Relationships among Buton Kingdom and Surrounding Powers in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries

Abstract

Buton Kingdom is supposed to have been founded in the thirteenth century on Buton Island in Southeast Sulawesi; the kingdom existed until 1960. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the historical process of the formation of the Buton Kingdom through the sixteenth to the seventeenth centuries. Written materials such as official letters of the VOC (the Dutch East India Company) and the English East India Company, diaries of foreign sailors, and other historical monographs will be investigated.In the sixteenth century, the Buton Kingdom was socially and symbolically situated at the periphery of the Maluku World and was regarded as the “child” of a “father-like” Ternate Kingdom and the “brother” of other kingdoms of the Maluku World. The Buton Kingdom accepted Islam under the strong influence of the Ternate Kingdom in the latter half of the sixteenth century.At the beginning of the seventeenth century, because of its strategic location as a trading port and its possession of various kinds of commodities, the English East India Company and the VOC showed interest in Buton Kingdom/Island and made contact several times with some of the sultans of Buton. However, the entities did not form a maritime trade center on the island. Throughout the seventeenth century, the Buton Kingdom was involved in keen competition among the Gowa-Talloq' United Kingdom in Makassar, the VOC, and the Ternate Kingdom, each of which was eager to grasp the maritime network and to establish authority over the sea areas in Eastern Indonesia. Under such a situation, the “father-son” relationship between Ternate and Buton was kept, and Buton offered tribute to Ternate to receive protection from its “father”. In the middle of the seventeenth century, Ternate was subordinated to the VOC. The Buton Kingdom, at the time, was on the side of the VOC and Ternate as they faced the menace of Makassar. In the latter half of the seventeenth century, the united forces of the VOC —which were made up of Ternate, Bone, Buton, and the like— defeated Gowa-Talloq' United Kingdom in the Makassar War.The decline of Gowa and Talloq' led to the further expansion of the VOC, and eventually to the decay of the Ternate Kingdom under its subordination to the VOC. Buton lost the protection from its “father”, and thereafter the VOC interfered intermittently in the domestic affairs of the Buton Kingdom.