Amanuban was a traditional princedom in

West Timor West Timor ( id, Timor Barat) is an area covering the western part of the island of Timor, except for the district of Oecussi-Ambeno (an East Timorese exclave). Administratively, West Timor is part of East Nusa Tenggara Province, Indonesia. The ...

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Gui ...

. It lay in the regency (

kabupaten A regency ( id, kabupaten), sometimes incorrectly referred to as a district, is an administrative division of Indonesia, directly under a province and on the same level with city (''kota''). Regencies is divided into districts (''Kecamatan'', '' ...

)

Timor Tengah Selatan South Central Timor Regency ( id, Kabupaten Timor Tengah Selatan) is a regency in East Nusa Tenggara province of Indonesia. Established in 1958, the regency has its seat (capital) in the town of Soe. It covers an area of 3,955.36 km2 and had ...

. In the late colonial period, according to an estimate in 1930, Amanuban covered 2,075 square kilometers. The centre of the princedom since the 19th century was Niki-Niki. The population belongs to the

Atoni The Atoni (also known as the Atoin Meto, Atoin Pah Meto or Dawan) people are an ethnic group on Timor, in Indonesian West Timor and the East Timorese enclave of Oecussi-Ambeno. They number around 844,030. Their language is Uab Meto. The Atoni ...

group. Today they are predominantly

Protestants Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...

, with a significant

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

minority and some

Muslims Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...

Early history

The ancestor of the royal line is said to have come from

Roti Roti (also known as chapati) is a round flatbread native to the Indian subcontinent. It is popular in India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Maldives, Myanmar, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Guyana, Suriname, Jamaica, Trin ...

island, west of Timor. Amanuban is mentioned in

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

sources as early as 1613, when the

Dutch East India Company The United East India Company ( nl, Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, the VOC) was a chartered company established on the 20th March 1602 by the States General of the Netherlands amalgamating existing companies into the first joint-stock ...

(Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie or VOC) first approached

Timor Timor is an island at the southern end of Maritime Southeast Asia, in the north of the Timor Sea. The island is divided between the sovereign states of East Timor on the eastern part and Indonesia on the western part. The Indonesian part, ...

. Amanuban had resources of

sandalwood Sandalwood is a class of woods from trees in the genus '' Santalum''. The woods are heavy, yellow, and fine-grained, and, unlike many other aromatic woods, they retain their fragrance for decades. Sandalwood oil is extracted from the woods for ...

, which was the main Western interest on the island. The Dutch concluded a contract with the King of Amanuban in 1616, but the princedom came under the influence of the

Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...

, political and commercial rivals of the Dutch. This influence lasted up to 1748. During this period there was intermittent warfare with the VOC enclave around

Kupang Kupang ( id, Kota Kupang, ), formerly known as Koepang, is the capital of the Indonesian province of East Nusa Tenggara. At the 2020 C ensus, it had a population of 442,758; the official estimate as at mid 2021 was 455,850. It is the largest ci ...

in westernmost Timor. A political crisis in 1748 turned a number of Atoni princedoms, including Amanuban, against the

Topasses Topasses (Tupasses, Topas, Topaz) were a group of people led by the two powerful families – Da Costa and Hornay – that resided in Oecussi and Flores. The Da Costa families were descendants of Portuguese Jewish merchants and Hornay were Dutch. ...

or Portuguese Eurasians on Timor. After the Topass defeat at the hand of the VOC in the

Battle of Penfui The Battle of Penfui took place on 9 November 1749 in the hillside of Penfui, near modern Kupang. A large Topass army was defeated by a numerically inferior Dutch East India Company force following the withdrawal of the former's Timorese allies fr ...

on November 1749, the territory of Amanuban was included in the Dutch political alliance network.

Anti-Dutch resistance

After 1770 dynastic disputes led to a split. The larger part of Amanuban joined the prince Tobani who ruled independently of the Dutch. His son Louis (c. 1807-c. 1824) led a violently anti-Dutch policy and trained a large mounted corps of warriors with firearms. The Dutch (and the British during the 1812-1816 interregnum) sent a number of armed expeditions against Louis, without much success. In later tradition Louis is pointed out as the founder of the royal seat Niki-Niki. After his death the coherence of Amanuban declined. The last independent king, Bil Nope alias Hau Sufa Leu (c. 1870-1910) befriended the encroaching Dutch colonial authorities in the early years of the 20th century. However, the arrogant stance of the local Dutch officer caused anti-colonial resistance. Finally Bil Nope died in the flames of his residence in Niki-Niki in October 1910. In modern Indonesia he is regarded as an anti-colonial hero.

Under colonial rule

Another branch of the dynasty was enthroned, and Amanuban continued as a ''zelfbesturende landschap'' (self-ruling territory) under colonial surveillance until the departure of the Dutch (1942 and 1949). In 1952, a few years after the formation of a unitary Indonesian republic, the princedom was turned into a so-called ''swapraja'', still with the old ruler as headman (kepala daerah swapraja). In 1959 a new administrative region (Daerah Tingkat II), Timor Tengah Selatan was formed, and included the old swaprajas Mollo, Amanuban and Amanatun. In 1962-63 the swapraja, and with it the last remnants of traditional governance, was abrogated by official decree.Jacob Wadu et al. (2003), pp. 103-106. Members of the old ruling family, Nope, still have an amount of local informal influence.

List of rulers

*Don Michel before 1749-1751 *Don Louis 1751-1770 (brother) *Don Jacobus Albertus 1770-1786 (son) *Tobani 1786-c. 1807 (cousin) *Louis c. 1807-c. 1824 (son) *Baki c. 1824-1862 (son) *Sanu 1862-c. 1870 (son) *Bil Nope c. 1870-1910 (son) *Noni Nope 1910-1920 (brother) *Pae Nope 1920-1946 (son) *Paulus Nope 1946-1949 (son) *Kusa Nope 1946-1958 (brother)

Early history

Anti-Dutch resistance

Under colonial rule

List of rulers

References

Further reading