Kingdom of Larantuka

Western presence in the region started with the Portuguese, who

The Larantuqueiros turned out a loose, but mighty power in the region, which influence reached far beyond the settlement. The core cell was the federation of Larantuka, Wureh and Konga. Theoretically they were subordinated to Portugal. But in practice they were free. They had no Portuguese administration and they did not pay taxes. Letters of the Lisbon government were ignored. For long years there was a bloody struggle for power between the families da Costa and de Hornay. At the end they shared the power. The Larantuqueiros made "alliances" with the indigenous people of Flores and Timor.

They followed a certain strategy; the most notable

The polity maintained some form of a closed-port policy for outsiders in the late 17th century.[4]^: 60 There were also some interactions with the nearby Bima Sultanate, whose Sultan enforced his suzerainty over parts of Western Flores in 1685.^[2]: 177 Territories of the kingdom were not contiguous and was interspersed by the holdings of several lesser polities, some of which were Muslim.^[1] They also established Portuguese as the official language to distance themselves from the natives.^[9] The language of commerce was the Malay language, which was understood on the surrounding islands.

By 1851, debts incurred by the Portuguese colony in

The Dutch sent a military and administrative officer, who took residence in a small fort, but they did not influence much of the population.[12] Since Larantuka offered little promise, after the downturn of the sandalwood trade. The locals resorted to farming as not much was left of the former profitable foreign trade.

On 14 September 1887, a new Raja Dom Lorenzo Diaz Vieria Godinho ascended to the throne as Lorenzo II, who was educated by Jesuit priests. Showing clear traits of independence, he attempted to extract taxes from territories belonging to a nearby Raja of Sikka, led groups of men to intervene in local conflicts, and refused to conduct sacrifices in the manner his predecessors did for the non-Catholic natives. Eventually, colonial authorities responded by deposing and exiling him to Java in 1904, where he died six years later.^[1]

With the independence of Indonesia the Larantuqueiros gained new influence. They were able to reach leading positions, because they had a higher level of education than then natives. Even the Indonesian language, which became the new official language, was easy for them, because it is very similar to the Malay language.^[13] The royal family remained post-Indonesian independence as traditional figureheads with no legal authority until their final abolishment on 1962.^[2]

Legacy