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The areas in Papua visited by the merchant fleet are mentioned in the Negarakertagama,
include the areas of OninFakfak, Kowiai located close to Kaimana, and Wandan (Mansoben,
1995: 69, Sinaga, 2013: 34). Local traders in these places gathered local products including
cloves, nutmeg, and mace from the Maluku and the scales and birds of paradise from Papua.
The fleet purchasd these commodities to take to Malacca to be traded or exchanged with
commodities there was a demand for among the people of Majapahit Kingdom.
When the monsoon winds blew east, the merchant fleet, which had picked up local
products to sell in the markets in Malacca, got ready to sail and left the Spice Islands on its
westward voyage down into the trade areas of Sulawesi. The areas in the region visited by
the merchant fleet, and recorded in the book of Negarakertagama include: Buton, Luwu,
Bantaeng, Selayar, and Makasar (Poelinggomang, 2002: 20-21, Reid, 1983: 122, Yamin,
1986: 60, 63). The exact location of Makasar in that period is difficult to identify. However,
when other ports on the west coast of Sulawesi faded and the only ports that continued
to grow were Tallo and Sombaopu, these two ports have been fused were called Makasar,
indicating that all the ports on the west coast of Sulawesi was categorized as “makasar”,
the closest transit to Maluku. This happened in the second half of the 16 century,
th
particularly during the reign of I Manrigau Daeng Bonto Karaeng Lakiung Tunipalangga
Ulaweng (1546-1565), the 10 King of the Gowa Kingdom who became the 2 King of the
th
nd
Kingdom of Makasar (Poelinggomang, 2002: 24-25). During that period, the ports which
were growing on the west coast, the southern peninsula of Sulawesi Island, before the
establishment of the port of Tallo (at the end of the 15thcentury) and Sombaopu (at the
beginning of the 16th century, circa 1515) were Bandar Siang (in Bungoro, Pangkep),
Bacokiki (becoming part of Pare-Pare), Suppa (in Pinrang Regency), and Napo (in Poliwali-
Mandar regency, which used to be part of the territory of the Balanipa Kingdom).
It was clear that the Majapahit merchant fleet also conducted commercial sailing
along the west coast of Sulawesi to the north into the area of maritime trade zone of the
Sulu Sea, present day southern Philippines. This trade zone was involved in the trade of
slave acquired through piracy. There were three groups of peoples who engaged in piracy
from the Sultanate of Sulu, namely Ilanun which was generally active in the western part
of Indonesia, and the Balangngingi and Mindanau groups which operated in eastern
Indonesia (Lapian, 2009). The slaves bought and sold in the area were the mainstay of the
seafaring groups, so they became a target for the sailors and merchants.
After conducting commercial sailing in this area, capitalizing on this east monsoon
wind, the fleet sailed along the east coast of Kalimantan and then on to Malacca. The trade

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