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Topic Summary

Posted by: 90sRetroFan
« on: May 20, 2022, 11:45:45 pm »

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]
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In places where Portuguese rule was asserted, it tended to be brutal and exploitative.[3]
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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.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Timorese_rebellion_of_1911%E2%80%931912

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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]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corv%C3%A9e

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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.
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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.
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This system of corvée labour, called chibalo, was not abolished in Mozambique until 1962

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chibalo

Quote
In 1869 Portugal officially abolished slavery, but in practice, it continued nonetheless
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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]
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Entire families had to work in the cotton fields, replacing food production, leading to hunger and malnourishment.[2]

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.
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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.
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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]

This is what we need to get back to. Until this is considered normal behaviour towards Western colonialists, we are still colonized.

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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.
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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.
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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.

NEVER FORGIVE. NEVER FORGET.