed by the Dutch who, allegedly, distributed pictures of Queen Wilhelmina to
inflame Royalist and thus anti-Republican sentiment among certain natives. Whatever the case, the Dutch
saw opportunity in this confused situation to strike a coup in the disputed territory of Lakmaras, otherwise
backed by armed European and Javanese forces.5
Pelissier explains that the instability in Dili also reflected the absence of clear instructions from Lisbon.
Governor Martins departed Dili early November 1910 after the unfortunate death of his wife and his
position was temporarily filled by his secretary, Captain Anselmo Augusto Coelho de Carvalho, in turn
replaced on 22 December by Captain Jose Carrazedo de Sousa Caldas Vianna e Andrade. But it was the
expulsion orders against the missionaries which also added an element of confusion, especially in Timor
where the priests were also considered a kind of Lulic. Acting on metropolitan orders the Jesuit missionarie
in Soibada were expelled from Dili on 23 December along with a score of Cannosians. Pelissier explains
that while Soibada was taken over by other missionaries, the deportations created a setback which would
take long years to recover. The anticlerical trend in metropolitan Portugal also found its counterpart in the
setting up in Dili of a number of republican cells and even a masonic lodge, attracting the attentions of
Some Europeans, and assimilated Timorese.6
It is hard to gauge the reaction and even the possible role of the Chinese community in Dili in these
climactic events. But as one Portuguese official observed several years before the advent of the Chinese
Republic, just as the Timor-Macau steamship service had brought with it coolie immigrants from Macau, so
it also carried with it what he described as pig-tailed "oradores-agitadores" (speaker-agitators) fleeing the
Page 92
Manchu repression.7
In any case, as described by a Portuguese visitor to Dili in 1912, he found the Chinese community very wel
organized, supporting not only a clubhouse, the origins of the Associacao Commercial Chineza de Timor,
but a school and a Buddhist temple. Here he witnessed a kind of Parade by high-spirited Chinese youth
singing what he believed could only have been praise for the new China in this year of revolution.8
To be sure, as Pelissier points out, the concepts of equality and equal rights carried in the republican
slogans appeared subversive to local vested administrative interests dominated by metropolitans, Goanese,
and Macanese. In any case, it would be incoming Governor Filomeno da Camara Melo Cabral, who would
stamp his personality on the half-island. As described by Pelissier, Filomeno da Camara, as he was
commonly known in Portuguese writings, was "an energetic but impulsive individual, authoritarian, heady
and over-confident". 9
He also had six years ahead of him, including major outbreaks of rebellion in Suai, followed by revolts in
Bobonaro, Manufahi, Baucau and the east.
Revolt of Don Boaventura of Manufahi (1911-12)
But the most tenacious of the revolts was that led by Dom Boaventura of Manufahi (Manufai), a reino
located on the south coast. Reaching a climax in 1911 the Boaventura or Manufahi rebellion, after the
leader of that name (Don Boav9ntura Was the liurai of Manufahi), eventually took a force of Some 28
Europeans and more than 12,000 other troops to quell, as shown below, an epochal event not only in
Timorese history but in Portuguese colonial history.
Who were the Manufahi and in what sense did this ethnic group manifest their separate identity? Raphael
das Dores in his 1903 dictionary on Timor described the area thus. A south coast reino forming part of the
military district of Alas in line with the rationalization of 1860. With a population of42, 000 and 6,500
houses, its finta obligation was calculated at $96,000 but deemed almost impossible to collect; also known
for its many livestock, including horses and sheep; besides cereals and fruits the district also produced
coffee and tobaccolo.10
According to Osorio de Castro, Manufahi produced the finest quality silver and gold work, including
bracelets for legs or arms. The men also manufactured leather cartridge belts and produced musket shot)
poker-worked bamboo pipes, among other examples of Craft work, 11
Suggesting skills that could also be put to martial ends.
Drawing on official sources, Pelissier has explained that, at the end of October 1911, in response to news
announced by the commander of Suai that the head tax would be increased, a number of Local liurai,
including Boaventura, sought to assemble at Suai to request a remission. Ahead of a threatening situation
the Suai posto was evacuated on 8 December along with several English oil prospectors. A Mozambiquan
soldier, charged with conveying the news to Bobonaro, was killed en route. By 29 December some 1,200
Timorese, including the liurai of Camenassa and entourage, entered the enclave of Maucatar to seek Dutch
protection from certain Portuguese reprisals.12
First European victim of the revolt, as widely acknowledged in Portuguese writing, was Lt. Alvares da
Silva, commander of the Same posto situated in Manufahi reino. On this day, 24 December 1911, seen as
the opening shots of the rebellion, the unfortunate Lieutenant's severe head was presented to his wife,
otherwise spared, but not another four or five Europeans also killed on orders of Boaventura. The prestige
of the colony was obviously at stake. Although telephone lines were cut in certain places, Aileu sounded
the alarm rousing the Governor into almost immediate action.13
Sad Christmas for Dili, writes Pelissier, but more was in store for 1912.l4
What then was the context surrounding the introduction of the new and vexatious tax regime? In 1906, on
the recommendation of Celestino da Silva, the system of fintas that reached back to the first days of
Portuguese contact was replaced with a capitation tax. According to the decree of 13 September 1906, all
heads of Native Timorese families were subject to a tax of 500 reis annually, except for contratados or thos
subject to work contracts and working on agricultural plantations larger than 500 hectares, and those living
in reinos cultivating 500,000 pounds of coffee, cocoa or cotton. The regulos, considered as state
functionaries, received 50 per cent of capitation raised in their reino. Additionally, all reinos with less than
600 heads of family were to be suppressed (although this measure appears not to have been enforced).
Page 93
Liurais were forbidden from collecting any other tribute or tax from subjects, a measure which breached ag
old traditions of community law.
In other words, the reino came to be increasingly identified as a fiscal entity outside of Tradition. Half of th
taxes collected were retained for the disposition of Local military commanders. As Pelissier observes, the
system sought to bring in additional revenue to the government, to impose another layer of administrative
structure over the chiefs while, at the same time, seeing that the cultivator was pushed towards a more
intensive production of Coffee, the wherewithal to find the requisite cash to pay the tax. It is also true, as
Pelissier observes, the system contained built-in weaknesses, namely the absence of an accurate population
census, and the difficulty to implement the new system uniformly. Nevertheless, in 1910, a commission
determined the number of eligible taxpayers at 98,920 heads of family. At this time the number of loyal
reinos stood at 73 or 75. Certain reinos, such as the war zone of Manufahi and those along the frontier,
suffered from diminished populations. 15
In due course, lurid reports of the rebellion entered the pages of Such Australian newspapers as the
Melbourne Argus and the Sydney Morning Herald. As the latter paper reported on 19 February 1912:
The greater part of the island of Timor has revolted. The Ramea tribesmen raided Dili, murdered many
residents and burnt many buildings. Major lngley, Lt.Silva, and several soldiers were killed during the stree
fighting. The heads were cutoff by the rebels and stuck on poles. Government House was looted. 16
While there is an element of hyperbole in this report, Dili was indeed gravely threatened and a number of
European families evacuated. Jaime do lnso, then a second lieutenant aboard the Patria, writes of the grizzly
spectacle of Three human heads found suspended at the Laclo posto some ten minutes from Dili, evidence
of "the repugnant cruelty of a war by primitive people". As such, he was reflecting upon the Timorese funu
the collecting of heads of enemies to be taken back to ancestral domains and exhibited as lulic, accompanie
by a tabedai or dance and "lugubrious" chanting called lorsai.17
Nevertheless, the town was defended by a hastily assembled collection of individuals pending the arrival of
reinforcements from overseas.
In response to urgent requests from Governor Filomeno da Camara, Lisbon ordered the gunboat Patria to
proceed from Macau to Timor. Lisbon also instructed Mozambique to mobilize an additional full company
of troops for duty in the troubled colony. To this end the Portuguese vessel Zaire was charted for the
purpose. A special subvention for expenses incurred in putting down the rebellion was requested by the
Minister of colonies to the Ministry ofFinance.18
According to Pina, a Portuguese military historian, local initiative was immediately taken by the concerned
military commander in Manufahi in attacking rebel positions and securing indispensable positions for futur
attacks. The revolt spread to neighbouring areas leaving plantations abandoned. At this point the colony
disposed 56 European soldiers, along with an artillery section with two sergeants, 18 European soldiers, and
96 Africans. In addition there were the indigenous forces of moradores and arraias or troops of Warriors
with their base in Dili. It should also be recalled that the armament of this force was not exactly impressive
According to ranks a colonial soldier might be equipped with a Remington, a rime of Sorts, or even a
flintlock, and, in the case of the moradores, a catana or cutlass.19
But, paradoxically, Dili was also the centre of the rebellion, at least for dissenting chiefs. It transpires that o
5 October 1911, on the anniversary of the proclamation of the republic, a number of r6gulos and their
respective retinues made camp in the suburbs. It was here, according to do lnso, that the "black eminences"
laid their plans and draw up a conspiracy to murder all Europeans.
The matter seems dubious but he asserts that they lost heart owing to the chance presence in Dili port of an
English merchant ship.20
But to crush the rebellion Filomeno da Camara issued orders to defeat the rebels in the home ground. On 5
January the doughty Governor lea Dili at the head of a column, of200 men comprising 25 Europeans and
moradores for Aileu win the view to establishing a base of operations to convince the population as to the
futility of revolt. Along the way the party was joined by loyal arraias. Another objective was to stave off
attack on the capital itself. Three weeks of campaigning during this season of rains wrested back large
swathes of Territory to Portuguese control, yet it became clear to die Governor that his numerically weaker
forces were badly expose the then began boosting his forces to 2,070 irregulars, 264 moradores, 65 first line
Page 94
soldiers and eight officers, albeit insufficient for the task. 21
It is clear that in determining his strategy Filomeno da Camara arrived at a clear understanding as to die
localized character of the revolt as much the balance of Power between loyal and disloyal reinos. Such
knowledge, as much the ability to play off loyalists against dissenters, had been a feature of Portuguese rule
in Timor down through the centuries. But in precipitously rushing into the filly, Filomeno took grave risks.
Would opposition to the head tax present him with a generalized rebellion? Would erstwhile rivals among
the reinos make common cause with the kind of anti-malai sentiment being put about in Dili, with the
evident connivance of assimilado elements? There were many unknowns in this situation, but it is clear that
Filomeno saw precipitous action as die Way to Pre-empt longer term problems.
Filomeno da Camara was, however, fortunate in the support of Suru, otherwise pacified in 1900, as this
strategically located reino assured vital lines of communication between the north coast and the south. In
1907, Suru had been under the jurisdiction of the reino of Atsabe, but in this year, Naicau, die-leading chief
of Suru, sought independence from Atsabe. This was granted and Naicau assumed the function of regulo of
Suru, an interior kingdom straddling the heights of Tatamailau, and bordering upon Manufahi to the east
and south. So when Boaventura's forces attacked the Ainaro posto, it was Naicau who sounded the alarm
and rallied to its defence. 22
Fortunately for the colony the gunboat Patria arrived on 6 February after a long passage via Singapore and
Surabaya, where it had been delayed by the monsoon.
Some days later (11 February) a European company from India (the Companhia Europeia da India) arrived
via Macau aboard the English steamship St.Albans bringing 75 men, around half European. Again, in a
show of imperial solidarity, another English ship, the Aldenam, arrived four days later disembarking the 8th
Companhia lndigena de Mogambique.23
The campaign continued through February to May without let up, without regard to the season or the
harassment by the rebels. Meanwhile, the rebels opened up another front in Oecussi, although it is hard to
see any coordination in the rebellions across the island on the part of the Timorese. Meanwhile, as describe
by do lnso, Governor Filomeno da Camara divided his forces into four armed columns5 With the goal of
isolating the reino of Manufai, seen as the headquarters of the rebels, although this operation also entailed
the suppression of the neighbouring rebel reinos of Raimean, Cailaco, Bibisusso, Alas and Toriscai. The
main column, with its base at Maubesse, was commanded by the Governor at the head of 20 Europeans,
200 Africans, 500 moradores and arraias, a grand total of 4,000 forces, also handily equipped with a Krupp
BM75L The second column proceeding from Soibada, armed with a Nordenfeldt machinegun, comprised
an Indian company along with some hundreds of Moradores. The third column, with its base at Suro,
comprised two Europeans, 70 Africans and 200 moradores armed with one machine gun. The fourth, a
Lying column from the Dutch border, comprised 100 moradores.24
Even though, it appears, D. Boaventura sued for peace, the Governor, scenting victory, pushed ahead with
the military campaign. Who was Boaventura? What part did leadership play in this rebellion? It is importan
that Boaventura was the eldest son of Dom Duarte who, seven years earlier, was leader of the Manufahi
rebellion. Pelissier observes other characteristics linking father and son. Both had entered into bonds with
other liurais in their rebellion against the Portuguese, and both had close contacts with the world of the
assimilado, certain of them members of the Masonic lodge in Dili. Certain of this circle, which also include
some moradores, had secretly given gunpowder and balls to the rebels. Why? As Pelissier offers, these wer
"egalitarian illusions" born out of the Republic on the part of the assimilados, and alliances and
circumstances on the part of the Timorese who looked back to a precolonial situation.25
Eventually, on 27 May, the rebels mounted a heroic stand in the mountains of Cablac (2362 m.), a place of
Plunging ravines and high rocky crags or pedras.
Here, the rebels constructed a tranqueira of Wood and stonework as a way of reinforcing their "natural
fortress", all in all suggesting sophisticated organization and military skills.26
This was also a zone of Mist and rain, and, in the Timorese context, unimaginable cold. Certain of the
rebels also sought refuge in underground grottoes and caves. Cornered in an area of 35 sq km. in the Riac
and Leo-Laco redoubts, the rebels vowed to fight to the finish rather than surrender. By this point Filomeno
da Camara deployed 8,000 irregulars, 647-second line forces, 500 First line forces and 34 officers,
undoubtedly the largest foreign forces ever assembled in Timor up until that time.27
Lawson continues that more than 12,000 men, women, and children retreated to Leo-Laco Mountain,
Page 95
where they became encircled by colonial troops.
But, when they tried to break through the encirclements, more than 3,000 were killed in what must have
been a grisly massacre. Don Boaventura succeeded in escaping, but one month later he surrendered to the
colonial authorities.28
By April, the guns of the Patria had put to night the last remaining rebellious elements still emboldened to
confront the Portuguese forces. But while the services of the Patria were also required in Macau in this year
of revolution in China, military reinforcements were again ordered to Timor the following month as the
rebellion simmered on. The actions of the Patria under the command of Gago Coutinho in bombing
Boaventura's forces in their south coast stronghold are told in some detail by a participant, Jaime do lnso. A
this young naval officer observed of actions off Betano, the noise of artillery as much the random havoc
created lent both psychological and military advantage to the Portuguese side. The Patria, also bringing
much-needed arms and supplies, enabled the Portuguese infantry to encircle Boaventura and to take
thousands of Prisoners-of War, as he termed them. According to de lnso) although he offers no
embellishment, a single bombardment on the residence of the Queen of Betano, in the act of Convening a
convocation of Local chiefs, resulted in the deaths of around 1000 Timorese. That was not the end of the
story, however. Through most of 1912 the Patria was pressed into action in such diverse locales as Oecusse
Baucau and Quilicai, demonstrating, in Jolliffe's words, "the breadth of the rebellion", 29
Or more accurately, rebellions, as these disparate uprisings were highly localized and there was no apparen
common cause aside from a breakdown in the age-old pact between natives and foreign rulers, although thi
statement, too, is subject to more investigation.
We know less from the colonial record of the military tactics of Boaventura.
But, at the end of the conflict, the Portuguese side captured 36 rimes, 590 nint1ocks, and 495 swords along
with a few remaining cartridges.30
Still, according to Pelissier, actual combat was rare as the rebels disposed more spears than guns.31
But it was also probably the case that, having expended rare supplies of Powder, the rebels did not wish to
engage the enemy at close range, otherwise overwhelmed by superiority in weapons. Where the Timorese
rebels were effective was undoubtedly as a running guerrilla force. The siege on 11 June-21 July 1912 of
Cablac, the sacred mountain redoubt of the Manufaistas, conjures up the battle of Camenasse hundreds of
years earlier; a doomed but mythically heroic stand.
Just as the outbreak of rebellion was reported in the Australian media, so, in August, The Times of London
blandly reported the conclusion, namely that a "major battle" between colonial forces and rebels on Timor
had left 3,000 killed and wounded and 4,000 taken prisoner.32
Pearse, an Australian passenger aboard a visiting E & A Line vessel, also left an account of the rebellion.
Pearce's visit to the Dili was not fortuitous but involved-in a gesture of imperial solidarity-the transfer from
his vessel of some 180 tons of Welsh coal for use by the Patria. As this traveller vividly described the scene
400 rebel prisoners under guard cleared the coal. Pearce also learnt during his stay that the leaders of the
"revolution", were to be deported to Africa, and the rank and file to the adjoining island of Atauro, 33
Destined to be used more than once as a prison island.
Causes of the Rebellion
Do lnso, offers that while the causes of the rebellion were undoubtedly "complex" and generally
anti-colonial, the leading cause, or, more accurately we might say trigger or pretext, was unquestionably the
proposed augmentation of the head tax from one pataca to two patacas, ten avos. As evidence he offers that
in the early days of the revolt, the aggrieved Timorese uttered the challenge: "Venham ca buscar duas
patacas, se sao capazes!" (Come and fetch your two patacas if you can!).
Additionally, native grievance stemmed from the prohibition on cutting of Sandalwood before a prescribed
age, the imposition of a tax of two patacas for every tree cut, the registration of Livestock and even coconut
trees, and the creation of a new five patacas tax on the slaughter of animals for festive occasions. Also, as
mentioned, the change of the Portuguese nag with the advent of the Republic had been resented, as the nag
was traditionally an object of Lulic worship. To this end, the new flag had been tom down in some places,
and a version of the old one run up. To this was added an abiding sense of Treachery on the part of
Portugal's old antagonist on the island, the Dutch, bitter at their colonial rival and not at all displeased if the
Page 96
eastern half of the island was added to their eastern treasure house. 34
Pelissier, who has made a major study of This revolt offers an additional hypothesis that would situate the
revolt in a specific historical conjuncture -namely the advent of the republic- and from which he adduces
evidence suggesting a nationalist or, more accurately, proto-nationalist dimension to this revolt. What then
the evidence for this assertion, which, iftrue9 would distinguish Boaventura from his predecessors? The
credibility of this version of the revolt rests on proving the conspiracy or incitation by Timorese assimilado
in turn pushed by frustrated European republicans or other enemies of the Governor. The evidence is thin,
even anecdotal. Pelissier offers die example of Domingos de Sena Barreto, a senior customs officer in Dili,
Macau-educated, of Mixed Timorese-Goanese parentage and confidant of the then chief magistrate in
Timor, the poet Alberto Osorio de Castro (1868-1946). 35
There is no question, as Osorio de Castro makes clear in his A Ilha Verde e Vermelha de Timor, that
Barreto had unsurpassed knowledge of the danse macabre of the heads derived first hand from his contacts
with Timorese liurai.36
But whether or nor he was the eminence gris behind the rebellion remained to be Proven
Pelissier continues with reason that "the princes" of 1911 were simply not the same as those of 1895.
Missionary education, as we have seen, expanded their horizons. Indeed, as we have seen, sons of the
regulos were especially targeted for the new government schools. But whether or not, as he suggests, the
example of the Philippines independence movement made its impact upon the Timorese is a moot question
It is certainly' intriguing, as Pelissier points out, that ten armed rebellions broke out on the island of Flores
between 1911-12.37
It is also intriguing to speculate that among a circle of a dozen or so individuals in Dili there may have
been those who wished independence upon Timor, but was Boaventura one of them? How many among
Boaventura's entourage would have understood this concept in modem terms? The slave revolt of Haiti
comes to mind here, a reference to establishment of the Republic of Haiti on 1 January 1804, after a slave
revolt expelled erstwhile republican masters. But where leader of the rebellion Toussaint L'Ouverture spoke
for liberty, we unfortunately lack the printed record of such enligthtenment utterances from Boaventura, or
even his erstwhile assimilado supporters.38
Pelissier does not answer directly, but has also supplied a convincing analysis of why and how the
aspirations of 5,000 or so assimilados would have diverged from the 100 or so micro-feudal states of Timor
It was also the case that the majority of Liurais remained sceptical of the chances of Success of a
generalized revolt in 1911-12. It would be an insult to their intelligence to believe otherwise.
While there is a sense that the 1911-12 rebellion was the apogee of rebellion against the Portuguese, it was
at the same time highly localized, even encircled by neutral or collaborationist reinos.39
The view that the colonial pacification of the overlapping Manufahi "guerra" or revolts of 1894-1901, 1907
-08, 1910-13 demographically devastated certain regions of Timor with the cost of 90,000 lives might not
be too far fetched. For good reason, the name of Boaventura invokes awe and pride among Timorese who
how and has entered the pages of Timorese historiography as hero.40
While, as Pelissier contends, the number of Timorese casualties of the revolt cannot be ascertained with
certainty, it is also true that the number of victims is seriously disconcerting. As he points out, while the
scope of the campaign is telling, lasting for 222 days of Which 123 days saw combat, this in itself tells
nothing of Mortality.
Neither are population estimates before and after the rebellion accurate. Nevertheless, one official source
cited by this author offers the figure of 303,600 inhabitants for 1913, by far the lowest estimate given for th
colony for decades. In weighing all the evidence, Pelissier concludes that the Boaventura revolt and its
sequels cost between l5 and 25,000 deaths, not counting those who went into exile. At least 200 prisoners
swept up in this campaign also died of Malnutrition or maltreatment.
But to this figure would have to be added victims of the terrible dysentery epidemic which struck the arraia
on the government side, not to mention the rebels, along with an estimated 2,000 deaths in Baucau, 300 in
Lautem, among other places, badly exposing the extension of Medical services in the colony, and possibly
further weakening the demographic profile of Timor at this juncture.41
Sequels to the Rebellion
Page 97
Lawson observes that, as a reaction to the Boaventura revolt, the Portuguese tightened military and
administrative control. Undoubtedly, Portuguese successes against the Boaventura rebellion were also
boosted by warriors supplied by loyal liurai.42
De Araujo explains that these liurai were rewarded by the Portuguese with the rank of Major and lieutenant
colonel of the second rank. Progressively, as the dato and liurai capitulated, the first to do so were rewarded
with larger domains at the expense of rival and rebel kingdoms.43
To be sure, many liurai and dato were killed during the rebellions and many other were taken prisoner. New
liurai were promoted in their place, not by traditional methods or ethnic rules of Succession, but according
to Portuguese standards of "loyalty". 44
As Pelissier explains, the victory over the Manufaistas was quickly exploited.
Constitutional guarantees, otherwise suspended at the outset of the revolt, were restored on 16 August 1912
while, the following day, a great celebration was held in Dili to mark the triumphant return of the
conquistadores. That may have been taken for granted, but Governor Filomeno da Camara went one step
further. The great civilizer sanctioned the celebration in the capital by the moradores of a festival of the
heads a la Timorese, a grotesque display of the heads of victims in the capital of the Portuguese colony, an
act that even Celestino da Silva eschewed.45
Indeed, not even an act sanctioned by the White Rajah of Sarawak, where the crusade by the British in
Borneo against head-hunting was unremitting. Surely, Conrad's 1915 description of Dili in his classic
Victory: An Island Tale, as that "pestilential place" found its origins in this reputation.
But in the aftermath of the rebellion, the accusations new. As Pelissier describes it, each accused the other i
a cynical game, the Portuguese, the Dutch, the imprisoned liurai, the mixed blood officials, and, in the
official view, European-enemies of the Governor in league with the liurai. At least this was the thrust of the
report commissioned by Governor Filomeno da Camara in 1913 and written by the pacifier of
Oecussi-Ambeno, Goncalo Pereira Pimenta de Castro. Among those arrested were Domingos de Sena
Barreto although names of Such European conspirators as Dr. Paiva Gomes and Manuel de Sousa Gentil
were also mentioned. Among the Timorese leaders then in prison, certain were stripped of their rank. This
was the fate of Dom Boaventura (18 July 1913), losing his rank of rei-coronel of Manufahi, even before he
died in obscure circumstances in prison in Atauro or Aipelo on an unknown date. Similarly, Afonso Hornai
de Soares Pereira of Bibisusso lost his rank. But, in a more sweeping change on 13 August 1913, interim
governor Goncalo Pereira Pimenta de Castro revoked the command of the moradores of Dili, Marcal
Sequira, Manuel Bianca and Francisco do Rego. On metropolitan orders the moradores companies of Dili,
Sica, Bidau, Aipelo and Batugede were dissolved and transformed into first line commands under European
officers. The remaining moradores, such as Baucau and Manatuto were regrouped as clPayes.46
Governor Filomeno wasted no time in using his military victory to dole out rewards and punishments.
From 23 August 1912 he decided that the Raimera, Riac and Leo Laco regions would be declared domain
land destined to be trans formed into a plantation named Republica on which, as a kind of War indemnity,
they would furnish gratuitous corvee. Widows of the fallen arraias, along with wounded on the government
side were awarded coconut or cocoa trees and other non-taxable benefits, while, on the other hand, villager
from the rebel zones were obliged to plant coconut and cocoa trees and to supply free labour to appointed
plantations. Governor Filomeno also pushed the defeated Timorese to plant coffee, on the basis of 600
coffee bushes per family. In 1916 alone nearly 8 million coffee bushes were planted in a frenzy of activity
across Timor. He also codified labour obligation for all Timorese from 14 to 60 years old. To be sure, as
Pelissier comments, it was Filomeno da Camara who initiated forced culture in Timor on a scale never
before seen. The ability of Governor Filomeno da Camara-as with Celestino da Silva and Affonso da
Castro before him-to stamp his design on Timor was also obviously facilitated by long tenure in Timor, in
the case of Filomeno da Camara ensured because the outbreak of World War prevented his return to
Portugal until 1917.47
The Making of an Elite
While we have ascribed causation to the rebellions of Timor to varieties of Traditional responses, ranging
from anti-finta sentiment, to messianic themes, to hatred of the malai, to traditional forms of intra-tribal
warfare, we must also acknowledge that Timor society was changing as the colonial order more deeply
Page 98
implanted itself, as the colonial economy took deeper root, and as forms of Labour conscription and land
alienation broke down traditional solidarities. But it is also worth taking stock of the role of New elites} of
those thrown up by the colonial system as bridging the worlds of the Timorese and the outsiders.
Intermediaries always found their place in colonial systems and, notwithstanding the checkered history of
the church in Timor; it is also the case that the missions even more than the state were responsible for
grooming the new elite.
Following the restoration of the missions in the late nineteenth century under the labours of Bishop
Medeiros, his immediate successor, D. Jose Manuel de Carvalho, restructured the church in Timor into two
circumscricoes, that of the north and that of the contra costa. Accordingly, the church in Timor came under
two Vicar Generals, one centred on Lahane with responsibility for the north, and the other run by the Jesuit
in Soibada in the reino of Samoro with responsibility for the south. Despite serious difficulties in
communications, the Soibada mission emerged as the centrepiece of both the evangelical mission and the
civilizing mission in this outpost of Timor. The Soibada mission opened a boys school in 1904 teaching,
besides the basics of Christian doctrine, reading and writing Portuguese and such subjects as agricultural
methods. From 1902 the Canossians also became active in Timor, especially in teaching, including girls,
albeit at the level of Domestic science. At least up until the expulsion of the missions in 1910, the church in
Timor thrived under official patronage and protection. As the Bishop of Macau, D. Joao Paulino d'Azevedo
e Castro effused, a veritable religious movement radiated out of Soibada transforming the people both
morally and socially.
As he summarized the accomplishments of the mission on the eve of the revolution, there were 11 schools
for males with 412 pupils, two schools for females with 223 pupils) two colleges for males with 105
students, two colleges for young girls with 153 students, or a total of 1,053 students, taught by 30 members
of the church and 141ay teachers.48
As Abilio d'Araujo has written, the task of educating the chosen few at the Jesuit mission in Soibada at die
turn of the century was also with the aim of Preparing teacher catechists as well as educating the sons of the
liurais. From this college, d'Araujo explains, came the first Timorese letrados, the embryo of a future
Timorese native elite, drawn especially from the strata of Liurai and dato. Although the hereditary nobility
continued to hold political power locally, the new social group from the traditional society became admired
and respected because they had succeeded in adapting to colonial values, the hallmark of Which were their
literary skills in Portuguese as much their embrace of the faith. Colonialism discovered that it was necessar
to support this new group, which accepted die policy of propagating the Christian religion and would never
turn against it because of Privileges received through contact with colonial culture. It was also necessary, o
the one hand, to give this group a status equal to that of the liurai and dato and, on the other, to remind them
of the responsibilities attached to their status- to maintain order and justice within a framework of
collaboration, understanding and tolerance.49
The acceptance by the liurai of the new social position of the letrados remained in the future, however.
Indeed, the preparations of a loyal cadre of collaborators awaited the twentieth century and, indeed, sorely
contested in the anti-colonial wars which wracked Portuguese colonialism in the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries 50
Although, as seen, the state had already commenced to set in motion regulations making it obligatory for
sons of indigenous chiefs to enter primary school at the age of seven. One who stood with the Portuguese
against D.Boaventura was Nai-Sessu, better known by his Catholic name, D. Aleixo CorteRea1, following
his conversion in 1931. As chief of Ainaro, D. Aleixo achieved hero status in the colony, especially, as
shown below, because of his loyalty to Portugal at the time of the Japanese occupation.51
Lawson relates that, with the advent of the plantation economy, the liurai became subjugated to military
district commanders appointed by the Portuguese colonial authorities. As key intermediary between
Portuguese authority at the district level and the Timorese peasant at the subsistence level, the liurai were
required to fulfill certain key services. Notably the liurai were held responsible for delivering up a yearly
finta to the Portuguese authorities. In return,' they were offered a percentage of the finta collected on their
territories. Subordinate to the liurai, the datos acting on the instructions of the former, penetrated to the
village level where village chiefs were held responsible for carrying out colonial orders, namely recruitmen
of Labour, introducing coffee plantations, and collecting taxes. Laws-on writes that, in fact, "the Portuguese
simply placed their colonial administrative structure of Cash crop production, labour recruitment and tax
Page 99
collection, without giving them any tools for participation in policy". 52
The anthropologist, Capell, also observes that many liurai were eclipsed by the Portuguese following the
great revolt of 1911-12 and their authority divided amongst the dato ruling over the various sucu. Thus, by
1944, the time when Capell did his research in Timor, the liurai almost always represented a broken
succession. 53
Conclusion
It is hard not to agree with Pelissier that, by any measure, the repression of the revolt of the Manufaistas
remains one of the "black pages" of the first Portuguese republic. As this author remarks from an advised
knowledge of African history, it opened the way for the great massacres of Guinea, of Mozambique, and
Angola.
The lesson derived for colonial rule in Africa from the Timor case was that no more acts of Mass
insubordination would be tolerated.54
But drawing from their Africa experience as well, there is no question that the Portuguese looked to
overhaul the arbitrary and archaic features of their oceanic possession. Still, in Timor, military supremacy
did not easily translate into allegiance. All the more surprising that the bond between ruler and ruled in
Timor did not unravel irrevocably in the wake of the Boaventura rebellion. While a discussion of Labour
control and colonial coercion is reserved for another chapter, it is notable that in the wake of the Boaventur
rebellion, Governor Filomeno da Camara moved quickly to establish a new social charter or contract with
the Timorese, based in part upon the redivisioning of the colony into smaller administrative units for ease o
Control and, in large part, by the promotion of a new traditional elite closely attuned to colonial values.
Contemporaneously, in the western part of the island, the Dutch although facing no parallel rebellious
challenge-likewise sought to alter traditional institutions of government and landowning regulations.55
It is not such an abstract sentiment to express that the importance of the Boaventura rebellion for ordinary
Timorese is the way that his name has been passed down through the generations as a legendary hero of the
resistance, the last identifiable leader of the last great rebellion against the Portuguese. The other side of the
coin is that his name has also been appropriated by Timorese nationalists.
Speaking before the United Nations Security Council on 12 April 1976, Jose Ramos Horta in his capacity
as Minister of Foreign Affairs of the newly formed Democratic Republic of East Timor, observed with
pride that Queen Maria de Manufahi, Boaventura's widow, then 80 years old, was "a militant" of the
political party he represented. 56
Notes
1. In making this statement I am guided by Pelissier's research on this rebellion as much his statement that
the volume of extant official correspondence on this rebellion would merit a separate monograph of 200-
300 pages. For his part, and his purposes, Pelissier has read only the summary annexes attached to the
official reports. See Rene Pelissier, Timor en Guerre: Le Crocodile et les Portugais (1847-1913) 9 Pelissier
Orgeval, 1996, p. 264. For my part and for the purposes of Compression, I have read Pelissier selectively
along with a mix of other printed sources. Unlike Pelissier I have not consulted the AHU archives on this
question.
2. See author's Encountering Macau/ The Rise of a Portuguese Cio,-State on the Perihery of China,
155711999, West view Press, Boulder, 1996, pp. 95-96.
3. Luna de Oliveira, nmor na Hisidria de Portugal, Agencia Geral das Co16nias, Lisboa, 1952, pp. 37-44.
4. Rend Pelissier, Timor en Guerre: Le CjnOCOdile et le Portugais (184711913), Orgeval, 1996, pp. 254-
255.
5. Luna de Oliveira, Timor na Hist6ria de Portugal, pp. 50-51.
6. Pelissier, Timor en Guerre, p. 247.
7. Alberto Osorio de Castro, "Camilo Pessanha em Macau", Atldntico, 1942.
8. Jaime do lnso, TTimor-1912, Edic6es Cosmos, Lisboa, 1939, pp. 101103.
9. Pelissier, Timor en Guerre, p. 247.
10. Raphael da Dores, A pontamentos para um Diccionario Chrographico de Timor, Imprensa Naciona1,
Page 100
Lisboa, 19Q3, p. 46.
11. Alberto Osbrio de Castro, A Ilha Vejnde e Vermelha de Timor, Cotovia, Lisboa, 1996, p. l44,
12. P6lisier, Timor en Guerre, pp. 257-258.
13. Jaime do lnso, Timor-1912, p. 29.
14. Pelissier, Timor en Guerre, p. 260.
15. Ibid, p. 224.
16. Sydney Morning Herald, 19 February 1912.
17. do lnso, Timor-1912, p. 53.
18. See MacauArchives Processo no. 154, Serie E, (cx67-3394), 2 Agosto 1912, "Embarque desta
Provincia para a de Timor, de uma Companhia Europeia de lnfantaria da India".
19. Luis Maria da Camara Pina, Um Apontamento Hisi6rico (A Campanha de nmor em 1912), Speme,
n.p.,n.d.
20. do lnso, nmor-1912, p. 23.
21. Pina, um Apontamento Histdrico.
22. Josi Sim6es Martinho, nda e Morte do Rigulo Timorense D. Aleixo, Agencia Geral das Col6nias,
1947, pp. 18.
23. do lnso, Timor-1912, p. 49.
24. Ibid, pp. 49-50.
25. Pelissier, 77mor en Guerre, pp. 254-255.
26. do lnso, Timor-1912, p. 53.
27. Pino, t[m Apontamento Hist6rico. .
28. Lawson, "East Timor: Roots Continue to Grow".
29. do lnso cited in Jo11iffe, East Timor: Nationalism and Colonialism, University of Queensland Press, S
Lucia, 1978, p. 36.
30. Pelissier, nmor en Guerjne, P. 293.
31. Ibid., p. 266. _
32. I;he nmes, l6, 20, 25 February 1912.
33. W. Pearse, Recent Travel, John Andrews and Co., Sydney, 1914, p. 43q.
34. Jo11if3Fe, East nmor and see do lnso, Timor-1912, p. 68.
35. Pelissier, Timor en Guerre, p. 255.
36. Alberto Osorio de Castro, A Ilha Vejnde e Vermelha de 2Timor, Agencia Geral das Coldnias, Lisboa,
1943 [Cotovia, Lisboa, 1996].
37. Pelissier, Timor en Guerre, pp. 260-26l.
38. Cf. Noam Chomsky9 Year 501/ The Conquest Continues, Verso, 1993, pp. 197-219.
39. Ibid, pp. 260-261.
40. deAraujo, TimorLeTkte, p. 37.
41. Pelissier, Timor en Guerre, pp. 290-292.
42. Lawson, "East Timor: Roots Continue to Grow".
43. de AraujoJimor Leste, p. 3
i 441awson, "East Timor: Roots Continue to Grow".
45. Pelissier, 2Timor en Guerre, p. 294.
46. Ibid., pp. 303-304.
47. Helder LainS e Silva, Timor e a Cultura do Caj(2E, Ministerio do Ultramar, Lisboa, 1956, p.41;
PeliSsier, Ibid., pp. 295, and W.G. Clarence-Smith, "Planters and Smallholders in Portuguese Timor in the
Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries"JndonesiancijnCle, March 1992, p. 18.
48. D. Joao Paulino d'Azevedo e Castro, Os Bens das Misso-es Portuguezas na China, Redaccao do
Boletim do Governo Ecclesiastico de Macau, Macau, 1917, pp. 180-184.
49. Abilio de Araujo (Jill Jo11iffTe and Bob Reece, eds.), Timorese Elites, Canberra, 1975.
50. Francisco Femandes, "Das Missoes de Timor", Luso.Asidticos (Macau), No.1 September 1992, p. 17.
51. Jose Simoes Martinho, nda e Morte do Rigulo Timorense D. Aleijco.
52 Lawson, "East Timor: Roots Continue to grow".
53. A. Cappel, "People and Language of Timor", Oceania, March, Vol.XX, No.3, 1944, p. 198.
54. Pilissier, Timor en Guerre, pp. 26l-262.
Page 101
55. Anon. Republik Indonesia: Sunda Ketjil, Kementerian Penerangan, Jakarta, n.d.
56. Heike Xiieger (ed.), East Timor and the International CommuniO,: Basic Documents, Cambridge
University Press, Melbourne, 1997, p. 97.
10
Colonial Capitalism in Portuguese Timor (1894-1941)
While we have viewed the rebellions of 1860-1912 as responding to important economic changes,
especially in the way that the colonial power organized land and labour on a new basis, it is important to
trace the rise of a colonial economy in Timor on its own terms, at least in a way which emphasizes a
dynamic encounter between the local economy and the world economy, not a picture of total economic
stasis and inaction as detractors of Portuguese rule in Timor would aver. Far from arguing the case that a
colonial capitalist mode of Production became predominant in Timor, we nevertheless seek to stress the
revolutionary consequences for Timor society of the creation of an export economy, while, at the same time
identifying the reasons why full-scale colonial capitalism did not develop in the Portuguese colony. To this
end we first seek to analyze the modes of state finance in Timor, as obviously the ability of the state to
produce a budget deficit weighed heavily upon its overall development project. We then seek to explore the
complex relationship between the state and private sectors in Timor with reference to land, labour and
capital. To this end we highlight three important spheres of economic activity vital to the development of an
island economy, namely communications infrastructure, planter capitalism, and minerals exploration.
Modes of State Finance
If, by the latter half of the 19th century, the Portuguese African colonies were mainly seen as sources of
revenue to develop the metropole, by the late 1870s onwards, the extraction of revenues was overshadowed
by the need for metropolitan manufacturers to find market outlets in the colonies. While metropolitan and
foreign capital trickled into the wealthier colonies such as Sao Tome and southern Mozambique, the
colonies were placed in an extreme protectionist environment.
Especially after the 1910 republican revolution in Portugal, however, the state intervened more strongly to
encourage a plantation sector based on migrant labour while regulating the petty commodity production of
peasant producers. But to achieve this goal, the originally autonomous or tributary peasant societies
necessarily were brought with violence into exchange processes involving taxation. The institution of
Slavery gave way to forced labour, although the distinction was of ten blurred. In Portuguese Africa, the
pacification project intensified, beginning in southern Mozambique in the 1890s and continuing in Angola
in the 1910s. In his study of Slaves, peasants and capitalism in southern Angola, British historian
Clarence-Smith rejects the school of historiography, which contends that Portuguese colonialism was not
economically motivated and that palpable lack of economic returns proved a lack of economic motivations.
After all, colonies were seen by European powers as speculative long-term investments.1
We seek in the following to replay this argument against the case of Timor.
Not surprisingly the great rebellion of 1908-13 arrested economic development in Timor, as did the
expensive pacification campaigns of the turn of the century.
Added to that, the effects of the First World War resulted in a 50 per cent diminution of imports and export
in Timor, prompting the metropolitan journal, Revista Colonial (25 July 1915) to describe the economic
situation in Timor as one of Crisis. The Great Depression left Portugal on the verge of Bankruptcy. Neither
it appeared, did Portugal have the technocratic means to even enhance extraction in its distant colony. Whil
individuals were enriched, for the state, Timor was an economic drain. Yet, the optimists looked at Timor a
an island of Promise, especially as coffee culture reached new heights, and the coffee plants themselves
came through the bloody wars largely unscathed.
The major difficulty in calculating the state of Timor's finances stems not so much from a lack of Basic
data, but from the complexity of Local accounting methods, and especially, as discussed below, the number
of fluctuating currencies involved. Another complicating factor was that revenues accrued from more than
one source, both within and without the colony. This is a reference to both direct and indirect taxes within
the colony, the regular subvention from Macau, and irregular subventions From Portugal, certain of Which
Page 102
were earmarked to cover military expenditure which more of Ten than not took the lion's share of Budget
expenditure.
Whatever else, the colony of Timor could count upon its annual subsidy of 60,000 patacas from Macau.
This was set down in a decree of 15 October 1896, renewed in 1909. The complexity of the system is
revealed by the budget figures for the period 1901-05 as analyzed by Pelissier. He found that the budget
deficit grew from 83,000 mil reis in 190,102, to 102,000 mil reis in 1904-05, with the subvention from
Macau carrying the loss. Yet the military budget for 1902-03 reached 85,835 nil reis, and for 1904-05
reached 104,597 mil reis. The system of fintas, still in place, realized a derisory 3,000-4,000 mil reis
annually in 1901-05, hardly making up for the budget losses. In Pelissier's phrase "the more pacification
proceeded, the more it consumed the Timor budget". 2
While, in 1912, Lisbon voted a one-off credit of 200,000 escudos for Timor as a result of the military
expeditions, it was also seen as a serious political gesture to rescue the colony from certain oblivion.
Unlike Macau, the authorities in Timor never systematically, much less successfully, developed a system o
State monopolies. This was not without trying, however. In 1886, a government monopoly on the sale of
canipa, a sugar cane based alcoholic drink was established, soon after sugar cane plantations in Timor were
introduced for that purpose. In 1892, a fantan monopoly for Timor was auctioned in Macau. Yet, it is
unknown whether this gambling venture was actually launched in Timor. Again, in 1911, tenders were
advertised in the military command of Manatuto for games of "Gallo", "China cards", and "Clu-Clu", a
system gradually extended to some other regions of Timor. In 1914, the question of the manufacture of
opium in Timor was raised by a Hong Kong-based Chinese syndicate operating under the name of Leong
Kwong. Two years later, after lengthy negotiations, Leong Kwong was granted a license for this purpose.
Notwithstanding the question of whether he would be granted permission from the British government to
actually import the raw opium from India, he went ahead and erected a factory in Dili. However, the first 50
chests of a consignment of 500 chests of opium already purchased, were seized by the authorities at
Singapore when en route for Timor "[T] he primary reason for its manufacture", opined the British
Consular agent in Kupang, "is to bring revenue to the already exhausted Portuguese Treasury in Timor". 3
Meanwhile, the state moved ahead to place financial services on a more rational basis. The key to this
initiative was the introduction of Modem banking services, the sine qua non of a modem colonial colony.
Just as this function was served in French colonies by the Banque de l'Indochine, so in Portuguese colonies
it was the Banco Nacional Ultramarino (BNU), which served this purpose. Founded with private capital in
Lisbon in I 864> the BTN set up branches in all the Portuguese colonies. Established in Macau in
November 1901, the BNU served as treasury and cashier for the government from 1906. Set up A Dill in
1912, it was expected -A tile wards of Governor Filomeno da Camara- that it would provide credit to
planters, help resolve money problems, and help to canalize trade to Lisbon. 4
The opening of banking services in Timor, however, only occurred after a long debate over the choice of
currency for Timor. As noted above, to the extent that the Portuguese colony was monetized, it was the
Dutch florin replacing the rupee, which came to dominate in financial transactions in the late nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries. While the first references to the circulation in Timor of Patacas or Pataca
Mexicana, as Mexican 8 reales or silver dollar coins were known in Portuguese, goes back to 1880, it was
not until 1894 that the pataca freely entered Timor, becoming the standard for paying official and military
salaries. Nevertheless, the two currencies coexisted with a fluctuating exchange rate (1:2,40 florins in 1880
1:2 florins in 189l). Further measures were taken in 1893-94 to reduce the value of the pataca in circulation
in Timor and to fix the exchange rate against the florin. But also in 1900 portaria 49 of 8 June), the
importation of Mexican silver money as well as patacas was sanctioned for holders of special licenses and
subject to regulations to check against counterfeits.5
Not surprisingly, the jumble of currencies circulating in Timor was reflected in the returns from the
capitation tax. In 1911, according to an official account, die kind of Currency recouped depended upon
location. Thus, while Dutch money was in vogue in Dili, in Baucau, Batugede, Manatuto, and Lautem, the
capitation was paid in Mexican currency. In Bobonaro, Hato-Lia and Motae1, the capitation was paid in
mixed Mexican and Dutch currency.6
But, whereas in Macau the BNU commenced to issue legal tender banknotes in pataca denomination in
1901, it was n9t until 1912 that the first banknotes circulated in Timor. These were 10,000 one pataca notes
and 2,500 notes of 25-pataca denomination overprinted "Pagavel em Timor". Originally issued in 1906 they
Page 103
still carried the crowned Portuguese coat of arms. This exercise was repeated in 1932 and 1945 with the
addition of a five-pataca note.7
There is no question, however, that in Timor, as in Macau, a population accustomed to premium silver coin
poorly received these note issues.
But still, according to a 1932 study on the monetary system in Timor by Correia de Campos, different
schools of thought contended as to choice of currency in the pre-First World War period. The choices were
starkly laid out by the President of the Bank of Java whose opinion was solicited by one of the interested
parties. In the mind of this authority, there was no choice for Portuguese Timor but to accept a gold-based
standard as opposed to a currency based on silver (the Mexican dollar) otherwise subject to fluctuating
value based on its intrinsic value as silver. To this he added the more obvious arguments that most of
Timor's imports were sourced through die Netherlands East Indies while exports likewise passed through
Dutch ports. But, in arguing for the substitution of Dutch currency for the pataca, he also observed that
other currencies could not be excluded, hence the imperative to introduce banking services for exchange as
much as handling paper remittances. The discussion evidently went on for seven more years when, on l6
January 1915, the Conselho do Governo in Dili voted to introduce the pataca as the exclusive currency for
the colony. A decree to that effect was brought down on 4 May 1918.8
Clearly, in this initiative, national interest prevailed over stark economic logic, but then why should Portuga
have surrendered up its economic sovereignty to the Netherlands?
With this decision, the door was opened in Timor for the introduction and circulation of two other
currencies alongside the pataca or Mexican dollar. The Dili branch of the BNU and Chinese merchants
alike imported quantities of cedula or subsidiary banknotes issued by Chinese banks, along with a lesser
quantity of Chinese coins, in part reflecting the hodgepodge of Currencies in use in Macau.
But when Macau suffered a shortage of Coins, in part owing to a run on silver, the BNU moved ahead on 2
January 1920 to issue its own subsidiary notes. 9
Still, the choice of Pataca as Timor's currency was not the end of Problems. The major problem confrontin
economic management in Timor, at least from 1924 down until the period when Portugal dropped off the
gold standard, was the marked devalorization of the pataca relative to the metropolitan currency, the escudo
This financial and economic crisis, according to Correia de Campos, stemmed from the devalorization of
Silver versus gold over the same period, to a degree of Some 35 per cent. This was especially significant in
Timor where, despite the decree of 1918, most commercial transactions were still effected in Dutch florins
through until the 1930s and not with Macau. In the event, Correia de Campos's call for a Timorese escudo
linked with metropolitan money would not transpire until the postwar period. 10
Archer, the British Consul in Batavia, who visited Portuguese Timor in March 1941, observed that
Portuguese Timor received no financial assistance From Portugal. Government revenues were derived from
customs duties on both imports and exports. In the case of coffee exports, the duty was over 20 per cent.
The principal source of foreign exchange was derived from a mandatory contribution on the part of coffee
exporters of No less than 70 per cent of receipts of foreign currency earned from the exchange of their
goods, to an exchange fund. This fund, in turn, was administered by the BNU, which reimbursed the
exporters with patacas at the bank's official rate. In practice, owing to low prices obtained for the colony's
coffee, the fund was in low water, meaning great scope for black market operations mainly by Chinese
shopkeepers. Indeed, shops were reportedly well stocked as a result of Black market operations. Poll tax
also represented a major source of revenue amounting to up to three months of a coolie's cash wage
surrendered in direct taxation. This amounted to 611 or 16 patacas, according to the category of Work
(comparing unfavourably with the 3.30 patacas tax paid in the Dutch colony or the equivalent of 10 days
wage per annum). Thus, of the 1941 budget of 1,556,051 patacas, 663,000 was drawn from poll tax paid
by all native workers, and 28,000 from a professional tax, paid by higher paid workers. Import and export
tax amounted to 160,000 and 220,000 respectively. It is clear, then, that a large part of the government's
revenue and foreign exchange derived from the maintenance of coffee exports. Expenditure covered the
bare essentials of administration, including the military, and the servicing of a loan from the metropole.
It is noteworthy that a high customs tariff was imposed upon both imports and exports. The export duty, 20
per cent in the- case of coffee, was additional to the contribution made by exporters to the exchange fund,
but could not be considered a tax as the contributor received an equal amount of Local currency in
exchange. 11
Page 104
Thus, while this budgetary regime supported an extremely low level of Development, the prewar
experience proved without doubt that given the application of Modern management and scientific Practices
Timor was a viable economy.
Planter capitalism and control over Land
While we have looked to the role of the state in setting the parameters of Development in Timor, what
exactly was the role of Private capital or, at least, segments of Private capital, whether or not linked to the
state or beneficiaries of State patronage? Certainly, the European colonization of Timor had its boosters.
Possibly he earliest private venture in Timor was hat of the Companhia commercial formed and capitalized
by a circle of Dili-based merchants in the early 1860s.
Essentially a trading venture operating a schooner between Dili and Macassar, Surabaya and Singapore, thi
enterprise folded in 1865. Another early ‘expression of Private capitalist interest in Timor was the
Companhia de Timor e Macau, established in 1884 ostensibly to promote the agricultural and mineral
exploitation of Die territory and to develop commercial relations between Portugal and its Far Eastern
territories. This was capitalized at 990 contos at five libras (pounds) each and formed in Lisbon by
Portugal-based merchants and influential Macau-based individuals. It was envisaged that the companyalthough
we lack knowledge of its actual modus operandi on Timor- would inject both capital and
know-how into Timor. As such, according to O Macaense of April 1886, it would help the circulation of
Money and multiply commoditization while offering employment to Timorese. 12
While, as Clarence-Smith has clarified, smallholders dominated export production in Portuguese Timor,
persistent if unsuccessful attempts were made under colonial auspices to sustain a plantation sector. But it
was Governor Celestino da Silva who laid the foundations for a functioning plantation system in the colony
after 1894. Pacification of the mountain district of Ermera to the southwest of Dili, and site of Prime
plantation land, was thus a necessary prelude. It was Celestino da Silva who, in 1897, established the
Sociedade Agricola Patria e Trabalho (SAPT), a powerful agro-business described by Clarence-Smith as a
virtual state within a state.13
Following the passage of a new law on overseas land concessions brought down on 9 May 1901, a number
of Metropolitan investors and speculators were drawn to Timor. First was the Companhia de Timor,
financed by 14 metropolitan capitalists who were major investors in cocoa plantations on Sao Tome and
who pledged an amount double the 1901-02 budget for Timor. Established in Timor in 1904, this company
emerged as a rival to SAPT in the coffee plantation sector in the Ermera district, but also with interests in
tea, coffee and rubber. Its output never matched that of SAPT and was criticized for poor cultivation
techniques.
Neither was the dream of a second Sao Tome in cocoa production realized on Timor. Moreover, as Pelissie
comments, this investment only amounted to 51,000 pounds, and, in reality, commerce in Timor remained
pretty much tied up by Chinese distribution networks.l4
By the 1910s these two Sociedade were joined by four other plantation companies, the most important of
Which was the Sociedade Commercial Agricola e Industrial de Timor, set up by a local Portuguese trading
company known as Casa Quintas and administered by Celestino da Silva's son. By 1910, an additional
6,000 hectares of Land had been granted to other individual Portuguese planters. 15
Celestino da Silva's method cannot pass without comment, especially as his detractors accused him of
fomenting wars to seize land and even prisoners of War to work as virtual slave labour, and of using his
official position and even his connections with King Carlos, who had served under him in the royal lancers
to boost his fortunes.
Clarence-Smith doubts whether Portuguese African-style legislation involving coerced labour was actually
used on plantations in Timor but that some free labour, especially on Chinese plantations around Liquisa,
coexisted with "a kind of quasi-slavery" suggested by the practice of Constant renewal of five-year labour
contracts and use of Short-term forced labour supplied by traditional chiefs and heads of the military postos
Even so, despite abysmally low wages, it was an expensive form of Labour, given low productivity and the
necessity for controls and supervision. 16
But the first major attempts to impose a colonial land regime took the form of a special decree of 5
December 1910. Under this act the Governor had exclusive responsibility for all grants of Land on a
Page 105
"quit-rent" or aforamento tenure and for transfers of Property up to 2,500 hectares. District administrators
were also empowered to make grants of "unoccupied" land up to 100 hectares, under certain conditions, to
Portuguese subjects or foreigners taking up residence in the colony.
In either case, the concessionaries had to prove, on pain of Confiscation, that they put the land to productiv
use. In the case of Native tenure, transfer had to be approved by the Governor. To establish a right to his
property "the native occupier must cultivate or build upon at least half its area, and must have possessed it
for a certain number of years, or have acquired it by legal transfer". To be sure, this new category of owner
or possessor was as anomalous as it new in the face of Tradition.
Yet, here was the paradox, without a category of Land ownership and property the basis of a colonial
economy could not be constructed. 17
Lawson continues that, under Governor Filomeno da Camara's dispensation, traditional "Melanesian"
notions of usufruct were done away with and replaced with a colonial definition of Land as belonging to the
state. She explains that the colonial need for control over land was only frustrated by the inability of the
state to actually claim it for want of ei3ficient administrative, technical and scientific means, especially in t
inaccessible interior. Nevertheless, Filomeno's regime set down the basis of a settler economy in an
erstwhile colonial sphere of Production. As cultivators of cash crops such as coffee, the Timorese cultivator
would, in this schema, Cam title to the land they worked. In practice, however, this right came at the cost o
delivering up a certain percentage of the coffee harvest to the colonial authorities. 18
Deprived of communal land, the dispossessed Timorese would also supply their labour on the new estates
earning the wherevt7ithal to acquit their yearly head-tax in cash.
As Governor Filomeno da Camara wrote in a long report in 1912, it was not easy to calculate the returns
on agricultural production. Besides customs data on exports calculated "with the greatest of rigour" there
were no satisfactory statistical data on agriculture. In this sense, then, the customs data on exports by value
given by the Governor for the year 1911 is indicative of the relative importance of various exports. In this
year, it is noteworthy that coffee exports dominated, followed by sandalwood, copra, wax and cocoa.19
Sandal exports picked up in the years following the First World War as Pacific supplies ran out and
European demand increased, reaching' an export figure of 908 tons in 1913. Sandal, which grew naturally,
was never of course a capitalist activity at least at the level of Production. Notwithstanding conservation
measures brought down by, respectively, Governors Celestino da Silva and Filomeno da Camara, the
sandal groves of Timor, including such prime growing areas as Oecusse, Bobonaro and Cova Lima, were
decimated by overcutting in the 1920s. Sandal never accounted for more than 10 per cent of the colony's
exports by value after 1920. With an official prohibition on the cutting of Sandal brought down in 1926, thi
commodity disappeared altogether from statistics after 1939, remaining, in the words of Felgas, "a botanica
relic", a reference to the forty or more years in which it takes the sandal root, a parasitic on other plants, to
germinate and reach maturity. In turn, copra took over from sandalwood as the colony's second commodity
although not exceeding 10 per cent of export by value up to the Second World War. 20
As discussed below with relation to the minerals sector, it was not for want of trying that foreign capital
sought to enter Portuguese Timor. In this context it is of interest that in the mid-1920s a group of a
delaide-based Australian businessmen set up the Timor Development Company with interests in coffee and
cotton.21
Yet, as with foreign interest in Timor 's petroleum, this and other foreign ventures hardly existed except on
paper.
Under the Portuguese Republic SAPT forged ahead producing around 200 tons of coffee a year by the end
of the 1920s9 buying a further 100 tons of coffee a year from Timorese producers. SAPT's dominance was
also at the expense of other companies, which were either absorbed or withered away. Indeed, by the
1930s, SAPT was even challenging Chinese dominance in the sphere of Trade. For all that, however, the
export economy was not totally dominated by the plantation sector. Peasant producers or smallholders still
produced between four-fifths and two-thirds of that produced by the planters.22
This question has been contextualized by Holder Lains e Silva in his 1956 monograph on coffee in Timor
who argues that the coffee industry in Timor developed as part of Peasant production outside of any
capitalist activity owing to cultivation in a forestry condition. This is a reference to the ability of the coffee
bush to thrive in Timor with only minimal attention under the canopy of the Albizzia molucana trees, still a
feature of the industry today. Where capitalist plantation economies looked to maximizing returns, Timores
Page 106
peasant cultivators, as with those of Bali and Colombia, typically yielded an extremely low income from
few coffee bushes scattered over wide terrain. 23
Indeed, the Republican era favoured small farmers and peasants over large planters and landowners, a fact
not altered by the coup of 1926 in Portugal by army officers Who themselves represented the interests of
Large landowners. This bias did not preclude European settlement, however, and Governor Te6filo Duarte
(1926-28), the first governor in the service of Salazar's Estado Novo, actively encouraged their emigration,
including the deportados. Lawson observes that Governor Duarte gave instructions in 1927 to construct
"indigenous villages" to resettle part of the population, an initiative carried on under Governor Alvaro
Eug6nio Neves da Fontoura (1937-39). As Governor Fontoura learned at first hand, colonial fiat and
attachment of the Timorese to their sacred land came into sharp conflict only under extreme pressure did th
Timorese submit to resettlement into the new colonial villages, especially on the malarial lowlands. But
herein was the colonial dilemma -actually ruthlessly grasped by Indonesia after 1975- widely dispersed
settlements in the mountains in the Timorese pattern, did not lend to administrative control but, without
concentration, the recruitment and control of Labour needed for public works projects, cash crop production
and military conscription could not begin. As Lawson observes, numerous villages simply could not be
traced at the time of the annual tax assessment.24
Such avoidance and foot dragging along with elements of Compulsion would be a theme running through
the history of the colonial encounter in Timor.
Economic Depression in the 1930s: But, as Lawson has written, the depression of the 1930s left Portugal
on the verge of Bankruptcy and, by the time recovery was in sight, the disruptive effects of World War II
were already being felt. During this period, in the absence of funds, the development of Timor was almost
entirely disregarded or neglected. While certain individuals, including Chinese merchants and coffee
planters, may have been enriched, the colony of Timor remained a drain, albeit a small one, upon Portugal's
resources.25
In this period SAPT was obliged to divest 47.62 per cent of its holdings to the BNU and the state.26
Lawson observes that, given the steady decline in coffee production in the 1930s after the relative growth in
the preceding decade, the authorities were bound to make up this deficit in revenues by looking at
alternative means, indeed a theme taken up in the following chapter. She comments that, while little is
known as to what compensating measures were taken, evidence exists that, in addition to the head tax, the
Portuguese introduced a new tax on barlaque and estilos.27
As part of the protectionist screen thrown up around the Portuguese colonies, foreign capital was excluded
from the old planting zones of Angola, Sao Tome, and Cape Verde, as well as the new coffee plantations of
Timor. A decree law of 1937 stipulated that at least half the capital of Companies exploiting land
concessions had to be Portuguese. First confined to Timor, this decree was later extended to all the colonies
Clarence-Smith explains that agriculture was one of the few economic activities for which the Portuguese
possessed the necessary background, skills, and industrial capital.28
Yet, in practice, unlike the African colonies, Timor largely remained outside the protectionist-trading
network. The two Asia Pacific Colonies, Timor and Macau, were embedded in Chinese retail distribution
networks. While some 15 per cent of imports came from Portugal and Mozambique, mainly wines and
sugar thanks to a preferential tariff, imports of Cotton piece goods, mostly of Japanese manufacture,
dominated. Against this background, plantation agriculture expanded in Timor in the interwar period. But
while 20 per cent of Production was on modem estates, 80 per cent of Production issued from the labour of
peasant cultivators. Yanagisawa, a prewar Japanese specialist on Timor, noted that prior to the outbreak of
War, the annual production of coffee in Timor (around 1500 tons) was a relatively high figure for an
industry suffering from low production techniques.29
Although the state was instrumental in securing a direct shipping link between Macau and Timor,
contracted out in 1891 to the E&A line, during the interwar years foreign trade became the unofficial
monopoly of Die Dutch KPM company which operated two 1,500 ton passenger-freighter vessels on the
Surabaya run (monthly), and the Macassar route (fortnightly). An exception was the short-lived
Macau-Timor line, launched in September 1930. But in 1938 Japanese shippers also commenced a
Surabaya service in addition to a connection with the Japanese-mandated territory of Palau in the Pacific.
Generally, the Japanese ships were welcome in the colony as their shipping rates were more competitive. In
the years before the outbreak of War, Japanese ships were freighting such cargoes as maize, manganese ore
Page 107
copra, rubber, and bees wax.
Such enterprise, albeit at an extremely low level of exploitation, was-as monitored by British
intelligence-the hits of Japanese business and commercial acumen over the previous decade. The principal
prewar destination for Portuguese Timor's coffee exports was the Netherlands East Indies, no doubt
destined for re-export, followed by Portugal and Japan. Copra, hides, beeswax, and canine nuts were all
exported to the Netherlands East Indies. Cotton, however, was exported to China although destined for
mills under Japanese control. The principal import, textiles, came From Japan.
Australia supplied prewar Timor with dour and groceries. 30
By 1941, SAPT was the only large agricultural concern operating in the colony.
As property of the da Silva family, SAPT alone was exempt from the ban on foreign agricultural enterprise
It also monopolized the purchase of all high-grade Arabica coffee produced in Timor alongside that
produced in its own extensive estates at Fatu-besai, Marin, and Betorema. SAPT, in turn, supported two
subsidiaries, Empreza Agricola Perserverenca and Empreza Agricola Timor Limitada.31
SAPT also monopolized trade between Timor and Japan and Portugal, accounting for 20 per cent of the
whole trade of the Portuguese colony. While the BNU never lost complete control of SAPT, it is significant
that by 1940 Japanese interests represented by a certain Sachimaro Sagawa, a member of the board of
Nanyo Kohatsu K.K. which set up operations in Timor in 1938, increased his stake to 48 per cent, with
investments of one million pounds Sterling.32
SAPT plantations were located on the slopes of the hills in the upper reaches of the Lois River. The
Japanese observer described these as "ideal coffee plantations, being blessed with rich soil and well
sheltered from the monsoon".
Besides coffee, rubber, cocoa, coconuts, cinchona, and tea were also cultivated on the plantations.33
Archer identified two main types of Coffee grown in Timor in the prewar period, namely high grade
Arabica and low grade Robusta with albeit, unsuccessful experimentation conducted in the cultivation of
Liberian coffee.
Table 10.1: Coffee production in metric tons (1938-40)
Year 1938 19391940
Arabica 1522 821704
Robusta 99 55 136
Liberia 5 3
Source: Archer (1941)
Statistics for coffee production supplied by Archer covering the years 1938-40 [see Table 10: 1] reveal the
problems of coffee monoculture in an ecologically vulnerable site in the Southeast Asia ecosphere. Archer
observes that the 1940 crop was considerably reduced owing to lack of rain. Moreover, a fall in export price
in 1940 did not cover production costs. In that year an offer was made by an Australian company to
purchase five tons of Arabica and ten tons of Robusta.
While entailing an overall loss for Timor, the government sanctioned the deal as a means to establish a
market niche in Australia. Such was Japanese commercial acuity in prewar Timor that earlier concern as to
the Dutch stranglehold on communications via the Dutch inter-island KPM service was replaced by an
apprehension that Japan could manipulate the coffee market as a way of applying political pressure. This
was of real concern as a large part of the government's revenues and nearly all its supplies of foreign
exchange depended upon the maintenance of coffee exports. Besides coffee, Nanyo Kohatsu, which also
supported interests in Taiwan and the Netherlands East Indies, purchased whatever surplus remained of
Timor's copra, rubber, beeswax, cotton, and manganese.34
In any case, the death knell to the old colonial plantation system was dealt by the Japanese invasion, at
which point the planters fled to Australia.
State Control over Resources
There is no question that Timor's natural resources have been much mythologized since the first outsider
interest in the island. This is as much apparent in Chinese writings on Timor as in the writings of the
Page 108
Dominicans and in journals bequeathed by Western visitors. The dream of gold, in particular, was one such
myth that persisted into the modern period although hardly backed by scientific investigation. For example,
writing in the early 1940s, one Japanese author ob served that the mineral deposits of Timor included
chromite, manganese, copper, gold and oil. Of gold, he observed, rich gold deposits are expected in the
southern slopes of the central mountain range where natives gather "placer gold" in the streams and nuggets
up to 107 grammes.35
But neither should Timor's resource patrimony be diminished. A 1975 UN report described East Timor as
having, be sides offshore petroleum prospects, "fertile lands, valuable forests and probably deposits of
Copper, gold and manganese". 36
The Oil Industry: In his standard work, The Malay Archipelago, Wa11ace ob serves that "a fine spring of
Pure petroleum was discovered far in the interior". He also writes of the fiasco surrounding a company
formed in Singapore by a Portuguese merchant attracted by stories of vast copper reserves in Timor and
who dispatched to the colony at great expense an engineer brought out from England as well as technicians
equipment and stores. To the great chagrin of the Portuguese authorities, the engineer declared the reports
highly exaggerated if not fictitious.
Wallace concurred that no such ambitious projects could be entertained at least until the colony had
acquired such basic appurtenances of civilization as roads.37
In 1891 a geological expedition comprising several Portuguese officials and the civil engineer Dr. Selhurst
disembarked from the Dilly in Manatuto and proceeded to Laclo and other locales. Besides researching the
presence of gold and copper, the expedition also sought out petroleum sources. They would have had good
reason for some success in the search for the latter, as Dili had in fact been illuminated at times since 1884
by lamps fuelled with oil From Laclubar. The presence of burning gas in Timor was subsequently broadcas
by Selhurst in his "Report on a Geological Expedition to Timor" dated 20 November 1891.
This study undoubtedly led to the expedition by the English engineer, W.A.Duff, who arrived in Timor via
Hong Kong and Macau in 1892. Duff, like Selhorst, was attracted to the search by stories of Traditional
uses of oil in Timor, the practice of illuminating Dili town with oil lamps during festival days, and
commercial intelligence as to an "outflow" of oil From wells in the Laclubar region. Known locally as the
land of "eternal fires", the Laclubar site was re-known for its dared gas and surface oil seeps. Duff
succeeded in obtaining 470 gallons of crude from the Laclubar seep and placed it at the customs House at
Dili with instructions for export pending official approval. Duff even mooted piping the oil from the hills to
the coast, although nothing came of that dream, nor more general proposals he evidently made to the
Portuguese authorities in Macau.38
In 1901, "a well known Australia chemist", Dr. John Elliott, bound for Dili on the E&A steamer Empire,
happened upon oil on water some hours steaming From Dili. The following year, Elliott, Captain Helens of
the Empire, and others, formed a Company in Sydney, Australia, with a capital of 12,500 pounds. Having
secured a small number of Prospecting concessions in Timor they initiated drilling.
While the presence of oil and gas was confirmed, the results were pronounced unsatisfactory owing to
inadequate plant and insufficient capital. In 1910 shareholder discontent led to the reconstitution of the
company as the Timor Petroleum concession Ltd. Again, with Elliott as one of the directors, this company
was registered in Sydney, and capitalized with 15,000 pounds of Shares atone pound each. H.G. Foxall, a
geologist with the University of Sydney, was commissioned to make a geological survey of the concession,
located in the Vessoro region, on the south coast, some 60 kilometres from the eastern end of the island. He
concluded of the concession:
...There is every indication that the field will prove as important as the other East Indies fields. The
geological structure and the indications are similar in each case, and the geographical position of the island
indicates that this is an extension of the neighbouring productive fields. 39
Company reports reveal die operators struck a gusher, which hit the derrick top at some 25 metres, but,
after ten minutes spouting, die bore choked with sand and equipment seized up. While all die indications fo
die Presence Of oil in commercial quantity were good-seepages and gas vents occurred all over the
concession-by 1910 the capital of the existing company was exhausted. Some 34,500 pounds had been
expended without achieving any commercial results. While the Australian government was keen to ensure
Page 109
that the Timor prospect did not fall into foreign hands, it declined to back the Timor concession, seeing
more promise in British and German Papua.40
On 5 March 1914 the Fenchurch Trading Syndicate of London, represented by one Captain William M.
Cairncross, made application to the Minister of Colonies in Lisbon for a concession to search for and
process deposits of oil and minerals in certain designated areas of Timor. A concession was duly granted fo
five years.41
Conceding the importance of the Syndicate's concession, the British Foreign Office made it clear that it did
not wish to see it transferred out of British hands. In 1917 the British Consul in Batavia reported that a
British syndicate, "The international Petroleum Co. Ltd." of Hong Kong had also applied but not received a
concession in Timor. It was also observed that Japanese mining engineers had researched abandoned
concessions in Timor but had not made application.42
Work resumed in the field after some absence by a reconstituted and reconstructed company known as
Timor Oil Ltd., formed in 1916. This was capitalized at 11000 pounds issued in 22,000 shares of 10
shillings each. Directors were Sir Joseph Carruthers and Arthur J. Straughton. Both Carruthers and
Straughton were active lobbyists to, respectively, the British Admiralty and the Australian naval authorities
citing national interest as sufficient reason to be offered financial backing, for their company activities. An
Australian named Dodson pioneered this activity on the ground through to the Japanese intervention. In
1926, Straughton was successful in obtaining oil concessions in Timor on behalf of the Melbourne-based
Timor Petroleum Company. In that year some equipment was shipped and drilling commenced at
Aliambata. But when machinery broke down and the company's funds became exhausted, work was
abandoned and never resumed on that site.43
In the 1930s this company was liquidated and two companies, the Timor Oil Company and the
"Anglo-Eastern Oil Company" were put forward to handle Straughton's interests. Eventually, Timor Oil
Company took over the old concession held by Straughton but this company ran foul of the provisions of
the Portuguese Mining Law, which treated Straughton as the sole concessionary and declined to recognize
his transfer of rights. As no serious efforts were made by this company or Straughton to exploit its
concession, the Portuguese government deemed the contracts cancelled. However, news of the demise of
Timor Oil Company apparently had not reached the ears of Straughton's local representative, a Mr. Bryant,
even on the eve of War. 44
In 1936, Allied Mining Corporation, a Manila-based company promoted by the Belgian "adventurer",
Serge Wittouck, obtained concessions to search for oil in Portuguese Timor, including in areas previously
conceded to the Australian-owned companies. He also formed a separate company called Asia Investment
Company Limited. Wittouck brought to Timor a considerable staff of experts to research the resources
potential of the colony and engaged locally the services of one Max Sanders. The research results were
published in a richly documented study entitled Exploration of Portuguese Timor.45
Meanwhile, Wittouck entered into negotiations with the Portuguese authorities in both Dili and Lisbon
making extravagant claims as to investments, equipment and the scale of Buildings and residences erected
on the Dili waterfront. In this, and other matters, he was frustrated. But with Wittouck's unexplained suicid
in 1940, Sanders remained on in Dili as the only company representative. Australian and British
government circles feared that Wittouck and, especially, the Asia Investment Company was a front for
Japanese designs. In July 1938, as a way of checkmating the competition, the British and Australian
governments intervened with Lisbon in die way of assisting in the establishment of two new companies, Oi
Search and Oil Concessions. By April 1939 the concession was granted but, as Oil Search considered the
condition too onerous, it withdrew. With the support of the Australian government Oil Concessions decided
to carry on and, in November 1938, it gained a new concession covering around three quarters of the
colony. Still the Portuguese government took the line that the Asia Investment Company held prior claim to
the rest of the territory.
In April 1940, fearful that the Japanese would intervene should the company fail to attract sufficient capita
and fail to consummate its activities the British and Australian governments brokered a deal with
Anglo-Iranian, Shell and Standard Vacuum Oil to buy out Oil Concessions. This was approved by Lisbon
with the agreement that work would commence by 30 April 1941. In the prewar period a geological team
commenced operations.46
In October 1941, the UK and Australian governments advanced 10,000 pounds to the three oil majors to
Page 110
induce them to acquire controlling shares in the Portuguese company (CUP) Companhia Ultramarina de
Petroleos' concession rights in Timor. Yet, as reported by the visiting British Consul, Archer, on the eve of
War, "the only oil production actually going on in Portuguese Timor is in the hands of the Government
itself which runs a small refinery capable of Producing eight tins of kerosene a day". 47
Manganese: In fact, as one Japanese observer recorded, the only mining venture actually being worked on
Timor in the immediate prewar period was a man ganese mine in the eastern part of the island on the south
coast. He described the A ore as of good quality but limited quantity.48 In the early 1930s a Dutch mining
engineer, Hofman, Was granted concession rights to manganese deposits found at Nova Benfica, near
Aliambata, and in the district near Baucau. This was believed to be of more use for medical than
metallurgical purposes owing to its rich content of Dioxide of Manganese. In short time Hofman
commenced mining operations and, in 1936, sold 60 tons of Meta11urgical manganese at 60 gold florins a
ton to Japanese interests who freighted the ore from Laga using their company ship.
Hofman broke off this arrangement when the price offered by the Japanese concern was lowered to 45
florins a ton whereupon, in 1937, he negotiated a sale of 50 tons at 80 guilders a ton to German interests.
However, Hofman stalled at unloading further stocks of ore at what he considered unprofitable terms. Lea
with around 100 tons of Stock, in February 1941 Hofman then negotiated with Nanyo Kohatsu K.K. to sell
25 tons a month at 70 florins a ton. At this point the government stepped in and imposed upon Hofman a
fine of 3,000 patacas evidently for breach of contract in not working his concession. Employing large gangs
of Native labour, the government extracted a further 200 tons of Manganese ore. However, it appears, the
government was no more successful in negotiating a satisfactory sale with Japanese interests. Prior to the
outbreak of the war the government was negotiating with Australian interests. Archer saw in this initiative
an attempt on the part of the government to reduce Timor's dependence upon coffee.49
As Yanagishiwa concluded in 1941, Timor's mineral resources remained virtually unexploited.50
Undoubtedly this was a sentiment that guided future fortune hunters down until the present, yet the Timor
Eldorado proved elusive, at least on land. By the end of the colonial era, however, the promise shifted to
Timor's offshore marine resources, a reference to what would emerge as the world's 23rd largest oil and gas
field in the Timor Sea.
Conclusion
In this chapter we have emphasized the overarching role of the state in Timor, not only in the area of Sea
and land communications and in pioneering industrial ventures running from salt extraction to minerals
exploration, but also in mediating the way that private business operated and in virtually managing the
man-land relationship, necessary to set the conditions for a plantation economy based on export-based
monoculture. The state, we saw, also intervened in such areas as banking, money circulation, in the
collection of Taxes and imposts, and even in such rent-seeking activities as the establishment of
Monopolies. While the foundations of this statist endeavour in Timor reaches back to Celestino da Silva's
SAPT operation, which paradoxically opened the way for private exploitation of Timor 's resources, human
and otherwise, the central role of the state in colonial Timor received further stimulus with the advent of the
Estado Novo.
Never before as under the corporativist endeavour of the Salazarist state in Timor was the axiom that
colonies should pay for themselves so inventively grasped.
But where the Portuguese in Timor failed by the standards of Northern European colonialism as an efficien
extractor of resources, and failed even by the standards of colonial capitalism in breaking down
pre-capitalist modes of Production through the substitution of money for barter, it is not the same as saying
there was no economic motive and that there was no development. We have seen that a colonial enclave
economy was successfully developed but in the geographically restricted sphere of coffee cultivation. But
whether a colonial working, class developed in the plantation sector in Timor separated from his (or her)
land, selling his labour, conscious of his class position, as in the Marxist definition, such as occurred in
certain African settings under Portuguese colonialism, remains highly dubious.
Just as we look to anthropological structures of Peasant societies to answer this question, so we should look
to the ideological props of the Salazarist state in Timor if we are to grasp the till implications of the colonia
project in this obscure Oceanic possession of Portugal.
Page 111
Notes
1. W.G. Clarence-Smith, Slaves, Peasants and Capitalists in Southern Angola, 1840-1926, Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge, 1979, pp. 3-3, 12-20.
2. R6ne Pelissier, Timor en Guerre, Le Crocodile et les Portugais (1847-1913), Orgeval, 1996, pp. 207208
3. PRO CO129/457, "Opium Monopoly in Portuguese Timor", Hong Kong, 19 February 1919, British
Consular Agent, Kupang to HBM Consul General, Batavia, Koepang, 10 April 1919.
4. AHU Doc. Imp.495 Timor DGE 2 Reparticao, December 1912...Relat6rio.
5. J. Ferraro Vaz, Moeda de nmor, Lisboa, 1964, p. 53.
6. BOGPT,No.13, I April 1911. .
7. Ma Tak-wo, Currency of Macau, Hong Kong, Museum of History, Urban Council, 1987, p. 18.
8. Jose Augusto Correia de Campos, A Resolucao do Problema Monetdrio de Timor, Sociedade Nacional
de Tipografia, Lisboa, 1932, pp. 34-45.
9. Ma Tak-wo, Currency of Macau, p. 18.
10. A Resoluca?o do Problema Monetirio, p. 72.
I 1. Australian Archives (AA), VIC. 1 I 877/I 1163, Archer's reporton Portuguese Timor, March-April
1941.
12. O Macaense, 29April 1886. I
1 3. W. G. Clarence-Smith, "Planters and smallholders in Portuguese Timor in the nineteenth and
Twentieth centuries", Indonesiancircle, No.57, March 1992, pp. 20-23.
l4. Pelissier, Ifmor en Guerre, p. 205.
15. Clarence-Smith, uPlanters and Smallholders".
Yetothers such as the Conde de Penha Gareia argued that offering Timor to a concession company was no
solution. Rather, given the "indolence" of the Timorese peasant, the solution was to introduce white
colonists so as to transform Timor into an Oceanic Sao Tome. Necessarily these colonists would be
Capitalized, experienced, and offered protection by the military. In the absence of Metropolitan recruits,
these immigrants would be drawn from the Portuguese community in Hawaii, well established since 1878.
See Conde de Penha Garcia, Algumas Palavras sobre a colonisaca-o de Timor, Soc. de Geografia Tip. "A
Liberal", Lisboa, 1901.
16.Ibid.
17. Lawson, "East Timor: Roots Continue to Grow", pp. 1617.
18.Ibid.
19. AHU Doc. Imp 495 Timor DGE 2 Reparticao 1912 Dec. "Relat6rio do Governador Filomeno da
Camara Melo Cabral, sobre administracao da Provincia", p. 47.
20. Helio A. Esteves Felgas, Timor Portugu8s, Agencia Geral do ultramar, Lisboa 1956; Archer's report,
and Ruy Cinatti, Esboco Hist6rico do Sdndalo no nmor Portugues, MiniStirio das Co16nias, Lisboa, 1950.
21 Peter Hastings, "The Timor Problem-II: Some Australian Attitudes, I 903- I 941 ", Australian Outlook,
Vo1.29, No.2, August 1975, p. 19l.
22. Archer's report.
23. Helder Lains e Silva, Timor e a Cultura do Caj:2E, Ministerio do Ultramar, Junta de investigac6es do
Ultramar, Lisboa, 1956, p. 142.
11
The Interwar Years: Culture, Control and Dissuasion
Politically, the revolutionary process in Portugal culminating in 1910 with the ousting of the monarchy and
the establishment of a republic was followed by 15 more years of instability. Matters changed when, in
1926, a group of military officers seized.
gaotimor01
Power, dissolved parliament, outlawed political parties, censored the press and placed strong controls on
trade unions. The new Finance Minister, Antonio Salazar, a former professor of economics at Coimbra
University, soon began to exert enormous influence within the government. As Minister of Colonies,
Salazar moved in 1930 to impose central government control over the colonies. In 1932, as Prime Minister,
Salazar increased the powers of the political police. 1
This chapter seeks to set down the main features of Portuguese colonial rule in Timor in the interwar years.
While, as shown, this was a rare period in the island's troubled history of apparent peace and quiet industry
the absence of major outbreaks of rebellion cannot have been out of love of the indigenous
population-although such bonds of loyalty were highly mythologized-but equally stemmed from what is
here described as "coercive dissuasion". While, by this age, the population of the colony had grown to
451,604 and that of Dili to 8,l36 (census of 31 December 1927), it is hard to conceive that either Salazarism
or the church succeeded in making over the Timorese even within the idiom of colonialism. In any case, the
voices of the Timorese were mostly silent in this epoch, at least outside of tribal lore, indigenous collective
memory, and the pages of a few scattered colonial ethnographies.
The effort to reconstruct these years must, necessarily, involve some active deconstruction of colonial texts
codes, and symbols. Where other colonialisms in prewar Asia generated a nucleus of colonial literates, the
record is wanting for Timor. There were simply no Timorese Kartinis or Sukarnos of this age, a reference to
the rise of literate and print conscious native-nationalists in the Dutch colony.
Salazar and the Estado Novo (1926)
Under Salazar's Estado Novo, a new administrative rationalization was created for Portuga’sl African and
Asian colonies. On the legal plane the most important decree affecting Timor was the organic charter of the
colony of Timor brought down in 1931. Inter alia, this law described Timor as an "administrative division
of the Portuguese colonial empire", representing an "autonomous administrative and financial organism",
albeit under metropolitan control. The charter also set forth in some detail the particular dispositions and
conditions under which administrative control in Timor was exercised by the Ministry of the colonies
through the person of the governor, local administrative agencies, and the military. As erstwhile chief
executive in the running of the colony, the Governor-the first under the new dispensation was Governor
Antonio Baptista Justo (1930-33) also exercised authority on military questions equivalent to
commander-in-chief. Presented to the International Colonial Exposition in Paris, this document represented
the first attempt on Paper, at least, to portray the Southeast Asian colony in the light of modern colonial
administrative organization.2
No less, the modernizing thrust of Salazar's new order gave way to a series of overarching decrees and acts
setting down the relationships between the colonies and metropolitan Portugal; among them being the Carta
Organica do lmperio Colonial Portugues of November 1933, the Reforma Administrativa Ultramarina of
November 1933, and the Acto colonial of September 1935.
Yet, no political space was created for political action in Timor under the long Salazarist regime. There wa
no parallel in Portuguese Timor to the limited opening seized by Timorese in Dutch Timor as a
consequence of prewar Dutch "ethical policies" which saw the emergence of such socially concerned
parties as Timorsch Verbond, founded in 1922, Timor Evolutie, founded in 1924, Pesekutan Timor, formed
in 1926, and Timorsche Jongeren, formed in Bandung in 1933 by Timorese students in Java. Nor was there
any parallel in the Portuguese colony with the experience of those Timorese under Dutch rule exposed to
the rhetoric of the Indonesian Nationalist Party (PNI), not to mention the Indonesian Communist Party
(PKI) which established a branch in Kupang in 1925, inter alia calling for the mitigation of taxes and an end
to forced labour (at least until the arrest and exile of its leader, Christian Pandie). Neither, for that matter, d
the Indonesian nationalist movement take any interest in Portuguese Timor.3
It should also be emphasized that there was no parallel in Timor to other Portuguese colonies where by the
1920s and 1930s, either critiques of Salazarism developed among an educated class of illustrado (Goa), or
where disenchanted Portuguese mounted challenges to Salazarism in the colonies (Guinea). Educational
opportunity in Timor, as explained below, was simply retarded and few Timorese, if any, availed
themselves of an outside education. There was also no parallel in Timor to the situation in Mozambique in
the 1920s where, until driven underground, several organizations existed representing the political interests
Page 113
of educated Africans. Neither was there any parallel in Timor as in Goa where opponents of Portuguese
colonialism, albeit products of this system, threw in their lot with the broader struggle against another
colonialism, that of the British in India.4
But if an indigenous challenge to Portuguese rule during the interwar years appeared to be lacking in
Timor, and in the apparent absence of a conspiracy of the assimilado along the lines of that preceding the
Boaventura rebellion, exceptional was the class of deportados or persons banished from Portugal and other
colonies for political offences. In Timor, according to a British source, this group of about one hundred
comprised 60 per cent democrats, 30 per cent communists, and about 10 per cent ordinary criminals.
Besides opponents of the Salazar regime, Timor was also a destination for condemned criminals from other
Portuguese colonies, especially Macau. One was Joao Gomes Moreira Jr., deported from Angola for
involvement in an independence movement, who, at the time of his meeting with a British consular official
in 1941, was working as a clerk in the court.5
Others included a number who had participated in a revolt in Guinea in 1927 and 1931.
Another was the father of Jose Ramos-Horta, part of a progressive group who commandeered a Portuguese
gunboat to participate in the Spanish civil war against Franco.6
Nevertheless, the deportados were deliberately scattered over various parts of the island, their movements
restricted to designated areas, and otherwise subject to various controls. As shown in a following chapter,
many of deportados would actively rally to the "antifascist" cause in defence of Timor against Japanese
occupation.
Labour Control and Coercive Dissuasion
Greater political control, in theory, meant the wherewithal for greater extraction and, ipso facto, primitive
accumulation. In Portuguese Timor, the prewar tax regime (l936) stood at 16 patacas per year for wage
earners (some 2 per cent of the labour force) and 11 patacas for so-called auxiliary labour (98 per cent). For
auxiliary labourers the tax became equivalent to four months labour although possibly offset by sales of
garden and plantation products. The penalty for default was unpaid labour service in lieu of tax. Basically
all male "natives" over the age of 16-18 were required to pay the tax. Dispensations, however, were
allowed to Europeans, "assimilated" natives, chiefs, and, among other categories, owners of over 3,000
coffee trees or 1000 rubber trees all in production.7
While, in reality, as Metzner points out, official requirements relating to die collection of taxes amounted t
little more than the annual census, 8
This view neglects the modus operandi of collection, indeed, the logic of colonial capitalism. As reported in
a 1932 issue of the Australian publication, Smith 3r Weekly, by starving the local treasury Lisbon obliged
local officials to squeeze the indigent Timorese harder and harder. On taxation, the paper reported, the
district commanders "go after the Mexican dollars of the natives good and hard". While the link between th
tax burden, and the tension between family budget and the demands of the state budget, have been widely
aired in the literature on rebellion during the depression years in such colonies as Burma and Vietnam, it
appears that the dissuasive and coercive power of the colonial states Portuguese Timor included, has been
underestimated.
Witness:
... Our informant states that native prisoners in Portuguese Timor, guilty of no greater offence than that of
inability to pay their taxes, are put to forced labour in chains, under the superintendence of native guards,
and if they weaken in their tasks are dogged with long bamboo rods until they fall exhausted and bleeding.
Guards standing over them hog them until they get up again.
To escape the rain of blows that falls with monotonous regularity on the stragglers they make frantic effort
to overtake those in front of them, and thus the march continues. But inevitably exhaustion overcomes the
weakest. They sink to the ground.... Port Arthur in 1832, the Devi1's Island today, are pale shadows of this
tropic island atrocity.
Another informant of Smith's Weekly explained the treatment meted out to runaways from the government
plantations, who otherwise served up to half a year's corv6e labour far from their homes, who were obliged
Page 114
to supply their own food, and who were wracked with illness, under fed and overworked
:
... The runaway, when captured, is a convict. He is given from 100 to 200 strokes with the palmatoria
(bamboo). After about sixty strokes the hands swell enormously and blood begins to now. The victims of
this torture shriek like men possessed. But the Moradores continue their work. Two hold their man while
the third continues to swing the bamboo, relieving each other at every 25 strokes, lest the vigour of the
punishment be lessened.
This eyewitness reported that the tenente or civil commander of the district of Viqueque, not only took a
delight in witnessing the spectacle personally but also would kick the prisoners when recovering their
balance. Another practice, although later discontinued, involved smearing the wounds so incurred with hot
water and salt.9
As we have emphasized, colonialism was sui generis and to answer back to this Australian critic, rigid
controls over Australia's aborigines at least the survivors of white settler colonialism "reached", in the word
of one authority, "a climax in the depression years of the 1930's". 10
But we write of Timor not Australia.
In part, the expanding administrative regime in Timor proceeded in tandem with the need to lay down city
ordinances and planning codes such as relating to building codes, hygiene, the use of vehicles, and in the
area of public order and peace, such as controlling the use of firecrackers, etc. But the codification of laws
also implied a system of fines for preachment. By the 1930s city life was a more complex affair for the
urbanized Chinese or semi-urbanized Timorese. In 1937, for example, a table of annual taxes was
introduced covering almost every conceivable aspect of life. Under this dispensation imposts were imposed
for, building renovations, new windows, animal powered tractors, bicycles, clubs, parties (a dispensation
was made for marriages), flying a foreign flag (exemption for Portuguese nag), sign boards, alcoholic
drinks, cockfights, etc., etc.11
While enforcement of such a regime in rural Timor may have been one matter, default on obligatory labou
service was a penal issue. Up until the immediate prewar period, the colony hosted three prisons, Aileu,
Taibesse and Cadeia da Comarca. In a 1939 rationalization brought down by Governor Alvaro Eugenio
Neves da Fontoura (1937-39), a move was made to "localize" prisoners, in part through the creation of a
system of Colonia Penal Agricola da Timor.12
Commensurate with the "modernization" of public administration, new measures were also taken to
introduce immigration controls, namely by prescribing two points of entry, Dili, and O-Silo in Oecusse.
Neither was the deportado forgotten in these new control measures. As an additional control measure, they
were required to report themselves to the local authorities every Saturday. 13
In 1940, incoming Governor Manuel de Abreu Ferreira de Carvalho (1940-45) classified Timor as a penal
colony, therefore ensuring a steady supply of condemned Chinese and Macanese from Macau.
Conveniently, Macau also served as a penal colony for condemned Timorese.
The Portuguese Cultural Crusade
Against the backdrop of economic backwardness and labour control, what additional ideological features
did the Republic, and especially the Salazarist state; seek to impose upon the Timorese consistent with the
organic charter? How did Timorese society evolve within the rules laid down by the colonial state? What
scope was there for educational advancement in Timor? What was the hand of the church in this project?
While, as discussed in Chapter 8, the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1910 virtually left the role of educating the
population in the hands of the not very capable state, the slate was not entirely wiped clean. First, as
mentioned, the Chinese community in Dili had not been backward in this area. The first formal Chinese
school in the colony, the Clube Chum Fuk Tong Su, as witnessed by a Portuguese visitor in 1912, offered
instruction not only in Chinese language, but also offered courses in English, zoology and botany. 14
As of 1916, when Governor Filomeno da Camara laid down a new set of regulations for primary schools
in the colony, state schools had already been established in sixteen widely dispersed locations. Additionally
mission schools still operated in Lahane, Ainaro, Hatolia, Alas, Manatuto, Soibada, Baucau, Ossu, and
Oecussi. Under the 1916 dispensation, rural schools were given priority with the emphasis on agriculture
Page 115
and, practical subjects. While it is unclear as to whether the authorities ever envisaged that Portuguese
would entirely replace Tetum and other dialects as language of local primary school instruction, the reality
was recognized that it was impossible to teach children in babel of different languages. Again it is unclear,
but under the new law, the schools in Timor were to be brought into "equilibrium" with hose in metropole,
suggesting an expanded role for Portuguese alongside Tetum. 15
But these were paper reforms and it is unlikely that Tetum or dialect was entirely replaced by Portuguese in
rural education at that date. .
Indeed, as the compiler of a Tetum-Portuguese dictionary wrote tin he 1930s, even after four centuries, it
was inconceivable that the Timorese spoke Portuguese.
Timor's "tribal" structure, the extreme isolation of various communities, and the history of internecine wars
all contrived to prevent the extension of the domain of Portuguese. Rather, it was the Portuguese, notably
the military, civil, and church authorities, along with the planters who were obliged to lean Tetum. Or at
least the Latinized version of Tetum Called Dili or Praca Tetum. The publication of various dictionaries,
catechisms, and other works in Tetum or about Tetum actually accelerated die process whereby the domain
of this language actually expanded and came to dominate over other languages and dialects. 1 6 -
As Governor Teofilo Duarte summarized, in 1926 there were six teachers and seven student teachers
teaching 200 students in state primary schools. In addition, there were 15 fathers and ten assistants teaching
500 students in primary education, in addition to ten apprentices carpenters and shoemakers, and a section
for the training of 30 catechists / Small increments in these numbers brought the grand total of primary
students in the system to 1245 by 1928. T-here was no high school or college level education or
opportunity. Of course, as Duarte recognized, there were many obstacles to the expansion of education,
both on the side of the impecunious state and on the side of tradition, superstition, and the long distances
separating isolated Timorese communities. But on the side of missions, he lamented, after 300 years; only
19,000 converts had been won. From figures Offered by Duarte, in all Timor, only 1822 could read and
write, 742 had reading ability, while the balance were illiterate. It is not clear whether these figures include
Chinese and metropolitans, but a staggeringly low level of literacy by any measure. 17
It would be relevant then to take stock of the legacy of the missions in Timor.
Writing some seven years after the expulsion of the missions from Timor, D. Joao Paulino d'Azevedo e
Castro, the Bishop of Macau, lamented that the number of missionaries and mission schools in Timor was
vastly reduced, certain of them completely abandoned with great prejudice to the cause of evangelization
and instruction. Moreover, of those members of the Canossian order who otherwise moved on to Malacca,
Macau, or Singapore, it was difficult to find replacements, even though the atmosphere had become more
supportive for the missions, especially after the passage of the provincial government portaria or decree of2
June 1916 confirming the employment of teachers and missionaries in the colony. Yet there is a sense that
the small florescence of mission activity, as matched by the development of Soibada and Lahane missions,
and the pioneering works oftrans1ations, had reached a nadir. No more than a dozen religious workers
remained in Timor, most of them at the end of their service. 18
Notwithstanding the efforts of P. Jose da Costa Nunes, Bishop of Macao and Timor from 1920 onwards,
the situation on the ground in Timor had little improved by 1938 when the number of missionaries had
increased to twenty. By this time, the activities of the church in Timor, as in Portuga1's other colonial
possessions, had been relaxed. Under the new Portuguese constitution of 11 April 1933 and laws of 23
March and 11 April 1935, the decree of 1910 was revoked and religious groups legally recognized.
Accordingly, in 1936, a new representative of the Diocese of Macau and Timor was appointed to Timor.
This was P. Jaime Garcia Goulart.
But, reading through the pages of the principal church organ, the Boletim Eclesiastico de Macau, there is
an overwhelming sense that the church was fighting an uphill battle, not necessarily against officialdom, as
most privileges and support had been restored, but what one Soibada-based missionary described as "gente
muito supersticiosa, agarrada aos seus luliques e estilos", a reference to the intractable resistance of the
Timorese to their "primitive" beliefs and culture. 19
Writing of Suro, another missionary commented upon the existence in Bobonaro of only an "incipient
Christianity", although the conversion of a chief and his family was considered a real event. Manufahi, for
example, site of the 1912 Boaventura rebellion, registered only 470 Christians in 1939. It was only in that
year that the first Church was inaugurated in Manufahi.20
Page 116
Writing of Ossu, where a mission and small school was opened in 1939, another missionary spoke of a vast
zone, where for want of lack of evangelization, there were few Christians. This outpost, located at the foot
of the formidable Mundo Perdido mountain range, worked hard to overcome the handicap of distance,
isolation of communities, nomadic habits of the interior dwelling people, and the prevailing culture of
sacrifices.21
Nevertheless, in this period, small Christianized communities developed around the filagree of missions,
churches, and capelas, some soundly constructed, others made of bamboo or local building materials. While
the number of baptisms and conversions increased slowly, as did the educational and civilizational work of
the church, it can be said that the role of the church in Timor society deepened during this period. The
church even played a small economic role, in part because the missions always operated on a threadbare
budget. The Dare mission, for example, supported a coffee plantation employing fifty local youths on a
daily basis. Eventually, on 4 September 1940, under Papal Bull Solemnibus Conventionubus, the diocese o
Dili was separated from Macau. The first apostolic administrator to head this position was Mgr. Jaime
Garcia Goulart (1940-58). 22
Representations
While we have observed the late arrival of the printing press in Timor and the A Practice of the Macau
press to serve as a surrogate press in the case of Timor, how did this change over the decades? From a
scrutiny of prewar publications, it is clear that no Timorese writers were published in Dili in this period. In
any case, the press was the exclusive outlet for official or officialized publications authored by
metropolitans. Obviously, the link between a readership and a literate reading mass is symbiotic. It is not
surprising then that, given the failure of the state and missions combined to significantly increase literacy
over this period, civil society in Dili was restricted. Few Timorese entered this charmed circle, the domain
of metropolitans, their military auxiliaries, some Chinese, and Goanese.
This is not the same as saying that Timor was a void in the world of literature or at least colonial writings.
To the contrary, a number of works surfaced in Macau or Lisbon offering either critiques of administrative
malpractice or attempts to set the record straight as to alleged misrepresentations in the eyes of the world.
Some took cover by publishing in other countries. Such was A de Almada Negreibos, who, writing from
Paris in 1907, compared Timor to Guinea as among the Portuguese colonies disposing abundant natural
resources and offering great potential but which, paradoxically, languished over long years in a situation
"sinon desespere, du moins desesperable". 23
But, notorious in this sense were the writings of "Zola", alias Antonio Padua Correia, a Portuguese
journalist who first placed articles on Timor in newspapers in Porto prior to the publication of two vitriolic
pamphlets entitled, Quatorze annos de Timor (1909) and Timor; O governo do general de brigada do
quadro da reserva Jose Celestino da Silva durante 14 annos. Latrocinios, assassinatos e perseguicoes
(1911). Directed at the "rei de Timor", Correia amassed an array of official and unofficial documentation to
lay open a catalogue of charges against Celestino da Silva, conjuring up, in the words of Pelissier, an image
of Timor not unlike that of the Congo under Leopold. Among the charges levelled at Celestino da Silva and
family include; abuse of office, financial fraud, employment of slave labour on family-owned plantations,
systematic abuse of prisoners, crimes against otherwise loyal reinos, or, in other words, public theft on a
grand scale for the profit of his family. Such was Celestino da Silva's reputation -evil or benign- that,
unwittingly, Timorese in his employ earned the sobriquet criado do governed or (lit servant of the
governor). But in fact, Correia served as the mouthpiece of two brothers, both military doctors, serving in
Dili, Antonio and Jose Paiva Gomes, along with an army pharmacist, Ubaldy d'Oliveira. It is perhaps
regrettable that Celestino da Silva died (March 1911) before answering back at these defamations. Neither
did a proposed duel between the former governor's son, Julio Celestino Montalvao, and his leading
detractor, Antonio Paiva Gomes, clear the air.24
Another who looked to journalism, or rather literature, to reflect on the Timor "dilemma" was Alberto
Osorio de Castro, author of Flores de Coral: Ultimos poemas, published in Dili in 1908.25
And, in part, reworked in 1928-29, and eventually published in 1943 as A Ilha Verde e Vermelha de Timor
26
The judge was no ordinary writer, however, but part of a literary circle, which included distinguished
Page 117
Portuguese poet and life-long friend, Camilo Pessanha. Pessanha's private reactions to news that Osorio de
Castro would take up appointment in Timor echo in many ways the metropolitan reputation of the colony a
both a physical and mental graveyard. In a letter written in 1907, Pessanha wrote to the judge his concerns
at hearing of his new posting "entre osjacar6s, as febres palustres e o Celestino". 27
Obviously the various editions of Ilha Verde e Vermelha found different audiences and, at the same time,
different resonances.28
Published in Dili by the official press soon after Celestino had left the island, the author of Flores de Coral,
a Coimbra University educated judge of mixed Goanese origin who lived and worked for three years, eight
months in Timor, could hardly have been naive as to the political context in which he wrote. As Pelissier
has remarked on this felicitous conjuncture, namely the departure of Celestino da Silva and the arrival of a
judge poet, the ambiguity of the situation bequeathed by the ex-Governor is well captured in the chant sung
by a local pomaleiro or shaman of the reino of Suro: "We neither belong to earth or sun, we belong to the
Embotte (Governor). Previously, we didn't wish to work and didn't know how. But now you have taught
us, we want to work". But as the senior Juiz de Direito (Judge) in the colony, a position he previously held
in Goa and Mocamedes (Angola), and sometime owner of a small plantation, Osorio de Castro also struck a
blow for law and order in his original publication, signalling the futility of rebellion on the part of the
Timorese, although at the same time allowing that a single indiscretion of the part of the Portuguese could
rekindle the rebellion.29
Part observation and travelogue - he accompanied the governor on a tour of coffee plantations in 1909 -
part scientific analysis drawn from a range of Western writings on Timor's anthropology, botany and part
linguistic analysis drawn from existing dictionaries, Osorio de Castro bequeathed in Ilha Verde e Vermelha
a poetic version of a Timor embedded in a specific anthropological and botanical niche- best described as
Wallacea- but within the Portugalized orbit whose points of reference included, distantly, Camoes and
Fernao Mendes Pinto, and his contemporaries and correspondents, Camillo Pessanha and Wencelau de
Morais, among others. Reflecting, perhaps, his literary as much scholarly predilections, Osorio de Castro's
image of Timor is almost Braudelian in its composition and detail for the quotidian; from the perfume of
various botanica, to fine-grained descriptions of the mangroves of the coast and the flora of the highlands, t
the detail of Timorese and Chinese dress, to asides on virginity and marriage, to observations on the creole
of the Bidau, to renderings of Malay pantun or rhyming verse into Tetum, and literally a rendition of the
colours of the "Ilha verde e vermelha".30
Another who combined the approach of critique and panacea, while offering his own set of metropolitan
bases, was Antonio Mete11o, author of Timor Fantasma do Oriente (1923). Metello, who served a two
years commission as military commander of Suro and Lautem wished upon Timor a "governar em
dictadura" to overhaul the archaic administrative system and to rectify the military question otherwise
"completely abandoned". He argued that, with the exception of the Companhia Expedicionaria
Mozambique, Timorese-encadred forces lacked unity, were poorly trained, and were scarcely capable of
putting down rebellion much less defending the territory from the Dutch. Metello advocated a new system
of military roads, Dutch-style bungalows, extended medical and school services and an extension of
agriculture commensurate with Timor's potential. The number of Catholics, he observed, had fallen away
owing to the "stupid and unjust" persecution of the missions. He also wished to rectify the false image of
Timor held in Portugal as a "terra de exilio profundo, de morte e de sofrimento", when it could be an
Eldorado for both military and civilians, a veritable fantasma do Oriente. At the same time, he wished to
allay the negative image of Timor emanating from such countries as England and Holland. But like many
who sailed or, at least, steamed down the Rio Tejo in the interwar years putting the Torre de Belem astern,
Metello arrived in the colony by way of Batavia, Surabaya and Kupang on board a Dutch ship. Like many
before him, Metello was also bound to make comparisons with the Dutch colony. 31
The arrival in the colony in l937 of the celebrated artist Fausto Sampaio after a long journey via Africa
was probably no accident. In this sense it is hard to think of a Portuguese Gaughin or even 'a Portuguese
version of the itinerant Irish painter George Chinnery who put down roots in Macau. Sampaio's images of
Portuguese empire were celebrated as art but also as collective images of the colonial ensemble, with all its
ethnic variety and colour, but as recognized by the Ministry of Colonies, works of colonial ethnography. As
exhibited in the Camara Municipal in Dili during his sojourn, Sampaio's works ranged from scenes of the
Dili coastline, the Governor's palace, and the mission at Lahane, various scenes of Baucau, Manatuto,
Page 118
Laclo, and Vermassim. Sampaio's small "classic", "chefe indigena" or native chief and party en route to
welcome a new governor, carries something of the Estado Novo's paternalistic style in its exultation of the
Timorese nobel savage. Pointedly, the artist was commissioned to paint the portrait of D. Aleixo Corte Rea
pro-Portuguese hero of the Boaventura rebellion and future loyalist in the armed struggle against the
Japanese. 32
It is of more than passing interest that, following his conversion to Catholicism in 1931, Dom Aleixo was
chosen to represent the people of Timor at the grand colonial exhibition held in Porto in 1934, incidentally
an affair in which Portugal sought to exhibit to Europe the fruits of its civilizing mission. But, in staging thi
festival of folk and colonial lore in the metropole, Portugal also sought to take its place besides France,
Holland, and Great Britain as colonizer pares inter pares.
What this proud native chief learnt in Europe escapes us, but in the words of his biographer, having visited
certain old Timor hands from among the military and civilian officials, he learnt "os dotes de caracter e a su
fidelidade a Portugal". 33
An important indice of how a colonial power imposes itself symbolically over a subject people can be read
into the calendar of holidays and commemorations. In 1937, for example, festivities to commemorate the
eleventh year of the "national revolution" were held over five days in Dili. This was more than a mere
dying of nags and reading of speeches, but also drew in Timorese people in the form of corridas or horse
and bull races, games, a batuque or African dance, special masses on the part of the church, and even a
theatrical recital staged by the Chinese Association. Other anniversaries celebrated in the prewar period
included, solemn remembrance of the fallen in the Great War (6 April), and the publication of the decree
abolishing slavery (20 April). Neither were the primary schools spared the attentions of the Salazarist state.
In 1938 choral singing of such fascist-inspired anthem as "Portugueza" and Salazarist "Marcha da
Mocidade Portuguesa" became compulsory in primary schools, along with such patriotic Portuguese catch
phrases as "Tudo pela Macao" and "Nasci Portugues, Quero morrer portugues", but this is not surprising.34
By this year, Dili boasted a Casa Portuguesa, where books, papers, inks, etc.
Were sold. For those with money -obviously highly restricted class-radios could be purchased for a price.
Socially, as well, colonial society in Dili developed more confidently in this period. For example, the
sporting club "Sport, Lisboa e Dili" was registered in 1937. The following year a group of residents created
an Associacao de Beneficencia de Timor for the purpose of extending welfare activities to the peoples of
the interior. That year, on 13 June, according to the official bulletin, a new paper called Timor was
launched, although regrettably, no record can be found of this journal, which, if it existed, must soon have
faded. 35
Street names in Dili along with toponyms were resonant of history and commercial function, as in the leafy
Rua dos Arabes or the waterfront Avenida da India. As period photographs reveal, die Capital also
supported a number of undeniably impressive buildings, albeit resonant with the symbolism of empire,
including the colonnaded edifice of the Camara Mtlnicipa1, the dominating Palacio do Governor, housing
the governor's office, the council office, the secretariat and military department, the municipal school, the
imposing church, the Dr. Carvalho hospital at Dare, and the governor's residence at Lahane. Such
Luso-Timorese architectural forms came to be mirrored in the various circunscricao, in the form of fortalez
mission buildings, escolas, and the invariable residencia of the commander or secretary. Needless to say, th
allocation of housing was determined along the lines of the Colonial caste system. Precisely how this
infrastructure related to the Timorese may be arguable, but more the pity, as shown in a following chapter,
that this pre-war architectural legacy was utterly destroyed during the Pacific War.
It is also not without interest that under the Salazar order the penchant for substituting Portuguese toponym
for native nomenclature reached its apogee, albeit selectively. Thus Aileu became officialized as Vila A.
Monteiro, Hatu-Lia became Vila Celestino da Silva, Same became Vila Filomeno da Camara and Baucau,
Vila Salazar, a name which endured into the postwar period, at least cartographically although hardly in
people's minds. While the sacred peak of Tata-Mai-Lau did not undergo such a change of name, its service
to empire was also signalled in 1938 by the erection on the summit of a bronze plaque, courtesy of the
Geographical Mission of Timor, bearing the words, "Portugal-Alto Imperio que o Sol logo em nascendo ve
primeiro".
Conclusion
Page 119
The eve of war found Timor ruled by about 300 metropolitan Portuguese including 100 deportado. At the
apex of the structure stood the Governor along with about 36 key European officials in addition to civil
servants of Indian, Cape Verdian, Macanese and Timorese origin. To this number can be added around
2,000 Chinese, some dozen Japanese and several Australian or other European nationalities.
Viewed as colonial subjects, it is clear that for the Timorese people this was a typically Portuguese African
colonial situation in the sense of the imposition of labour controls and corvees with little scope for private
accumulation beyond a subsistence level much less the possibility of attaining the status of assimilado.
While the mission system offered the theoretical possibility of self-transcendence, or at least escape from
servitude, very few Timorese made that transition. Here were one people separated by colonialism, obliged
to dream different dreams, although there is no doubt that the creation of an embryonic Timorese
middle-class, or at least class of Timorese conscious of their ethnic separateness, went further in Dutch
Timor, at least as illustrated by the role of the parties and "lobbies". But it is also the case that the long
historical "civilizing" role of the church, the special role of the colonial military and the creolized camp
followers, the; moradores, not to mention the rituals of the Portuguese state as f11tered during the Salazaris
years, all contrived to imprint a profoundly Latinized version of colonial society upon an essentially
Melanesianized lineage society.
Yet, Portuguese Timor stood out among colonialisms in the prewar period for its seeming
non-interventionism in matters of culture and tradition. In this sense Timor was run more like a protectorate
than a colony. But whereas in Cambodia and Laos, for example, the French sought to revive certain culture
practices to strengthen "national" identity, no such endeavour was mounted in Timor. In any case, Timor
lacked centralized state structures. From our understanding of the way that metropolitans represented Timo
it was never as a separate nation, but always as an extension of the Portuguese patria. So mythologized was
this cultural crusade that very few if any Timorese could see through this smokescreen, at least none
challenged it on these terms until the postwar period. Whereas in Malaya and Brunei, for example, the
British encouraged the teaching of vernacular languages and the standardization of scripts, in Timor, outsid
of missionary endeavour, there was no attempt to even develop Tetum as a script language much less an
official language. There were not even any officially-sanctioned dictionaries in Timor, the sine qua non of a
national language policy. Unrealistically, in the absence of a lingua fanca on the level of, say, pidgin in
Papua New Guinea, Portuguese served as both national and official language. It was only the rise of
Timorese nationalist parties some half century later, which sought to rectify this matter.
Notes
1. Neil Bruce, Portugal: The Last Empire, David and Charles, London, l975.
2. Portugal: Chartre Organique de la Colonie de 27mor, Exposition Coloniale Internationale de Paris,
Imprensa Nacional de Lisboa, MCMXXXI.
3. Anon, Republik Indonesia: Sunda Ketjil, Kementerian Penerangan, Jakarta, n.d.
4. This is in part a reference to the figure of T.B. Cunha, the Goa-bom, French educated "nationalist': who,
in 1929, exposed the perfidy of British capitalists in exploiting with Portuguese connivance labourers from
Goa in the plantations in Assam. In so doing he created a Goa Congress Party linked with the Indian
Congress Party. See his trenchant critique of Salazarism in Goa's Freedom Struggle, T.B. Cunha Memorial
Committee, Bombay, 1961.
5. AustralianArchives (AA), Vie. 11877/11/163, Archer's report on Portuguese Timor, March-April 1941.
6. Transcript, "Ramos-Horta speaks for East Timor", 13 November 1996, News Hour with Jim Lehrer on
PBS, USA. .
7. JR & H.T. Landman, & Plant, "Notes on Portuguese Timor II", South Pacific, September, 1948, p.48.
Metzner, Man and Environment, p. 5. ,
9. Smith meekly, 2O february 1932.
10. C. D. Rowley, Outcasts in W7lite Australia, Pelican, Melbourne, 1972.
11. BOT, 19 June 1937.
12. BOGT, No.2, 14 January 1939.
13. BOGT, No.48, 27 November 1937.
Page 120
14. Jaime do lnso, Timor-1912, Edie6es Cosmos, Lisboa, 1939, pp.101103.
I 15. 1916 dispensation on schools.
16. P. Manuel Patricio Mendes, Dicionario Tetum-Portugues, Macau, I 935.
17. Teofilo Duarte, Timor: Ante-Cdmara do lnterno?I Famalicao, Lisboa, 1930.
I 8. D. Joao Paulino d'Azevedo e Castro, Os Bens das Missoes Portuguezas na China, Redaeao do
Boletim do Governo Ecelesiastipo de Maeau, Macau, l917, pp. l86-187.
19. P. Januario Silva, "Reorganizacao das Missoes de Timor", Boletim Eclesidstico da Diocese de
Macaw, No.423, 193 pp. ,854-873.
20. Pr. A.J. Fernandes, "O Evangelho na regiao de Suro e Bobonaro (Timor)", Boletim Eclesidstico de
Macau, No. 342, Sept. 1932, pp. 180188.
21. Pr. Ezequiel Pascoa1, "Breve relat6rio sobre a Missao de Ossu e as Estac6es Missionarias que dela
dependem", Boletim Eclesiastico de Macau, No. 424, Julho 1939, pp. 917-925.
22. Boletim Eclesiastico de Macau, various editions. For an Indonesian account of church history of
Timor, albeit highly schentatic, see P. Drs. Gregor Neonbasu, SVD, Keadilian dan Pendamaian di Diosis
Dili, Timor Timur, Konisi Komunikasi Sosial Diosis Dili, Dili, l992.
23. A de Almeida Negreiros, Les Colonies Portugais, Agustin Challamel, Paris, 1907, p. 139.
24. Zola (Antdnio Padua Correia), Quatorze annos de I7mor (I serie, np., nd. [19091), Timor. 0 governo do
general de brigada do quadjnO da reserva Josi Celestino da Silva durante 14 annos. Latrocinios,
assassinatos eperseguico-es (2 serie), Lisboa, 1911.
In part have drawn upon the analysis offered by Rend Pelissier, Timor en Guerre, Le Crocodile et leg
Portugais (1847-1913), Pelissier, Orgeval, 1996, pp. 228-233.
25. Alberto Osorio de Castro, Flores de Coral. ultimos poemas, Dili, 1908. Other volumes of poetry
published by this author included Exiladas (Coimbra, 1895), A Cinza dos Myrtos QVova Goa, 1906) and 0
SinaldaSombra(1923). .
26. Alberto Osorio de Castro, A Ilha Verde e Vermelha de Timor, Cotovia, Lisboa, l996.
27. Letter i(om Cami11o Pessanha, Vila do Conde, 7 0ctobre l907 to Osdrio de Castro, in Maria Jose de
Lencastre, Camillo Pessanha/ Cartas a Alberto Osdrio de Castro, Jodo Baptista de Castro e Ana de Castro
Osdrio, Imprensa Nacional, Casa de Moeda, Lisboa, 1984, pp. 65-66.
28. See, for example, the extensive critical note on Flores de Coral published in the Macau weekly A
Vejndade, No.72 de 31 de Margo de 1910 by Camillo Pessanha. But Pessanha and Osdrio de Castro were
lifelong friends and correspondents, part of the same literary circle and, indeed, whose travels or official
duties overlapped in Timor and Macau.
29. Pelissier, Timor en Guerre. p. 232.
30. Osorio de Castro, A Ilha Vejnde e Vermelha. For an analysis of Osorio de Castro's contributions to the
ethno-botany of Timor see, Ruy Cinatti Vaz Monteiro Gomes, Exploracoes Botanicas em I;nor, Estudos,
Ensaios e Documentos, Lisboa, 1950, pp. 17-37.
3 1. AlfTeres Antonio Mete11o, nmor: Fantasma do Oriente, Lusitania Editora, Lisboa, 1923.
32. Alvaro da Fontoura, in Fausto Sampaio: Pintor do uliramar Portugues, Agencia Geral das Co16nias,
Lisboa, 1942, pp. 47-72.
33. Jose Sim6es Martinho, mda e Morte do Rigulo Timorense D. Aleixo, Lisboa, 1947, pp. l7118.
34. BOT, No.47, 19 November 1938.
35. BOT,No.26, 25 of 1938.
12
Wartime Timor: 1942-45
While the combined Japanese Navy-Army thrust into Dutch Timor on 19 February 1942 met with little
native resistance, a success that can be attributed to careful intelligence preparation by Japanese agents prio
to the event, as much adroit propaganda cultivation of an "older brother" image, the situation was more
Page 121
complex in Portuguese Timor owing to both the status of Portugal as a neutral as much the presence in situ
of a combined Dutch-Australian force. Whereas the Allied forces were badly defeated in the attempted
defence of Dutch Timor, and where they became either prisoners-of-war or the subject of Japanese
massacres, in Portuguese Timor military actions against the Japanese by the guerrillas were entirely useful
the Allied cause and proceeded according to the textbook. Needless to say, the local Portuguese authorities
treated the Japanese invasion of Portuguese Timor with the same disdain as the earlier Dutch-Australian
intervention. Not surprisingly in these circumstances, Portuguese-Japanese relations in Timor came under
severe strain as the occupation progressed. But, as this chapter seeks to expose, the wartime occupation of
Timor by Allies and Japanese alike left the Timorese drained and exhausted by war end, abject victims of a
cynical intra-imperialist struggle played out in Tokyo, Washington, Canberra, London and even Berlin. A
sub-theme concerns the way that the wartime intervention opened up old wounds and rekindled atavistic
tendencies reminiscent of the ancient Timorese funu.
Japanese Military Rule in Timor: 1942145
Japanese motives as to their invasion were first made known to the people of Dili in the form of leaflets
dropped over the city on 21 February 1942, the day after the combined Navy-Army invasion of Portuguese
Timor. These made known that Japan was now at war with both the Netherlands and Australia, deemed "a
component of the United Kingdom", and that Japanese Forces were obliged to act in response to the
stationing of Dutch forces in a "neutral country". 1
While, from the outset of the Japanese invasion, the Portuguese were under extreme duress, it was not until
9 August 1942 that the Japanese inaugurated a plan for the destruction of the Portuguese administration in
Timor. From an Australian source, the Japanese political project involved a number of strands, which
commenced to be implemented in that month. These were; the systematic bombing of Portuguese postos,
the importation and training of Timorese allies from Dutch Timor, propaganda directed at the Timorese and
elimination of pro-Australian Timorese, the killing of pro-Australian Portuguese officials, the gradual
elimination of the Portuguese ad ministration culminating in the transfer of all Portuguese officials to Liqui
in December 1942, the introduction of paper currency, and the acceleration of the military campaign in the
eastern sector of the island in order to eliminate the Aus tralian threat.2
The following pages shall demonstrate how these objectives were met and with what results.
While Australian military mythology tended to question the neutrality of the Portuguese Governor Manuel
de Abreu Ferreira de Carvalho, no such doubts were entertained by the Japanese who simply bypassed his
authority and cut his telegraphic communication to Lisbon.3
One Japanese memo of June 1942 described Governor Ferreira de Carvalho as "obstinately
uncompromising", having rejected Japanese demands to punish certain Portuguese officials and "servants"
(i.e. loyal Timorese) and for assisting the "invading army" (i.e. Australia). 4
In short, the Governor was branded a "great hindrance to the carrying out of the air war and defence
operations". 5
On 24 June, such obstruction prompted Tokyo to present Premier Salazar with a detailed list of hostile acts
committed by the Portuguese authorities and Timorese alike. Two months later, however, the local Japanes
authority could detect no change for the better. 6
Meanwhile, as the Japanese looked to Timorese collaborators to prop up their occupation, relations
between the Portuguese and the Timorese began to unravel as well. In August 1942, Japanese diplomatic
sources reported the "simultaneous uprising" by Timorese in two villages south of Dili leading to the deaths
of a number of Portuguese and Chinese and creating a sense of "extreme apprehension" in the Portuguese
community. While the Japanese source rationalized this event as the actions of "a group of natives from
former Dutch Timor who came forward to cooperate with the Japanese forces" seeking to settle "grudges
against the Portuguese because of ill-treatment" in their moment of vulnerability, 7
The truth was otherwise. In fact this attack on Aileu on 31 August 1942 resulting in the deaths of five
Portuguese soldiers along with a number of administrators and missionaries was mounted by the infamous
colunas negras or "Black Column”, a group of disgruntled west Timorese armed and recruited by the
Japanese to sow terror among the population. Dunn's interpretation of the actions of the column and the
Japanese as intrigues to reopen the wounds left by the uprisings earlier in the century and to exploit
Page 122
traditional tribal rivalries merits further examination. 8
Indeed, according to Australian soldier Bernard Callinan, this conflict had another dimension, a veritable
war within a war. This is an allusion to the rebellion in August 1942 of the Maubisse against the Portuguese
and the part played by the Portuguese in rallying the Christianized peoples of Ainaro and Same "not at all
friendly with the non-Christians of Maubisse'' to ruthlessly crush this show of independence. 9
As Pelissier comments, the uprising by Maubisse was not out of love for the Japanese, but out of
decades-old memories of the Manufahi wars, especially the quest on the part of this disaffected people in
seeking revenge against rival Suro (Aileu), and its loyalists, namely Dom Aleixo Corte Real, liurai of Suro,
nephew of Nai-Cau, the "traitor" liurai of the 19 12 rebellion who stood with the Portuguese. Posthumously
awarded Portuguese state honours, D.Aleixo, his sons and followers, mounted a heroic but doomed stand
against Japanese-led forces in the mountains of Timor in May 1943. 10
In response to these harrowing events, Governor Ferreira de Carvalho sought to have all Portuguese
temporarily evacuated to the offshore island of Atauro and, to this end, petitioned Lisbon to send a ship.11
The message duly delivered-and intercepted-by the Japanese, spoke of "constant native uprisings" and the
"impossibility" of continued residence in Timor. 12
In the event, the requested vessel did not arrive and the move to Atauro did not transpire (although,
ironically, this scenario eventuated in the face of the Indonesian invasion some thirty years later).
But, on 24 October 1942, in line with the overall plan to dismantle the Portuguese administration, the
Japanese Army moved to concentrate all Portuguese in Timor (around 600) in the Liquisa and Maubere
concentration camps. Only the Governor and the Mayor of Dili were given a temporary reprieve.
Meanwhile, all Portuguese were disarmed. According to Japanese sources, this policy was not only for the
protection of the Portuguese but won their "gratitude". 13
According to a former Portuguese inmate of this camp interviewed by Australian war crimes investigators,
conditions were very bad, food scarce, and hygiene conditions poor owing to lack of water. As a result,
"many" Portuguese died in the camp. While in the first year, Japanese troops served as guards, in the
second year they were replaced by Kempetai along with some Timorese guards or "spies".
Although a Portuguese doctor was resident in the camp from the outset, joined after two years by two
Japanese doctors, no medical treatment was possible owing to lack of medicine. 14
While the Dili hospital remained open for the duration of the occupation, according to a Portuguese
physician who remained in office for the first four months of the occupation, the Japanese did not offer
medical supplies.
As a result, Timorese were not treated even though yaws was then very prevalent.
Also, according to this witness, contrary to International Red Cross rules, an Australian soldier being treate
in the hospital was removed by the military. 15
As in other parts of Japanese occupied Southeast Asia, the colonial system of education was dismantled
and teaching in Japanese language teaching introduced.
In occupied Timor, however, it is hard to imagine this writ being actually implemented outside of the capita
city given the paucity of resources and the chronic instability. In any case, some progress was made in Dili
in substituting Japanese symbols of government for Portuguese. As in other parts of Southeast Asia under
Japanese rule, the new political-military reality that punished the old colonial order also offered promotion
possibilities to collaborators. While certain liurai lost rank, others severely persecuted, such as the Chinese,
others, including some among the small Arab community of Dili gained rank through appointments as chef
de posto or through employment in the Kempetai. 16
The Japanese also mobilized Timorese labour for road building and for labour on such big projects as the
construction of an airfield at Lautem. According to the account of a native of the Indonesian island of Kisar
forced recruitment for these duties was not confined to Timorese. He describes how; in l942, the Japanese
military ordered all chiefs on the island to supply labour for the Lautem region under duress. Women
recruited from Kisar supplied a so-called Japanese "restaurant" in Lautem.17
But, according to other testimony, Timorese chiefs were also obliged to supply girls to Japanese brothels. It
also came to light after the war that some sixty Chinese were deliberately killed during the war while
another 200 died of hunger and abuse. Besides forcing-some fifty Chinese women into "concubinage",
Chinese were isolated from native Timorese and forced to work in labour gangs. According to the head of
the Chinese community in Timor Timorese Chinese suffered losses of property amounting to 3.5 million
Page 123
patacas. 18
No less, the plan to substitute Japanese currency for Portuguese was problematical. The BNU, acting as
government treasury, continued to pay Portuguese officials in Portuguese money until 23 November 1943.
The Japanese then attempted to impose upon the Governor a loan in Japanese money. While, at first, the
Governor resisted this attempt by drawing upon a reserve comprising Mexican dollars, two days later he
was obliged to accept an interest-free loan of 100,000 guilden or invasion money. From this date, the
Japanese forbade the use of Portuguese money and the Mexican dollars. Japanese military scrip was then
enforced at parity with the pataca. Matters deteriorated further with the imprisonment of the Portuguese
manager of the bank on 10 July 1944.
The following month the Portuguese were obliged to withdraw their guard over the bank only to have it
mysteriously "burgled" the day after. Missing were seven cases of money containing 34,000 Mexican
dollars along with a quantity of silver and jewellery. A "sum of money" was subsequently returned to the
Governor after the surrender. 19
Infamously, Joao Jorge Duarte, the BTN manager, along with engineer Artur do Canto Resende, the
administrator of Dili, Jose Duarte Santa, and the chefe de posto of Liquisa were at this juncture interned on
Alor island. The first two named died of malnutrition while the others survived, albeit badly inflicted with
malnutrition. One of the survivors, the soldier Antonio de Oliveira Liberato, went on to publish two books
on his wartime experiences, blaming the collaboration of some of the Portuguese with the Australian
guerrillas for contributing to Japanese reprisals and turning Timor into a battleground. 20
In Dutch Timor, where Allied forces had been routed and subject to various atrocities at the hands of the
invading Japanese-a reference to the notorious Penfui massacres later subject to postwar investigation-many
Indonesians with nationalist ideas saw in the Japanese intervention a means by which Dutch supremacy
might be broken. Notable in this sense was the role of wartime collaborator and nationalist on the side of th
Indonesian Republic, I.H. Doko. Doko, who went on to make his mark in postwar politics in Kupang as
both politician and historian, became head of the Japanese-sponsored Bunko or Department of Health,
Education and Information as well as editor of the small newspaper Timor Syuho. Doko had earlier formed
the Perserikatan Kebangsaan Timor, an erstwhile nationalist grouping of Timorese. 21
Australian Commandos in Portuguese Timor
There is no question that life was made harder for the Japanese by the actions of Australian guerrilla forces
during the first two years of the occupation. Japanese reports pay backhanded tribute to the estimated 300 to
400 Australians of the 2/2 Independent Company whose actions were "to the considerable discomfort of
our opposing forces". 22
The strategic value of the Australian force was also not lost upon the Americans. In the words of General
Douglas MacArthur, writing in the same month, "the retention of these forces at Timor will greatly facilitat
action when the necessary means are at hand... These forces should not be withdrawn under existing
circumstances. Rather, they should remain and execute their present missions of harassment and sabotage".
Otherwise, he estimated, it would take between two brigades to a division to liberate Timor. 23
Known as Lancer or Sparrow Force, the Allied contingent in Portuguese Timor included at various times,
members of the 2/2 Company, the 2/4 Company, and detachments of the Royal Netherlands East Indies
Army (RNEIA). Total strength never exceeded 800. The Lancer operation commenced with the arrival of
the 2/2 in Dili on 17 December 1941. It effectively ended some two years later with the evacuation of the 2
4 on 10 January 1943, although other stay-behind parties and special operations units dubbed "Z" special
parties continued to operate behind enemy lines for the rest of the war.
Yet, as acknowledged in a Japanese report of April 1943, Australians did not have a monopoly over the
anti-Japanese resistance as "recalcitrant Portuguese" and native forces in the hinterland also kept up
opposition. 24
This is a reference to the anti-fascist "International Brigade" comprising a number of the deportados.
Also known as the "Red Brigade", they numbered a former newspaper editor, army officers, communists,
socialists, and even liberals. By joining up with the Australian commandos during the war, members of the
Brigade tended to share the same fate, at least in the field. 25
Coincident with the disembarkation of some 6,000 Japanese marines at Dili, the 2/2 withdrew to the hills
Page 124
surrounding the town. A rotation of Japanese troops in late March 1942, however, allowed the Australian
commandos to execute raids and ambushes into Dili. While the Japanese forces had been able to push into
Ermera and Aileu, by the end of June-subject to repeated ambushes-they were obliged to withdraw to a
perimeter surrounding Dili. But with the arrival of reinforcements in August and the adoption of a new
strategy, the Australians were thrown back on the defensive and pushed back to a hinterland zone almost
devoid of roads, albeit with a lifeline to the beaches of the south-central coast. On 14 August 1942, with
another lull in Japanese activity, the decision was made to insert in the field the 2/4 Independent Company
then based in the Northern Territory, a strategy designed to boost morale of pro-Australian Portuguese and
to win over the Timorese. This was accomplished but not without the unfortunate loss of the HMAS
Voyager By November 1942 the 2/2 was deployed in the Ailalec, Nova Caminha, Turascei, and Kablak
areas with the 2/4 covering Ermera, Ainaro, Atsabe and with the RNEIA concentrated in the Casa and
Belulic River areas. 26
While the Australians also sought to avoid provoking an even larger Japanese stake in Timor, one
consequence of their presence was to create the opposite effect.
Through October-November 1942, the Japanese continued to increase their force strength in Timor,
deploying four or five battalions in the drive towards the eastern part of the island. Faced with loss of food
supplies and suffering from malaria, 357 members ofth6 2/2 were evacuated successfully in three trips
between 11 and 19 December along with 192 RNEIA and 69 Portuguese evacuees by the Dutch destroyer
Tjerk Hides. Meanwhile, as observed, the 2/4 was left to bear the full brunt of actions mounted by the
Japanese-led Black Columns. By December, however, the overall position of Lancer force was extremely
vulnerable especially owing to loss of access to vital food supplies as the Japanese pushed further east. By
this stage, the Japanese had mobilized some 12,00Oforces and had successfully occupied all anchorages on
the north and south coasts east of and including Beaco.
With the construction of an airfield at Fui Loro they were also able to increase the pace of their aerial
surveillance over the sea approaches to Australia. The HMAS Arunta effected the final evacuation of
Lancer on 10 January 1943 at Kicras. A stay-behind Party was in turn evacuated on 1Ofebruary "without
achieving anything of value". 27
While there were obviously limits as to the overall efficacy of maintaining the Lancer force in Timor
against overwhelming odds, and an increasingly dubious welcome on the part of the Timorese, the Allied
bombing of Dili took its toll on Japanese and Timorese alike. According to a Japanese diplomatic dispatch,
commencing in late 1942 two or three Allied planes bombed Dili about once a week, in November
becoming a daily occurrence. As a result there were many casualties among the Chinese and Timorese.
According to Japanese Consular reports, major targets included the Consulate (November 1942), the radio
station (March 1943), a Portuguese vessel, and the hospital (February 1944). By June 1942, Allied
bombings had forced the Timorese population to nee the city for the countryside. Aside from the Army
presence, only a few Chinese shopkeepers remained in the city. 28
In fact, the U.S. Commander-in-chief of the Southwest Pacific Area ordered the bombing of Portuguese
Timor. Noting with concern the "successful and unhindered actions" of the "Black Column" from west
Timor inside Portuguese Timor, the concerned U.S. military figure, Major General R. K. Sutherlin,
memoed his Australian military counterpart that, "all the available bombing strength at Darwin should be
made available for the immediate bombing of Dili, Lahane and Aileu, with the exception of the buildings
still occupied by the Portuguese". 29
Otherwise, the Japanese were not displeased with Timorese cooperation in the guerrilla struggle against the
Australian "sparrow force". Not only were the Timorese seen to be "bitterly anti-Portuguese" but were
positive in supplying information in acting as guides and in mobilizing to kill the enemy, meaning
Australian troops. 30
The legendary Australian war cinematographer, Damien Parer, reporting from the war zone in early 1943,
also touched upon the loyalty question:
The relations of our force with the native's embrace the two extremes. On the one hand there are the native
who are employed by the Japanese in many cases with rimes and encouraged to hunt down our men and to
intimidate the native who are friendly to the Australians. On the other hand we would hardly have been abl
to exist without the help and kindness of the mountain natives who are loyal to the Portuguese
Page 125
Administration and who have formed a strong attachment to the Australians... The Japanese pay great
attention to the native question, striving by all means to set them against the Australians and against the stil
constitutional Portuguese administration. They supply them with arms and encourage them to undertake
forays against the mountain natives who are friendly towards the Australians. 31
The Australian writer, Wray, contends that, unlike in Dutch Timor where locals refused to assist the Allied
troops and actually betrayed them to the-Japanese, in Portuguese Timor the Australian "Sparrow Force"
only survived thanks to the loyal support of the Timorese. He acknowledges, however, that with the
disruption of agriculture, that support was withdrawn. Reading between the lines it appears that this was the
deciding factor leading to the withdrawal of the commandos although not before indicting some 1500
fatalities on the Japanese for a loss of forty. 32
While in west Timor, where the Indonesian population initially welcomed the Japanese as liberators from
Dutch colonialism, a sense of resentment against Japanese excesses eventually developed, if short of armed
revolt, 33
The situation in Portuguese Timor was obviously more complex. As Sherlock clarifies, there had been
sharp divisions within the Portuguese community in Timor in respect of collaboration with the Allied
Forces, both before and after the Japanese landings. Such divisions, or at least bitterness, are also reflected
in some of the books written by concerned Portuguese on their personal experiences in Timor during the
war "each of them being a matter of setting the record straight in response to an earlier publication... of
those who collaborated with the Allies, those who tried to maintain strict. Neutrality, those who stayed,
those who evacuated, those who died". 34
As for the Timorese, the intra-imperialist struggle fought out in their homeland could hardly have been
welcomed, although as clients of the respective armies or, as "free agents" as in the case of the anti-colonia
rebels, some may have seen marginal advantage in the turmoil. But these were "primitive rebels", not yet
men with a national programme, as were the Fretilin independence fighters some thirty years on.
Tensions also arose between the pro-Salazar camp and the "antifascist" deportados in exile in Australia.
Representing a cross-section of Portuguese colonial society, this group of 540 people evacuated from
Portuguese Timor during the war included Portuguese and their Timor-born families, Chinese as well as
mestico. Numbering die Bishop of Dili, Jaime Goulart, priests and nuns, high government officials as well
as ordinary civilians, die Timorese society-in-exile also included members of the Red Brigade evacuated by
the Tjerk Hides. There was even one convicted murderer from Macau.
Around half were children, while 400 were described in one Australian report as "natives and half castes".
Only the exiled Deputy Governor of Portuguese Timor, Dr. Ferreira Taborda, and Antonio Policarpo de
Sousa Santos, the pro-Salazar administrator of Bobonaro, were spared the indignity of detention in
Australia. 35
Australia, Portugal, and the Japanese Surrender
In March 1944 the Japanese leant of a report in which Premier Salazar explained how, at a recent British
Empire Conference in London, die Australian Prime Minister, John Curtin, contended-apparently with the
concurrence of other delegates-that the recovery of Timor was "imperative for the protection of Australia."
An Anglo American expedition to guarantee that objective was thus foreseen by dies Japanese. But, it was
speculated in Tokyo, should the Allies seek this objective without Portuguese concurrence, and then they
would necessarily refuse to restore Timor to Portuguese rule. In the light of this scenario, the Japanese
surmised, Portugal might be compelled to dispatch its own forces to Timor to achieve its restoration of
power. 36
While this intelligence assessment proved prophetic of future events, it was not until the immediate
pre-surrender period that Japan moved to diplomatically stymie the Allied advance on Portuguese Timor by
restoring sovereignty to the neutral power.
As Premier Hideki Tojo, made it known to Morito Morishima, the Japanese Minister in Lisbon in early
1945, Japanese policy in the southern areas involved evacuating "rear areas" first. Accordingly, such
"frontline" zones as Timor would be left to the last. (The rationale of course was that retreat was an
exceedingly difficult operation.) In the meantime, as Tojo instructed, the negotiating tack with Portugal wa
Page 126
to check fallout by approving the withdrawal as a matter of principle. 37
On 16 May 1945 Tojo advised Morishima that there was no longer any objection to his entering into
negotiations with Portugal over the terms of the Japanese troop withdrawal from Portuguese Timor.
Conditions set by Tojo for an eventual withdrawal of Japanese troops were that Portugal remain neutral (an
improbable demand since Portugal was clearly by this stage pro-Allied), that Portuguese Timor not be
reoccupied by the Allies (also an improbable demand as Portugal could hardly call the shots on the matter),
and that Portugal obtain a guarantee of safe conduct for the withdrawal of Japanese troops. In conversation
with Salazar on 28 May 1945, Morishima reported to Tokyo that the Portuguese leader intended to maintain
"neutral" relations with Japan. Both parties were in agreement that the Japanese withdrawal would not
occur before the arrival of the Portuguese forces.
Such an event, the Japanese Premier advised, could lead to friction between the Portuguese and Japanese
troops. Indeed, Japan was hopeful that the Portuguese contingent would weigh up as more than just a token
force so as to counteract the envisaged allied occupation. 38
With the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945 and the surrender rescript
announced on 15 August, Japan was no longer in a position to stonewall the Portuguese. On 15 August, the
Japanese Foreign Ministry informed Morishima that Japan was proceeding to restore Portuguese Timor to
Portuguese control.
In fact, just prior to receiving this message Morishima cabled Tokyo imploring, first, restoration of
Portuguese sovereignty, second, the return to Portuguese control of their radio link (to Macau) and, third,
the transfer of Japanese arms to the Portuguese authorities. Tokyo replied that while the arms transfer issue
was stalled owing to its "delicate" nature, within the week the "military authority on the spot" would have
been ordered to comply. 39
But events were moving fast. On 5 September, three days after the formal surrender ceremony on the
battleship Missouri, and four days after the Japanese military commander in Dili, Colonel Yoshioka,
accompanied by Consul Yoshitaro Suzuki met with Governor Ferreira de Carvalho communicating an end
to hostilities, Tokyo duly notified the Portuguese government that the colony was restored to Portuguese
administrative control. Portugal further made it known via its Foreign Office that all Japanese officials and
military personnel in Timor would be placed at the disposal of the UN, and, if desired, transferred by
Portugal to any port the Allies might designate. 40
The following day the Portuguese Foreign Office made it known that it had informed the Allies, first, that
Portugal viewed the occupation of Portuguese Timor by Allied troops "with disfavour", second, that
Portugal wished to settle the Timor question by direct negotiation with Japan and, third, that Portugal was i
the process ofneg9tiating with the Anglo-Americans for the dispatch of a warship. 41
Yet the Allies, especially the Australians, conveniently sidestepped the transfer of sovereignty achieved by
the Japanese on 5 September. Incredibly, Timor was destined to be "invaded" one more time before the
Portuguese contingent could arrive. In fact, as archival sources reveal, Canberra was informed on 10
September by the Portuguese Consul in Sydney that the Governor had achieved a de facto transfer of
powers from the Japanese on 5 September and, moreover, had deployed a contingent of armed Japanese
commanded by a Japanese police officer to execute his orders. 42
Yet, as shown below, the Allies were determined to "punish" Portugal for its alleged acquiescence" in
Japanese demands.
The Portuguese, at least, must have been relieved that Japanese rule in Timor did not mirror the wartime
occupation of such colonial possessions as French Indochina, the Dutch East Indies, or British Burma
where the Japanese had either cultivated or armed anti-colonial sections of the population (Burma, Java), or
at war end, had, in part, tuned their weapons over to insurgent nationalist forces (Vietnam). Indeed, such a
concern had been expressed by a Portuguese foreign office spokesperson, Marcelo Matias. Specifically, he
-argued, unless Japan transfer its weapons direct to Portugal then the colonial power may well have to
contend with a "native uprising." 43
Morishima, whose pro-Portuguese bias has been noted, reported in early September that the Portuguese
were apprehensive lest Australian forces re-enter Portuguese Timor on some pretext or other. The
Portuguese, he noted, were adamant that negotiations should not be held in Tokyo with the Allies over
Timor. Rather, discussions by the Allies on the important question of arms transfers should be held in
Lisbon, the administrative authority as far as Portuguese Timor was concerned. Accordingly, Morishima
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advised Tokyo not to discuss the Timor question with the Allies "before learning of the outcome of
Portuga1-Allies negotiations". 44
It is unlikely that even Morishima's sources in the Portuguese capital would have been au courant with the
shadow boxing behind U.S. bases diplomacy over the Azores, with Timor as the Portuguese ace. 45
On 13 September, in reflection of the real situation in post surrender Japan, Foreign Minister Mamoru
Shigemitsu cabled his Minister in Lisbon that Japan awaited allied instructions as to the terms of the arms
transfer issue. Accordingly, he sought Portugal to gain Allied consent before issuing the arms-transfer orde
No reports of local surrender negotiations had been received by Tokyo; although it was well understood
that radio contact had been established between Timor and Macau (thus signalling a resumption of
Portuguese authority in the colony). 46
In fact, the first telegram message received in Lisbon from liberated Timor were those sent on 12
September by the Governor to the President of the Republic, President of the Conselho and Minister of the
Colonies. For metropolitan consumption, the messages offered decisive evidence of "an end to hostilities
and the return of Timor to Portuguese authority". 47
It is clear that, by war end, a major disagreement occurred between Australia and Portugal as to which
party would take and enforce the terms of surrender of the Japanese. According to W.D. Forsyth, the senior
Australian diplomat concerned, by August-September the Australian government was determined that an
Australian as opposed to Portuguese force take the Japanese surrender on Timor. Originally, a separate
surrender ceremony was envisaged in Kupang as well as in Dili.
Australian motives in pursuing this course, as expressed by Forsyth, were twofold; first, to mark the fact tha
it was the Australians alone who resisted the Japanese and, second, that the Portuguese whose "neutrality
had helped the Japanese to turn (Timor) into a base" should have no military part in the termination of
hostilities. 48
Accordingly, on 28 August 1945, Canberra cabled London requesting that no facilities be given to enable
Portuguese forces to reach Timor and that the Japanese surrender should be to Australian forces only. No
doubt sensitive to its relations with Lisbon, the British government rejected the suggestion of a second
Australian occupation of Portuguese Timor. In any case, it was calculated, Portuguese Vessels could not be
prevented from departing Ceylon or Mozambique for Timor. 49
On their part, the Japanese learnt of Australia's intentions on 7 September via an Australian press dispatch
reporting the words of the Australian Minister for Defence, Kim Beazley that "arrangements have been
made to accept the surrender of the Japanese in Dutch Timor while arrangements for the capitulation in
Portuguese Timor will be made in cooperation with the Portuguese government." 50
No doubt the Japanese were still banking upon the arrival of Portuguese reinforcements to pre-empt the
Australian advance. 51
Not surprisingly, perhaps, news of the Australian announcement of the Japanese surrender was censored in
Portugal. 52
As a prelude to the Australian-staged surrender ceremony in Dili, Brigadier Lewis Dyke in Kupang
accepted the Japanese surrender in Dutch Timor on behalf of Australia on 11 September 1945 on the
quarterdeck of the Australian ship HMAS Morseby. As an Australian press account of the time remarked,
the failure of the Australian government to permit participating Dutch service representatives to sign the
document was understandably met with expressions of "keen disappointment and concern" on the part of
the Dutch authorities.53
Almost simultaneously, the Australians were engaged in an active diplomacy with the Portuguese to gain
agreement as to an Australian occupation of Portuguese Timor by Australian troops. Australian Foreign
Minister D.V. Evatt proposed this in a note to the Portuguese Ambassador in London on 10 September,
albeit rejected outright in the Portuguese reply two days later. Only under duress did the Portuguese
Governor in Dili accept a compromise position whereby an Australian military mission would supervise the
carrying out of the terms of the surrender with the assistance of the Portuguese administrator. According to
Forsyth, on 19 September the Australian cabinet decided on a scheme for a separate surrender ceremony at
Dili, an exercise "recognized to be primarily political." He describes his own role in the affair as finessing
what amounted to an unprecedented involvement in military tasks in peacetime on neutral territory." 54
The Australian contingent duly departed Kupang for Dili on 23 September where, upon arrival,
Commander Dyke congratulated Governor Ferreira de Carvalho on the restoration of Portuguese rule. The
Page 128
party established that there were no Australian POWs in the colony, and that only 200 Japanese remained.
55
On this occasion the Governor was informed of the surrender in Kupang and was briefed on arrangements
to be made for the surrender of remaining Japanese forces. 56
According to Wallis, an Australian journalist who witnessed the "restoration" ceremony it was "a short and
simple affair, held in front of the landing stage from which the Portuguese ensign flew." 57
The haste with which the Australian contingent dispatched with ceremonials and the timing of the event
were well considered. Indeed, the following morning (27 September), the long expected and much delayed
arrival of the Bartolomeu Dias and the Zarco transpired. As Wa11is coyly observed, they were welcomed
in "another colourful ceremony." 58
Dunn who writes that Portuguese rule resumed two days later with the arrival of troopship carrying a
military expedition echoes this chronology. 59
In fact the ceremony, as much the arrival of the ships, carried far more significance than that described in
the Australian reports. According to Didrio de Noticias, the "impressive" ceremony held beneath the
tottering colonnades of the bombed out Camara Municipal evoked pathos at wartime suffering, patriotism,
and the regeneration of the colony. In attendance were most surviving Portuguese, many local Timorese, th
moradores from Baucau and Manatuto, loyal chiefs, and a grand display by Timorese brandishing
Portuguese nag-lulics otherwise hidden from the Japanese. Internal evidence suggests that the occasion was
also one of winning renewed pledges of loyalty and commitment from the Timorese, certain of whom were
sorely tested by the irruption of a new power on the island. Notable was the effusiive pledge of support
written by die rifgulo of Viqueque to the Governor on 29 September. The arrival of the ships was more than
just symbolic, but part of a long-prepared rescue plan for Timor. Besides bringing 2,223 troops, including
infantry and artillery, the mission included three engineering companies along with substantial supplies of
food and construction materials. Above all, the mission provided the wherewithal to stave of the kind of
starvation and chaos that ensued
In the wake of other Japanese surrender acts, the great famine of North Vietnam being a notorious case. 60
What also seems to be ignored in these Australian versions is that Portuguese rule had in fact resumed on 5
September 1945 when the Japanese informed Portugal of the occurrence. Clearly, as both the surrender
ceremony in Kupang on 23 September and the "transfer" ceremony in Dili the following day suggest, the
Australian side was adamant in bypassing both the Portuguese (and the Dutch) in their dealings with the
defeated enemy. The haste with which the Australian expedition was dispatched to Kupang and Dili and
the cavalier attitude towards complex questions of international law strongly point in this direction.
War Crimes
Besides the questions of Allied POW's and Australian war graves, Forsyth also broached discussions on
Japanese war crimes at the time of his visit to Portuguese Timor. While efforts were made to induce the
Governor to initiate proceedings, he took the view that Portuguese authorities should exclusively investigat
Japanese crimes committed against Portuguese subjects, therefore ruling out the possibility of joint
investigations. In the event, the two parties agreed that the question of cooperation would be referred to the
respective governments.
Dyke, however, entered into some preliminary investigations in the knowledge that the difficulty to collect
concrete information would increase with time. 61
On 21 June 1946 Major Quinton of the War Crimes Commission arrived in Dili. With the agreement of the
Governor, who in turn communicated with Lisbon, a committee was formed including Quinton, Manuel
Metelo Raposo de Luz Teixeira, the Administrator of Bobonaro, and Captain Pos of the RNEIA, attached
to the U.S. Prosecutor of Major War Criminals in Tokyo. While, once again, the Australians sought joint
investigation, they were obliged to confine their activities to Australian victims. In a memo to Charles
Eaton, the first postwar Australian Consul in Dili, Quinton complained of "obstinacy" and even of cover
up" by Portuguese officials in revealing the names of those who collaborated with Japanese prior to and
during the war. 62
But it was also the case that the Australian War Crimes section felt that war crimes investigations "should
not be left in the hands of neutrals". 63
Page 129
The theme of blaming die Portuguese for their own misfortunes was one that would recur in official
Australian attitudes towards Timor.
A scrutiny of the relevant official documentation on war crimes investigation in Timor reveals, first, real
reason for concern, second, a certain zealousness on the part of investigators to come up with the smoking
gun, and third, grave difficulties in bringing about prosecutions owing to conflicting evidence, vague
testimony, difficulty in identification of individuals in the various military units that rotated through Timor
and even in tracking down the guilty parties who had already re-entered civilian life back in Japan. For the
historian, the problem of reconstruction is exacerbated by the fragmentary nature of the remaining and
available documentation.
The following incidents as well as judgments are well documented, however; torture of members of "Z"
Special Force comprised of groups of special commandos inserted in Timor in September l943, and April
and August 1944, following the withdrawal of the 2/40 and the 2/2. [At war crimes trials held in Darwin in
May 1946, three Japanese were handed down one to three month prison sentences, while six accused
persons were acquitted]; 64
Execution of 24 Australian and Allied persons discovered in a mass grave near Kupang; 65
The detention of Australian and other Allied personnel in the appalling Oesapa Besar POW camp near
Kupang until evacuated to Java in August-September 1942; 66
And atrocities committed by the Fukumi Butai corps against a party of 16 men of the 2nd Independent
Company on 23 February, the morning of the Japanese Navy assault on Dili. In this affair, 16 men of the 2/
2 were captured, four were immediately shot and the rest bar one executed by sword. Many fingers point to
the nefarious activities of an organization called Ortori, linked with the Kempetai. One of the Australian
commandos survived his bayonet wounds to tell the story. Although the prime subject committed suicide
following interrogation, at a subsequent war crimes trial, two Japanese were sentenced to death by hanging
two were handed down life sentences and one was given fifteen years imprisonment. 67
Conclusion
Many Timorese including liurai paid with their lives either for standing neutral or for alleged support of
Australian guerrillas. Many other Portuguese and Timorese were executed by the Japanese without court
martial. 68
One Portuguese writer who has studied this question, Vieira da Rocha, lists the names of 75 Portuguese
and assimilados who died as a result of the Japanese occupation. At least ten died in combat against the
Japanese, 37 were murdered while eight died in detention.
Many were deportado, most were officials. 69
The number of Timorese who died during the war is impossible to calculate with precision but is of the
order of 4070,000 out of a total prewar population of around 450,000. The disruption to native agriculture
and the breakdown of prewar society stemming from the harsh system of food collection and corvees
imposed by the Japanese inevitably led to famine and other hardships, including debilitating disease.70
It is clear that the Australian War Crimes investigators were only interested in investigating crimes against
the Australian commandos, not against civilian Timorese or Chinese victims who suffered most from
Japanese regime of terror.
While Australian investigators collated a mass of oral testimony as to atrocities committed against
Portuguese, Chinese, and Timorese, no action was taken in these cases. While Japanese crimes against the
Portuguese were actually commemorated in stone in a splendid and surviving monument in Aileu it also ha
to be said that ordinary Timorese were prime victims of Japanese excesses and recriminations. Equally, it
was ordinary Timorese who suffered most from draconian labour details not to mention the economy of
scarcity imposed by wartime conditions. 71
It also cannot pass without mention that alone among the peoples and countries occupied by Japan during
the Pacific War, Portugal's oceanic colony was not a beneficiary of war reparations as set down at the 1951
San Francisco Conference as Portugal was not, technically, a belligerent in this war. As a visiting private
Japanese consortium leant at first hand in Timor in the 1970s, neither had Japan seen fit to redeem military
script issued during the war, the basis upon which the Japanese army financed its occupation of the country
72
Page 130
The issues of Japanese wartime compensation including the Claims of so-called "comfort women" or sexua
slavery in Timor first became public in 1997 but only in the Macau media where Jose Ramos-Horta
speaking on behalf of the Timorese people took it up. 73
No less, as we have seen in this chapter, the disruptive actions of outsiders awakened in familiar pattern th
atavistic funu of the Timorese fhe11ing violence to dangerous levels. Without question, the manipulation o
ancient animosities by the Australians and, especially, Japanese in their own version of intra-imperialist
struggle imposed a heavy price upon the Timorese as victims.
Notes
1. Copy of leaflet dropped by the Japanese in Dili, 2 1 February 1942, signed Commanding officer,
Imperial Japanese Forces.
2. AA Vie MP729/6 file no. 74/40l/124, Maj. Gen. Stevens, Commanding NT Force, "Report on the
Operations of Lancer Force, in Portuguese Timor".
3. The Magic Documents: Summaries and Transcripts of the Top Secret Diplomatic Communications of
Japan, 1938-1945, US War Department
(Magic), 30 May l942.
4. Ibid., 8 Jun. 1942.
5. Ibid., 10 June 1942.
6. Ibid., 15 September 1942.
7. Ibid., 15 October 1942.
8. James Dunn, Timor: A People Betrayed, The Jacaranda Press, Brisbane, 1983, p. 23.
9. Bemard Ca11inan, Independent Company: me Australian Army in Portuguese Timor 194143, William
Heinemann, Sydney, 1953, pp. l54-l55.
10. Jose Sim6es Martinho, nda e Morte do Rigulo Timorense D. Aleixo, Agencia Geral das Co16nias,
Lisboan 1947, and see Rend P61 issier, Timor en Guerre, Le Crocodile et les Portugais (1847-1913), Pal
issier, Orgeva11996, p.262.
11. "Magic", 17 October 1942.
12. Ibid., 4 November 1942.
13. Ibid., 18 December, 1942.
14. AA CVic) 336/11724
15.Ibid.
16.Ibid.
17.Ibid.
18Ibid.
19. Ibid., testimony of Anselmo Bartolomeu de Almeida. .
20. Kevin Sherlock, "Timor During World War I and II: Some Notes on Sources", Kabar Seberang, 1988,
No.19-20! p. 43.
21. Ian Rowland (compiler), Timor: Including the Islands of Roti and Ndao, Clio Press, Oxford, 1992,
XXIX
22. Magic, 15 June 1942.
23. Historical Division., GHQ9 SW Pacific Area, "McArthur to Blamey", 11 June 1942.
24. Magic, 14Apri11943.
25. Ca11inan, Independent Company:, p. 13 1.
26,. AA Vie MP792/6 file no.74/40l/124, Maj.Gen. Stevens, Commanding NT Force, "Report on the
Operations of Lancer Force in Portuguese Timor". ?
27. Ibid.
28. Ibid., l December, 1942, 9 February 1944, 20 March 1942.
29. Historical Division, GHQ, SW Pacific Area.
30. Ibid. 15 October l942.
31. Damien Parer, I 943 (typescript, Mitchell Library).
32. Christopher C.H. Wray, Timor 1942, Hutchinson, Sydney, 1987, p. l78.
33. Sejarah.
Page 131
34. Kevin Sherlock, "Timor During World War, I and II", p. 43.
35. Australia Archives (ju) Series A1838/2, Ite. 436/3/3/3.
36. "Magic", 16 March 1944 and 26 July 1944.
37. Ibid., 18 May 1945.
38. Ibid., 5 June 1945.
39. Ibid., 22 August 1945. The evident surrender order by Tokyo to its forces in Timor, as announced by
Domei and carried in a Reuters report, was front paged in Didrio de Noticias (18 August 1945).
40. Ibid., l4 September 1945.
41.Ibid.
42. AA Vie 1932/2/203, "telegram sent by External Affairs to Dr. Evatt in London", 10 September 1945.
43. i.Magic", l4 Sept. 1945.
44.Ibid.
45. See author's, Wartime Portuguese Timor.. The Azores Connection, Monash University Centre of
Southeast Asian Studies working paper, No.50> l988. Also see, Carlos Bessa, ALibertaca-o de nmor na II
Guerra Mundial: Importdncia dos Acores para os lntejneSSeS dos Estados Unidos, Academia Portuguesa
da Historia, Lisboa, MCMXCII. Bessa's research is based, in large part, upon the memoirs of US diplomat
George Kerman and Portuguese Foreign Ministry documents.
46. AA Vie l932/2/203 "telegram sent to Dr. Evatt..."
47. See Carlos Bessa, A Libertacao de Timor na II Guerra Mundial, p. 155.
48. W.D. Forsyth, "Timer II: The World of Doctor Evatt," New Guinea and Australia, the Pacljic and
Southeast Asia, May/June, I 975.
49. Peter Hastings, "The Timor Problem MII, Some Australian Attitudes, 1903-l941 ", Australian Outlook
No.2, 1975, pp. l80-96.
50. "Magic", 14 September 1945.
51. Domei in The Mainichi (Tokyo), 7 August 1945.
52. Reuters (Lisbon), 11 September 1945 in "Magic", 14 September 1945.
53. Sydney Morning Herald, 14 & 26 September 1945.
54. Forsyth, "Timor II", p. 34.
55. Sydney Morning Herald, 26 September 1945.
56. Hastings, "The Timor Problem", p. 333.
57. N. K. Wallis! "Peace Comes to Dili," Walkabout, Feb. 1946.
58. Ibid. ,
59. Dunn, Timor: A People Betrayed, p. 27.
60. Carlos Bessa, A Libertacao de 3rl'mOr, and see Carlos Cal Brandao, Funo (Guerra em nmor), Edic6es,
AOV, 1992, p. 177.
6l. Australian Archives (ju) Vie MP 742/I and 246/1/l48, Department ofDefhce. (Ill) Army HQ.
62. AA Vie 336/11724.
63. juVic 336-12073.
64. AAVic 336/I/1213.
65. AA Vie 336/I/876.
66. AAVic 338/1/l724.
67. AAVic 336/I/l876, 336/11724, 336/12073.
68. AA CVic) 336/11 1724.
69. Carlos Vieira da Rocha, 27mor/ Ocupacdo Japanese Durante a Segunda Guerra Mundial, Sociedade
Hist6rica da lndependencia de Portugal, Lisboa, 1996.
70. -Wray, Timor 1942.
71. AA Vie 336/I/l724.
72. Shoji Shibuya, "Asia's Last Colony: On Timor", Koen (Lecture), No.l204, 15 November 1975 (in
Japanese).
73. Luis Andrade de Sa (ed.), "Comfort-women e desculpas plhblicas: Ramos Horta confirmou ao Futuro
exigencia de reparac6es ao Japao", F,uturo de Macau, Ano IV, Nthero 793, 15 de Janeiro, 1997, pp. 12.
Page 132
13
Colonial Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Postwar Timor
Setting aside for a final chapter the political changes wrought in Timor at the end of the Salazarist state in
1974, this chapter seeks to trace the contours of colonial capitalism and underdevelopment in postwar
Timor. While nothing in Timor 's colonial history and wartime legacy would challenge the commonsense
understanding that the colony suffered from all the symptoms of classic underdevelopment on an "African"
scale, again it is not the same as saying that economic change did not occur. It is also not the same as saying
that Portugal's stewardship over Timor was entirely negated by its economic failings. Timor's weak
world-historical incorporation and the cocoon imposed over the colony by the Salazarist state actually
rescued the half-island from rapacious foreign investment and exploitation, bequeathing to the late twentiet
century a version of Wallace's "Oceanic island-in-miniature", although to be sure such a romanticized view
of Portuguese colonialism had its serious downside especially in the area of social development.
It is sufficient in the foregoing, then, to strike a balance sheet of colonialism in its final phases a calculus th
would expose the failure of the state in Portuguese Timor to efficiently collect rent and develop extractive
industries along the model of northern European colonialism, on the one hand, weighed against the
conservation effects of the model which preserved, rather than destroyed, the major traits of indigenous
society and culture, on the other.
Postwar Rehabilitation
Following the Japanese capitulation, general administration was soon re-established in the colony.
Experienced administrators from Portuguese Africa replaced many of the prewar officials. The legacy of th
war, both human and physical, undoubtedly weighed heavy on the first attempts at economic recovery.
Almost half of the 92,000 contos (1000s of Portuguese escudos) expenditure budgeted in Timor's first five
year "plano de fomento" or Development Plan (1953-58) was allocated to reconstruction of the capital, with
the balance divided between reconstruction in the interior and agriculture and livestock resources. 1
Demographic losses incurred by the war are revealed in the first postwar census data. As of 13 June 1948
the population was calculated as 420,480. This figure included 1217 Europeans (1947), 3,592 Chinese
(1947), 146 Arabs (l949), and 660-mixed race (1949). 2
Census data for 1950 reveals a total population of 442,378, rising to 517,079 in 1960 and 555,723 in 1965.
The rate of increase for the 195,060 period was 17 per cent, extremely weak compared to a Southeast Asian
average for this period of 2.1 per cent. By 1968 the population had increased to 591,000.
According to an official Portuguese source published in 1970, projections ofpopu1ation size for 1970 were
632,700 and for 1973, 671,600. 3
Beyond these bare statistics it would be appropriate to draw a picture of urban life in Timor in the final two
decades under Portuguese rule. In this sense Dili was special as primate town, administrative capital, centre
for foreign missions, and also the commercial centre of the colony. While other towns such as Baucau,
Aileu, or Bobonaro shared many of the socio-demographic features of colonial Dili, the Capital was unique
in the sense of pulling in diverse peoples and moulding or blending them into a distinctive Portugalized
community, or communities.
According to Ramos de Oliveira who conducted a study of Dili's social structure in the early 1970s, the
town with a population of around 10,000 comprised four distinct communities or socio-ethnic groups.
These were, respectively, the Europeans, Chinese, Arab and Timorese communities.4
Of the Europeans, which by this date included several hundreds of young Portuguese serving out
compulsory military service, almost all were sojourners. The only exceptions, as noted, were the
deportados, decommissioned military officers who made their homes in Timor, and a few hotelkeepers and
several other merchants who alone challenged the Chinese commercial monopoly in Dili. This group
included some who had intermarried with Timorese. Most Europeans, including soldiers, were on official
business and resided either in military cantonments or official residences in the leafy, and architecturally
distinct Farol quarter of Dili.
Page 133
The Chinese, residing in Dili's commercial zone imparted a typical Southeast Asian commercial character
to the city. But outside the Chinese shop house centre, others resided in the Kulu-hum bairro to the
southeast of the city. Characteristically) the social cohesion of the Chinese was maintained through a
parallel system of Chinese language primary and even secondary schools, albeit incorporating a
complimentary curriculum including Portuguese language and history. In the postwar period, teachers were
recruited in Taiwan and the trend among the Chinese community in Timor was to celebrate official holiday
of the Republic of China, represented by a Consulate housed in a prominent building on the Dili waterfront
Although many of the Chinese of Dili had close commercial or even family links with Macau, the main
dialect spoken was not Cantonese but Khe or Hakka. Many Chinese were acculturated with Timorese ways
and were speakers of Tetum. At the same time, as discussed in a following chapter, some Chinese came to
be targeted by Timorese nationalists for their commercial aggressiveness or at least stranglehold over
commerce.
The "Arab" or Muslim community in Dili numbering some hundreds only, were descendants of Hadramau
Arabs who had settled most parts of Southeast Asia by the nineteenth century. This community was
concentrated in a specific quarter, Kampong Alor, also known as Kampong Arab or Campo Mouro9
fronting the sea to the north, the Comoro River to the west, and Farol quarter to the east. Occupationally,
they grew rice, manufactured copra and engaged in fishing and other commercial activities. Defined by the
Islamic identities, the community supported a mosque and an Islamic school, offering Koranic education
including the study of Arabic. Almost exclusively in Portuguese Timor, the Muslim community of Farol,
which also included some converts to Islam from the island of Alor) were speakers of Malay and otherwise
acculturated to Malay culture. Yet, as shown in the following chapter, certain scions of these ancient Arab
families rallied to the Timorese nationalist cause.
By contrast, Timorese society in the mundo urbano or urban world of Dili was more complex, especially a
traditional structures continued, albeit in modified form. By contrast to the Europeans and Chinese,
Timorese occupied peripheral residential zones, the so-called bairros de palapa. Here, communal traditions
were strong and "shared" poverty characteristic. Herein these urbanized Timorese agglomerations lived the
quintessential men and women, later dubbed the Maubere by Timorese nationalists, who, in part, recreated
and celebrated their clan and rural antecedents in new form. The centre of Timorese urban life was the
bazaar and, as witnessed by the author in the late 1960s, the futu-manu or cockfight held at the mercado
semanal was, as in real Timorese life, very much a fight to the finish. Outside of the bazaar, most worked in
low status positions such as in construction, manual labour or as low level functionaries. But overall, status
and integration depended upon level of education. Neighbourhood, place of origin, occupation and status,
as much key rites de passage such as marriages and baptisms> served to conjoin Timorese in the highly
multicultural and multiethnic urban space as represented by colonial Dili.
But did these communities meet, or was this a version of what British historian J.S. Furnivall described of
the Dutch East Indies as a "plural" economy with compartmentalized societies that only related to each
other through commerce?
Probably yes. But even so, an unjaundiced view of Portuguese Colonial society would hold that, unlike,
say, its British counterpart, it distinguished itself by its capacity to extend, beyond racial categories. The
mixed racial character of many of the "metropolitan" administrators reveals this truism. Added to that, the
major foreign communities in colonial Timor, the Chinese and Arabs of Dili, were represented via their
respective chefe de comunidade in the Dili Municipal Commission, an arrangement dating back to the
Governorship of Filomeno da Camara.
Postwar Administration
How then was Portuguese Timor governed through unto 1975? As confirmed by a metropolitan decree of
22 November 1963, Portuguese Timor was regarded as an overseas province with its own administration.
At the apex stood the Governor, below him the administrator do conselho, the administrador do posto, the
suco and the povoacao. With some variation, the governor was appointed by a Council of Ministers upon
the approval of the Minister of Overseas regions. In the execution of daily affairs he was assisted by a
Conselho do Governo and a Conselho Legislativo or Legislative Council. But, as head of the Conselho do
Governo, the Conselho Legislativo and Chefe de Estado Maior or commander-in-chief of the armed forces,
Page 134
the Governor was supreme, directly responsible to the Minister for Colonies in Lisbon, with the caveat that
his of {1Ce did not prejudice the independence of the judiciary.5
As in Macau, and indeed Hong Kong under British rule, membership of both the Governor's Council and
the Legislative Council were drawn from a combination of appointed and "elected" members. In the early
postwar Timor, the Council comprised four official members, including the Governor, and three unofficial
members, all Europeans. Two of the unofficial appointees represented Timorese interests. While the system
eventually made provision in the Legislature for three elected Timorese members, this was unquestionably
an unrepresentative colonial setup. Though empowered to legislate all internal matters for Timor, an
important exception was finance in which case the local Legislature deferred to the Minister for Colonies.6
It is also true, as Saldanha points out, that very few natives sons, much less daughters, rose to head the
parallel system of secretariats and agencies in the government.7
Elaborating upon the prewar divisioning of the colony into nine concelhos, thirteen concelhos were created
with 60 postos administrativos and one camara municipal (Dili). As in the prewar period an administrator
assisted by a Secretario and frequently by an Aspirante headed each of the circumscricoes.
Circumscricoes were divided into administrative posts headed by chefe de postos in turn divided into sucos
(groups of villages) headed by a Timorese chief, while these sucos were in turn divided into povoacoes
(villages or settlements), an honourary office filled by a lesser chief. Each circumscricao and posto
employed a number of Timorese police. The administrator of each circumscricao acted as president of a
small local council known as the Junta Local comprising native representation, a representative of
commercial interests, invariably Chinese, and where possible, the presence of a medical officer. While the
administrators were invariably professionalized permanent members of the colonial service, chefe de posto
could also be recruited locally as encarregados. Both were vested with limited judicial powers. While the
administrator had executive authority, in the postwar period it was the chefe de posto who was the main
interface between the colonial administration and the Timorese, insofar as he collected taxes, supervised the
indigenous labour force, and attended to all details of administration in his respective posto, a duty involvin
regular visits to all chiefs. According to Landman and Plant, the encarregados, who included
ex-non-commissioned officers of the army, deportados and assimilados, many of them with Timorese
wives: "appear to have a much more friendly and understanding attitude towards the natives". 8
Undoubtedly this setup had dictatorial features mirroring the corporativist character of the Salazarist state.
But whether or not it was intrinsically repressive or arbitrary depended as much on the character of the loca
administration as upon the Governor per se. While the resort to corporal punishment and summary beatings
dealt out by the Salazarist state offered little consolation to Timorese victims, rule of law nevertheless
obtained in the colony over long time. While it could be argued that few but the most privileged had
recourse to metropolitan courts, and while acts of "rebellion" were met with overwhelming force, the trend
in the modern period was towards the strict imposition of rule of law mediated by judicial institutions
separate from the executive. As discussed in a following chapter, the military coup that ended the
Salazar-Caetano dictatorship in 1974 also ramified upon Timor in the way that the armed forces interposed
themselves in the administration. But these were reformist democratic soldiers with a mission to decolonize
not to recreate colonial hierarchies.
Still, one should not just view the system through the optic of, say, British or Dutch colonial precedent or
even modern administrative science. The anthropological reality of Timor was specific and-the civilizing
mission and "pacification" campaigns notwithstanding-it owed to Portuguese administrative practice if not
policy, that outside of certain domains-labour recruitment was one-Portuguese rule rested lightly upon
traditional honour status systems. As two Australians observed of this version of indirect rule in the earls/
postwar period:
Timor has a native aristocracy, which though lacking in the glory of former days, still retains some measure
of power. The few remaining kings are recognized by the Government and are granted many privileges;
their homes are provided by the Administration and they are free of the burden of head tax. They do not
appear to have any very clearly defined legal powers, but apparently handle matters concerning native
custom and before the war could have their subjects beaten... The chiefs are also men of importance and are
utilized by the Administration in controlling labour and collecting taxes.9
Page 135
It is tempting, then, to see in the method of Portuguese colonial rule, both respect for traditional
institutions-to a surprising degree the Portuguese were obliged to defer to the power of the liurai in the
manner of making claims upon ordinary people's loyalties and, at the same time, adapting the system in line
with the norms of a modem colonial administration with both representative and meritocratic features. By
falling between two stools, as it were, Portugal earned the scorn of both traditionalists, many of whom
turned out to be reactionaries at the moment of climax surrounding Portuguese rule, and the modernizers as
represented by the progressive elements within the embryonic political parties but who nevertheless had to
speak the language of the people. Yet it is also true in Saldanha's memorable phrase that the trend in
Portuguese rule, "reflected the endless castration" of the traditional power structure. Here he is reflecting
upon the^ replacement or at least eclipse in modem times of the liurai or other traditional leaders with
elected officials or officials elected by the colonial government such as represented by the chefe de posto.
Thus, he explains, in the final coup against the mettle some liurai the Portuguese eliminated the rank of
regulo from the administrative hierarchy relegating the liurai to the lower rank of chief of suco. But whethe
this was "tragic" or not, as Saldanha would have us believe depends on one's view of colonial
administrative reform, and the role of new rising counter elites as represented by the new educated classes
which were bound to come into collision with traditional forms of power. 10
Notably, it was not until 1952 that the first liceu (middle school) was opened in Dili and the first vocationa
school four years later. Some year’s later ciclo preparatorio schools were opened in Dili, Bobonaro,
Maubisse, Baucau and Pante Macassar. Only by 1958 did a state-directed education program begin to
become effective and really only took off in the early 1970s. By 1966-67 the liceu had enrolled 833
students. By 1972-73, some 1200 students were enrolled in the preparatory schools. But whereas only 28
per cent of the school age population received an education in 1970-71, by 1973-74 the figure had risen
dramatically to 77 per cent.11
But teaching standards were low and education was still far from universal. At the end of 1974 there were
200 teachers in Timor, l6 Portuguese and the rest Timorese, only a small percentage of whom had any
teacher training.12
Needless to say, education had both an urban bias and a bias towards children ofprivi1ege, although not
necessarily race.
For the privileged few from among the assimilado, the peak of the education hierarchy broadened in this
period to include higher education in metropole. But graduation from a metropolitan university or college
did not necessarily imply a career in Timor, but could lead to service in other Portuguese colonies. On the
other hand, other assimilado graduates of metropolitan centres of higher learning were eligible for p9Sting
in Timor. In any case, by 1974, there were only a handful of Timorese university graduates. At the other
end of the scale, 90 per cent of the population remained functional illiterates.13
In 1975, in the last months of Portuguese rule, in an exercise never since repeated by any UN agency, a
delegate from UNESCO visited the territory with a view to offering assistance in restructuring the school
system and making the curriculum more relevant to Timorese needs and culture. More the pity that UN
agencies were not then or now engaged.
Yet, where the state failed in the field of education, the church and the Chinese schools compensated.
Before 1962, the Catholic Church provided the only schools in the interior. Before the Indonesian
annexation, the church operated 57 primary schools, one intermediate school offering some secondary
education and two seminaries offering religious education alongside secondary education. 14
The church also supported some 20 priests in a seminary in Macau, the highest rung in the church school
education hierarchy for Timorese. Of no small consequence, it was the Jesuit seminary at Dare that
graduated a number of the core leaders of the Frente Revolucionaria de Timor Leste (Fretilin), while its firs
President was a graduate of the Macau seminary. Another graduate of Dare and student in the Macau
seminary was Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo, future Apostolic Administrator of Dili, who continued his
studies for the priesthood in Portugal and Rome. Yet, it should be remembered, the pool bf recruits entering
the Catholic school and missions system was as small as its base. Only 229,314 or one third of the
population were registered as Catholics in the Dili Diocesan office in 1974.
Dynamics of the Postwar Economy
Page 136
A special feature of Timor's economy was the nature of its integration with the world economy. Arising
from the political needs of Salazar's Estado Novo, all Portuguese colonies were economically integrated
under the Espaco Econ6mico Nacional, essentially a Lusophone trading and currency bloc that privileged
trade between the Portuguese territories over immense distance which also imposed artificial barriers to the
closer economic integration of the local economies with their "natural regions".
Broadly, development planning in Timor in the postwar period was in line with he overall metropolitan
endeavour to stimulate development in overseas colonies. At die it time, like the African colonies; Timor
was also hostage to Portugal's own economic weakness and peripheralization within Europe.
Official Australian gloss on the 1948 census offers that, while statistics showing occupational groupings are
lacking, an estimated 10,000 Timorese performed compulsory service for the administration, while a furthe
2,700 were engaged in small industries, such as vegetable oil and sisal production, fishing and fish drying,
or as workers in a such enterprises as a soap factory, a perfume factory, or in one of six potteries for tiles
and bricks, sawmills, a mechanical carpentry shop, native weaving or in the handicraft industry. An
additional 2,000 to 3,000 were employed on SAPT, either on the estates, or in coffee, cocoa, and rubber
processing plants. The Carvalho coffee estates employed a further 300 Timorese with six or seven other
estates each employing 50 to 150 workers each. 15
This account does not acknowledge the role of the small peasant producer, especially in coffee, whom,
according to Lains e Silva, was even more important than strictly capitalist enterprises. While such
individual efforts outside of modern organization and agronomy resulted in extremely low levels of
productivity, Lains e Silva nevertheless recognized great potential for coffee production in Timor in the
postwar period, especially for Robusta and Liberia types of coffee, such as grown on the south coast below
600 metres, especially in consideration that prime Arabica grown above 1000 metres was susceptible to the
hemelia disease, even though it dominated exports. He also observed the success of a number of rich
Timorese coffee producers in the Maubisse area, all cultivating Arabica coffee, including Martinho
Lourenco with 2,500 coffee bushes, Matias de Sa Benevides, the liurai of Laqueco, with 127,000 coffee
bushes, and his relative, Joao de Sa Benevides, owner of 20,000 coffee bushes. 16
While reconstruction in the immediate postwar period was carried out with some determination, at least in
averting certain famine, as Saldanha has exposed, changes in the various economic sectors over the 1953-62
period indicated a "lack of seriousness" on the part of the colonial government in implementing the
development plans. This writer found that in this period there was an actually a relative decline in the
banking and service sector participation in the economy, albeit a strengthening of the agricultural sector. In
the l968-72 period he found that routine expenditure was always less than routine income indicating a
failure to anticipate development expenditures, and a consequent failure to stimulate other productive
sectors. 17
There is no question then that die colonial state in Timor presided over an economy of extremely low
productivity where development was a highly restricted concept based upon low levels of technical inputs
and accountability.
However, it is the Third Development Plan (1968-73) that bears major scrutiny, not only because it was the
final plan to be fully executed under the colonial order, but because it appears to represent a break with the
past, at least in terms of its conception and scope in developmentalist terms. The Third Plan of 1968-73
involved a program of investments of the order of 556,000 contos, of which 540,000 derived from
reimbursable funds from metropole. Unlike previous plans, including the Second and interim plans of
1959J55 and 1965-67, the Third Plan threw the emphasis upon stimulating export activities and
import-substitution industries especially in the area of consumer goods, along with infrastructure related to
enhancing productive potential. In linking this Plan to Timorese realities the emphasis was placed on
increasing agricultural productivity, raising the cultural, sanitary and technical level of the population and
expanding commerce. In examining the breakdown of finding by sector, the highest allocation (31.8 per
cent) went to transport and communications, next was agriculture, silviculture and veterinary services (23.9
per cent), third was housing and urban development (11.7 per cent), next, industry (l0.9 per cent), social
promotion or education, (10.6 per cent) and fishing (3.7 per cent). For the first time tourism and
development of tourist infrastructure figured in this statistic (2.6 per cent), as did scientific investigation of
the territory and its population (2.1 per cent), and energy (2.1 per cent). 18
Page 137
Table 13:1 Timor's exports by percentage (1955-68) Year coffee rubber copra other
1955 74,49 8,88 8,618,02
1960 63,22 13,70 14,66 7,36
1961 59,29 13,06 13,72 14,76
1962 72,76 8,67 1104 7,52
1963 78,24 6,06 10,53 5,17
1964 8100 4,80 9,10 5,10
1965 82,00 4,88 8,08 5,04
1966 78,58 5,17 10,07 6,18
1967 79,34 136 9,74
1968 9132 150 6,60 0,58
(source: Timor: Pequena Monografia, 1970: 153)
,
One measure of the Success of the economic plans is surely the orientation of external commerce or trade.
For the 1960-68 period, Timor experienced a steady increase in the value of imports. Official sources claim
that this measured an "index of social progress" of the population. Doubtless this was true, considering the
nature of the imports, figuring Cement, iron, machinery, automobiles, clothing and other consumer items.
Exports, however, while showing an overall increase, also showed reversals.
This owed to the nature of agricultural exports and market fluctuations, especially coffee, but also rubber
and copra. The figures also reveal that foreign exchange earnings derived almost exclusively from one
commodity, coffee, which increased its dominance at the expense of other export commodities down until
the end of the colonial period (see Table 13.1). 19
Very clearly, the coffee boom in Timor was linked with a situation of high commodity prices after the
Second World War. Exports went over the 2,000 ton mark in 1963, for the first time in 30 years and, by the
early 1970s, levels of 4,000 and 5,000 tons a year were reached breaching the levels of the l880s. This
made Timor the second coffee producer in the Portuguese empire. In the postwar period the plantations, of
which SAPT was still the leader, increased their stake in Timor's coffee output to 45 per cent, although, as
Clarerece-Smith clarifies, big planters also acted as buyers for smallholder production. 20
A scrutiny of Timor's postwar trade patterns reveals that the colony progressively moved out of the
Portuguese trade bloc such as erected in the earlier period, and turned increasingly to more diversified
markets. But this was mainly because of Portuga1's dependence upon European shippers. The figures for
1972 reveal that the colony's major suppliers were Portugal (27 per cent), Australia (16.2 percent),
Singapore (14.1 per cent), Japan (9.2 per cent), Mozambique (8.9 per cent), UK (5.4 per cent) and others
(19.2 percent). In the same year, 27.8 per cent of exports went to the U.S., 212 per cent to the Netherlands,
16.7 per cent to Denmark, 10.6 per cent to West Germany, 5.5 per cent to Belgium, 5 per cent to Singapore
and 5.8 per cent to others. That year, only 7.4 per cent went to Portugal. 21
In any case, separated by long distance from Portugal and the African colonies, it made greater sense for
Timor to look to closer and more diversified markets.
January 1960 saw the replacement of the "historic" pataca as the official currency by the Timor escudo, a
currency virtually non-exchangeable outside of the Portuguese trading bloc. Under the new monetary
regime, the limit on circulation was fixed at 45,000 contos, 33,500 in notes and 11,500 in coins. As
commercial transactions increased over the next few years along with the purchasing ability of the
population, this threshold was raised to 110 million contos. While the BNU somewhat expanded its banking
facilities in the colony in the postwar period, it has to be said that banking facilities remained
underdeveloped and the colony distinguished itself for its low levels of monetization. To some extent this
failing was recognized by the creation in the early 1960s of a number of credit institutions also aimed at
stimulating economic development, such as the Caixa Economica Postal dos CTT, the Fundo de Fomento
de Producao e Exportacao the Caixa de Credito Agro-Pecuario, and the Fundo de Habitacoes Economicas.
22
Portuguese Timor's early postwar experience suggests that it was more of a drain on colonial resources tha
an asset. In 1947, of a budget of 7,000,000 patacas, only half was derived from local revenues while the
other half was a grant from Lisbon. The budget approved for 1949, amounting to 9,200,000 patacas,
Page 138
allowed for a 4,000,000 patacas grant for reconstruction purposes. Otherwise, as in the prewar period,
revenues were derived from poll taxes (around 2,000,000 patacas on the basis of an annual tax of 20
patacas per adult male) with import and export taxes making up the balance along with "numerous indirect
imposts" and a small income and profits tax. 23
Even so, such "reconstruction grants" from metropole were at least in part offset by private profits accruing
from export revenues in the plantation sector.
From an examination of budget receipts and budget expenditure for the period 1960-68 there is no question
that colonial administrators ran a tight ship. Over this period receipts practically doubled showing a constan
annual increase. While certain of this increase can be accounted by increased productivity, it could also be
accounted for in a more rigorous collection of direct and indirect imposts along with other taxes. But even
while receipts generally exceeded expenditure during this period, allowing the colony to present a generally
balanced budget with allocations in line with the respective economic plans, 24
It was only the metropolitan subsidy that enabled even the modest development plans to be effected.
But, as a 1975 UN report underscores, as a result of controls introduced by the government in 1970, the
value of exports increased from 95.8 million escudos in 1970 to l40.6 million escudos in 1972 (46.8 per
cent), and the value of imports decreased from 207.1 million escudos in 1970 to 200.2 million escudos in
l972 (3.3 per cent). As a result, the trade deficit was only 59.6 million escudos in 1972, compared with
111.3 million escudos in 1970. [In April 197,5, 23 escudos equaled $US 100]. Nevertheless, over the same
period, owing to a weakening production of sweet potatoes, maize and manioc, local production was
inadequate to meet the growing needs of domestic food production and the territory was obliged to resort to
food imports. 25
Evans, citing material drawn from the June 1973 Development Plan, offers that coinciding with the
beginning of the 1974-1979 five year Plan, total government expenditure in Timor jumped from $A 1.9
million in 1972 to $A 7.6 million in 1973. But of the expenditure allotted for 1973, $A 4.4 million was
allocated for road building. As in the past only a minuscule amount, $A 159,l98, was generated within
Timor itself. In any case, provisions to expend $A 28.4 million in this plan were cut short by the
destabilizations fomented by Indonesia in l975, a question discussed in the following chapter. 26
Under Portuguese colonialism it is an undeniable reality that the Timorese ranked among the world's
poorest people, a description, however, that does not exclude their long lost kin in the Sunda Islands under
Indonesian rule. In 1971, per capita GNP was $A 2 compared with about $A 80 in Indonesia, although, as
elaborated below, it is also instructive to make comparisons between the eastern and western parts of the
island of Timor. As Nicol writes, considering the way that wealth was distributed, even this figure disguise
the extent of deprivation of a people living at subsistence level. The rate of pay for an unskilled worker was
one Australian dollar a week in 1974. The "elite" clerks in government service earned about $A 25 a week.
27
The medical prof11e was no less disturbing. Life expectancy was 35 years. Infant mortality was a
staggering 50-75 per cent. Tropical and other diseases took their toll, including malaria; pneumonia,
elephantiasis, venereal disease and T.B. Malnutrition and famine were not unknown. In 1948 there were six
doctors and four hospitals backed by a health service with a representative in each district and at each
administrative posto. Indeed, as revealed in the 1948 census, either the system was not coping with the
legacy of the war years or the failures of the colonial medical system was making its demographic impact
felt. In 1947 there were 7,630 births showing an excess of 867 over deaths, but in 1948 there were 689
more deaths than births. One bias in the medical system was that it operated primarily to the advantage of
the Portuguese. The Hospital and other medical services were centred in Dili. In 1974 there was only one
surgeon and one dentist providing specialized care supported by a dozen GPs conscripted into the
Portuguese army. 28
Yet, alongside west Timor under Indonesian rule, the Portuguese colony was in some ways more
integrated into a capitalist world economy. A visit across Timor in the late 1960s revealed that, relative to
west Timor, Portuguese Timor was far better serviced in terms of availability of basic consumer items,
especially those imported from Macau or Hong Kong and widely sold in Chinese retail stores across the
country. In the last years of Portuguese rule, monetization of the economy had actually expanded. Fixed
prices for basic commodities spared the population the kind of hyperinflation experienced in Indonesia
under Sukarno. While the degree of military-bureaucratic penetration to the village level may have been
Page 139
greater in Indonesian Timor, a legacy of Dutch rule as much the insistence by the Indonesian military of its
role in the village, as the author observed at first hand in Kupang and other interior towns in west Timor in
1967, the most basic commodities were simply not available even in Chinese stores. Even though West
Timor was a beneficiary of Australian Colombo Plan aid for road construction and bridge building,
communication lines and bridges were washed out or made impassable with equal frequency and
inconvenience on both sides of the border. While economic penury and return to an erstwhile barter
economy may have been a legacy of the economic-nationalist policies of the Sukarnoist order, prosperity
only came to west Timor in the early 1970s especially as the Indonesian New Order gave the green light to
foreign investment led resource's exploitation. At this time, Kupang emerged as a minor base for offshore
oil exploration on both sides of the island. 29
Only in the 1960s did Portugal endeavour to attend to the territory's physical infrastructure. Centrepiece
was the country's first Sealed airstrip at Baucau completed in 1963 capable of handling Boeing 707 aircraft
While some 5,00Oforeign tourists were visiting the colony a year by the 1970s, the airport never realized it
full potential, indeed became superfluous with the advent of longer haul aircraft. In any case, this airport
became Timor's lifeline with Australia, just as in a later period it serviced lndonesia's airborne assault on th
Timorese people. The development of Dili's port facilities in the 1960s was laudable but also tended to
benefit big importers and exporters.
Road building and road surfacing was pretty much limited. Nicol insists that die Portuguese made no
worthwhile attempts to overcome the rugged terrain and climatic conditions when they built roads and
bridges. They gave little money and applied only the most elementary technical skills to the work. The
result? "Even the most basic needs for developing the country were not provided" 30
One sphere of activity, which may have significantly reduced Lisbon’s trade deficit in East Timor, was in
the state-private sector. This is a reference to the colony's largest enterprise SAPT, and the third largest
enterprise, Sociedade Oriental de Transportes e Armazens (Sota), the successor to the prewar Asia
Investment Company that had come under Japanese control, in which the government held two-thirds share
Both had retailing and plantation interests and substantial interests in the import-export trade. In this sphere
alone, the Portuguese encouraged efficient management. 31
In the postwar years, the government stake in SAPT stood at 40 per cent, with the balance held by the da
Silva family (52 per cent) and the BNU (8 per cent). The Companhia de Timor was absorbed by SAPT
during the late 1940s. The BNU maintained its monopoly status and role as note issuing authority to the
end.
Outside this niche, the Portuguese allowed the Chinese-about 2 1000 strong before the Indonesian
invasion-to dominate the economy. Through its control of a loans policy the Portuguese preempted the rise
of an indigenous business and possible future troublesome political elite. The Chinese emerged under
Portuguese rule as controlling 95 percent of all business in East Timor, owning 23 of East Timor's 25
import-export firms including Sang Tai Hoo, (second only to SAPT in size) and owning most of the coffee
plantations and 300 retail shops. The only competition to Chinese economic dominance in the retail trade
stemmed from SAPT and Sota, two Timorese retailers, a few Portuguese and Timorese planters, and
Timorese small holders producing copra (and coffee). While many Chinese businesspeople in Timor failed
to reinvest their profits locally, preferring to remit their earnings to Taiwan, 32
It should be recalled that not all Chinese were in business, but that through the postwar period certain were
engaged in agriculture and in occupations such as carpentry and masonry.
Serving to coordinate business and commerce across the communities, the government sanctioned the
creation in August 1952 of the Associacao Commercial, Agricola e Industrial de Timor. In this "class"
organization typical, of the corporativist Salazarist state, structure throughout the empire, all fractions of
capital as it existed in Timor were represented, from planters, to Chinese merchants to Portuguese business
But whether such representatives of merchant capital could deepen their investments in the colony as
opposed to the extraction of rent and the circulation of commodities depended very much upon the
willingness of the state to stimulate foreign investment, especially in the sphere of resources exploitation.
Minerals Exploration and Foreign Investment
In 1947 the Australian government received reports of "low grade crude" in Suai, Pualaci, and Aliambata,
Page 140
deemed "suitable for cracking to yield a wide range of liquid fuels if only daily production from bores can
be increased to make the project commercially attractive". 33
In 1956, doubtless encouraged by such information, the Australian-based company, Timor Oil Ltd.
commenced searching for oil off the Timor coast, with a break in its activities between 1959 and 1968. In
1957 Timor Oil Ltd offered shares to the public to finance a new search for oil in Portuguese Timor. This
new venture was in part stimulated by encouraging reports on the company's concession area in the Mota
Bui formation where production from one seepage was estimated at 6,000 gallons a year. Reports drawn up
separately by American oil geologists concurred that the possibility for commercial production of oil in
Portuguese Timor was highly favorable. One of the concerned interests and shareholders, Oil Drilling and
Exploration, undertook to do the fieldwork for the company in the Aliambata and Suai areas.
In January 1971, exploration activities offshore the south coast of Timor (in Portuguese and Indonesian
Timor) were conducted by the U.S. companies, New Orleans Offshore Navigation Company and Western
Geophysical, for Burma Oil and Timor Oil Ltd. Onshore Timor Oil Ltd. concentrated its activities around
Suai and Betano. Timor Oil Ltd. subsequently entered into a farm out arrangement with Woodside-Burma
Company in February 1974. While never officially confirmed, it was common knowledge that gas and
perhaps oil had been found in commercial recoverable quantities. Onshore, the Australian company Broken
Hill Proprietary Ltd. (BHP) was given the go-ahead in January 1972 to search for minerals. 34
There is no question that the onshore activities of the oil companies in Timor represented the largest foreign
investment projects in the colony, offering limited employment to Timorese and having certain multiplier
effects on local economies. In 1972, for example, Timor Oil's outlay was $A 2,149,000 falling to $A
770,270 the following year.
Australia had long been involved in negotiations with Portugal over the maritime boundary with Timor.
Since 1953 Australia had laid claim to the potentially oil-rich continental shelf to some 90 kilometers from
the coast of Timor. Both Australia and Portugal were signatories of the Convention of the Continental Shel
done at Geneva on 29 April 1958. Whereas Portugal argued that the median point should constitute the sea
boundary between the tw6 countries, Australia held that the trough the "Timor trough" at the edge of the
continental shelf, should define the boundary. 35
While Portugal remained intransigent, Indonesia, with whom Australia had been conducting negotiations
since 1969, conceded the principle in October 1972. This agreement, which ensured that Australia gained
control of about 70 per cent of the sea-bed between north6m Australia and the island of Timor, left a 250
kilometer gap in the boundary in he area south of East Timor, later to become known as the "Timor Gap".
From the outset, however, Portugal prudently refused to concede the basis of the Indonesian-Australian
settlement. 36
While Australia again initiated discussions with Portugal to formalize a common maritime border in 1974,
discussions were abandoned after the Indonesian invasion of East Timor. In any case, Portugal preferred to
wait for the outcome of the Third UN Law of the Sea Conference, which, inter alia, dealt with the
delimitation of maritime boundaries between adjacent states.
Meanwhile, in December 1974, over Australian government protests, the Portuguese government granted
exploration rights in the disputed area to an American company, Oceanic Exploration Company of Denver,
in return for specified royalties. According to Sasha Stepan, the Australian protest ignored the fact that
Canberra also leased part of the area to interested companies. Even prior to the full scale invasion of the
Portuguese colony by Indonesia, Australian Ambassador to Indonesia, Richard Woolcott, foreshadowing
his country's future policy on the Indonesian annexation of the Portuguese colony, stated his country's
interest in the Gap by noting, "this could be much more readily negotiated with Indonesia than with
Portugal or independent Portuguese Timor". 37
Two important development projects under serious discussion in 1974 both involved foreign investment.
One concerned Australian investment in a cattle project in Los Palos; the second was a joint
Australian-Japanese development venture in a tourist hotel. 38
A conglomerate of Japanese investors in the Japan-Timor Association mooted an even more comprehensive
development plan. The centerpiece of this plan, as stated in a 70-page project report of February 1975,
concerned a hydroelectric plant based on Lake Lalaro in the Los Palos highlands. 39
While centered on electric power, the US$6 million scheme also envisaged the exploitation of phosphate
ore, manganese, fishing, agricultural development and salt manufacture, not only drawing upon Japanese
Page 141
inputs but World Bank and international cooperation. Certain other investments were envisaged in
infrastructure such as road improvements, the development of Jaco as a leisure area, and, with an eye to, the
tuna and bonito spawning waters of the Timor Sea, the development of a deep sea fishing base. As Shoji
Shibuya, Director of the Japan-Timor Association, wrote in 1975, "If such a development project were
carried out on Timor, even if the present population of 600,000 reached 1,500,000, it would be possible to
raise the present level of life to even that above Indonesia". Acknowledging the failure of Japan to give
wartime compensation to Timor he offered that this development project could make amends. 40
Needless to say, this plan, presented to both the Japanese and Portuguese governments and discussed with
representatives of the Timorese political parties, was rapidly shelved in the wake of Indonesian invasion of
the colony.
Conclusion
It is obvious that the social and political hierarchies of Dili found their territorial correlates in the
circumscricoes. At the apex of the system stood metropolitans on temporary commissions. Most were
Europeans but this category also included Cape Verdians, Goanese, Macanese and others. Timorese and
mestico were relegated to the lower and middle positions. While this was a typical colonial structure, it was
not necessarily racist in its biases but a function of colonial priorities and a division of labour in the empire
which saw Timorese marginalized alongside better educated Africans and Goanese, not to mention
metropolitans. As we shall view in a following chapter, the highly restricted political space offered the
Timorese by the colonial regime, combined with the choke upon elite formation that other colonialisms
conceded as a "natural" evolution on the way to independence, contrived to create die conditions for chaos
that would be exploited by an external power.
Economically, we have seen, the colony was a burden upon the metropolitan centre which, in turn, was
marginal within European capitalism, albeit useful at the same time to U.S. global interests, not just in
continued access to the Azores bases in a nuclear era, but in the way that U.S. and Portuguese interests
coincided in stemming revolution in Africa. But while the colony was a fiscal drain on Portugal, neither did
Lisbon have the economic wherewithal to fully exploit or develop its Oceanic colony. While there is a
definite sense that, in drawing up the 1974- 1979 Plan, Portugal had finally grasped the mettle with respect
to a comprehensive development plan for the colony, it was obviously too little too late. Similarly, the
belated invitation to foreign capital participation in development projects in the oil and non-oil sectors
promised to launch the colony on a development strategy that would offer relief from the highly vulnerable
coffee monoculture.
Notes
1. Helio A. Esteves Felgas, Timor Portugue's, Agencia Geral do Ultramar, Lisboa, 1956, p. 524.
2. Notes on South-East Asia (Portuguese Timor), Department of Bxtemal Affairs, Canberra, 1950.
3. Timor: Pequena MonoBrafia, Agencia-Geral do Ultramar, Lisboa, 1970, p. 34.
4. Carlos M.G. Ramos de Oliveira, "Dili-Panorama de uma sociedade", Boletim da Sociedade de
Geograjga, Vo189, l97l, Jan-Mar, l-3.
5. Estatuto Politico-Administrativo da Provincia de Timor, Agencia Geral do Ultramar, Lisboa, nd.
6.Ibid.
7. Joao Mariano de Sousa Saldanha, The Political Economy of East Timor Development, Pustaka Sinar
Harapan, Jakarta, 1994, p. 55.
8. J.R. Landman and H.T., Plant, "Notes on Portuguese Timor", South Pacific, Vo12, No. 11, August
l948,p.227.
9. Landman and Plant, "Notes".
10. Saldanha, Political Economy, p. 53.
11. A.B. Lapian, & J.R. Chaniago jrimor Timur Dalam Gerak Pembangunan, Proyek lnventarisasi dan
Dokumentasi Sej arah Nasional, Diretorat Sej arah dan Nilai-Nilai Tradisiona1, Direktorat Jenderal
Kebudayaan, Pendidikan dan Kcbudayaan, 1988, pp. 2122.
12. Bill Nico1, Timor: The Stillborn Nation, Visa, Melboume, 1978, pp. 2l-22
Page 142
13. Lapian & Chaniago, Timor TimujC
14. Nicol, Timor: The Stillborn Nation, p. 24. /
15. Notes on Southeast Asia.
16. Helder Lains e Silva, Timor e a Cultura do Caja Ministerio do Ultramar, Lisboa, l956, pp. 11l-112 and
see W.G. Clarence-Smith, "Planters and Smallholders in Portuguese Timor in the Nineteenth and Twentieth
Centuries", Indonesia CijnCle, March 1992, p. 20.
17. Saldanha, Political Economy, pp. 66-7.
18. Timor: Pequena Monograjia, pp. 170-l71
19. Ibid., pp. l52-153.
20. ClarenceTSmith, "Planters and Smallholders", p. 25.
21. nmor: Pequena Monograjia, pp. 150-l53.
22. Timor: Pequena Monograjia, p. 164.
24. Notes on Southeast Asia.
25. Timor: Pequena Monograjia, p. 159.
25. United Nations: Special Committee on the situation with regard to the lmplementation of the
Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples, 20 November l 975.
26. Grant Evans, "Portuguese Timor", New Left Review, No.9l, May-June, 1975, p. 72. -
27. Nicol, Timor: The Stillborn Nation, and Notes on Southeast Asia.
28.Ibid.
29. See Richard P. Momsen, "Timor: an untroubled Portuguese colony", Geographical Magazine (Lonl
don), Vol.41,No. 9, June 1969, pp. 680-88, which states that per capita income in Portuguese Timor then
exceeded that of Thailand and was double that of Indonesia. See Saldanha, Political Economy, p. 70.
30. Nico1, Timor: The Stillborn Nation.
31.Ibid.
32.Ibid.
33. AA Vie 626/16 H. Temple Wafts, Petroleum Technologist, Bureau of Mineral Resources to
Department of External Affairs, 9 July 1947.
34. Sydney Morning Herald, 6 March 1957.
35. V. Prescott, "The Australian-Indonesian Continental Shelf Agreements", Australia's Neighbours, 82,
September-October 1972 cited in Jill Jolliffe, East Timor: Nationalism and Colonialism, University of
Queensland Press, 1978, pp. 58.
36. Cf. Letter dated 28 February 1991 from the Permanent Representative of Portugal to the United
Nations addressed to the Secretary General, A/46/97, S/22285, 28 February l99l.
37. Sasha Stepan, Credibilio, Gap: Australia and Timor Gap Treao;, Development Dossier No.28,
Australia Council for Overseas Aid, October 1990.
38 Nico1, Timor: The Stillborn Nation, p. 27.
39. Jean Inglis, regeast timor, 19 January l996
40. Shoji Shibuya, "Asia's Last Colony: On Timor", Koen (Lecture), No. 1204, 15 November 1975.
14
Political Change and Declonization
With the end of the old order in Portugal arising out of the events of 25 April 1974, Portugal speedily
affirmed its obligations to the UN to offer self-determination and independence to all its territories. Specific
information on this question in relation to Timor was addressed to the UN on 5 June. On 10 September
1974 Portugal recognized the independence of Guinea-Bissau. In turn, the independence of Mozambique
was recognized on 25 June 1975, Cape Verde, (5 July), Sao Tome e Principe (12 July), and Angola (11
November). The status of Macau, of course, remained a special case. 1
In Timor, as explained in this chapter, it would not be until the arrival in the colony in November 1974 of
Page 143
representatives of the Movimento das Forcas Armadas (MFA) or the military group which, three months
earlier, had overthrown the Portuguese dictatorship, that any democratic concessions were made. To fully
comprehend this apparent lack of preparedness for independence in Timor, as much the flowering of
political consciousness in the colony down unto the historic departure of the Governor on 8 December
1975, we should look to history.
The Viqueque Rebellion of 1959 and Aftermath
From an international press perspective it is clear that Timor largely escaped outside attention in the
postwar years. To the extent that Timor was reported, such coverage was sporadic and fragmentary.
Nevertheless diplomatic interest in the status of the colony was tracked by Western diplomatic agencies,
especially in the late l950s early 1960s in the context of Indonesian President Sukarno's campaign to assert
Indonesian sovereignty over the Dutch-controlled western half of the island of New Guinea. Sukarno stated
the matter in 1957 in a conversation with U.S. Ambassador to Indonesia, John Allison. Asked if Indonesia's
next demand would be to claim British North Borneo and Portuguese Timor should Indonesian desires
regarding West Irian be met, the Indonesian leader relied: "Nonsense! We only want what is ours.
Our relations with Portuguese most friendly- when I was in Indonesian Timor the other day I had good talk
with Portuguese officials from their territory and we are cooperating with them". 2
While, as yet, there would be no direct link between events in Africa in the 1950s, which saw the first
stirrings of modern nationalist opposition to Portuguese rule, and events in Portuguese Timor, 1959 was
also the year that the Permesta or Indonesian outer island rebellion centred on the south Molucca islands,
ramified on Timor. To the Salazar regime, it came as a profound shock. Known as the "movimento do
1959" or more accurately the "massacre of 1959" which occurred near the south coast of eastern Portuguese
Timor, the event was largely unnoticed by the outside world, at least unreported in the Australian press of
the time. The rebellion began on 7 June 1959 in the village of Uato Lari and spread to the local
administrative headquarters of Viqueque. According to Bruce Juddery of the Canberra Times who
interviewed the last Governor of Portuguese Timor, Colonel Lemos Pires, the rebellion combined
anti-colonial, anti-Portuguese and tribal elements. The ethnic friction was in turn exacerbated by the act of
the Portuguese in raising a militia in the neighbouring Los Palos area at the eastern tip of Timor in order to
combat the rebels. Suppression of the revolt, accomplished within a week, was extremely bloody with
between 500 and 1,000 killed. 3
The "movements do 59", according to Juddery, was not a spontaneous uprising, rather it had been prepared
for some months beforehand by a handflil of Indonesian officers Who had infiltrated into north coast towns
including Baucau, and spread disaffection, apparently easily gained. 4
Nicol clarifies that the concerned Indonesians, granted asylum by the Portuguese and allowed to settle at
Uatolari, were not agents of Jakarta but were, rather, elements of the American CIA-backed Permesta
dissident movement, which looked to Portuguese Timor as a base from which to launch a broader
secessionist struggle for eastern Indonesia. 5
The exiles, which also managed to secure the support of the Indonesian Consul in Dili, Nazwar Jacub,
apparently acted without Jakarta's consent or support. He was duly recalled and, on 3 June 1959, replaced
by Tengku Usman Hussin. According to Dunn, while Indonesia disclaimed knowledge or involvement in
the plot of 1959, some element of doubt remained in the mind of the authorities. The Portuguese
nevertheless were jolted into stepping up security.
Local leaders of the movement were exiled to Angola and only allowed to return to Timor in 1968 while
the Indonesian dissidents were expelled. 6
Also, in 1959, the Policia Internacional e da Defesa does Estado (lit. international and for the Defense of th
State Police) or PIDE set up shop in Dili. This was also the year when the dockworkers of Portuguese
Guinea mounted a strike, brutally repressed. Feared throughout the empire for its capricious use of torture
and violence, this dreaded instrument of the Salazarist state also invigilated the indefinite detention of
political prisoners including Timorese exiled or residing in Angola, a role also taken over in 1969 by its
successor organization the Direccao Geral da Seguranca (General Directorate of Security) or DGS, at least
until it was withdrawn immediately after the coup in Lisbon. One victim of political police invigilation was
the young journalist Jose Ramos-Horta exiled to Mozambique in 1970. PIDE/DGS archives reveal not only
Page 144
that the Salazarist state had its eyes on Timorese at home but also Timorese in Angola, as well as such
unlikely threats as the Timor Oil company, Australian trade union organizations, anti-apartheid
campaigners, and even liberals, part of a global monitoring effort to shore up the dictatorship at home and
the challenges posed by maintaining a sprawling colonial empire in the age of decolonization.
There is no question that 1959 represented a watershed in postwar colonial history in Timor. The Timorese
historian Abilio d'Araujo directly links the establishment of PIDE and the arrival in Timor of
counterinsurgency forces as a direct response to the l959 uprising. 7
It was also probably no coincidence that in 1959 the Australia Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) opened a
station in Dili, then one of three in the world. 8
While, as mentioned above, the Arab community of the colony were concentrated in the village of Alor to
the west of Dili, the reason may not only have stemmed from their occupational niche. According to an
Indonesian press report, certain of them had responded to Indonesia's independence struggle against the
Dutch with the call for "merdeka bersama Indonesia " (independence with Indonesia). When in 1957 they
sought to register as Indonesian nationals at the Indonesian Consulate in Dili, the Portuguese responded by
offering them Portuguese citizenship. 9
At the time of the 1959 rebellion-and again in 1975-the loyalty of this community was severely tested.
Another disaffected group of Timorese were those whose loyalties to the Portuguese were compromised by
their wartime activities. Some 300 to 400 of those known to have collaborated with the Japanese were
summarily imprisoned at war end and interned on Atauro Island.
At least in the years prior to the eruption of Indonesia's war of confrontation against Malaysia, the U. S.
accepted Sukarno's blandishments that Indonesia would not press its attack against the British and
Portuguese colonies. As Hamish McDonald has commented, Indonesian interest in Portuguese Timor was
always desultory and, contrariwise, the Portuguese tended to regard the Indonesians with disdain and
suspicion. 10
Portuguese Timor in the Foreign Media
Only in the early 1960s did the regional -especially Australian media commence to track Indonesian
interest and possible political ambitions- in Portuguese Timor.
This new attention was also stimulated by Sukarnoist rhetoric, which made the Portuguese colony appear
vulnerable in the extreme. Of interest was a report on a comment by the famed Indonesian nationalist
historian, Mohammad Yamin, that Indonesian rule being extended to Portuguese Timor. 11
Yamin's exaggerated nationalist / historical claims, however, were not matched by official political
Indonesian interest. 12
Feature articles, a characteristic of prewar Australian journalism on Timor, also made their appearance in th
1960s. Such was the evocative piece by Glen, Francis in the Sydney Observer, reflecting upon his duties in
Timor as a member of the Australian War Graves Unit. Entitled "Slavery in Timor", Francis described
Portuguese rule as a mixture of civility and brutality. Forced labour under the whip goes on from dawn to
dusk, he observed with some distaste. 13
Once Trans Australian Airline (TAA) commenced regular nights to Baucau in the early 1960s and access
improved, interest in Timor increased, accordingly. It is perhaps no contradiction that just as Timor began t
figure as a travel destination, 14
So did negative reporting on colonial rule in the colony increase apace.
Osmar White writing in the Melbourne Herald (2, 3 April 1963), for example, found more evidence of
brutality than civility in Portuguese colonialism. But he also raised questions as to the inevitability of
political change in Timor, especially given what he observed as the abiding poverty of the colony and the
repressive character of the administration. Prophetically, White foresaw an Army revolt led by European
factions [the MFA coup?] and supported by Timorese conscripts [the rise of Fretilin?] as a likely outcome,
although an even more likely prospect, he canvassed, was political infiltration from across the border [the
Indonesian invasion of 1975]. White also raised the question, perhaps for the first time in the Australian
press, as to appropriate Australian responses to decolonization in Portuguese Timor. 15
In any case, it would be another ten years before such questions were publicly debated and then in a vastly
altered context.
Page 145
While such negative reporting evidently threw the Portuguese back on the defensive, at least as regards the
Australian media, 1964 witnessed the arrival in Portuguese Timor of the first Australian television crew.
This initiative by Robert Raymond for the National Television Network led to the production of the first
television programme on Timor ever shown in Australia. Raymond was accompanied by Desmond Mahon
of 2SM, the Roman Catholic-controlled radio station in Sydney, and a factor that he believes led to him
being granted a visa. Raymond also penned a long, not unsympathetic, feature article for the
Australian magazine, Bulletin (29 February 1964), 16
A piece, which sums up the predicament of the colony as wholly of Portugal's own making.
Until Australian reporting on Timor again focused on Jakarta's ambitions in the early 1970s, partly in
response to vague and contradictory statements made by the Indonesian Foreign Minister, only the border
clashes of December 1966 attracted any press attention and none of it analytical. 17
One exception was a report on Portuguese Timor commissioned by the National Union of Australian
Students published in its newspaper, National U (22 July l968). Another was a travel book by an Australian
journalist, J. Gert Vondra, (Timor Journey) also published in 1968.
While describing Timor as a land of wild primitive beauty this work also helped to prepare public opinion i
Australia for political change. As he observed, "the writing is on the wall", Indonesia will intervene with or
without UN sanction or the educated Timorese elite will induce the Portuguese to offer autonomy. 18
But as the signals emerging from Jakarta grew more ominous, especially as border incidents between
Portuguese and Indonesian armed forces became more frequent, it became increasingly clear to astute
observers that it was not the champion of Afro-Asian solidarity and nonalignment which threatened the
decolonization process in Portuguese Timor, but his Western-backed successor, General Suharto. 19
Eventually, political motive was reported. This was in the Melbourne Age of 5 April 1972, which carried
the response of the Indonesian Foreign Minister, Adam Malik. When asked if Indonesia would support a
liberation movement in Portuguese Timor, he retorted: We shall finance it and wish it". At this time a
shadowy organization in Jakarta calling itself the "Unirepublic of Timor Dili "distributed leaflets describing
political developments inside Portuguese Timor. 20
It is of interest, however, that two Australian journalists from across the political chasm, namely Peter
Hastings and Brian Toohey, were at this juncture drawn into the Timor "debate" in the Australian media.
Bill Nicol observes that the then foreign editor of the Sydney Morning Herald offered up the first reliable
hint of an underground political movement in the Portuguese colony in an article published on 23 August
1973. This was dubbed the Timor Liberation Front. According to Hastings' informant in Dili, a "young
radical", this group was "minuscule, disorganised and unarmed" but ready to move against the Portuguese
in five to ten years. Nicol asserts that this radical could only have been Jose Ramos-Horta. 21
Several months later, Ramos-Horta's name surfaced in the Australian press.
This was in an interview with Ken White of the Northern Territory News. In this interview, published on
21 January 1974 the future international spokesperson on for the Timorese nationalist cause took some
potshots at Portuguese colonialism and at the then Australian Labor government's muddled policy on
colonialism. Rather than Australia sounding off in the UN, Ramos-Horta sought concrete assistance from
Australia in Timor's development in the form of aid and scholarships. Nicol writes that publication of this
article compounded Ramos-Horta's problems back home where he penned defences in Voz de Timor as a
way of distancing himself from the compromising interview. 22
The inimical Brian Toohey, by contrast, seized upon the issue of Australian business links with Portuguese
colonialism and the double standard this suggested in view of Australia's stand at the UN in support of
resolution 2918 reaffirming the right of the Portuguese territories to self-determination and independence. I
the Australian Financial Review, Toohey pointed out that the Whitlam Labor government was in the
contradictory position of being an international critic of Portuguese colonialism while, through the
operations of TAA to Timor, providing a critical link in the Portuguese lines of supplies and personnel to
the colony. Broken Hill Proprietary Ltd., which had operations in Timor, also appeared to Toohey to be in
contravention of UN resolution 2918. All this suggested to Toohey that, while the Australia government
had yet to fully work out a position on Timor, it was already under pressure from various church and aid
groups to match words with action. 23
Political Awakening
Page 146
Education expansion promoted by Portugal in the wake of the 1959 rebellion also proved a double-edged
sword. The new educational philosophy that encouraged the formation of a small native elite also carried,
towards the end of the 1960s, the seeds of an anti-colonial nationalist movement. Yet it cannot be said that
an informed critique of Portuguese colonialism developed in Timor around a modernist educated
intelligentsia as definitely happened in Goa following the suppression of the civil disobedience movement
of 1946. Nor did democrats in Portugal challenge the Salazar regime over independence for Timor as they
did in the case of Goa. To be slightly cynical, the Timorese were not even "privileged" to win entry to such
prison-universities as Peniche near Lisbon where languished their Goan and African brothers along with
other republican, democrat, anarchist, socialist and communist critics of the Salazar regime. But unlike the
Goans who looked to Nehru as liberator, and, for that matter, unlike radicals in Macau who in 1966-67
looked to China's cultural revolution to bring Portugal's rule to an end, no such cross border affinities
developed between Timorese in the Portuguese colony and Indonesia, although that was the evident wish o
the promoters of the 1959 rebellion. 24
In Timor, the vehicle for the albeit embryonic nationalist movement, was the Catholic newspaper, Seara,
the fortnightly supplement of the Boletim Eclesiastico da diocese de Dili. In a repressive political
environment only this church publication stood outside the existing censorship laws. Until closed by PIDE
on 10 February 1973 such renowned figures of the Timorese nationalist uprising as Nicolau Lobato, Jose
Ramos-Horta, and Francisco Xavier do Amaral, Domingos de Oliveira, Mari Alkatiri, Francisco Borja da
Costa and Manuel Carrascalao contributed to these publication articles of searching social commentary. 25
Eventually, it was not the death of the Portuguese dictator that brought Portugal out of its time warp
-essentially the same policies were pursued by Salazar's successor, Marcello Caetano- but the unpopularity
of the African wars among Portuguese youth. The leftward turn in Portuguese politics, simultaneous with
the emergence of the MFA in 1974, proved especially portentous. The political opening in Lisbon by the
MFA on 24-25 April 1974, lifting the lid on decades of dictatorship, not only lent stimulus to domestic
reform but also served as a catalyst for burgeoning independence movements in the colonies. The MFA
immediately proclaimed that it sought to end its colonial wars and practices.
As explained below, events in the metropolitan country gave rise to the first political organizations in the
history of the colony. The first of the groupings to emerge was the Uniao Democratica Timorense or UDT.
Founded on 11 May 1974, UDT favoured eventual independence following an extended transition period
of continued association with Portugal. Its leadership was drawn from Catholics of prominence,
smallholders, or officials in the Portuguese administration. Two leaders, Francisco Lopes da Cruz and C6sa
Augusto da Costa Mousinho, had been representatives of the Accao National Popular (the former party of
the Salazar/ Caetano regime) in Timor's Legislative Assembly. Two other leaders, the Carrascalao brothers
were sons of wealthy coffee planters. Broad support also came from those who had benefited from
Portuguese colonialism, including businesspeople of Chinese origin and individuals from within the
Chinese community. Prior to the arrival of Governor Lemos Pires in November 1974, this party was widely
believed as having some official Portuguese support.
Fretilin or the Frente Revolucionaria de Timor Leste Independente emerged out of the Associacao Social
Democratica Timorenses (ASDT) founded on 20 May 1974. ASDT's first manifesto called for a rejection
of colonialism, immediate participation of Timorese in the administration and local government, and an end
to racial discrimination, the struggle against corruption, and good relations with neighbouring countries.
ASDT in turn had grown out of the committee for the Defence of Labour, which emerged immediately afte
the coup in Lisbon. Led by Jose Ramos-Horta the committee quickly won a 50 per cent pay rise for lower
level civil servants after staging a strike, the first in the colony's history. As Evans explains, from research
conducted in Timor at this time, the transformation of ASDT into Fretilin represented a reorientation
towards the need of creating a massbased political organization around the slogan of independence. Writing
in early 1975, Evans observed that, held together by "fervent nationalism and anti-colonialism", Fretilin's
strength was far more solid in the towns than the countryside where its cadres were spread very thin among
a population inclined to be suspicious of the urban elite. 26
The minoritarian party, Apodeti, emerged from a meeting attended by thirty to forty Timorese on 27 May
1974. Early support derived from those who had been involved in the 1959 rebellion, and from members of
the Arab community in Dili, who petitioned the Indonesian Consul for integration. But while the Arab
Page 147
community revealed themselves the most avid pro-integrationists, certain among them -notably Mari Alkat
and Hamis Bassarewan- went on to become staunch Fretilin supporters. Support for Apodeti also came
from certain liurai, notably Guilherme Goncalves who allowed the party its only territorial base in the coffe
growing area of Atsabe. Goncalves later emerged as the second Indonesian Governor of East Timor.
Another Apodeti man, Arnaldo dos Reis Araujo, owner of a cattle property near Zumlai, had the dubious
distinction of being the first. He has also served time in a Portuguese prison for his wartime role alongside
the infamous colunas negras. Apodeti, which emerged as a stalking horse for Indonesia's interests, claimed
from the outset that East Timor could not be economically viable unless supported by ethnic brothers in
Indonesia.
Between April l974 and August 1975 a number of other very small parties emerged of no special
significance except for their political use to Indonesia, at least in the way of claiming that Fretilin did not
have a monopoly over political support. The most useful of the small parties to Indonesia was Klibur Oan
Timor Aswain or KOTA (Sons of the Mountains), initially formed by seven liurai who claimed descent
from the topasse. However it was Jose Martins, a former Apodeti man, who emerged as Indonesia's most
effective collaborator, at least until he abandoned the cause of integration while attending a session of the
UN in New York in 1976. Partido Trabalhista (Labour Party) barely claimed a dozen members, while the
claims of Adilta (Democratic Association for the Integration of East Timor with Australia) were dismissed
out of hand by Canberra.
Portuguese policy was spelled out in June 1974 by the pro-Salazar Governor Col. Fernando Alves Aldeia
in the form of three political options. These were, first, continued association with the metropolitan power,
second, independence and, third, integration with Indonesia. To a large degree, as seen, political activism
gravitated around these options. But with the resignation from office in September 1974 of the right-wing
General Spinola, the principal advocate of the idea of federation of Portugal with its "overseas territories"
the political parties in Timor were obliged to modify their programmes. UDT, a former supporter of the
Spinola line, came out for independence. Fretilin came out with a new political program around a broad
national front. Until the arrival in Timor of the Portuguese Minister for Inter-territorial Coordination, Dr.
Antonio de Almeida Santos, Portuguese policy can be described as inaction. Meanwhile, Indonesia,
through the army newspaper Berita Yuddha and other agencies, launched into a disinformation campaign
smearing Fretilin as a Marxist/communist and branding UDT as fascist. 27
Only the arrival in November 1974 of Governor Lemos Pires accompanied by officers Of the MFA offered
new direction and hope for Timorese nationalists.
Notable in this sense was the commitment of Francisco Mota and Costa Jonatas.
In December 1974 the young officers From Lisbon established a government council with the view to
drawing each party into the political process, much as in Angola.
Even so, this initiative was rejected by Arnaldo dos Reis Araujo of Apodeti who only entertained
negotiations with Indonesia, and, at a later date, by Fretilin on the grounds that certain members of the
council maintained links with the old regime.
Also, in early January 1975, the MFA commenced to reorganize the armed forces in the colony. For
entirely different reasons Apodeti and Fretilin refused to go along with the new political procedure,
although Fretilin subsequently enjoyed major success in village-level elections organized by the MFA. 28
Against these bald facts the success of Fretilin bears some scrutiny. As Helen Hill points out, ASDT was
the first political grouping in Timor to use local languages at its meetings besides Portuguese. 29
This was realistic as it was effective as it was the only way to reach the mass of the population who spoke
no Portuguese who were relatively untouched by Latin culture. In this sense the creation of the symbol of
the Maubere man -a kind of quintessential Timorese- was a masterstroke by Fretilin. But here the influence
was not so much Sukarno's "Marhaen", to which it bears faint resemblance, but the political influence of th
writings of Amilcar Cabral of Guinea Bissau, especially an understanding of the imperative to educate on
an organized basis a highly differentiated people as to the meaning of "liberation" in practical terms. No
doubt the murder of Cabral in Conakry on 20 January 1973 by agents of PIDE/DGS was a salutary
reminder to Fretilin as to their vulnerability, as much a possible stimuli as to their radicalism. 30
While Fretilin adopted Portuguese as its official language, it went further than the other parties in promotin
traditional cultural forms. According to Hill, such cultural pragmatism was also shown in Fretilin's literacy
programme, which got under way in selected villages in January 1975 more or less following the precepts
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of the renowned Brazilian educator Paulo Freire. To this end, Fretilin prepared a Tetum-language literacy
textbook, Rai Timor, Rai lta. (Timor is our country). Later, when urban youth were formed into so-called
Revolutionary Brigades and encouraged to return to the countryside, they took back to their respective
villages, not only some of the urban skills and savvy they had acquired but also a new political awareness.
The watchword became consciencializacao, a Portuguese word meaning consciousness raising. While
Fretilin's enemies were quick to see in these measures confirmation of this movement's communist origins,
the truth could hardly be further from the mark. Fretilin's intellectual influences were, atone level,
metropolitan-the influence of the returned students-and, at another level, Afro-Brazilian in solidarity with
brothers in the African colonies who reciprocated their rhetorical support-and, on another plane, atone with
the Maubere, the Melanesian Timorese culture that formed the broad support for Fretilin in its two-decade
struggle against Indonesian subjugation. 31
Indeed, Portuguese Timor stands out as one of the very few Southeast Asian colonies where communism
failed to take root. The only possible exception to this statement is that in the May 1975 presidential
elections in Portugal, 12 eligible metropolitans residing in the colony voted in favour of the Portuguese
Communist Party. But that says more about the restoration of democracy in Portugal than dark Cold War
plots. Whereas in the former Dutch, British, and French colonies, intellectuals and working class allies
together formed the backbone of cadre parties invariably with the support of the Communist International,
Marxism-Leninism has no history in Portuguese Timor. Rather, Fretilin's sense of social justice sprang from
the Catholic Church, Timor's communitarian traditions, and drew its allies from the people themselves, a
benign version of peasant populism, which found an ally in the MFA itself.
The Indonesian Destabilization Campaign
Even so, the kind of Third Worldism promoted by Fretilin stood as anathema to Jakarta, Washington and
Canberra alike. Having spent the previous two decades putting down communist insurgencies in Southeast
Asia, the U. S. and allies were not ready to countenance the emergence of yet another "Marxist" threat. For
Australia, the acceptable model for decolonization was that of the Pangu Parti of Papua New Guinea, while
the acceptable form of regional relationships was that of the Federation of Malaysia. An independent East
Timor had no place in this strategic schema. The U. S. and the UK concurred. Arguably, it was the
Jesuitical skills of the Timorese nationalist elite that Indonesia and the West together found so threatening a
much the brilliant developmental anti-model that Fretilin sought to construct in the half-island. Nothing in
the range of Indonesian (or Australian) historical experience could grasp the sophistication of Fretilin's
model. Just as the experience of the two peoples under respectively Dutch and Portuguese colonialism were
vastly different, so were their political expectations, so were their dreams.
Washington and Canberra have consistently rewarded Indonesia for its subordinate role as regional
policeman.
Alarmed by the news that Australian Prime Minister Whitlam had effectively eschewed Australian support
for an independent East Timor, UDT and Fretilin forged a coalition around a shared perception of Indonesi
as the threat. In 1996 UDT President Joao Viegas Carrascalao acknowledged that it was through Ramos
Horta's tireless efforts that the coalition came about, just as he sought to mediate the tragic rift between the
parties leading to civil war the following August. 32
Accordingly, both parties sought from Portugal a deeper commitment in carrying out an effective
decolonization. But as Fretilin's support mushroomed, in part in response to its popular literacy and
agricultural policies, along with its promotion of nationalist symbols, strains opened up between the
coalition partners encouraged by Indonesian propaganda directed at Fretilin's and the Governor's alleged
pro-communism.
This pro-communist bias was entirely fanciful, but nevertheless formed the centrepiece of an Indonesian
intelligence operation, led from October 1974 by Suharto's special advisor and deputy-head of the
Indonesian intelligence service, General Ali Murtopo. Styled Operasi Komodo this plan broadly sought to
destabilize the Portuguese colony by splitting the UDT-Fretilin alliance and creating the chaotic conditions
under which Indonesia would spuriously justify armed intervention. As a first step, this plan involved
sending emissaries to Lisbon and elsewhere to put across the Indonesian view. A purely military solution
was not then entertained. In October, Suharto charged Murtopo to take over negotiations with Portugal
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where he sought to make common cause with a minority of members within the MFA who viewed
integration of Timor with Indonesia as the' best option. But, by this time, the destabilization operation had
entered a new phase in Jakarta, Kupang, and even in Dili, where, by January 1975, the Indonesian
Consulate became "blatant in its support of Apotedi". By mid-1975 the Indonesian army commenced
training pro-Indonesian infiltrators and Apodeti recruits supplied by the raja of Atsabe. 33
On 27 May 1975 UDT made the fateful decision to back out of the coalition. Day’s later Indonesian troops
and officials illegally entered the enclave of Oecusse. On 17 July 1975 Lisbon set down the timetable for
decolonization in Timor under law 7175.
Formally disclosed at a "summit meeting" held in Macau between 26-28 June involving Portuguese and
Indonesian officials and members of the Timorese parties, with the notable exception of Fretilin which
boycotted this meeting, the future of the territory was to be the subject of debate following elections for a
popular assembly in October the following year. On 25 July UDT leaders were again courted in Jakarta and
informed of a planned Fretilin coup by General Ali Murtopo. 34
The contrary was the case, and, on 11 August, UDT itself staged a coup precipitating a short but bloody
civil war. This coup was made possible with the support of the police chief in Dili and, in turn, access to the
police arsenal. While the Portuguese confined pro-Fretilin soldiers to the barracks, Fretilin was nevertheles
able to rally Timorese supporters from within the Portuguese army and to quickly mobilize support for a
counter attack. In fierce fighting, involving civilian and military casualties, Fretilin gained the upper hand.
At the time the Portuguese newspaper Didrio de Noticias reported over 2,000 casualties, although die figure
may have been considerably less. 35
At this point the question was brought before the UN Secretary-General, Kurt Waldheim, who on 27
August, called for a cease-fire. While Portugal sought at this juncture to internationalize the issue, it is clear
with hindsight that through their inaction the Western powers played into the hands of the Indonesian
hardliners.
Again, according to UDT spokespersons, it was Ramos-Horta who, in mid-September, made
representations to the "radicals" within Fretilin to strike a new understanding with UDT even in their
moment of triumph. Ramos-Horta who had been outside Timor during the period of conflict also took
active steps to stop the mistreatment of UDT prisoners, arranged the repatriation of Portuguese soldiers
captured by Fretilin, and facilitated the orderly departure to Australia of Timorese children separated from
their parents. 36
As explained below, on 26 August, in a move regretted by Fretilin, the Portuguese government in the form
of the Governor and his entourage protected by elite metropolitan forces, departed Dili by corvette for
Atauro. Thousands of UDT supporters and others crossed the border into west Timor to escape the fighting
where many became hostage to Jakarta's policies and manipulations.
Fretilin Rule
By mid-September Fretilin was in full control throughout Timor. Even though the vast majority of the
former administration had left the country, Fretilin rapidly succeeded in laying down the basis of an
administration, albeit still under the Portuguese nag. As the Didrio de Noticias (2 October 1975)
correspondent reported the situation, Timor appeared to be at peace under Fretilin rule. Visiting Australian
Labor parliamentarians, including aboriginal Liberal Senator, Neville Bonner, concluded in a joint statemen
that the Fretilin administration appeared to be, a "responsible and moderate government" and with
widespread popular support. 37
Similarly, the head of a visiting Japanese development consortium expressed back in Japan his willingness
to work with, Fretilin at the head of an independent Timor "toward a solution of many of Timor's
problems". 38
Such problems were not strictly economic but also stemmed from Indonesian military incursions, which,
under the leadership of General Benny Murolani, escalated into an invasion. As Murolani 's candid
biographer explains, Operasi Komodo was set aside, and a new military operational plan, named Operasi
Seroja, and was established. In this new plan, volunteers would no longer be deployed, but massive joint
military operation of brigade size would be mobilized, consisting of elements of all three armed service s 3. 9
As reported to a metropolitan readership in Didrio de Noticias (18 September) a Fretilin proposal to
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Indonesia for a joint force to patrol the border was answered two days later with an Indonesian attack, a
reference to covert guerrilla operations then being mounted inside the Portuguese colony. On 10 October
the same newspaper reported that Fretilin forces were expelled from the ancient fort of Batugede. By this
stage Operation Seroja was in full night with at least six border towns inside East Timor captured by the
invading Indonesian army. While a Portuguese camera crew filmed certain of these operations, five
members of a mixed New Zealand-British-Australian television crew installed in Balibo, also witness to the
invasion, were at this juncture targeted and murdered by invading Indonesian forces on 16 October. The
concerned Western countries hardly flinched, and until today their deaths remain unsatisfactorily explained
On 23 October 1975, the Didrio de Noticias headline read "Forcas pro-Indonesia massacraram populac6es
de Timor-Leste". 40
Such was the gravity of the situation that, on 24 November, Fretilin appealed to the UN Security Council
to intervene in a situation where the territory was facing attacks from Indonesian warships, aircraft and
infantry. The urgency of the situation, the inertia of the UN, and the failure of the Portuguese to become
re-engaged on the mainland, pushed Fretilin to declare on 28 November 1975, a unilateral declaration of
independence (UDI), particularly as Angola (11 November) and Mozambique (25 June) had already
declared their independence. 41
Fretilin's own raison d' e-ire is explained in the pages of its political organ, Timor Leste: Journal do Povo
Mau Bere, the first issue of which appeared in late September 1975. This was a weekly paper produced in
Dili by Fretilin's Department of Information. While the Indonesian invasion put an end to this newspaper, a
Fretilin radio service continued broadcasting from the mountains through unto the late 1980s. Jill Jolliffe ha
explained how Timor Leste (8 & 15 November) carried major press on Angola's wartime declaration of
independence as well as Fretilin responses to news that thirty countries had recognized the Angolan
independence. Jo11iffe notes that the Fretilin press increasingly displayed a sense of bitterness towards
Portugal reflected in the elevation of new themes around opposition to Portuguese colonialism and solidarit
with the Angolan cause. At this stage, she points out, the Lobato brothers, Domingos and Rogerio, a former
army alferes, were ascendant in Fretilin. Mari Alkatiri, spokesperson for the left-wing group held the
platform, over and above the pragmatic Jose Ramos-Horta. 42
Other members of the Fretilin central committee and administration at that time, later to rise to prominence
as leaders of the armed resistance in the 1980s and 1990s, were Antonio (Mau Huno) Gomes da Costa,
vice-secretary of the Department of Administration and Security, who had also worked as a telegraph
operator for the Marconi Radio Company in Dili from 1973-75, and Jose (Xanana) Gusmao, vice secretary
of the Department of Information, and a former contributor to Voz de Timor, known internationally,
following his capture in 1993 and subsequent imprisonment by Indonesia in 1993, as the Nelson Mandela
of Timor.
Consistent with Fretilin's avowed cultural policy, Timor Leste carried articles in both Portuguese and
romanized Tetum. While it is not so surprising that Timor's nationalist elite was and remains avowedly
Lusophone, the efforts on the part of Fretilin to promote Tetum as an educational medium was revolutionar
in cultural terms, a development, as Tetum scholar Geoffrey Hull emphasizes, only matched some five year
later by the decision of the Diocese of Dili to substitute Tetum for Portuguese as the liturgical language of
the local church. 43
While the radical sounding political rhetoric of this paper was targeted at urban sophisticates -or at least
those who had not fled the fighting after the coup- the Tetum language segments were primarily offered up
for the oral consumption of the largely pre-literate people, via the mouth to mouth method of
solidarity-making that Fretilin turned to advantage. These were the Maubere people in Fretilin's new
populist vocabulary.
While articles published in the Fretilin paper ranged from political analysis, international perspectives,
Timorese culture, public information, and translations of key articles from the foreign press, it is significant
that, notwithstanding the considerable constraints imposed by the Indonesian siege, a large volume of
contribution were generated locally, all in all reflecting a high level of political sophistication by the paper's
youthful editors.
Timor Leste also carried poesia Revolucionaria or revolutionary poems by such scions of the Timorese
nationalist resistance as Jose Xanana Gusmao, Eugenio Salvador Pires, and Francisco Borja da Costa.
Typical of the poetry of the future spiritual and intellectual leader of the "Maubere" people's resistance to
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the Indonesian annexation and occupation of East Timor in the 1980s and 1990s was "A sacratissima
pratica de politicantes burgueses" (11 October 1975), a poem angry with the legacy of colonialism and
fascism and full of remorse for die kind of violence unleashed by the UDT coup. Although this poem was
published at a time when the world had come to know that Indonesia had launched its invasion plan against
East Timor, it is notable that Gusmao, signing his name Sha'a Na Na (Xanana), blamed disunity of the
Timorese people for their dilemma. Similar sentiments were expressed in his "Homenagem aos que
tombaram" (1 November 1975).
Other editions (No. 4, 18 October 1975) carried expressions of international support for Fretilin and the
role played by Fretilin's roving ambassadors in Africa.
Notable was the expression of support from the late Samora Michel, President of the People's Republic of
Mozambique, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Cape Verde. East Timor's representations to the UN
body were also explained. Edition No. 3 also carried transcripts of telegraphic communications between
Fretilin and the Portuguese government on Atauro, a parody to be sure of the kind of secret diplomacy then
being entered into between, respectively, Canberra and Jakarta and the U. S. and Jakarta. The apparent
inaction on the part of the Portuguese Governor was the subject of the lead story in issue No.4 (18 October
1975), "Lemos Pires e o seu mutismo". Edition No. 5 (25 October 1975), for example, carried particulars
on the Fretilin Department of Health and Hygiene mass TB vaccination in Dili and Baucau. It also carried a
long article explaining the goals of its consciencializacao programme. Responding to the untenable situatio
created by the Indonesian invasion of Maliano and Balibo, the paper answered back with "Indonesia e as
suas falsas propaganda" and "Indonesia: bastiao do imperilismo americans", an indictment of the Indonesia
military dictatorship and its willingness to service imperialist goals, notably in supporting UDT as a Partido
fantoche (puppet party). But, as shown below, not even Fretilin could have predicted the vindictiveness and
viciousness with which Australia, Indonesia, and the U.S. together responded to such charges.
As confirmed by Timor Leste, Fretilin had no illusions about who were friends and who were enemies.
Equally, Fretilin had no illusions as to the precarious-even perilous-status of their administration. If the
youthful members of Timor 's majority political party made errors of judgment, it was to underestimate the
perfidy of erstwhile friends, to put too much trust in international law, and to offer up a view of society
altogether too visionary, too imaginary for the gray men and women who staffed the concerned agencies in
Canberra, Washington and Tokyo. Fretilin's African solution to the problems of underdevelopment was
beyond the pale for these jokers. Neither did the international press pay too much attention to the overall
Fretilin view of social change and nationalist renewal in East Timor at least compared to the instant news
provided by the border raids, executions and posturing of Indonesia. While Fretilin bent over backwards to
mollify Indonesia as to its future foreign policy-Ramos-Horta also wished that ASEAN accept the
membership of an independent East Timor-again it is possible that Fretilin erred by not heeding the counsel
of moderates, namely that the Generals in Jakarta were sui generis. Having risen to power on one
bloodbath, with negligible international criticism, they would not be deterred by world opinion from
perpetrating another should any obstacle stand in their way.
The Portuguese Denouement
On 14 November 1974 the 43 year old General Mario Lemos Pires was appointed as governor of
Portuguese Timor, a fateful choice. Pires was a soldier who had been decorated for service in the wars in
Angola (1961-63) and Guinea Bissau (1969-71) where he served under General Spinola. He had also
undergone a training course in 1972-73 at the U. S. Army Staff Training College at Fort Leavenworth in
Kansas. As he records in is memoir, this background made him vulnerable or at least the target of charges
by Fretilin as to either his fascist connections or his role as agent of U.S. imperialism. Given the
circumstances, this allegation was no doubt excusable. Pires, however, has gone to pains in his memoir to
distance himself from this kind of charge or at least any insinuation that he delivered up Timor to Indonesia
As described by Pires, relative to the situations confronted by Portugal in Angola, Mozambique, and
Guinea-Bissau, Timor was a veritable ocean of peace.
Naturally, he remarks, the 25 April 1974 Movement in Portugal created great excitement and expectations
in Timor. Such expectations were further aroused by the creation on 13 May of a Commission for
self-determination for Timor and the law 7174 of27 July 1974, which underwrote a plan for the
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independence of Timor. The creation of political parties was thus a natural consequence of the 25 April
Movement. He also explains the serious problems he inherited in Timor from outgoing Governor Aldeia,
namely an untenable economic-financial situation, military indiscipline, and what he calls the reduction of
Portuguese diplomatic leverage with Indonesia. 44
Additionally, there was a prevailing sense of insecurity on the part of the Timorese people that Portugal
would abandon them.
Governor Lemos Pires also emphasizes that, unlike in the other colonies, the MFA played a special role in
Timor in preparing the decolonization process. Besides being engaged in economic and social works, the
MFA were also involved in preparing the electoral process, in acting as an arbiter between the different
parties, and in restoring order, discipline, and direction to society. 45
What he is referring to here is the progressive role of metropolitan elements within the MFA as opposed to
the Salazarist character of public administration Ron which Portugal and it colonies had awakened. Known
as apartidarismo, this policy asserted that - the armed forces must stand above the political process, in a
word, a doctrinal counterpoint to the Indonesian armed forces concept of dwi-fungsi or dual function which
otherwise legitimizes military rule, military dominance, and the militarization of society.
One Australian who interviewed Governor Lemos Pires was Bill Nico1. The Governor also met with a
group of visiting Australian parliamentarians. According to Nicol, at both meetings the Governor
emphasized the theme that he served as a referee between the conflicting parties. 46
Pires also told the visiting parliamentarians that he wished that the Australian government re-established a
Consulate in Dili as soon as possible, meaning that Australia, too, could play a referee role.
He first made this request in November 1974 and repeated on many other occasions. Nicol underpins a
number of contradictions in Pires' policy positions. For instance, while the governor had no power base in
Lisbon and therefore acted in Timor as a virtual puppet, he was also vulnerable to a leftist ascendancy in
Lisbon.
Nicol also cannot make up his mind as to whether the governor was a progressive or a conservative. Nicol
records that a consistent theme in Pires' public pronouncements was that "to decolonize is not to abandon".
47
James Dunn, acting as leader of a humanitarian relief team, who also interviewed Pires (on Atauro), was
told that, while the Governor was not indifferent, he received no direction from Portugal.
Others have also noted the contradiction between the governor's orderly process for self-determination and
abandonment of Dili. 48
A6cording to Governor Lemos Pires, the UDT coup of 10 August 1975 came as a surprise not only to
himself, but also to many UDT members. Nevertheless, the coup was not unanticipated by the Indonesian
(hawks) who sought to take calculated advantage of the chaos so engendered. Termed Operacao Sakonar,
the coupmakers sought to secure all strategic installations, as well as Fretilin headquarters and even the
homes of Fretilin leaders. According to captured UDT documents, the final objective after the coup was the
"erradicacao total do comunismo e libertacao nacional, unidade de todos os Timorenses para a
independencia total".
As Pires has written, while UDT sought to eliminate "Marxist" Fretilin from the political scene, it did not
yet seek to totally substitute itself for the Portuguese. 49
While Indonesian propaganda surrounding Operation Komodo was crude to foreign ears, it is possible that
the Western media misread the full anti-communist dimension of the UDT coup at the time. In retrospect,
the hysteria and hyperbole surrounding UDT's denunciations of Fretilin offers up a mirror image of
Indonesian propaganda of the day. If UDT's autonomy and credentials were fatally flawed, at least in being
seen to act as an Indonesian cat's paw, then it was also the case that such scurrilous rhetoric played into the
hands of radicals within Fretilin who undoubtedly found in it ready confirmation of imperialist and
subimperialist threats. At a juncture when the two parties stood to gain more by solidarity in the face of a
common enemy, it is especially tragic that such spurious ideological claims fuelled civil war, bloodshed, an
a bitter legacy of recriminations down until the present. Undoubtedly, then, it was the UDT coup, which
subverted the provisions of the Macau Plan, whereby the three parties would have taken part in the election
the following year. Indonesia also offered spurious promises to Portugal at a meeting in Rome on 1
November as to commitment to an orderly process of decolonization.
In the event, as, alluded, on 26 August Governor Lemos Pires relocated the Portuguese administration to
Page 153
the island of Atauro. According to Portuguese lawyer Joao Lo ff Barreto, in making this controversial and
fateful decision, Timor's last Portuguese Governor was guided by two impulses; first, the "real horror" of
the destruction of Dili, although that was an exaggeration, and, second, the tenor of a cable he received on
26 August from Portuguese President Costa Gomes:
In spite of the risk, try getting out of Dili to some other part of the territory, namely Atauro. Delegates will
undertake talks. You should not, at any costs, be in a position to be taken hostage. 50
Despite repeated calls by Fretilin to Governor Lemos Pires to re-engage in the decolonization process his
failure to act placed Fretilin in an invidious position. In any case, it was not until the first days of October
that the Portuguese corvette Afonso de Cerqueira arrived in Atauro with the purpose of breaking the
communications isolation. Almost uniquely in the history of decolonization the triumphant nationalist party
was confronted, not by the intransigence of a colonial power, which refused to depart, but the aggressive
designs of a neighbouring power which refused all calls to desist its machinations. Jolliffe writes that in the
eyes of Fretilin and even UDT it was the MFA policy of apartidarismo or nonintervention, as opposed to
the active neutrality practised by die Portuguese in Mozambique that was unforgivable. 51
In an event witnessed by foreign newsmen and assembled throngs of Timorese, on 28 November 1975
Fretilin's President Xavier Francisco do Amaral proclaimed the independence of Timor and the creation of
the Democratic Republic of East Timor. But, while Fretilin's UDI was a desperate move, it was also
understandable in the circumstances. As do Amaral Cabled Lisbon the following day this decision was
necessitated by both "Indonesian aggression" in violation of UN laws on self-determination and
independence and the "disinterest" of the Government of Portugal in seeking a correct solution to
decolonization.52
But why did the Portuguese side stonewall on Fretilin's request for recognition, even when the new
independent state of Mozambique emerged in this way? As lawyer Barreto revealed in a controversial 1982
broadside aimed at official Portuguese complaisance to Timor's plight under Indonesian occupation, interna
evidence contained in official documentation suggested that the government of the day feared that a Fretilin
UDI, and the consequent downgrading of UDT and Apodeti, would have constituted a precedent that
would have prejudiced the balance of forces in Angola. 53
Notes
1. See author's, Encountering Macau: The Rise of a Portuguese City-State on the Periphery of China, 1557
-1999, Westview Press, Boulder, 1996.
2. Telegram From the Embassy in Indonesia to the Department of State, Jakarta, 25 November 1957,
Foreign Relations: 1955- 1957, Vo1. XXII, Washington.
3. Bruce Juddery, "East Timor: Which way to turn"?, Canberra Times, 18 April 1975. And see the account
by the last Governor of Portuguese Timor, Mario Lemos Pires, Descolonizaca-o de Timor: Missao
lmpossivel?, Circulo de LeitoresjPublicac6es Don Quixote> Lisboa, 199 l.
4. Juddery, "East Timor..."; Bill Nico1, Timor/ The Stillborn Nation, Visa, l978, p. l7.
5. Nico1, ibid. For detailed context on the Permesta rebellion, see Audry R. Kahin and George McT.
Kahin, Subversion as Foreign Policy: The Secret Eisenhower and Dulles Debacle in Indonesia, The New
Press, New York, 1995. While offering decisive confirmation of the US role in backing this anti-Jakarta
"anticommunist" rebellion, it is surprising that these two experts did not touch upon the Viqueque
connection.
They do reveal, however, that the Permesta rebels, who successfully captured bases in the Moluccas, had
designs on Kupang, p. 173.
6. James Dunn, Timor: A People Betrayed, Jacaranda Press9 Brisbane, 1983, p. 34.
7. Amrin Imran, Timor Timur: Provinsi ke-2 7 Republik Indonesia, Mutiara, Jakarta, n.d.
8. Abilio Araujo cited in Yvette Lawson, "East Timor: Roots continue to grow.. A provisional analysis of
changes in foreign domination and the continuing struggle for freedom and independence", unpublished
dissertation, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, August 1989} p. 3 I.
And see, Brian Toohey, Oyster: The Story of the Australian Secjnet Intelligence Service, (William
Page 154
Heineman 1989), Mandarin, Melbourne, 1990, p. 78.
9. Rurnhardjono, "Integrasi dan artinya yang dirasakan rakyat kecil", Kompas, 15 Augustus 1977.
10. Hamish McDonald, Suharto 3F Indonesia, Fontana, Melbourne, 1980.
11. -Extension of Indonesian Rule to Portuguese Timor suggested (Prof. M. Yamin)", Sydney Morning
Herald, 21 February l960.
12. "Portugal strengthening forces in Timor due to rumours that Indonesia is planning to overtake it", The
Age (Melbourne), 1 September l962, "Three civilians die in clashes between Indonesians and Portuguese
troops7', The Age, 23 December 1962, "Indonesia and Control of Timor", The Age, 17 December 1962,
"Portuguese frigate for Timor", The Age, l6 July 1963, Frank Palmos, "Indonesia in Timor, "struggle"
[Sukarno's Independence day Speech"], Sydney Morning Herald, l8 August 1965, p. I.
13. Glen Francis, "Slavery in Timor", The Observer, 29 October l960.
14. "Travel feature on Portuguese Timor", Sydney Morning Herald, 30 December 1968.
15. Osmar Vmite, -Timor Island of Fear: What is the future for this Portuguese Colony", The Herald, 2
April 1963 and "Where does Indonesia Stand?: Sooner or later Portuguese Timor will explode", The
Herald, 3 April 1963, p. 4 and see White's reference to the problems of journalists visiting Portuguese
Timor in "Alvaro and the Market", Time Now Time Before, Heinemann, Melbourne, 1967.
16. Robert Raymond, "Timor-Sleeping Island.. For Portugal-a financial drain and political embarrassment"
The Bulletin, 29 February 1964, pp. l3-l8.
17. "Border Tense", Sydney Morning Herald, 10 December 1966, p. 3, "Clashes in Timor common",
Sydney Morning Herald, 13 December 1966, p. 3, "Timor Clash report denied", Sydney Morning Herald,
15 December 1966, p. 3.
18. J. Gert Vondra, Timor Journey, Landsdowne, Melbourne, 1968.
19. See author's (with Jofferson Lee), A Critical view of Western Journalism and Scholarship on East
Timor, Journal of Contemporary Asia Press, Manila, 1994, chapter 3.
20. Peter Hastings, "Jakarta casts an anxious eye over Timor", Sydney Morning Herald, 16 November
1971, "Indonesian Foreign Minister Mr. Malik to visit Timor later this month following reports of unrest in
the Portuguese half of the island", The Age, 4 April 1972, p. 6, "Indonesia would aid rising", The Age, 5
April 1972.
21. Nico1, Timor: The Stillborn Nation, p. 115.
22. Ibid., pp. ll-l9.
23. Brian Toohey, (Minor test for Government", Australian Financial Review, 15 May 1973, -Willesee
skirts around LTN Portugal issue", Australian Financial Review, 24 May 1973, "Thiess Timor Plan crowds
LJN policy ", Australian Financial Review, 27 June 1973, and see "TAA did not carry Portuguese troops to
Timor-Willesee", The Age, 30 August 1973, p. 13.
24. See the selected writings of T.B. Cunha, the Goa-born Indian "patriot" and long time political prisoner
of Salazar, who in 1926, after 14 years in France, returned to Goa to found the Goa Congress Committee
affiliated to the Indian National Congress, in Goa Freedom Struggle, T.B. Cunha Memorial Committee,
Bombay, 1961. While Cunha's critique of Salazarism is devastating, as is his analysis of Portuguese
"denationalization of Goans", he was also prepared to concede political differences between the Goan case
and the Macau case.
25. Jill Jolliffe, East Timor: Nationalism and Colonialism, University of Queensland Press, St.Lucia, 1978
pp. 56-57.
26. Grant Evans, "Portuguese Timor") New Left Review, No. 91, May June 1975, p. 75.
27. Helen Hill, "Fretilin: the origins, ideologies, and strategies of a nationalist movement in East Timor",
MA thesis, Monash University, May 1978.
28. Lawson, Yvette Lawson, "East Timor: Roots continue to grow", University of Jhsterdam, 1989.
29. Hill, "Fretilin".
30. For context on the liberation struggle in Guinea-Bissau see, Mai Palmberg (ed.), The Struggle for
Africa, Zed, London, 1982, pp. 78-107.
31.Ibid.
3 2 , Joao Carrascalao, President of UDT, Domingos de Oliveira, General Secretary, Timorese Democratic
Union Supreme Political Cotmci1, Sydney, reg. East Timor, 27 October 1996.
33. Hamish McDonald, Suharto 3F Indonesia, Fontana, Melbourne, 1980, pp. 194-203.
Page 155
34. Lawson, "East Timor: roots", p. 4l.
35. "Mais de dois nil mortos ja causou a guerra civil em Timor", Didrio de Noticias (Lisbon), 29 August
1975, and see Dunn, Timor: A People Betrayed, pp. 207-209.
36. Joao Viegas Carrascalao statement.
37. Didrio de Noticias, 2 October 1975; Jo11iffe, East Timor, p. 16l; Dunn, TimorI A People Betrayed, pp
199, 212. I
38. Shoji Shibuya, "Asia's Last Colony: On Timor", Koen (Lecture), No. 204J5 November 1975.
39. Julius Pour, Denny Moejndani: Projile of a Soldier Statesman, Yayasan Kejuangan Panglima Besar
Sudirman, Jakarta, l993, p. 328.
40. The deaths became the subject of an Australian Royal Commission in l996, yet the taint of official
Indonesian and Australian cover-up of the real events remains.
41. Dtmn, Timor: A People Betrayed, p. 199.
42. Jo11iffe, East Timor, p. 199.
43. Geofney Hull, "A Language Policy for East Timor: Background and Principles" Its Time to Lead the
Way, ETRA. Melbourne, l996, p. 50.
44. Mario Lemos Pires, Descolonizacao de Timor P. 62.
45. Ibid, p. l63.
46. Nicol, Timor: The Stillborn Nation, p. 179.
47. Ibid.
48. Dunn, Timor: A People Betrayed; Mark Aarons and Robert Dunm, East Timor: A Western Made
Tragedy, Left Book Club, Sydney, 1992, p. 25.
49. Pires, Descolonizacao de I7mor: p. 194.
50. Joao Loft Barreto, T7te Timor Drama, A Timor Newsletter Publication, Timor Newsletter, Lisboa,
l982,p.48.
51. Jo11iffb, East Timor, p. 127.
52. Cited in Pires, Descolonizacao de Timor, p. 3 18.
53. Barreto, The Timor Drama.
Conclusion
The Timorese Funu.
While Timorese nationalist historiography tends to explain conflict in Timor over the past 400 years as a
war of resistance against colonialism, it would at the same time be a mistake if the indigenous concept of
combat were marginalized. At least we should have some sense of how funu is remembered or actively
constructed by Timorese through various phases of their struggle.
We have made repeated references to die ritualized quality of the Timorese funu even where conflict took
on an anti-malai dimension, and even an anti-tax dimension.
But could an approach, which anthropologizes what, might otherwise appear as a rational response to the
pressures and iniquities of outside colonialism diminish our understanding of how Timorese went to war?
Might such an approach obscure the proto-nationalist underpinnings of certain of the rebellions? Or, does
the approach, which fixates, On the larger outbursts of violence miss the point, in consideration of he
quotidian and commonplace activities of noncompliance and evasion, footdragging, dissimulation, and othe
nonviolent forms of protest such as discussed by James C.
Scott in his aptly entitled Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance, albeit in another
Southeast Asian context and relating to a post-colonial order. 1
As this study has shown, over long time and across many generations Timorese have proven highly adept
at, variously, adopting the religion of their conquerors, paying up the finta, swearing submission to the
crown, paying the head tax and offering up their labour, the non plus ultra of a successful colonial
development strategy, only to sabotage the best intended strategies of the Portuguese and, as shown below,
their Indonesian successors. How and why the Timorese so consistently were able to turn die tables against
Page 156
their erstwhile pacifiers for so long is not easy to answer but to clarify the question we should look to both
anthropological and historiographical explanations and viewpoints.
While we have gone to lengths to describe the anti-finta dimension of native rebellions in Timor, at the
same time we should not lose sight of what numerous students of this problematic have termed the
messianic or millenarian dimensions of native protest. As Robert Redfield wrote long ago in a classic essay
anthropologists typically encounter the "creativity of the disintegrated folk society in the form of nativistic
movements". But even in responding to the impact of outsiders, "the stimulation of new ideas, new
religions, and ethical conceptions" not all victims accepted the conqueror's ways without a fight. Typically
such events invoke magical or shamanistic features, and often invoke the name of a prophet or leader along
with a mythical kingdom. 2
Thus, while the irrational elements of the war of the doidos were not lost upon the Portuguese, it was often
the case that such outbursts masked an alternative native logic, at least around a shared solidarity making
against a common enemy. Indeed, the messianic element in public protest is a recurrent theme even in the
modem history of Timor. As the Portuguese ethnologist, Duarte, recounts in his monograph on Atauro,
when in March 196 1 four Indonesian gunboats entered Dili harbour on an official visit, the Protestantized
villagers of a fishing community took this as a signal of their impending liberation, a movement Duarte
ascribes to the mischief worked by certain false profits or messiahs. 3
No less, magic, animism, adat, Christianity and adherence to the Indonesian Communist Party became
intertwined themes in the makdok movement in west Timor and Solor in 1965-66 coinciding with the
slaughter in these islands alone of many thousands of erstwhile communist party members and other
enemies by the Indonesian military and their dupes. 4
The messianic element also appears in the Santo Antonio movement, a religious-mystic-revivalist Catholic
movement that won large numbers of followers in the Dili area in 1988. This movement, otherwise believed
to be quiescent, came to the author's attention in 1993 in the form of a one-man vigil maintained outside the
residence of the Apostolic Administrator of Dili. This individual, evidently half-possessed or slightly manic
was also strongly bearded and swarthy suggesting a topasse or, more likely, a Bidau or Sica lineage. He
addressed the author in a patois of recognizable Portuguese and Bahasa Indonesia code changing at my
cues. His intervention-in part a plea for a Catholic and independent future for the island -also came in the
form of crude drawings of religious and political symbols inscribed in a kind of Portugalized Malay, which
he wished to be passed on to the Bishop, a promise I duly kept with a bishop anthropologist in Australia. 5
It is also true that under oppressive Indonesian military rule, the Timorese have turned en masse to the
church, seemingly the only institution that offered protection.
In any case, animist belief and practise is highly stigmatized in Indonesian law, hence the safety factor in
joining one of five state-sanctioned religions. While adherents to Protestant sects have also multiplied unde
Indonesian rule, it has been the inroads made by Islam via the influx of tens of thousands of immigrants
from Java and Sulawesi, who have not only come to dominate the bazaar economy but have also altered the
socioreligious profile of Timor. Tragically, this has led to unprecedented outbursts of violence in the 1990s
in part religiously motivated but not without economic and other defensive overtones. The years 1996-97
alone witnessed violent clashes in Viqueque (by locals against Indonesian-trained agent provocateurs), in
Pante Macassar against Buginese settlers and, unprecedented clashes against Muslim settlers in Kefamenan
in west Timor.
Yet, between the poles of pacification and resistance, there is a great sense that war in Timor was a highly
ritualized process outside of the experience of the Portuguese, Dutch, or their successors, at least until they
made the effort to lean. As this book has emphasized, it is only through an understanding of the ritualized
aspects of funu that the near half millennium of the Timorese resistance makes sense.
Dampier has recorded the sense that the two European antagonists on Timor did reach an early
understanding and accommodation with local forms of warfare. Of the Dutch style of proxy warfare, he
observed, the Cupangayans or native allies of the Dutch were given every quarter to "kill all they meet and
bring away their Heads in Triumph". He also observed a large edifice in Kupang purpose built to contain
the heads of Portuguese (or topasse?). "So that while the Portuguese are threatening to drive the Dutch out
of the island, the Dutch, without so much as uttering their resentment, are taking off their heads as fast as
they can".
In a sardonic note addressed at the Dutch, or in a rare mash of enlightenment spirit, he commented, "I know
Page 157
not what Encouragement they have for their inhumanity". 6
These sentiments were echoed by Crawfurd who, in his essay on the "Art of War" offered up his own
example of a Dutch governor in Macassar who was in the habit of receiving basketfuls of enemies' heads as
valuable gifts. In his study of warfare in Java, Bali, Borneo and Celebes (Sulawesi), Crawfurd focused
upon several defining features, including, weapons, the military character of despotism, modes of levying
troops, ways of declaring war and organizing military force, fighting styles, provisioning, and especially
conduct towards the dead. 7
In all this, Crawfurd and probably the rest of his generation would have agreed that there were two major
variants of warfare, the degraded mode of savages who treated the dead with outrage, and-the mode of the
civilized, with higher or at least other standards. Still, this is not to say that the methods of warfare wore
standard across the archipelago or even across time. As Anthony Reid has cautioned, just as the delineation
of "traditional" models of behaviour should be treated with caution, so especially should warfare, especially
as military technology is the first to be borrowed. 8
But whereas the Acehnese, Malays and Buginese had adopted the brass canon even before the arrival of
Westerners, it is notable hat this weapon was missing from the Timorese arsenal. While the Senobai and
Luca, for example, rivaled other Southeast Asian monarchs in their ability to mobilize manpower on land,
die Timorese armed with lances, bows and arrows and blowpipes were at a loss when it came to defending
themselves against the seaborne Westerners but also the Macassans or Buginese. Still, going by de
Freycinet's estimate, the number of men under arms on Timor, including those using firearms was
considerable by the eighteenth century. Belos, he reckoned, deployed 40,000 warriors of whom 3,000 were
armed with guns, the rest sabres, shields, spears, and bows and arrows. Vaikenos (Serviao) deployed
25,000 men under arms, including 2,000 armed with guns. Owing to the more favorable terrain on the
western part of the island, armed cavalry was better developed. Certain horsemen were even armed with
crude pistols. 9
But despite the adaptation of firearms, military methods and codes of behaviour were still conducted in a
time-honoured manner. Even the last great set-piece battle of this century on Timor, a reference to
Boaventura's doomed stand, was a highly "traditional" defence, redolent of the battle of Cailaco 200 years
earlier.
Mounted from the pedras using a combination of indigenous weapons and nineteenth century muskets.
While heroism was not lacking9 this doomed defence was certainly no match against a twentieth century
army. It is an interesting speculation but even the topasse, the first to successfully adopt the matchlock and
muzzleloader, lost rank absolutely when confronted with even higher levels of naval and military
technology and organization commencing at the beginning of the last century, with the deployment of
European-officered Sepoys and, later, rapid firing weapons and steam powered gunboats.
Another who made the effort to understand the roots of warfare in Timor was Governor de Castro, even if
certain of his successors demurred. Writing in 1860, he saw conflict as endemic among the Timorese, in
part encouraged by the general non-intervention of the Portuguese in the affairs of the reinos. In particular,
de Castro attributed blame to the kidnapping of individuals (into slavery), the theft of animals or the
usurpation of land, complicated by the lack of well-defined boundaries between the reinos. While finely
tuned dispute resolution mechanisms existed among the reinos, especially where they were allied, the
converse was the case when the disputants were from opposing reinos. In such a case, if the ambassador to
the court of the opposing reino returned empty-handed, preparations for war would begin immediately.
Then a contract would be made with potential allies or vassaumanes ogering indemnities in the form of
buffaloes or gold to potential victims of war. In this jeux de mort, the two sides would engage taux or
emissaries in a ritual encounter before engaging in combat. Combat, writes de Castro, consisted of firing
several rime shots at great distance. While the combat often ensued for a month at a time, it concluded only
when one side suffered a fatality from a musket ball. The victorious party would sever the victim’s head and
both sides would retire until the dead person was interred, only to resume the combat.
The war would conclude with the capture of the enemy's village, it ’s sacking, and its destruction to ashes.
Survivors would head off to the bush like animals while prisoners would be killed or, if spared, became
enslaved. But if war breaks out between the kingdoms and the government, de Castro continues, matters
transpire pretty much the same way because one can never muster sufficient force in Timor to punish the
rebels. 10
Page 158
Writing in 1844 on the link between custom, superstition and war in Timor to an audience in Macau, the
Portuguese official Jose dos Santos Vaquinas feigned horror to learn that the tabedae or decapitation of
heads of the enemy by the triumphant party on Timor also included many verses in the name of the King of
Portugal and Timor. For him, this and other customs confirmed the "ridiculous" beliefs of a people who
traced their ancestry back to the crocodile lulic. 11
As Osorio de Castro wrote in 1908, like the Dyaks of Borneo, the tabedae was a custom in Timor since
times immemorial. From his informant, Sena Barreto, head of Dili customs, this author also leant of the
"lugubrious" shriek called Lorca along with the "sad and savage" batuque dance performed by women
grouped in a semicircle playing conical shaped drums along with Malay gongs. Sena Barreto, who had
made good his contacts with certain regulo, including some who had acquired education in Macau,
witnessed young adolescents bringing back human heads from the battle ground, a probable reference to the
aftermath of one of Governor Celestino da Silva's expeditions. Thereupon these heads would become lulic
placed on rock cairns or even suspended on trees. 12
Pelissier addresses the question squarely at the outcome of his study: "la guerre pour on contre les autorites
est egalement une entreprise magico-religieuse hautment speculative". Typically, as we have seen in many
of the rebellions, a coalition of reinos would prevail over adversaries in the quest of heads to satisfy the
appetite of the sorcerer, leaving their macabre trophies to decorate their fortified villages.
The problem for the Portuguese was always to know which of the liurai could be depended upon and
which were bound to resist with blood the demands of the state in the form of finta or manpower? 13
While we have digressed to draw attention to the Timorese style of funu, which also included certain
practices which might loosely be labelled "head-hunting, we have also indicated that this practice had a
wider currency throughout the archipelago. One modem anthropologist who has studied this question with
relation to the Salu Mambi, an ethnic group in south Sulawesi, offers that head-hunting was rarely examine
in colonial literatures in terms of a political context of dominance and subordination, but in terms of belief,
however, troubling that may be. In the search for meaning of this act, this author offers that Salu Mambi
head-hunting can be interpreted as a "ritual of resistance" against raids by slave-traders and other coastal
interlopers. In part, the celebratory aspect of the rites-the tabedae in Timor- could conceivably be interprete
as a collective catharsis. While such claims have been made on behalf of the lgorots of Luzon, we still have
no good study of this question in relation to Timor. Moreover, how did the rituals of the tabedae in Timor
adapt in the decades following the ending of the practice of removing heads.
Here, I resist to state "suppression", as I cannot find any specific written actor statute constituting a
definitive prohibition or suppression. But, as with the Salu Mambi, how do the Timorese "govern their own
remembering" of these practices -the indigenous construction of violence- especially given the
stigmatization associated with non-established religions in Indonesia today. 14
Will the tabedae, along other Timorese cultural traits outside of government-sanctioned sects, become
reduced to a mere tourist spectacle as in other parts of the archipelago under Indonesian rule?
While no ambiguity surrounds the Indonesian project of colonization of East Timor, whether from an
economic or ideological perspective, did Portugal actually treat Timor more as a protectorate than a colony
This is an important question as it comes to the heart of governance and power relations between the
Portuguese, local rulers, and even their successors. We have stressed that, anthropologically, Timor was
representative of the segmented societies of the eastern archipelago. Hindu-Buddhistic and Islamic notions
of centralized states and mandalatype configurations of power relations were alien in Timor. Even the
notion of a unified kingdom of Wehale has to be treated with much circumspection. The raja or petty rulers
with whom the Dominicans first treated represented at best highly localized foci of power. Their importanc
for outsiders, whether Javanese, Chinese or Portuguese stemmed from their ability to mediate the trade in
sandal between the coast and the interior. But as rei or reino within the Portugalized orbit the little kings
transferred their symbolic loyalty to an utterly abstract King. Although the Portuguese flag-symbol of this
bond of loyalty and submission-was also perfectly indigenized in the form of lulic worship, the chosen rei
also accepted their subordinate and ranked status within the protectorate-colony through the acceptance of
Portugalized honorific and military titles. While we have seen how, From Governor de Castro down, the
principle of non-interference was set down on paper, there is no question that the Boaventura revolt and its
outcome hastened the end of the power of the liurai as unbroken lineages.
It follows that, in the Wallersteinean perspective, the development of a plantation economy on Timor keye
Page 159
to the export of a commodity in bulk to a truly world market -the European core- spelled the end of the
usefulness of the Timor-Flores zone as a mere trading post in items of luxury consumption. In any case, by
the mid-nineteenth century, the major lode pole of Timor's sandal trade, Macau, no longer served its classic
tribute-paying intermediary role in the China trade, a function of China's own subsumption within the
circuits of Western imperialism." 15
But did such revolutionary changes in the regional-economy signal Timor's classic peripheralization in a
world economy? The answer in part surely depends on the degree of Timor's incorporation. We have seen
how the introduction of coffee cultivation on the island rescued the economy from a local fiscal perspective
just as sandal production was entering a long relative decline. Still, this rescue was hardly on the terms of
modern colonial economics, facts of economic life occasioned by Timor's marginal status within a zone of
colonial-capitalist activity which saw British, Dutch, and French capital along with immigrant labour
deployed on the prime zones of extraction. Unlike colonies of direct domination, including the settler
colonies of Angola and Mozambique, Timor, an oceanic outpost, stood with such backwaters or zones of
extreme isolation as French Laos or, in the Portuguese world, Guinea, where local forms of tributary power
attenuated the colonial and, later, the colonial-capitalist mode of production. 16
But was Timor just another example of non-economic imperialism? " On this question we are in agreemen
with Pelissier who holds that, even in the generation before Governor Celestino da Silva arrived on the
scene, it is undeniable that development occurred even alongside the "clash of sabres and the glow of
fire-ravaged villages". Even alongside Dutch Timor, where the policy of nonintervention up until the
present century left the interior untouched, Portuguese Timor stood out for the creation of an export
economy based on coffee. 17
Unlike the Dutch who deliberately spread their resources very thinly in the eastern islands, the Portuguese,
albeit lacking the vastly superior financial and technical skills of their rivals, were nevertheless able to
concentrate military and other resources on the part of Timor under their control. While the full developmen
of a plantation economy based on coffee export sowed the seeds of salvation for the impecunious colony
and offered the way to an economically independent future, certain extraneous factors once again arrested
this development, a reference to the resilience of lineage power and the ability of warring liurai to soak up
the meagre development budget otherwise channeled into pacification or military-related activities.
All things being equal, it would have been expected that by mid century, with its developing plantation
economy and its incipient elite, Timor would have joined the postwar wave of independent nations. In some
ways, however, the destructiveness of the Japanese occupation aroused the deepest atavism in Timorese
culture, drastically setting back the best of colonial plans, reviving the sway of tradition and local power
relationships. Timor stood alone among Southeast Asian countries insofar as the war did not germinate a
nationalist movement. Neither did Japan successftl11y anoint a counter-elite in Timor as it did elsewhere in
occupied Southeast Asia. But neither did the Salazarist state concede the possibility. While the storm cloud
of the Indonesian revolution swept past the colony, the sway of events in Timor's giant neighbours also
impinged indirectly. While we lack documentation, the 1959 Viqueque rebellion carries echoes of this
thesis, as more demonstrably did the Apodeti treason alongside Indonesia in 1975, inflaming tribal loyalties
and rekindling a vicious funu especially on the frontier districts of Timor.
But in Timor, far from the dissolution effects of colonial capital eliminating indigenous forms of
production, such as we observed of the community mode of production, it was the failure of the church and
state alike to make over the population in their mould -the head tax and corvee project notwithstanding- tha
overall, contributed to the dominance of conservation effects and albeit weak incorporation. The case may
have been otherwise for the rootless peasant proletariat of Java and Sumatra who rallied to the communist
cause in the mid-1920s and while the case may also have been different for among the incipient proletariat
of Angola and Mozambique in the 1960s and 1970s, there is simply no evidence of class-based actions or
strike activity in Portuguese Timor, with the minor exception of strikes by students and public workers in
urban Dili in the final years. Fretilin's program, accordingly, spoke the language that Timorese knew best,
nationalism or at least cultural defence against outsiders.
Epilogue: Invasion and Resistance
From the log of the Afonso de Cerqueira, one of two Portuguese corvettes anchored off Atauro on 7
Page 160
December 1975, at 04h30 on that day "seven slow aircraft (helicopters) were seen in the distance". At
04h45 ships with "lights hidden", commenced "bombardments" in the direction of Dili, lasting until 05h30.
At 05h10 "weak sonar contact was made" (with submarines). Very early in the morning an American
yacht, believed to be the local U.S. "antenna" on the events slipped away unannounced from its mooring
alongside the corvette Joao Roby. At 06h00 a reconnaissance plane and large landing craft were spotted
heading for Ponta Tibar, west of Dili, where they landed. News of the invasion was immediately
transmitted to the Portuguese Naval Chief of Staff, the Governor of Macau, and the President of the
Republic. The command received was to respond only if attacked. But by midday the same day, the
authorities in Lisbon ordered the corvettes carrying the rump of the Portuguese administration including the
governor and his elite paracommando force to withdraw from the territory's waters and to remain outside th
twelve-mile limit. 18
As it later became known, or as the U.S. wished it to be known, the prospect of a second Cuba in
Southeast Asia would be inimical to the passage of nuclear submarines through the Ombai-Wetar Straits.
There is no question that such thinking was uppermost in the minds of U.S. President Gerald Ford and U.S.
Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, at the time of their meeting with President Suharto in Jakarta on the
very eve of the invasion, an act that they undoubtedly endorsed. 19
So began Operasi Seroja, the full-scale Indonesian invasion and annexation of East Timor. On 4
December, three days before these events, Jose Ramos-Horta had just been appointed Minister for External
Relations in the first East Timor government. At Lisbon's request, the UN Security Council convened on 22
December to discuss the Indonesian invasion, unanimously adopting a resolution calling for; all states to
respect the territorial integrity of East Timor, the rights of its people to self-determination in accordance wi
UN law, and the withdrawal without delay of Indonesian troops. This was the first of ten UN resolutions
condemning the Indonesian occupation and annexation over the years, albeit all ignored. 20
While the UN continues to hold Portugal responsible as the administering power in the territory pending an
internationally acceptable act of self-determination, and while Portugal continues to champion this right on
behalf of the Timorese in UN and other counsels, there is an abiding sense that through the long years of th
Cold War, the concerned Western powers, the U.S., Great Britain, Japan and Australia, abetted Indonesia's
illegal occupation of the territory and, together with Indonesia's partners in ASEAN, stonewalled attempts
by interested parties-notably East Timorese in the diaspora and their supporters-to activate UN involvemen
in settling the question. The strategy of leaving Indonesia to digest the territory without outside interferenc
was serviceable to Western interests up to a point Indonesia remains a major customer for Western arms
suppliers, a major trading and business partner of the U.S., while Japanese-Indonesian business and
economic interests in the archipelago are almost symbiotic. On its part, Australia rejoices at its luck in
dividing up the spoils of Timor's oil with its new found defence ally Indonesia, a reference to the Timor
Gap Treaty of 1989 and the secretive Australia-Indonesia Defence Treaty of December 1995.
Even so, the strategy of coddling a proven anti-communist dictator has had its limits, not necessarily
because liberal opinion in the West called foul, but because the end of the Cold War has rendered the
Marcos', the Noriegas and the Mobutus, irrelevant or at least an embarrassment. Needless to say, the
post-Cold war situation which has seen such amazing reversals in fortunes of such states as Namibia,
Eritrea, South Africa under the apartheid system, the Baltic states, and Eastern Europe have raised high the
expectations of the peoples of the few remaining decolonization cases before the UN. Even so, East Timor
has remained a forgotten dispute unlike even Western Sahara and Palestine where the UN has intervened on
the ground, and unlike Mozambique and Angola where UN interventions have rescued those broken states.
In the case of East Timor, it took a particularly ignominious event to arouse international public opinion, a
reference, as discussed below, to the Santa Cruz cemetery massacre of November 1991. But even if this
event raised the human rights situation in East Timor to the levels of editorial and op.ed. Still, the UN
process revealed itself hostage to proceduralist delays and inaction." 21
And so when Holland broke ranks with its Western allies over Indonesia in protest against the Dili
massacre, Indonesia proved its ability to look elsewhere for lines of international credit. In a situation of
increasing standoff between the European Union, in which Portugal holds a veto vote, the announcement
by the Norwegian Nobel committee in 1996 of the award of its prestigious Peace Prize to two sons of
Timor must also be considered an event, which has significantly shifted opinion on the East Timor question
But there is no question that for ordinary East Timorese, global events are distant and abstract. For them,
Page 161
Indonesia's "hidden war" in East Timor, has been prosecuted out of sight of the Western media, and veiled
even from the UN, which has never established a permanent monitoring presence in the territory. The
tragedy of Timor is that the violence visited upon the stillborn nation on day one of the Indonesian
main-force invasion continues until today. From the disarmingly frank biography of the Indonesian general
most concerned with on-the-ground planning of the invasion, General Murolani, we lean that the combined
air-sea invasion of 7 December -described by one Australian journalist as one of the biggest para chute
operations since World War - was seriously botched with the Indonesian marine corps sustaining heavy
casualties in confused manoeuvres, certain from "friendly fire" before Fretilin evacuated the capital. The
following day Murolani himself new into Dili in a light aircraft with the express purpose of capturing
Fretilin documents and securing release of captured opponents of would-be Indonesian collaborators. 22
Allegations of Fretilin torture against UDT prisoners, and allegations still repeated by Indonesian
spokespersons as to the "lingering trauma of the civil war", however, pale alongside the blood bath
prosecuted by invading Indonesian soldiers in the capital, consuming 80 percent of the male population of
the town, large groups of whom were systematically shot in cold blood in Dili harbour. In this rampage,
largely attributed to Airborne Battalion 502, the Chinese in particular were singled out for selective killings
So was the last remaining Western journalist and witness of the invasion, Roger East, following the Balibo
murders earlier in October. Selected massacres replicated in other towns believed to have been host to
Fretilin were accompanied by wide scale looting. By 10 December with the Indonesian paratroop landing a
Baucau, 15,000 troops were added to the invasion force of 10,000. Fretilin then comprised 2,500 full time
regulars from the former Portuguese army with 7,000 part-time militia and 20,000 reservists.
Fretilin also drew upon the sympathies of the rural population and a network of prepared interior bases.
Fretilin also maintained radio contact with supporters in Australia although the Indonesian naval cordon an
official Australian acquiescence, effectively prevented Fretilin Atom even receiving outside moral support.
23
Until Suharto declared East Timor an "open province" in 1978, thereby paving the way for the unrestricted
entry of Indonesian immigrants, and-in the interests of promoting a sense of normality-the entry of tourists,
albeit under close surveillance, the half-island endured an isolation from the rest of the world rivaled only b
such places as Tibet and North Korea. The only exceptions to this information quarantine were the
controlled visits by known sympathizers and their entourages.
Nevertheless, with the arrival of the first refugees from Timor to Portugal in 1976, a fuller picture of the
extent of the tragedy began to emerge, albeit treated with the greatest scepticism by the world media and
Western capitals. Dissenting voices within the Western media began to emerge, however, from among
journalists accompanying a foreign delegation to Remexio where, in September 1978, they witnessed
scenes of starvation which they described as "worse than Biafra". Until his dismissal in May 1983, Mgn.
Martinho da Costa Lopes, then Apostolic Administrator of Dili, also succeeded in getting his message
through to the outside world, notably that the causes of hunger were inextricably linked with crude
Indonesian attempts at population control and resettlement. But, beginning in the 1979-80 period, harrowin
reports reached the outside world from church and other sources of massacres of erstwhile supporters of
Fretilin in such locations as Dili harbour, Areia Branca beach, and Quelicai. Notorious in this sense was the
massacre of the civilian population of the village of Kraras near Viqueque in August 1983. 24
But to the extent that the East Timor tragedy entered Western consciousness, it was only in the most
marginal church or left-wing publications. Indeed, to the extent that the language of "human rights" entered
the vocabulary of political constituencies in the West, the critique of right-wing dictatorship was seen as a
left-wing reaction and greatly suspect. In other words, the system of military-initiated intimidation, terror,
killings, arbitrary detentions, and internal prison camps were seen as the "necessary" costs of supporting the
Indonesian New Order, the best guarantor of stability in a region where instability was a cliche. While the
debate on Indonesia after the Santa Cruz massacre shifted to discontinuation or restriction on military aid
and training of the Indonesian armed forces, we now know that in fact military-links with Jakarta were
strengthened by, inter alia, Australia and, secretly, continued by the U.S., unknown even to the U.S.
Congress. At no time did the West blow the whistle on the 32 year Suharto dictatorship, indeed heaped
praise upon rewards on the economically pragmatic Indonesian New Order. But where, prior to his election
to the U.S. Presidency, Bill Clinton called Indonesian actions in East Timor "unconscionable" the
"Lippogate" scandal of 1996 revealed that even Suharto's business networks could with impunity buy
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influence in Washington. Even with the hindsight gained from the deposition of the Marcos regime and,
with more immediacy, the Mobutu regime, the West saw no alternative to authoritarian rule in Indonesia.
The ruthless military-led crackdown, on leading Indonesian opposition figure Megawati Sukarnoputri in
l995 caused no weakening of Western resolve to support the dictatorship. Not even the question of
culpability arising from the massively destructive Kalimantan fires of 1998 damaged Suharto's stranglehold
on power as far as foreign creditors were concerned. Only the great Asian financial crisis of 1997-98
exposed the fragility of Indonesian "crony capitalism", but even then the country most economically
committed, and exposed, to the Indonesian economic crisis, Japan, held back from coupling an economic
rescue package with political reform. And so, the "dramatic" resignation of Suharto on 21 May 1998 did
not arise from a situation of withdrawal of vital economic and political support on the part of Japan and the
West, but owed more to the untenable situation arising from urban anarchy, rogue military actions, a rising
"people's power" challenge, eroding elite support, and the adroit anointment of a civilian, albeit
military-backed successor, in B.J. Habibie, otherwise seen as a pro-reformist figure acceptable to the West.
Right up until the present period Indonesia contends that four political parties declared East Timor's
integration with Indonesia on 29 November 1975, the day after the Fretilin UDI. This declaration, said to
have been made in Balibo by six leaders of the Apodeti, UDT, Kota and Trabalhista parties, is called by
Indonesia the "Balibo Declaration". Even though this document has subsequently been repudiated by
certain of the signatories, and not recognized by the UN as part of any decolonization process, Indonesia
still upholds it as a document constituting a "manifestation of the genuine wish of the people of East Timor
in general". In fact, as Japanese academic Akihisa Matsuno has exposed, at least four versions of the text of
the document exist and the unsigned version submitted to the UN has been heavily reworked, notably
airbrushing out from what passes for the original document the erroneous statement that Portugal consented
to Fretilin's UDI. Matsuno concludes that on the basis of internal evidence, the drafters of the document,
proceeded from wrong intelligence. A second omission in the UN version concerns reference to Holland.
While the original correctly notes the separation of the two halves of the island by, respectively, Portuguese
and Dutch colonialism, the corrected version speaks of a 400-year separation of East Timor from Indonesia
a separation attributed to Portugal. Matsuno observes that while the former argument could also be used to
justify the unification of east and west Timor without reference to Indonesia at all, in the final analysis, the
mystical unity argument is more serviceable to Indonesia's claims of East Timor's "return to the fatherland"
Also, he comments, the UN document speaks of the "independence and integration" of East Timor into
Indonesia, whereas the original draft speaks only of "integration". 25
It is of interest, however, that in 1997 in a statement to the UN Decolonization Committee urging the
removal of the question of East Timor From the Committee's agenda, R.M. Marty M. Natalegawa of
Indonesia argued that the people of East Timor had already exercised their right to self-determination "mor
than twenty years ago in accordance with the relevant United Nations resolutions", a process "witnessed by
scores of foreign diplomats and international media representatives".
In this case, Natalegawa was not referring to the Balibo Declaration but to the utterances of the
Indonesian-installed Chairman of the East Timor People's Representative Council, a 37-member body,
elected by "consensus and consent", which on 31 May 1976 "acting upon the wishes of the people as had
been expressed in the proclamation of Integration of East Timor on 30 November 1975, at Balibo" urged
the Government of the Republic of Indonesia to "accept and legalize" the integration of the territory. In fact
this was the occasion witnessed by a small number of Jakarta-based diplomats and journalists. Having
masterminded East Timor's political status and seemingly oblivious to the letter and law of the UN
resolutions, Indonesia then invited the Secretary-General and a representative of the Decolonization
Committee to visit East Timor. Both declined this descent from New York to the hell of post-occupation
Dili, citing binding UN resolutions. Indonesia was clearly rebuffed but unmoved. The weight of the
Security Council resolutions did not, however, deter Indonesian President Suharto from signing Law no.
711976 of 17 July 1976 on the "formalization of the integration of East Timor into the unitary state of the
Republic of Indonesia and the establishment of the province of East Timor". 26
While Australia and the U.S. have gone as far as recognizing the de facto and de jure integration of East
Timor into the Republic of Indonesia, disingenuously, they do not condone the method of incorporation.
Equally, while declaring the decolonization of East Timor complete, and while effectively imposing an
information and access cordon sanitaire over the half-island, Indonesia not only excluded would-be probing
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journalists, but at the height of the great famine, effectively excluded NGOs, and, at crucial times, even the
International Red Cross.
Moreover, in 1996-97, while paying lip service to the UN call for "an internationally acceptable solution",
Indonesia rejected a permanent UN Human Rights Commission presence in either Indonesia or East Timor
But by agreeing in l983 to enter into UN-sponsored meetings between the Indonesian and Portuguese
foreign ministers, Indonesia has exploited these talks to ensure that nothing is done to actually address the
problem on the ground.
This is not the place to explain the reasons why the UN body has proved so ineffectual on East Timor or
why such countries as the U.S. have applied double standards to the East Timor case alongside, for
example, Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, suffice is to say that the end of the Cold War combined with shifting
opinions in the West as to the integrity of the Suharto regime with respect to democratization, human rights
corruption and first family nepotism, opened a new window of opportunity for supporters of East Timor's
self-determination. In this the UN system has been reactive, at least up until the appointment in late 1996 of
the present incumbent to the Secretary-Generalship, Kofi Annan, who moved quickly to appoint the first
Special UN Representative for East Timor with a brief to find a "speedy solution".
All of this is not to suggest that Indonesia does not have collaborators inside East Timor. Undoubtedly
through a policy of carrot and stick Indonesia has successfully built up a large cadre of supporters inside the
occupied territory. As a major beneficiary of Western and Japanese credit, Indonesia in the 1980s and 1990
has been able to wield a far larger development budget than that of Portugal in the early 1970s, although the
near bankruptcy of the Indonesian economy in 1998 would even call that question into qualification.
Observers have noted, moreover, that the lion's share of the development budget has gone to support what
could only be described as social engineering schemes designed to integrate East Timor physically and
mentally with Indonesia. Such would describe the emphasis on road building, otherwise serving
counterinsurgency objectives, troop deployments, and, as mentioned, the entry into the territory of
immigrants. Needless to say the ecological costs of the Indonesian economic exploitation of East Timor'
natural resources have been severe. 27
Even the much touted extension of educational infrastructure in East Timor can be seen as serving political
goals, namely in winning the hearts and minds of a bahasa Indonesia-speaking youth. But to understand
why those schooled by Indonesia have turned out to be the least acquiescent to Indonesian rule and why
East Timorese youth have emerged today as champions of unrequited decolonization, we have to focus
upon the dynamics of military occupation and resistance.
It may seem anomalous, even counterproductive to the East Timorese independence cause, that armed
resistance continues in remote tracts of mountainous country in the extreme east of the half-island. But thei
presence is understandable if we view these surviving guerrillas as the rump of the defeated Fretilin forces,
heirs to the UDI of December 1975, just as it is important to understand why and how any surrender
agreement by the resistance is likely to be seen by them as part of a comprehensive peace package for East
Timor linked with demilitarization in a real sense. So far, Indonesia has categorically refused "conditional"
surrender offers by the guerrillas. On the other hand, by dismissing the armed resistance as, variously,
"communist", or from the 1980s when that appellation was no longer serviceable, as a "security disturbance
movement" and, more recently, in an attempt to deflect mounting criticism of appalling human rights abuse
committed by the Indonesian Armed Forces (ABRI), as "terrorists", Jakarta seeks to justify its overweening
military presence in the territory. In any case, for large numbers of Timorese, the resilience of Falintil,
Fretilin's armed wing, against all odds, is highly symbolic and, as this book has laid bare, redolent of the
historical funu by their ancestors against outsiders.
As recently recalled by a Falintil guerrilla, from June to November 1978 the Indonesians launched a
punishing operation of "total encirclement and annihilation" striking with bombs and napalm against the
guerrillas and local population, notably in such locales as the Matabean ranges. In December 1978 Fretilin
President Nicolau Lobato, who replaced Xavier do Amaral (captured), was killed south of Dili. In March
198 1, with the end of the first generation of Fretilin leaders, the guerrillas chose as their leader Xanana
Gusmao also creating the CNRM or National Council of the Maubere Resistance. Yet worse was to come
in the notorious Operasi Keamanan, a nefarious military sweep whereupon ABRI engaged East Timorese
in an inhuman "fence of legs" -operation designed to destroy the armed resistance. 28
Taylor has described how Fretilin managed a recovery in 1983 even after these bruising and highly
Page 164
damaging Indonesian campaigns. In this year, in line with Xanana's new strategy, several Indonesian
military commanders began negotiating local cease-fire With Fretilin culminating in a cease-fire agreement
between Xanana for the resistance and Colonel Purwanto, Indonesian military commander in East Timor.
Inside East Timor, the ceasefire eased the burden on both the fighters and the population, outside the
country it helped Indonesian to present the measure as one of its beneficence, especially to a visiting
Australian delegation. Needless to say, this cease-are soon broke down with the unilateral announcement by
Indonesian Armed Forces Commander-in-chief, Murolani, of a new military campaign, Operasi Persatuan,
to hit the resistance (With out mercy", in effect moving fifteen of the then twenty battalions in East Timor
towards the east with the objective of capturing Xanana and other commanders. 29
In an attempt to break the stalemate and to advance the political side of the struggle, the movement further
evolved in March 1986 with the historic agreement by Fretilin and UDT to put past differences behind them
and to present a united front in the common struggle for independence. Under the Convergencia or
Convergence agreement, Xanana placed himself above Fretilin as head of the CNRM, while Falintil,
transformed itself into the Armed Forces of the National Liberation.
At this juncture the military engineered the removal of Monsignor Costa Lopes.
His replacement, die young Timor-born Carlos Ximenes Belo did not prove to be as compliant with the
military as they expected, however. Besides firmly positioning the church as protector of Timorese victims
of military abuses, Bishop Belo set about penning pastoral letters in defence of human and cultural rights,
and, in no uncertain terms, wrote to the UN Secretary-General in February 1989, calling for a referendum.
In a situation of increasing standoff between the church and the military, the engagement of the Vatican in
the preservation of religious rights and cultural identity, albeit not political rights, injected a new factor into
the equation, leading up to the announcement in March 1989 that the Pope would visit East Timor. While
ostensibly offering a propaganda boost to the Indonesian state, it is clear in retrospect that the resistance, or
at least the new urban-based centre of resistance, successfully turned the tables on the Indonesian hosts. It i
not that the Papal visit was not carefully stage-managed. It was. But, also, that event aroused expectations o
East Timorese youth that the visit would open a window of opportunity to protest before this august figure
and his press entourage that their rights had been trampled upon, that their self-determination had been
denied, and that their alienation from the military-imposed structures, was complete. Even before the Papal
visit, as recounted by one of the leaders of the protest, Constancio Pinto, in his 1997 book, East Timor's
Unfinished Struggle: Inside the Timorese Resistance, youth in the last remaining Indonesian-sanctioned
Portuguese language school in Dili had established a clandestine movement with links to the armed
resistance. Undeniably, the emergence of an underground network of pro-independence Timorese in Timor
and in Java, reaching to Timorese in the diaspora in Portugal and Australia shifted the focus of struggle
from the mountains to the people of the urban areas. Notwithstanding increased levels of intimidation, this
heroic band of activists made their independence statements, launching the anti-Indonesian resistance to
new heights and dimensions. 30
Such-a turn became evident in a series of events leading up to what would become known as the Santa
Cruz or Dili massacre, which, along with die Nobel peace award, has done much to place the East Timor
issue on the international agenda.
The act by ABRI of tuning their guns on an assembled group of Timorese demonstrators-mourners at the
Santa Cruz cemetery in Dili on 6 November 1991 was no aberration, as the then Australian Foreign
Minister infamously made it known, but well flitted a pattern of similar incidents inside Indonesia and East
Timor. The difference with this massacre was that it was filmed by foreign cameramen who, in a situation
of great adversity and risk of life, managed to smuggle the film to the outside world where blood-filled
scenes were replayed on television screens in world capitals. While the UN and Western capitals were
quick to condemn the massacre by and large Indonesia's foreign backers also accepted Indonesia's bland
assurances that the perpetrators would be punished. In fact, the reverse was the case with the evidence
strongly suggesting further massacres and further cover-ups. 31
Small solace for the documented 241 Timorese victims of this massacre and subsequent "disappearances"
that media attention, for once, was focused upon their struggle. In any case, the massacre represented both
the zenith and die nadir for the urban-based clandestine movement. Above all else, the demonstration
arising out of the brutal military slaying of a young Timorese in the Motael church, coinciding with the
pent-up frustrations of the Timorese at the cancelled visit to the territory of a Portuguese parliamentary
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delegation, proved decisively that a generation schooled under Indonesian rule rejected that rule. But also,
Western acquiescence in Indonesian blandishments created extra space for Indonesia to step up its
repression of the urban-based centres of resistance, by penetration, by co-optation, and, increasingly, in
1995-96, by resort to the use of agents of terror, described as Ninja gangs. The success of this strategy,
undoubtedly reached a new high for Indonesia with Xanana Gusmao's capture in Dili in November 1992
and his subsequent showtrial in February-April 1993 leading to life sentence-later commuted to 20 ye’asr
imprisonment in Jakarta.
But the imprisonment of Xanana Gusmao has also been problematical for Indonesia, not only because
Portugal linked his release to the re-establishment of diplomatic relations, but also, because of the effect of
creating a Nelson Mandela-like figures out of the Timorese leader. It is significant that Jose Ramos-Horta,
who answered to Xanana Gusmao as roving external spokesperson for the CNRM, went out of his way to
accept the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the imprisoned Timorese leader. Since the award Xanana has
been visited in prison and consulted by, inter alia, the UN Special Representative for East Timor and,
indeed, the President of the Republic of South Africa. Subsequently, at a convention held in Portugal in
April 1998, in a move to foster unity and to forge a vision for the future around an East Timorese Magna
Carta, Timorese of the diaspora as well as those on the inside, elected Xanana Gusmao and Ramos-Horta,
respectively, President and Vice President of a National Council of the Timorese Resistance (CNRT),
superseding the CNM.
Meanwhile, through 1994-98, some hundreds of young Timorese studying in universities in Java and Bali
commenced to stage news making "break-ins" of Western embassies in Jakarta, variously claiming politica
asylum, or accepting International Red Cross mediated "repatriation" to Portugal. The most spectacular of
these "occupations" was undoubtedly that which coincided with the visit to Jakarta in 1994 of U.S.
President Bill Clinton. But, while the sentiments of these asylum-seekers also won the admiration of small
groups of pro-democracy forces inside Indonesia, it was not until the dramatic events inside Indonesia in
May 1998 that anti-Suharto forces from among the opposition camp even made professions of solidarity
with the East Timor cause. Indeed, prior to these events few Indonesian intellectuals broke ranks on the Eas
Timor question, a matter of nationalist manipulation, the politics of patronage, Islamic solidarity, sheer
ignorance stemming From a controlled and manipulated media, the extreme remoteness of East Timor even
within the Indonesian archipelago, and simply-even for those Indonesians who cared-a broad band agenda
of more pressing priorities in coping with daily life under authoritarian rule.
Nevertheless, the tactical victory won by democratic forces in Jakarta in May 1998 opened a new, albeit
limited, political space for East Timorese under Indonesian occupation, such as in the phased release of Eas
Timorese prisoners held in Indonesian jails, and the, albeit, unmet promise of troop withdrawals. But there
is no question that B.J. Habibie's offer in June 1998 of "wide-ranging autonomy" to East Timor represented
a decisive shift in Jakarta's hard-line position. Importantly, the offer was matched by UN Special
Representative Jamsheed Marker in the form of an elaborately crafted autonomy document debated and
discussed by the Portuguese and Indonesian sides in a series of consultations, albeit-with neither side
relinquishing their basic positions as to the sovereignty question. Importantly, also, the autonomy proposal
was the subject of a series of unprecedented "free speech" discussions held throughout East Timor between
June-September 1998, under the banner of the Student Solidarity Council, informally sanctioned by Marker
and largely condoned by the military. As witnessed by the author in August 1998, these peaceful mass
rallies, seminars, and discussions attended by a cross-section of peoples, sounded a unanimous rejection of
autonomy, while calling for demilitarization and an UN-sponsored referendum.
But just as UN discussions on the autonomy agreement were taking shape, on 27 January 1999, B. J.
Habibie backed by armed forces commander, General Wiranto, surprised even UN mediators by making it
known that if East Timor rejected "autonomy", then the territory could revert to its pre-1975 status and
Portugal or the UN could pick up the bill and reinitiate the decolonization process.
Ingenuously, however, the Indonesian side ruled out a referendum, asserting that this would lead to civil
war. But, in this plan, even if the East Timorese rejected autonomy, it would still have to be approved by
the Indonesian parliament, the body that "legitimized" the annexation. Needless to say, such a conditional
release of East Timor from Indonesian rule raised expectations and concerns inside East Timor, and in
international circles, especially as it became apparent that elements of the armed forces were arming
contra-type militias, opening up atavistic wounds and sowing the seeds of the kind of civil war that
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Indonesia claimed to eschew.
Nevertheless, a further announcement by Habibie in February 1999 that he wished to relinquish East Timor
by 1 January 2000 raised international expectations to a new height. Few then had any illusions that any fai
UN consultation with the East Timorese would lead to any decision but independence and, as this book
goes to press, the East Timorese and the international community were in advanced state of preparation for
such a contingency, just as few had illusions as to an easy transition to statehood without international
guarantees.
But for a people whose culture and identity is, irremediably, in an advanced stage of eradication, such
"concessions" on the part of Suharto's successors offer little solace in the absence of genuine
demilitarization including an ABRI withdrawal as called for by Bishop Ximenes Belo in June 1998. It is to
die credit of the East Timorese resistance that they have fought a defensive struggle, one that has eschewed
violence and terror, doubtless in large part owing to the staying hand of the church. The exception of course
is the armed resistance, which, for self-preservation, targets the Indonesian military and close collaborators
although not the people of East Timor.
The same cannot be said of the Indonesian armed forces who have time and time again tuned their guns and
goons upon even the civilian population of East Timorese including, as now grimly documented, East
Timorese women.
Looking back some two decades after the Indonesian occupation of Timor Loro Sae, the preferred Tetum
appellation given the half island nation agreed upon by Timorese participants at a UN sponsored meeting
held in Austria in 1997, it has struck many observers as remarkable-the 1996 Norwegian Nobel Peace Prize
Committee included-that even a generation schooled by Indonesia has been in the forefront of actions that
can be variously described as cultural defence and pro-independence. Rather than accepting an Indonesian
identity, military rule by outsiders appears to have strengthened indigenous Timorese identity around Tetum
as a spoken language, even at he expense of other dialects. But whereas in Portuguese times the embrace of
an alien religion came to be synonymous in many ways with submission, so under Indonesian rule die
embrace of the Catholic church and the choice by the church in 1980 to choose Tetum as the language of
liturgy appears as a primary defence against new intrusions, both military and cultural. There is no question
that the language of Cam6es has lost rank as a forbidden language in the Indonesian program to
reculturalize Timorese as Indonesian, but even this reversal cannot be taken for granted in a juncture where
the Western-backed New Order regime in Jakarta is on the cusp of a transition g2nd where the Timor
problem is at the stage of heightened international renegotiation. 32
Notes
1. James C. Scott, Weapons of the Weak Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance, Yale University Press,
1985, pp.298-304.
2. Robert Redfield, The Primitive World and its Transformations, Cornell University Press, Ithaca/New
York, 1953, pp. 80-81.
3. Jorge Barros Duarte, Timor: Ritos e Mitos Atauros, Ministerio da Educacao, Lisboa, 1984, pp. 1 7-1 8.
4. R.A.F. Paul Webb, "The Sickle and the Cross: Christian and Communists in Bali, Flores, Stmba and
Timor, 1965-6r, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 17, No. 1, March 1986.
5. Taking no chances, the Indonesian authorities in Dili acted to suppress the sect just prior to a visit by
Indonesian President Suharto (New Straits Times, l2 December l988).
6. William Dampier, A Voyage to New Holland: T7ie English Voyage o Discovery to the South Seas in
1699, Alan Sutton, Glouster) 1981, p. 185.
7. John CrawRlrd, History of the Archipelago, Edinburgh, 1820, pp. 2 19- 50.
8. Anthony Reid, Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce Volume One: me Lands Below the Winds, Yale
University Press, New Haven and London, 1988, pp. 121-l22.
9. L.C.D. do Freyeinet, Voyage autour du monde, exicuti: sur de corvettes S.M. I 'uranie et la Physicienne
pendant leg annies 1817, 1818, 1819 et 1820, Historique du Voyage, Tome I, Paris, 1827, p. 710.
10. Affonso de Castro, "Resume Historique de Etablissement Portugais A Timor, des us et coutumes de se
HabitantS", TjdschnjTtvoor lndische Taal-Land-en Volkenkunde, Vol. II, 1862, pp. 465-506.
11. Jose dos Santos Vaquinas, "Estudos Sobre Macau", OMacaense, Vol. II (9l): 195, 10 dojaneiro do
Page 167
1884.
12. Alberto Osorio de Castro, A IIha Vejnde e Vermelha de Timor; Cotovia, Lisboa, 1996} pp. l37-39.
l3. Pelissier, Timor en Guenle.
14. Kennoth M. George, Showing Signs of flolence: The Cultural Politics of a Twentieth-Century
Headhunting Ritual, University of CalifTomia Press, Berkeley, 1996.
15. Immanuel Wallerstein, The Modern World System JW/ The Second era of Great Expansion of the
Capitalist World-Economy, 1730-1840s, Academic Press, San Diego, 1989, p. 132.
16. Such is the thesis propounded by Clarence-Smith in reference to southern Angola. Characteristically, in
situations of "uneconomic "imperalism", chronic budget deficits, natural poverty, and effective military
resistance of the people meant that huge expenditures were spent for no apparent reward other than the
glory of colonial endeavour. W.G. Clarence Smith, Slaves, pea5rantS and capitalists in southern Angola
1840-1926, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1979, pp. 34.
17. Rend Pelissier, -nmor en 6berYe: Le Crocodile et leg Poriugaik (1847-1913), Pelissier} Orgeva1, l996
p. 73.
18. Serafim Lobato, "Invasion of Timor: The US -Antenna'", Exprasso, 10 June 1995 (original in
Portuguese).
19. On the Kissinger visit to Jakarta, and the reporting of the strategic importance of the Ombai-Wetair
straits, See Gunn with Lee, A Critical new of Western Journalism and Scholarship on East Timor: JCA
Press, Manila, l994, pp. l24-127.
20. See author's East Timor any the United Nations, Red Sea Press, Trenton, New Jersey, l997.
21. See A Critical View.
22. Julius Pour, Benny Moendani: Projile of a Soldier Statesman, Yayasan Kejuangan Panglima Besar
Sudirman, l993, pp. 316-344. Details of the botched paratroop invasion are also carried in a recently
published blow-by-blow account by an Indonesian cameraman who accompanied the Indonesian invasion
force [Hendro Subroto, Saksi Mata Perjuangan Integrasi Timor nmur1. See David Jenkins, "Death in Dili..
22 Years On", Sydney Morning Herald, l6 October 1997.
23. John 0. Taylor, Indonesia 5 Forgotten mar: The Hidden History of East Timor: Zed, London, 1991 , p.
93.
24. Ibid., pp. 100-110.
25. Akihisa Matsuno, paper read at the 6th Symposium on Indonesia and East Timor, Lisbon, 2 I -26
March l995. For the "UN version", or the version offered the UN, see, Decolonization in East Timor
Department of Foreign Affairs, Republic of Indonesia, March 1977, p. 82.
26. S.R. Roff, Timor 3g Anschiuss: Indonesian and Ausiralian Polio, in East Timor The Edwin Me11en
Press, Lewiston, 1992} pp. 95-128. Also see, Decolonization in East Timor, pp. 83-95.
See author's petition to United Nations Special Committee on Decolonization, l475th meeting, l6 June
1997, AG/COL/129.
27. The effects of Indonesianization of East Timor in terms of agricultural production, economic
self-sufficiency, forced settlement and the environment is best described by the exiled Indonesian academic
George Aditjondro, In the Shadow of Mount Ramalew: The Impact of the Occupation of East TimorT;
NDOC, Leiden, 1995.
28. Paulino Gam Ouauk Munik), "The War ill the Hills, 1975-85: A Fretilin Corrmander Remembers", in
Peter Carey and G.Carter Bentley (eds.), East Timor at the Crossroads: The Forging of a Nation, CasSel1,
London, 1985, pp. 97-105.
29. Taylor, Indonesias Forgotten mar
30. Mathew Jardine and Constancio Pinto, East Timor unfinished Struggle: Inside the Timorese Resistance
South End Press, Boston, 1997.
31. Such has been convincingly documented in book and film by John Pilger. See Distant Voices, Vintage
London, l994.
32. See author's "Language, Literacy and Political Hegemony in East Timor", in David Myers (ed.), The
Politics of Multiculturlalism in the Asia/Pacific, Northern Territory Press, 1995, pp. 117-123.
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