Ile Timor No.28

Title

Ile Timor No.28

Description

Map shows the island Timor and its neighbour islands

ca. 1825

Artist

Vandermaelen

Historical Description

The Portuguese navigator António de Abreu sighted Timor in 1512 as the first European looking for the Spice Islands, but probably did not set foot on them. Only later expeditions landed. This happened at the latest in 1515 at the later Lifau. Due to the sandalwood stock of the island, the Portuguese, who at that time had the predominant position in the region, founded a fort in the western half in Lifau, near today's Pante Macassar. Over a hundred years later, the Dutch landed in Kupang, gradually displacing the Portuguese from most of western Timor. William Bligh reached Kupang with his followers in 1789 after being abandoned at sea during the mutiny on the Bounty. Even a border treaty in 1859 was unable to settle the protracted disputes about supremacy on Timor between the Dutch in the west and the Portuguese in the east. It was not until 1916 that the limit that still exists today was set. In the western part of the island, the exclave Oe-Cusse Ambeno remained on the northwest coast near Portugal.