Makassar

The 9th King of Gowa Tumaparisi Kallonna (1512-1546) is described in the royal chronicle as the first Gowa ruler to ally with the nearby trade-oriented polity of Tallo, a partnership which endured throughout Makassar's apogee as an independent kingdom. The centre of the dual kingdom was at Sombaopu, near the then mouth of the Jeneberang River about 10 km south of the present city centre, where, where an international port and a fortress were gradually developed. First Malay traders (expelled from their Melaka metropolis by the Portuguese in 1511), then Portuguese from at least the 1540s, began to make this port their base for trading to the Spice Islands' (Maluku), further east.[11]

The growth of Dutch maritime power over the spice trade after 1600 made Makassar more vital as an alternative port open to all traders, as well as a source of rice to trade with rice-deficient Maluku. The Dutch East India Company (VOC) sought a monopoly of Malukan nutmeg and cloves and came close to succeeding at the expense of English, Portuguese and Muslims from the 1620s. The Makassar kings maintained a policy of free trade, insisting on the right of any visitor to do business in the city, and rejecting the attempts of the Dutch to establish a monopoly.[12]

Makassar depended mainly on the Muslim Malay and Catholic Portuguese sailors communities as its two crucial economic assets. However the English East India Company also established a post there in 1613, the Danish Company arrived in 1618, and Chinese, Spanish and Indian traders were all important. When the Dutch conquered Portuguese Melaka in 1641, Makassar became the most extensive Portuguese base in Southeast Asia. The Portuguese population had been in the hundreds but rose to several thousand, served by churches of the Franciscans, Dominicans and Jesuits as well as the regular clergy. By the 16th century, Makassar had become Sulawesi's principal port and centre of the powerful Gowa and Tallo sultanates which between them had a series of 11 fortresses and strongholds and a fortified sea wall that extended along the coast.[12] Portuguese rulers called the city Macáçar.

Makassar was very ably led in the first half of the 17th century when it effectively resisted Dutch pressure to close down its trade to Maluku and made allies rather than enemies of the neighbouring Bugis states. Karaeng Matoaya (c.1573-1636) was the ruler of Tallo from 1593, as well as Chancellor or Chief Minister (Tuma'bicara-butta) of the partner kingdom of Gowa. He managed the succession to the Gowa throne in 1593 of the 7-year-old boy later known as Sultan Alaud-din, and guided him through the acceptance of Islam in 1603, numerous modernizations in military and civil governance, and cordial relations with the foreign traders. The conversion of the citizens to Islam was followed by the first official Friday Prayer in the city, traditionally dated to 9 November 1607, which is celebrated today as the city's official anniversary.[13] John Jourdain called Makassar in his day "the kindest people in all the Indias to strangers".[14] Matoaya's eldest son succeeded him on the throne of Tallo, but as Chancellor, he had evidently groomed his brilliant second son, Karaeng Pattingalloang (1600–54), who exercised that position from 1639 until his death. Pattingalloang must have been partly educated by Portuguese, since as an adult he spoke Portuguese "as fluently as people from Lisbon itself", and avidly read all the books that came his way in Portuguese, Spanish or Latin. French Jesuit Alexandre de Rhodes described his passion for mathematics and astronomy, on which he pestered the priest endlessly, while even one of his Dutch adversaries conceded he was "a man of great knowledge, science and understanding."[15]

After Pattingalloang's death in 1654, a new king of Gowa, Sultan Hasanuddin, rejected the alliance with Tallo by declaring he would be his own Chancellor. Conflicts within the kingdom quickly escalated, the Bugis rebelled under the leadership of Bone, and the Dutch VOC seized its long-awaited chance to conquer Makassar with the help of the Bugis (1667-9). Their first conquest in 1667 was the northern Makassar fort of Ujung Pandang, while in 1669 they conquered and destroyed Sombaopu in one of the greatest battles of 17th century Indonesia. The VOC moved the city centre northward, around the Ujung Pandang fort they rebuilt and renamed Fort Rotterdam. From this base, they managed to destroy the strongholds of the Sultan of Gowa, who was then forced to live on the outskirts of Makassar. Following the Java War (1825–30), Prince Diponegoro was exiled to Fort Rotterdam until his death in 1855.[16]

Coat of arms found in the gates of the walled city of Vlaardingen, granted by Cornelis Speelman in 1667.[17]

After the arrival of the Dutch, there was an important Portuguese community, also called a bandel, that received the name of Borrobos.[18] Around 1660 the leader of this community, which today would be equivalent to a neighbourhood, was the Portuguese Francisco Vieira de Figueiredo.[19]

The character of this old trading centre changed as a walled city known as Vlaardingen grew. Gradually, in defiance of the Dutch, the Arabs, Malays and Buddhist returned to trade outside the fortress walls and were joined later by the Chinese.

Market Street (Passarstraat) in the early 20th century

The town again became a collecting point for the produce of eastern Indonesia – the copra, rattan, Pearls, trepang and sandalwood and the famous oil made from bado nuts used in Europe as men's hairdressing – hence the anti-macassars (embroidered cloths protecting the head-rests of upholstered chairs).

Although the Dutch controlled the coast, it was not until the early 20th century that they gained power over the southern interior through a series of treaties with local rulers. Meanwhile, Dutch missionaries converted many of the Toraja people to Christianity. By 1938, the population of Makassar had reached around 84,000 – a town described by writer Joseph Conrad as "the prettiest and perhaps, cleanest looking of all the towns in the islands".

In World War II the Makassar area was defended by approximately 1000 men of the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army commanded by Colonel M. Vooren. He decided that he could not defend the coast, and was planning to fight a guerrilla war inland. The Japanese landed near Makassar on 9 February 1942. The defenders retreated but were soon overtaken and captured.[20]

In 1945, Indonesia proclaimed its Independence, and in 1946, Makassar became the capital of the State of East Indonesia, part of the United States of Indonesia.[21] In 1950, it was the site of fighting between pro-Federalist forces under Captain Abdul Assiz and Republican forces under Colonel Sunkono during the Makassar uprising.[22] By the 1950s, the population had increased to such a degree that many of the historic sites gave way to modern development, and today one needs to look very carefully to find the few remains of the city's once-grand history.

Makassar is also a significant fishing centre in Sulawesi. One of its major industries is the trepang (sea cucumber) industry. Trepang fishing brought the Makassan people into contact with Indigenous Australian peoples of northern Australia, long before European settlement (from 1788).

C. C. MacKnight in his 1976 work entitled Voyage to Marege: Macassan Trepangers in Northern Australia has shown that they began frequenting the north of Australia around 1700 in search of trepang (sea-slug, sea cucumber, Beche-de-mer), an edible Holothurian. They left their waters during the Northwest Monsoon in December or January for what is now Arnhem Land, Marriage or Marega and the Kimberley region or Kayu Djawa. They returned home with the south-east trade winds in April.[23]

A fleet of between 24 and 26 Macassan perahus was seen in 1803 by French explorers under Nicolas Baudin on the Holothuria Banks in the Timor Sea. In February 1803, Matthew Flinders in the Investigator met six perahus with 20–25 men each on board and was told by the fleet's chief Pobasso, that there were 60 perahus then on the north Australian coast. They were fishing for trepang and appeared to have only a small compass as a navigation aid. In June 1818 Macassan trepang fishing was noted by Phillip Parker King in the vicinity of Port Essington in the Arafura Sea. In 1865 R.J. Sholl, then Government Resident for the British settlement at Camden Sound (near Augustus Island in the Kimberley region) observed seven 'Macassan' perahus with a total of around 300 men on board. He believed that they made kidnapping raids and ranged as far south as Roebuck Bay (later Broome) where 'quite a fleet' was seen around 1866. Sholl believed that they did not venture south into other areas such as Nickol Bay (where the European pearling industry commenced around 1865) due to the absence of trepang in those waters. The Macassan voyages appear to have ceased sometime in the late nineteenth century, and their place was taken by other sailors operating from elsewhere in the Indonesian archipelago.[24]

Makassar has a tropical monsoon climate (Köppen Am).

The average temperature for the year in Makassar is 27.5 °C or 81.5 °F, with little variation due to its near-equatorial latitude: the average high is around 32.5 °C or 90.5 °F and the average low around 22.5 °C or 72.5 °F all year long.

In contrast to the virtually consistent temperature, rainfall shows wide variation between months in Makassar due to movement of the Intertropical Convergence Zone. Makassar averages around 3,137 millimetres or 123.50 inches of rain on 187 days during the year, but during the month with least rainfall – August – only 15 millimetres or 0.59 inches on two days of rain can be expected. In contrast, during its very wet wet season, Makassar can expect over 530 millimetres or 21 inches per month between December and February. During the wettest month of January, 734 millimetres or 28.90 inches can be expected to fall on twenty-seven rainy days.

Trans Studio Makassar

Makassar is home to several prominent landmarks including:

• the 17th century Dutch fort Fort Rotterdam
• the Trans Studio Makassar—the third largest indoor theme park in the world
• the Karebosi Link—the first underground shopping centre in eastern Indonesia
• the floating mosque located at Losari Beach.
• the Bantimurung - Bulusaraung National Park well-known karst area, famous for the remarkable collection of butterflies in the local area, is nearby to Makassar (around 40 km to the north).