#7: Oecusse

Timor-Leste, also known as East Timor, is one of the newest sovereign states on the planet, having only gained full independence from Indonesia in 2002.  Initially a Portuguese colony, Timor-Leste declared its independence in 1975, when the entire Portuguese empire was breaking up (Guinea-Bissau became independent in 1974, while Angola, Cape Verde, Mozambique, and São Tomé and Príncipe all gained independence in 1975), but Indonesia proceeded to occupy the territory for the next quarter-century, only finally departing in 1999, which allowed a transition to full independence.

Looking at Timor-Leste on the map, something jumps out at you: the exclave of Oecusse.  It's a real quandary: how did one of the world's newest, smallest, and poorest nations manage to get away with holding onto a sliver of territory beyond its main national borders?  As usual, the answer lies in history, and in particular the history of colonization.

Timor-Leste in Google Maps.  The Oecusse exclave is on the north side of Indonesian Timor, separated by the national border line.

As far as anyone knows, the Portuguese were the first Europeans to visit the island of Timor in the 1500s, when the remnants of Ferdinand Magellan's expedition - post-Magellan's death in the Philippines - stopped briefly on their way back to Europe in 1522.  Traders began to visit the island the following year.  In short order, Portugal controlled a significant portion of territory in southeast Asia, from the southwest coast of India all the way to southern China.  By the mid-1600s, however, the Dutch had swept through the region, evicting the Portuguese from nearly every possession they had.  The Portuguese foothold was limited to a few small territories that they managed to hold for the next few centuries: Goa, Macau, and East Timor.

So, back to Timor itself.  The Dutch had established a firm presence on the western half of the island, with a fort at Kupang in the southwest, around 1613.  Meanwhile, the main Portuguese settlements were at Dili (now the capital of Timor-Leste) and Lifau, located in what is currently Oecusse.  The question is, how did we get to the point where the Dutch not only did not boot the Portuguese out of Timor as well, but couldn't even manage to take control of Oecusse?

Apparently, it has a lot to do with intermarriage.  The Portuguese colony managed to generate a significant mestizo population on the island, and this made the locals unwilling to see the Portuguese be completely replaced by the Dutch; too, the Portuguese missionaries had created many Catholic converts, and the Dutch Protestants were viewed more as outsiders.  In addition, the Portuguese held on just long enough to see the establishment of a peace treaty between the Netherlands and Portugal back in Europe which helped prevent the outbreak of full-on war between the two countries in the East Indies.  By the 1670s, the Dutch were actually trading more or less peacefully with the Portuguese faction at Lifau.

1943 US Army map denoting the line between Portuguese East Timor and the rest of what was then still Dutch territory.  Retrieved from http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/east_timor.html.

Ultimately, the difference between the two groups was that before too long, the Portuguese presence was made up mostly of Timorese locals who felt a connection to Portugal, while the Dutch presence was composed more of white Europeans.  Plus, it wasn't long before the Dutch had bigger regional fish to fry - namely the British, who had established significant presence in the region by the early 1700s.  By the mid-1800s, the Dutch and Portuguese had signed multiple treaties, and the 1859 Treaty of Lisbon officially ceded to Portugal the area around Oecusse where the local tribes were loyal to the Portuguese.

Basically, then, Oecusse owes its status as part of Timor-Leste to the simple fact that it was where Dominican missionaries first made converts way back in the 1550s.  These historic ties to Portugal kept it part of Portuguese territory all the way up through 1975, when it was the first part of East Timor to be invaded by the Indonesians following the declaration of independence.  Even when Timor-Leste finally became independent in 2002, they were able to hold onto their claim to this tiny outpost, which today has a population of about 60,000.  Fittingly, though, it, like the rest of Timor-Leste, is almost entirely Catholic, setting it distinctly apart from Indonesia, the largest Muslim nation in the world.

Most of the historical information in this entry comes from Hägerdal, Hans (2012), Lords of the Land, Lords of the Sea; Conflict and Adaptation in Early Colonial Timor, 1600–1800.  Other information from Wikipedia.