Colonial or Indigenous Rule? The Black Portuguese of Timor in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries

Date: Monday, 23 October 2006
Time: 16:00-17:00 hours
Venue: P.J. Veth Building, Room 329. Leiden University, Nonnensteeg 1-3, 2311 VJ, Leiden

Lecture by Dr Hans Hägerdal, currently IIAS affiliated fellow and Senior Lecturer in History, University of Växjö, Sweden

During the sixteenth century, the Portuguese seafarers and merchants built up a political and commercial network in Asian waters, based on trading posts, fortresses and occasionally the possession of larger pieces of territory. This complex, however, did not constitute an "empire" as such. Rather, there was a formal aspect of the early Portuguese presence, the Estado da Índia, and an informal one. To the latter belongs the development of a mestiço community in eastern Flores and later parts of Timor. This community, known as the Black Portuguese or Topasses, arose in the late sixteenth century, found a stronghold in Larantuka after 1613, and established itself in north-western Timor from the mid seventeenth century, driven by the opportunities to control deliveries of sandalwood. For long periods, the Black Portuguese were able to dominate the larger part of Timor, often in a state of enmity with the Dutch East Indies Company. Though dependent on commercial relations with Macau, they resisted the encroachments of the Estado da Índia for a long time. The lecture will discuss the ethnic constitution of the Black Portuguese, their political and economic role in an early colonial context, and factors conducive to their relative decline after the mid eighteenth century.