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#Post#: 13492--------------------------------------------------
East Timor
By: 90sRetroFan Date: May 20, 2022, 11:45 pm
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HTML https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_Timor
[quote]In 1613, the Dutch took control of the western part of
the island.[1] Over the following three centuries, the Dutch
would come to dominate the Indonesian archipelago with the
exception of the eastern half of Timor, which would become
Portuguese Timor.[3]
...
In places where Portuguese rule was asserted, it tended to be
brutal and exploitative.[3]
...
At the beginning of the twentieth century, a faltering home
economy prompted the Portuguese to extract greater wealth from
its colonies, resulting in increased resistance to Portuguese
rule in Portuguese Timor.[/quote]
HTML https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Timorese_rebellion_of_1911%E2%80%931912
[quote]The East Timorese rebellion of 1911–1912, sometimes
called the Great Rebellion or Rebellion of Manufahi,[a] was a
response to the efforts of Portuguese colonial authorities to
collect a head tax and enforce the corvée, part of their larger
effort to encourage cash crop agriculture and construct modern
infrastructure.[1][/quote]
HTML https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corv%C3%A9e
[quote]Corvée (French: [kɔʁve] (listen)) is a form of
unpaid, forced labour, which is intermittent in nature and which
lasts limited periods of time: typically only a certain number
of days' work each year.
...
In Portuguese Africa (e.g. Mozambique), the Native Labour
Regulations of 1899 stated that all able bodied men must work
for six months of every year, and that "They have full liberty
to choose the means through which to comply with this
regulation, but if they do not comply in some way, the public
authorities will force them to comply." [16]
Africans engaged in subsistence agriculture on their own small
plots were considered unemployed.
...
This system of corvée labour, called chibalo, was not abolished
in Mozambique until 1962[/quote]
HTML https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chibalo
[quote]In 1869 Portugal officially abolished slavery, but in
practice, it continued nonetheless
...
Under the Estado Novo regime of António de Oliveira Salazar,
chibalo was used in Mozambique to grow cotton for Portugal,
build roads, and serve Portuguese settlers. The system was
enforced by physical and sexual violence against black
Africans[1]
...
Entire families had to work in the cotton fields, replacing food
production, leading to hunger and malnourishment.[2][/quote]
So now that we are clear what the victims were rising up
against, let us return to the story of the uprising itself:
[quote]The countrywide conflict of 1911–12 was the culmination
of a series of revolts led by Dom Boaventura, the liurai (chief)
of the native kingdom of Manufahi. The first lasted from 1894 to
1901, the second from 1907 to 1908. In 1911 Boaventura led an
alliance of local kingdoms in the last and most serious revolt
against the Portuguese.[2]
In February 1912 rebels from one kingdom entered the colonial
capital of Dili, killing and burning as they went. They looted
Government House and decapitated several Portuguese soldiers and
officers.
...
The first European victim was Lieutenant Alvares da Silva,
commander of the Same posto in Manufahi. On 24 December, he was
shot on Boaventura's orders along with four or five other
Europeans. His severed head was then presented to his wife. This
incident is usually regarded as the beginning of the revolt
against the colonial authorities.
...
According to the account of Jaime do Inso, who only arrived
later on the Pátria, three human heads were found hanging near
the posto of Laclo just ten minutes outside Dili. This practice,
which do Inso characterised as "the repugnant cruelty of a war
by primitive people", was known as funu in Timorese. It involved
taking enemy heads back to the land of one's ancestors and
displaying it as a lulic to the accompaniment of traditional
dancing (tabedai) and chant (lorsai).[16][/quote]
This is what we need to get back to. Until this is considered
normal behaviour towards Western colonialists, we are still
colonized.
[quote]The Pátria, commanded by First Lieutenant Carlos Viegas
Gago Coutinho, conducted bombardments of native strongholds
between February and April 1912. A young officer aboard the
ship, Jaime do Inso, has left a first-hand description of the
effects of this bombardment on Boaventura's forces on the south
coast. He reports that the sound of the artillery created
confusion and caused as much a psychological damage as physical.
The Pátria bombarded Oecusse, Baucau and Quilicai. The village
of Betano was struck while the native queen (rainha) was
convening an assembly of local chiefs, resulting in about 1,000
deaths.
...
By the time of the final assault, da Câmara's force, the largest
foreign army ever assembled at the time in Timor, contained
8,000 irregulars, 647 second-line troops, 500 first-line troops
and 34 officers.[18] What tipped the scales, beyond the
increased manpower, was the availability to the Portuguese of
modern weaponry—artillery, machine guns, grenades—and the
deployment of the gunboat Patria to shell coastal areas.
Portuguese forces gradually squeezed the Timorese into smaller
and smaller enclaves.[19]
Something of the weakness of the native opposition can be
gleaned from the record of what weaponry the Portuguese
captured: 36 rifles and 590 flintlocks with a few cartridges,
plus 495 swords. In general, the native Timorese possessed more
spears than guns and were usually short of powder.
...
The main rebel group of about 12,000 men, women and children
under Boaventura retreated into the Cablac mountains and
prepared to make a final stand around the Riac and Leolaco
peaks. Isolated and surrounded in a 35 km2 area, they
constructed an earthwork (tranqueira) reinforced by wood and
stone. Many also went into hiding in caves. On 11 June the
Portuguese siege began. When the Manufahistas attempted a
breakthrough, over 3,000 died in the fighting.[/quote]
NEVER FORGIVE. NEVER FORGET.
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