| History of East Timor | |
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| Chronology | |
| Early history | |
| Portuguese colonization | |
| Indonesian occupation | |
| Transition to independence | |
| Contemporary East Timor | |
| Topics | |
| Indonesian invasion | |
| Santa Cruz massacre | |
| Vote for independence | |
| 2006 political crisis | |
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East Timor Portal |
Timor is an island in South East Asia. Geologically considered a continental crustal fragment, it lies alongside the Sunda shelf, and is the largest in a cluster of islands between Java and New Guinea.[1] European colonialism has shaped Timorese history since 1515 a period when it was divided between the Dutch in the west of the island (now Indonesian West Timor), and the Portuguese in the east (now the independent state of East Timor).
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The island of Timor was populated as part of the human migrations that have shaped Australasia more generally. 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 Vedo-Australoid type, who arrived from the north and west approximately 40,000 to 20,000 years BC. Others of this type include the Wanniyala-Aetto (Veddas) of Sri Lanka. Around 3000 BC, a second migration brought Melanesians. The earlier Vedo-Australoid peoples withdrew at this time to the mountainous interior. Finally, proto-Malays arrived from south China and north Indochina. Hakka traders are among those descended from this final group.[2] Timorese origin myths tell of ancestors that sailed around the eastern end of Timor arriving on land in the south. Some stories recount Timorese ancestors journeying from Malay Peninsula or the Minangkabau Highlands of Sumatra.[3]
The Timorese were not seafarers, rather they were land focused peoples who did not make contact with other islands and peoples by sea. Timor was part of a region of small islands with small populations of similarly land-focused peoples 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.[3]
Nagarakretagama, the chronicles of the Majapahit empire called Timor a tributary,[4] but as Portuguese chronologist Tomé Pires wrote in 16th century, all islands east of Java were called "Timor".[5] Indonesian nationalist used the Majapahit chronicles to claim East Timor as part of Indonesia.[6] 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 or Wehale kingdom in central Timor, to which the Tetum, Bunak and Kemak ethnic groups were aligned.[7]
Beginning in the early sixteenth century, European colonialists—the Dutch in the island's west, and Portuguese in the east—would divide the island, isolating the East Timorese from the histories of the surrounding archipelago.[4]