Slave trade in Timor

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The slave trade on Timor was next to the trade in sandalwood until the 19th century the most profitable source of income for traders who headed for the island of Timor .

history

Spanish - Filipino coin in use in Timor with Chinese embossments and the cross of Christ

Slaves were mostly criminals who had escaped the death penalty in this way, or prisoners of war from the conflicts between the many small empires that made up Timor. The enslavement of men, women and children from other realms was part of the war tradition. In most cases, they were kept in slavery until relatives or relatives exchanged them for their own family members. But slaves were also kept or traded permanently. They formed the lowest stratum of old Timorese society, but they were not necessarily treated badly, nor were they without rights. Sometimes they were even viewed as part of the family. Sometimes parents sold their children into slavery, but it could also be as a result of covenants reinforced by marriage that husbands were granted slave status in the wife's clan. In Timor, however, the status of women within society was mostly very low until well into the 20th century, especially in those areas into which proselytizing had not yet penetrated.

The slave trade was primarily carried out by Chinese and Makassar traders , and from the 17th century also by the Dutch . The coastal town of Atapupu takes his name from this time. In the local language Tetum it means "port of the slaves". Portugal did not participate directly but, like the Catholic Church, did nothing to counter this practice. After all, in 1752 the Bishop of Malacca branded the Dutch trade in Timorese slaves, who were also sold to the Chinese and Arabs, as a crime that would lead to excommunication among Catholics. The Dutch commander ( Opperhoofd ) Hans Albrecht von Plüskow von Kupang (1758 to 1760) owned 140 slaves alone.

Timorese slaves were brought to Makassar and from there to Macau , Palembang , Jambi , Aceh and the pepper plantations on southern Borneo . However, at this time the main customer was Batavia (today's Jakarta ). Almost every ship that reached the port from Timor had slaves on board. Timorese slaves were used by the Dutch throughout the archipelago, for example in the nutmeg plantations on the Banda Islands after the indigenous peoples were exterminated in 1621. At the beginning of the 19th century, a male slave cost 30 to 40 piastres, while a woman paid 100 piastres.

Until well into the 19th century, the slave trade was carried out from both parts of Timor, which also affected the neighboring islands. For example Solor and Roti . Slavery was officially banned in Portuguese Timor from 1854 , but it took a long time to enforce this among local rulers. In fact, slavery remained with them well into the 20th century, albeit in the form of economic ties and servants.

literature

  • Hägerdal, Hans: The Slaves of Timor: Life and Death on the Fringes of Early Colonial Society , Itinerario ( ISSN  0165-1153 ), Volume 34, pp. 19-44, 2010, Leiden, Cambridge University Press

supporting documents

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Hans Hägerdal: Lords of the land, lords of the sea , accessed in July 2012.
  2. ↑ Kisho Tsuchiya: Indigenization of the Pacific War in Timor Island: A Multi-language Study of its Contexts and Impact , p. 11, Journal War & Society, Vol. 38, No. February 1, 2018.