History of Timor-Leste
, officially the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, is an island country in Southeast Asia. The country comprises the eastern half of the island of Timor and the nearby islands of Atauro and Jaco. The first inhabitants are thought to be descendant of Australoid and Melanesian peoples. The Portuguese began to trade with Timor by the early 16th century and colonised it throughout the mid-century. Skirmishing with the Dutch in the region eventually resulted in an 1859 treaty for which Portugal ceded the western half of the island. Imperial Japan occupied East Timor during World War II, but Portugal resumed colonial authority after the Japanese surrender.
East Timor declared itself independent from Portugal in 1975, but was invaded by Indonesia. The country was later incorporated as a province of Indonesia. During the subsequent two-decade occupation, a campaign of pacification ensued. Although Indonesia did make substantial investment in infrastructures during its occupation in East Timor, dissatisfaction remained widespread. From 1975 to 1999, there were an estimated 102,800 conflict-related deaths, the majority of which occurred during the Indonesian occupation.
In 1999, in a UN-sponsored referendum, an overwhelming majority of East Timorese voted for independence from Indonesia. Immediately following the referendum, anti-independence Timorese militias – organised and supported by the Indonesian military – commenced a scorched earth campaign. The militias killed approximately 1,400 Timorese and forcibly pushed 300,000 people into West Timor as refugees. The majority of the country's infrastructure was destroyed during this attack. The International Force East Timor was deployed to the country and brought the violence to an end. Following a United Nations-administered transition period, Timor-Leste was internationally recognised as an independent nation in 2002. It is the poorest country in Southeast Asia with a 20% unemployment rate, and approximately one third of the population is illiterate.
Pre-colonial history
The island of Timor was populated as part of the human migrations that have shaped Australasia more generally. As of 2019, the oldest traces of human settlement are 43,000 to 44,000 years old, and were found in the Laili cave in Manatuto Municipality. These early settlers had high-level maritime skills, and by implication the technology needed to make ocean crossings to reach Australia and other islands, as they were catching and consuming large numbers of big deep sea fish such as tuna. One of the oldest fish hooks in the world, dated between 16,000 and 23,000 years old, was excavated at the Jerimalai cave. It is believed that survivors from three waves of migration still live in the country. The first is described by anthropologists as people of the Veddo-Australoid type.Around 3000 BC, a second migration brought Melanesians. The earlier Veddo-Australoid peoples withdrew at this time to the mountainous interior. Finally, proto-Malays arrived from south China and north Indochina. Timorese origin myths tell of ancestors that sailed around the eastern end of Timor arriving on land in the south.
These multiple waves of migrations combined with the mountainous geography of the island led to a diverse mix of languages and culture. What is now Timor-Leste was split between up to 46 kingdoms. However, there was little influence from the large Islamic Javanese powers to the west.
The later Timorese were not seafarers, rather they were land focused people who rarely made contact with other islands. Timor was part of a region of small islands with small populations of similarly land-focused people that now make up eastern Indonesia. Contact with the outside world was via networks of foreign seafaring traders from as far as China and India that served the archipelago. Outside products brought to the region included metal goods, rice, fine textiles, and coins exchanged for local spices, sandalwood, deer horn, bees' wax, and slaves.
Several fortifications uncovered in Timor were built between 1000 and 1300. Climatic changes, in particular during the Little Ice Age, and the increased trade in sandalwood, are thought to have increased tensions around the control of resources during that time.
The first known mention of Timor in writing can be found in the 13th-century Chinese Zhu Fan Zhi, which describes various products and civilisations found outside China. In the Zhu Fan Zhi, Timor is called Ti-Wen and is noted for its sandalwood. In 1365, the Nagarakretagama, which contains descriptions of the Majapahit Empire at its peak, identifies Timor as an island within Majapahit's realm. However, as Portuguese chronologist Tomé Pires wrote in the 16th century, all islands east of Java were called "Timor".
Early European explorers report that the island had a number of small chiefdoms or princedoms in the early 16th century. One of the most significant is the Wehali kingdom in central Timor, to which the Tetum, Bunaq and Kemak ethnic groups were aligned.
The first circumnavigation of the world, the Magellan expedition, visited Timor and they recorded that Lucoes traded in East Timor in order to gather sandalwood for export abroad.
Portuguese rule
The first Europeans to arrive in the area were the Portuguese, who landed near present-day Pante Macassar. These Portuguese were traders that arrived between 1512 and 1515. However, only in 1556 did a group of Dominican friars establish their missionary work in the area, settling just north in Solor. War with the Netherlands reduced Portuguese control in the Malay archipelago, limiting them mostly to the Lesser Sunda Islands. Later wars further reduced Portuguese influence, with Solor falling in 1613, and Kupang in the west of Timor falling in 1653.Dutch and Portuguese sources relate that the island was divided into two collections of kingdoms. Sixteen kingdoms were grouped into in the west, while in the east fifty kingdoms were part of Belos.
By the seventeenth century the village of Lifau – today part of the Oecussi enclave – had become the centre of Portuguese activities. At this time, the Portuguese began to convert the Timorese to Catholicism. Starting in 1642, a 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 made by the Topasses, the 'Black Portuguese', it succeeded to extend the Portuguese influence into the interior of the country. In 1702 a Governor was appointed for Solor and Timor, based in Lifau. Portuguese control over the territory was tenuous, with opposition coming from Dominican friars, the Topasses, restive vassal kingdoms, and the south Sulawesi-based Gowa and Talloq sultanates. A rebellion in 1725 led to a campaign by Portuguese forces and allies from the north coast, which culminated in Portuguese victory at the 1726 Battle of Cailaco. In 1769, seeking to wrest control from the Topasses, the Portuguese governor moved his administration along with 1,200 people from Lifau to what would become Dili. The control of colonial administrators, largely restricted to Dili, had to rely on traditional tribal chieftains for control and influence.
For both Portugal and the Netherlands, Timor remained a low priority with little presence outside of the cities of Dili and Kupang. Nonetheless, continuing disputes over competing spheres of influence with the Dutch led to a number of treaties aimed at formalising borders and eliminating enclaves. 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. There are competing views over whether this border reflected existing cultural differences. This 1859 treaty saw Portugal take control of Maubara, where the Dutch had begun coffee cultivation, in exchange for formally relinquishing claims in Solor and Flores.
In 1844 Timor, along with Macau and Solor, was removed from the jurisdiction of Portuguese India. A few years later in 1850, Portuguese Timor was removed from the jurisdiction of the governor of Macau, before being returned to the jurisdiction of Portuguese India in 1856. In 1863, Dili was declared a city, and East Timor became directly subordinate to the Lisbon government. In 1866 the territory was again put under the jurisdiction of Macau. An 1887 mutiny in Dili led to the death of the Governor at the time. The territory was separated from Macau for the last time in 1896, again coming directly under the jurisdiction of Lisbon, and becoming a full province in 1909.
In 1910–12, the East Timorese rebelled against Portugal. Troops from Mozambique and naval gunfire were brought in to suppress the rebels. The definitive border was drawn by The Hague in 1914, and it remains the international boundary between the modern states of Timor-Leste and Indonesia. Maucatar became part of Portuguese Timor during this period. The Portuguese Timorese pataca became the sole official currency in 1915. Difficulties in communication and logistics arising as a result of World War I led to trade disruptions. Economic difficulties and an inability to pay salaries led to a small revolt in 1919.
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 state in Lisbon saw as problems – these included political prisoners as well as ordinary criminals. Portuguese ruled through a traditional system of liurai. 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. Portuguese authorities created an administrative structure based on the existing kingdoms, while also creating a new level of administration under them, the suco. This new level was created around villages, or groups of villages linked by kinship. These new administrative boundaries thus reflected family ties, and strengthened family power as villages gained administrative power. This created a permanent shift of powers from the level of the kingdom to that of the villages.
The administration of José Celestino da Silva began in 1893. He aimed to make the territory profitable. To gain more control he reduced the power of local kings, and even eliminated smaller and more disloyal ones. Implementation of the head tax required a census, and depended on the loyalty of the local leaders who would be responsible for collection. He also sought to impose a head tax which collected tax from each household, necessitating a census of the territory to count these households. The head tax was imposed by Silva's successor, Eduardo Augusto Marques, once the census was complete. The needs of the census meant power at this time also flowed to leaders of aldeias, a smaller unit that sucos whose leaders were responsible for some tax collection and were given formal military ranks.
The remaining power of the kings further diminished after the 5 October 1910 revolution made Portugal a republic, especially as many Timorese kings were monarchist sympathisers. The kings now operated Administrative posts on behalf of the Portuguese.
Portuguese Timor had been a place of exile for political and social opponents deported from the metropolis since the late nineteenth century. Among them a large proportion were members of the anarchist and anarcho-syndicalist movement, which until the Second World War was the most influential of the left-wing movements in Portugal. The main waves of deportations to Timor were in 1896, 1927, and 1931. Some of the activists continued their resistance even in exile. After World War II, the remaining exiles were pardoned and allowed to return.
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 guerrilla 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.
Under Japanese rule, there were changes to the administrative structures that created larger districts and a reduced number of suco.
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 1951. 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.
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.
In 1960 East Timor gained the right to self-determination under international law, as a non-self-governing territory. It retained this status, with Portugal as the administering power, throughout Indonesian rule.
The small 1959 Viqueque rebellion saw attempts by the rebels to seek support outside their local area, although it did not overcome local rivalries. Its calls for better services and rights led to some changes in Portuguese policy such as increases in education and civil employment. Basic schooling was increased, and more advanced schools that included secondary education were available to the most Portuguese individuals: those considered mestiço or assimilado. A catholic school in Soibada, the Seminary of Our Lady of Fatima in Dare, and the Liceu Dr. Francisco Machado were important educational establishments during this time. Fatumaca College was established near Baucau in 1969, and an Escola Tecnica was set up in 1973. The politicians who came to prominence at the end of Portuguese rule tended to have studied in these schools, and some cited the Viqueque rebellion as an inspiration. This "Timorisation", which resulted in greater local participation in administration and the military, remained mostly limited to the aforementioned upper class, and did not substantially affect the majority of the population.