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Amanuban was a traditional princedom in West Timor, Indonesia. It lay in the regency (kabupaten) Timor Tengah Selatan. In the late colonial period, according to an estimate in 1930, Amanuban covered 2,075 square kilometers. [1] The centre of the princedom since the 19th century was Niki-Niki. The population belongs to the Atoni group. Today they are predominantly Protestants, with a significant Catholic minority and some Muslims.
The ancestor of the royal line is said to have come from Roti island, west of Timor. Amanuban is mentioned in Dutch sources as early as 1613, when the Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie or VOC) first approached Timor. Amanuban had resources of sandalwood, which was the main Western interest on the island. The Dutch concluded a contract with the King of Amanuban in 1616, but the princedom came under the influence of the Portuguese, political and commercial rivals of the Dutch. This influence lasted up to 1748. During this period there was intermittent warfare with the VOC enclave around Kupang in westernmost Timor. A political crisis in 1748 turned a number of Atoni princedoms, including Amanuban, against the Topasses or Portuguese Eurasians on Timor. After the Topass defeat at the hand of the VOC in the Battle of Penfui on November 1749, the territory of Amanuban was included in the Dutch political alliance network.
After 1770 dynastic disputes led to a split. The larger part of Amanuban joined the prince Tobani who ruled independently of the Dutch. His son Louis (c. 1807-c. 1824) led a violently anti-Dutch policy and trained a large mounted corps of warriors with firearms. The Dutch (and the British during the 1812–1816 interregnum) sent a number of armed expeditions against Louis, without much success. In later tradition Louis is pointed out as the founder of the royal seat Niki-Niki. [2] After his death the coherence of Amanuban declined.
The last independent king, Bil Nope alias Hau Sufa Leu (c. 1870–1910) befriended the encroaching Dutch colonial authorities in the early years of the 20th century. However, the arrogant stance of the local Dutch officer caused anti-colonial resistance. Finally Bil Nope died in the flames of his residence in Niki-Niki in October 1910. [3] In modern Indonesia he is regarded as an anti-colonial hero.
Another branch of the dynasty was enthroned, and Amanuban continued as a zelfbesturende landschap (self-ruling territory) under colonial surveillance until the departure of the Dutch (1942 and 1949). In 1952, a few years after the formation of a unitary Indonesian republic, the princedom was turned into a so-called swapraja, still with the old ruler as headman (kepala daerah swapraja). In 1959 a new administrative region (Daerah Tingkat II), Timor Tengah Selatan was formed, and included the old swaprajas Mollo, Amanuban and Amanatun. In 1962–63 the swapraja, and with it the last remnants of traditional governance, was abrogated by official decree. [4] Members of the old ruling family, Nope, still have an amount of local informal influence.
West Timor is an area covering the western part of the island of Timor, except for the district of Oecussi-Ambeno. Administratively, West Timor is part of East Nusa Tenggara Province, Indonesia. The capital as well as its main port is Kupang. During the colonial period, the area was named Dutch Timor and was a centre of Dutch loyalists during the Indonesian National Revolution (1945–1949). From 1949 to 1975 it was named Indonesian Timor.
Kupang, formerly known as Koepang or Coupang, is the capital of the Indonesian province of East Nusa Tenggara. At the 2020 Census, it had a population of 442,758; the official estimate as of mid-2022 was 468,913. It is the largest city and port on the island of Timor, and is a part of the Timor Leste–Indonesia–Australia Growth Triangle free trade zone. Geographically, Kupang is the southernmost city in Indonesia.
Amabi was a traditional principality in West Timor in the currently East Nusa Tenggara province of Indonesia. From at least the 17th century to 1917, Amabi played a role in the rivalries between the Portuguese and Dutch colonials on Timor Island.
Sonbai was an Indonesian princely dynasty that reigned over various parts of West Timor from at least the 17th century until the 1950s. It was known as the most prestigious princedom of the Atoni people of West Timor, and is the subject of many myths and stories.
Topasses were a group of people led by the two powerful families – Da Costa and Hornay – that resided in Oecussi and Flores. The Da Costa families were descendants of Portuguese Jewish merchants and Hornay were Dutch.
Gaspar da Costa was the leader or tenente geral of the Portuguese-speaking Topasses, a Eurasian group that dominated much of the politics on Timor in the early modern period. He was largely responsible for the dramatic collapse of Portuguese power in West Timor, a process that laid the foundations for the modern division of Timor in an Indonesian and an independent part.
Wehali is the name of a traditional kingdom at the southern coast of Central Timor, now in the Republic of Indonesia. It is often mentioned together with its neighbouring sister kingdom, as Wewiku-Wehali (Waiwiku-Wehale). Wehali held a position of ritual seniority among the many small Timorese kingdoms.
Liurai is a ruler's title on Timor. The word is Tetun and literally means "surpassing the earth". It was originally associated with Wehali, a ritually central kingdom situated at the south coast of central Timor. The sacral lord of Wehali, the Maromak Oan enjoyed a ritually passive role, and he kept the liurai as the executive ruler of the land. In the same way, the rulers of two other important princedoms, Sonbai in West Timor and Likusaen (Liquica) in East Timor, were often referred as liurais, which indicated a symbolic tripartition of the island. In later history, especially in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the term liurai underwent a process of inflation. By this time it denoted any ruler in the Portuguese part of Timor, great or small. In the Dutch part in West Timor the title appears to have been restricted to the Sonbai and Wehali rulers. The rulers in the west were known by the Malay term raja, while there were internally used terms such as usif (lord) among the Dawan-speaking groups, and loro (sun) among the Tetun speakers.
Amanatun was an Atoni princedom situated in what is today Indonesian West Timor, which existed up to 1962. It was also known as the princedom of Onam. The area once included one of the best ports where the commercially important sandalwood was loaded on Dutch and Portuguese ships.
Sonbai Besar or Greater Sonbai was an extensive princedom of West Timor, in present-day Indonesia, which existed from 1658 to 1906 and played an important role in the history of Timor.
Sonbai Kecil or Lesser Sonbai was an Atoni princedom in West Timor, now included in Indonesia. It existed from 1658 to 1917, when it merged into a colonial creation, the zelfbesturend landschap Kupang.
Amarasi was a traditional princedom in West Timor, in present-day Indonesia. It had an important role in the political history of Timor during the 17th and 18th century, being a client state of the Portuguese colonialists, and later subjected to the Netherlands East Indies.
North Central Timor Regency is a regency in East Nusa Tenggara Province, Indonesia. It covers an area of 2,669.70 km2, and had a population of 229,803 at the 2010 Census and 259,829 at the 2020 Census; the official estimate as at mid 2022 was 268,067. Its regency seat is located at the town of Kefamenanu, which had a population of 49,095 in mid 2022. The regency borders Timor Leste's Oecusse enclave, one of few Indonesian regions that have a land border with other countries.
The Mina River is a river of Timor, in the province of East Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia, about 2000 km east of the capital Jakarta. Above this river also stretches the Noelmina Bridge which connects Kupang with the South Central Timor Regency.
Ambelau or Ambalau is a volcanic island in the Banda Sea within Maluku Islands of Indonesia. The island forms an administrative district which is part of the South Buru Regency of Maluku province, Indonesia. It has a land area of 201.7 km2, and had a population of 6,846 at the 2010 Census; the official estimate as at mid 2022 was 9,170. The administrative center is Wailua, a settlement located at the south of the island. About half of the island's population is composed of indigenous Ambelau people who speak the Ambelau language; the other half are mostly immigrants from the nearby Maluku Islands and Java.
Minahasa Regency is a regency in North Sulawesi, Indonesia. Its capital is Tondano. It covers an area of 1,141.64 km2 and had a population of 310,384 at the 2010 Census; this rose to 347,290 at the 2020 Census, and the official estimate as at mid 2022 was 350,317.
The Battle of Penfui took place on 9 November 1749 in the hillside of Penfui, near modern Kupang. A large Topass army was defeated by a numerically inferior Dutch East India Company force following the withdrawal of the former's Timorese allies from the battlefield, resulting in the death of the Topass leader Gaspar da Costa. Following the battle, both Topass and Portuguese influence on Timor declined, eventually leading to the formation of a boundary between Dutch and Portuguese Timor which precipitated into the modern border between West Timor and East Timor.
In Indonesian law, the term "city" is generally defined as the second-level administrative subdivision of the Republic of Indonesia, an equivalent to regency. The difference between a city and a regency is that a city has non-agricultural economic activities and a dense urban population, while a regency comprises predominantly rural areas and is larger in area than a city. However, Indonesia historically had several classifications of cities.
The Kalimantan Physical Revolution was an armed conflict between Indonesian nationalists in and pro-Dutch forces in Dutch Borneo following the end of the Japanese occupation of the Dutch East Indies and the 1945 Proclamation of Indonesian Independence by Sukarno and which lasted until the Dutch withdrew from most of Indonesia in 1949. It can be considered a regional conflict in the larger Indonesian National Revolution. After the surrender of the Japanese at the end of World War II, allied forces took control of the Dutch East Indies, including Dutch Borneo. The return of Dutch authorities however, was rejected by majority of native population, including in Borneo, resulting in various regional armed conflicts between Royal Netherlands East Indies Army and Indonesian nationalist forces. Allied military forces in Borneo were in a strong position after an early conflict in August 1945, and were able to pacify local nationalist uprisings and impose a blockade to prevent military aid and exchange in personnel from nationalist strongholds in Java and Sumatra. Later, nationalists with connections to Borneo were able to breach tofhe military blockade to provide information revolutionary events in Java and Sumatra, declaring Kalimantan as inseparable part of the new Indonesian republic.
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