Page 252 - THE MELANESIA DIASPORA FILE CETAK ISI 10022017

in Maluku. The Portuguese efforts to control
Maluku further did not succeed because there
were many rebellions, especially by the Sultan
of Ternate and Hitu kingdom and they also
were engaged in a war against Spain, England
and the Netherlands. In 1566, the Portuguese
finally strengthened their forces in Timor by
building a fort on the island of Solor. From the
island of Solor, Dominican pastors engaged
in evangelism and managed to convert the
population of Flores, Lombok, Alor, Rote and
Timor to Christianity. Later, many of those
Portuguese married indigenous women.
Generally they stayed near the fort. Gradually
the area around the fort became crowded,
and different communities, pirates of Mestizo
Tolucco Fort. The Fort of the Timor, Portuguese soldiers and sailors, and sandalwood merchants from Macao and
Portuguese in Ternate, built in 1540. Malaka lived and thrived there. Social life was dominated by the travelers from Europe
and the Europeans who had married local women. They were known as the Topasses or
black Portuguese. Trade commodities bought and sold were sandalwood, beeswax, Timor
horse and slaves (Anwar, 2004).
In 1602, the Dutch established the Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie (VOC).
Subsequently, they started their monopoly on trade in Maluku and extended as far as
Timor, Java, Sumatra and other islands, except Papua. The Dutch efforts to cooperate with
the kings on the west coast of Papua and the Bird’s Head was dogged by trade networks of
native sosolot merchants monopolized by the merchants of East Seram and the influence
of Tidore power and the support of the population of the area for the Sultan of Tidore.
From Maluku, the Dutch invaded and occupied Portuguese forts in Timor. The
Dominican priests were forced to flee to Larantuka at the tip of the island of Flores. The
Portuguese fled to East Timor and controlled East Timor until 1974. during the period
of occupation of Timor from the 17th to the early 18th century, the Dutch in the VOC
married many aristocratic women of Timor. From the baptism data, there were many
Eurasian children in Timor, whose mothers were not baptized (Hägerdal, 2012). Similarly,
what happened in Maluku was that when the father was a European, the children who

252 Chapter 6

MELANESIA BOOK FA LAYOUT 051216.indd 252 2/10/17 2:11 PM