Lords of the Land, Lords of the Sea

Lords of the Land, Lords of the Sea
Author :
Publisher : BRILL
Total Pages : 495
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9789004253506
ISBN-13 : 9004253505
Rating : 4/5 (505 Downloads)

Book Synopsis Lords of the Land, Lords of the Sea by : Hans Hägerdal

Download or read book Lords of the Land, Lords of the Sea written by Hans Hägerdal and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2012-01-01 with total page 495 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: European traders and soldiers established a foothold on Timor in the course of the seventeenth century, motivated by the quest for the commercially vital sandalwood and the intense competition between the Dutch and the Portuguese. Lords of the Land, Lords of the Sea focuses on two centuries of contacts between the indigenous polities on Timor and the early colonials, and covers the period 1600-1800. In contrast with most previous studies, the book treats Timor as a historical region in its own right, using a wide array of Dutch, Portuguese and other original sources, which are compared with the comprehensive corpus of oral tradition recorded on the island. From this rich material, a lively picture emerges of life and death in early Timorese society, the forms of trade, slavery, warfare, alliances, social life, and so forth. The investigation demonstrates that the European groups, although having a role as ordering political forces, were only part of the political landscape of Timor. They relied on alliances where the distinction between ally and vassal was moot, and led to frequent conflicts and uprisings. During a slow and complicated process, the often turbulent political conditions involving Europeans, Eurasians, and Timorese polities, paved the way for the later division of Timor into two spheres of roughly equal size.


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