History of East Timor - Portuguese Rule

Portuguese Rule

The first Europeans to arrive in the area were the Portuguese, who landed near modern Pante Macassar.These Portuguese were traders that arrived between 1509 and 1511. However, it was only in 1556 a group of Dominican friars established their missionary work in the area. By the seventeenth century the village of Lifau - known today as Oecussi enclave - became the centre of Portuguese activities. At this time, Portuguese began to convert the Timorese to Catholicism. Since 1642, military expedition led by the Portuguese Francisco Fernandes took place. The aim of this expedition was to weaken the power of the Timor kings and even as this expedition was comprised by the Topasses, the 'Black Portuguese', it succeeded to extend the Portuguese influence into the interior of the country. In 1702 the territory officially became a Portuguese colony, known as Portuguese Timor, when Lisbon sent its first governor, with Lifau as its capital. Portuguese control over the territory was tenuous particularly in the mountainous interior. Dominican friars, the occasional Dutch raid, and the Timorese themselves provided opposition to the Portuguese. The control of colonial administrators, largely restricted to Dili, had to rely on traditional tribal chieftains for control and influence.

For the Portuguese, East Timor remained little more than a neglected trading post until the late nineteenth century. Investment in infrastructure, health, and education was minimal. The island was seen as a way to exile those who the government in Lisbon saw as "problems" - these included political prisoners as well as ordinary criminals. Portuguese ruled through a traditional system of liurai (local chiefs). Sandalwood remained the main export crop with coffee exports becoming significant in the mid-nineteenth century. In places where Portuguese rule was asserted, it tended to be brutal and exploitative. At the beginning of the twentieth century, a faltering home economy prompted the Portuguese to extract greater wealth from its colonies.

The capital was moved from Lifau to Dili in 1769, due to attacks from the Topasses, an independent-minded Eurasian group. Meanwhile, the Dutch were colonizing the rest of the island and the surrounding archipelago that is now Indonesia. The border between Portuguese Timor and the Dutch East Indies was formally decided in 1859 with the Treaty of Lisbon. Portugal received the eastern half, together with the north coast pocket of Oecussi. The definitive border was drawn by the Hague in 1914, and it remains the international boundary between the modern states of East Timor and Indonesia.

Although Portugal was neutral during World War II, in December 1941, Portuguese Timor was occupied by Australian and Dutch forces, which were expecting a Japanese invasion. This Australian military intervention dragged Portuguese Timor into the Pacific War but it also slowed the Japanese expansion. When the Japanese did occupy Timor, in February 1942, a 400-strong Dutch-Australian force and large numbers of Timorese volunteers engaged them in a one-year guerilla campaign. After the allied evacuation in February 1943 the East Timorese continued fighting the Japanese, with comparatively little collaboration with the enemy taking place. This assistance cost the civilian population dearly: Japanese forces burned many villages and seized food supplies. The Japanese occupation resulted in the deaths of 40,000–70,000 Timorese.

Portuguese Timor was handed back to Portugal after the war, but Portugal continued to neglect the colony. Very little investment was made in infrastructure, education and healthcare. The colony was declared an 'Overseas Province' of the Portuguese Republic in 1955. Locally, authority rested with the Portuguese Governor and the Legislative Council, as well as local chiefs or liurai. Only a small minority of Timorese were educated, and even fewer went on to university in Portugal (there were no universities in the territory until 2000).

During this time, Indonesia did not express any interest in Portuguese Timor, despite the anti-colonial rhetoric of President Sukarno. This was partly as Indonesia was preoccupied with gaining control of West Irian, now called Papua, which had been retained by the Netherlands after Indonesian independence. In fact, at the United Nations, Indonesian diplomats stressed that their country did not seek control over any territory outside the former Netherlands East Indies, explicitly mentioning Portuguese Timor.