Timor, Sandalwood, and Global Trade Rivalry on Timor

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-186-9_16How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Timor; sandalwood; global trade rivalry; Dutch; Portuguese; history

ABSTRACT

Timor island is the place where the best, the most fragrant and the largest sandalwood in the world comes and sandalwood is usually appreciated by its potential usage in the fine aromatic oil from its heartwood. The development of East Timor ancient kingdoms had tight relationship with the sandalwood trade. In the past, the value and usage of sandalwood in many things made many foreign countries to came, reach, control, and dominate the trade of Timor sandalwood. The rivalry between The Dutch and the Portuguese was the example of the contestation on the product which influenced the local polemic and problem in various aspects. Through historical study, the essay tries to describe how the Timor sandalwood became the important product in some centuries ago that attracted various global traders to possess. Finally, it is also to describe how the Dutch and Portuguese (especially in the seventeenth century) involved in gaining the Timor sandalwood and their rivalries in controlling sandalwood had influenced the dynamics of Timor in some sides. The contestation of these two European trading powers had segregated the local people and divided sandalwood store into their rivalry. Moreover, their rivalries had disturbed the local unity and fraternity. Although sandalwood gave wealth and honor for local kings, sandalwood circumstantially caused the disintegration of Timor. Finally, the Timor sandalwood was still existing with limited amount but the Timor colony had changed.

Copyright

© 2023 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Erlita Tantri
PY  - 2024
DA  - 2024/01/11
TI  - Timor, Sandalwood, and Global Trade Rivalry on Timor
BT  - Proceedings of the Critical Island Studies 2023 Conference (CISC 2023)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 157
EP  - 164
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-186-9_16
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-186-9_16
ID  - Tantri2024
ER  -