Vue Prise a Tondano. De la Maison du Résident Hollandais. (Ile Celebes)

Title

Vue Prise a Tondano. De la Maison du Résident Hollandais. (Ile Celebes)

Description

View of Tondano in Sulawesi Utara former Celebes.From the Atlas Voyage de L'Astrolabe by Jules S C Dumont D'Urville.

ca. 1840

Artist

Sainson de

Historical Description

Sulawesi, formerly known as Celebes is an island in Indonesia. One of the four Greater Sunda Islands, and the world's eleventh-largest island, it is situated east of Borneo, west of the Maluku Islands, and south of Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago. Starting in the 13th century, access to prestige trade goods and to sources of iron started to alter long-standing cultural patterns and to permit ambitious individuals to build larger political units. The first Europeans to visit the island (which they believed to be an archipelago due to its contorted shape) were the Portuguese sailors Simão de Abreu, in 1523, and Gomes de Sequeira (among others) in 1525, sent from the Moluccas in search of gold, which the islands had the reputation of producing A Portuguese base was installed in Makassar in the first decades of the 16th century, lasting until 1665, when it was taken by the Dutch. The Dutch had arrived in Sulawesi in 1605 and were quickly followed by the English, who established a factory in Makassar. From 1660, the Dutch were at war with Gowa, the major Makasar west coast power. In 1669, Admiral Speelman forced the ruler, Sultan Hasanuddin, to sign the Treaty of Bongaya, which handed control of trade to the Dutch East India Company. The Dutch were aided in their conquest by the Bugis warlord Arung Palakka, ruler of the Bugis kingdom of Bone. The Dutch built a fort at Ujung Pandang, while Arung Palakka became the regional overlord and Bone the dominant kingdom. Sulawesi became part of the federal United States of Indonesia, which in 1950 became absorbed into the unitary Republic of Indonesia.