The ‘informal Portuguese empire’ and the Topasses in the Solor archipelago and Timor in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries

Abstract

This study of Timor and the surrounding islands between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries provides evidence that, after the demise of the Portuguese Estado da India, an ‘informal’ or ‘shadow’ empire persisted but in uniquely localised ways. It describes the emergence of the ‘black Portuguese’ community known in Timor and the Solor archipelago as the Topasses. Their singular identity was based on the melding of indigenous and Portuguese blood and cultural forms. Their ability to access the sources of spiritual authority in both the Catholic and the Timorese domains assured their survival and that of the Portuguese in Timor until well into the twentieth century.