The Bugis-Makassar diaspora
Leonard Y. Andaya’s 1995 article examines the contrasting fates of the Makassar and Bugis refugee diasporas from South Sulawesi during the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, arguing that the Bugis succeeded in establishing durable political enclaves across the Malay world while the Makassar diaspora ended in violent repatriation. Drawing on Malay court chronicles, VOC records, and English East India Company documents, Andaya demonstrates that differences in refugee noble status, host-kingdom strength, and—most critically—the nature of diaspora governance structures determined these divergent outcomes (pp. 119–121).
Summary
The article addresses a fundamental question in early modern Southeast Asian history: why did two diasporas originating from the same region, triggered by the same sequence of wars, produce such dramatically different results? Andaya traces both exoduses to the Dutch destruction of the Gowa-Tallo kingdoms in the Makassar War of 1666–1669 and the subsequent political upheaval in South Sulawesi under Arung Palakka. The Makassar refugees, led by royal princes of the highest rank, sought asylum in established kingdoms on Java and southeast Sumatra, while the Bugis, led by lesser nobles, found their way into the less densely populated Malay peninsula, southwest Borneo, and southwest Sumatra (pp. 120–121).
Andaya’s central argument is that the divergence cannot be explained solely by the strength of host kingdoms or the threat posed to the VOC. While the Makassar princes’ insistence on sovereign equality with their host rulers made coexistence impossible—and while the Dutch viewed the Makassar exiles as an extension of the unfinished Makassar War—the Bugis succeeded because they created a unique diaspora government that blended Bugis political institutions with Malay frameworks. This government was anchored in the sacred “oaths of loyalty” (sumpah setia), which drew on deep Bugis cultural concepts of siri’ (shame/honour) and family obligation, and was institutionalized through the offices of Raja Muda and Raja Tua based at Riau (pp. 128–131).
The article draws heavily on the Tuhfat al-Nafis and the Silsilah Melayu dan Bugis, Malay-language chronicles composed by nineteenth-century Bugis descendants who worked from earlier court documents and oral traditions. These sources provide an unmatched insider perspective on the Bugis diaspora, supplemented by VOC records for the Makassar experience and English East India Company documents for the southwest Sumatra case. Andaya uses these sources to reconstruct the marriage networks, oath-taking ceremonies, and administrative structures that bound the scattered Bugis communities into a coherent political entity (pp. 121, 125–127).
Key Findings
- The Treaty of Bungaya (1667) formally ended the Makassar War but triggered a continuous exodus; by 1680, more than 9,000 Bugis and Makassar refugees were forcibly repatriated to South Sulawesi following the VOC-Mataram-Bugis victory at Kakaper (pp. 120, 123).
- Karaeng Bontomarannu arrived in Banten in 1671 with 800 followers, joined shortly by another 300; Daeng Mangappa subsequently left Banten with 800 followers after the Sultan forcibly married his niece, an act that violated South Sulawesi norms governing women and status (pp. 122–123).
- In 1699 Sultan Mahmud of Johor was assassinated; the five Bugis brothers aided the Bendahara family in restoring the throne and were rewarded with the island of Riau as their autonomous base, where Opu Daeng Marewa was installed as Raja Muda in 1721 (pp. 126–127, 130).
- The Bugis kingdom of Bone could routinely assemble a force of 25,000 in 1695, while Johor could field only 6,500 men in battle—a disparity that underscored the military significance of continued Bugis migration from the homeland (p. 135).
- By the late eighteenth century, an estimated 40,000 Bugis of “pure and mixed blood, high and low status, male and female” lived along the Riau River, a population sustained by both natural increase and continued influx from South Sulawesi (p. 135).
- The Kapitan Bugis office in southwest Sumatra was first held by Daeng Maruppa, a younger brother of the ruler of Wajo, and became a hereditary position within his family; the English acknowledged it was “almost impossible to carry on our affairs here” without the Bugis (pp. 127–128).
Conclusion
Andaya’s definitive historical takeaway is that the Bugis diaspora succeeded because of a unique combination of historical circumstance—settlement in less formidable territories, lower noble status reducing friction with host rulers, and the absence of a direct European threat—and cultural innovation, specifically the creation of a diaspora government based on sacred oaths, siri’ solidarity, and strategic intermarriage that bound scattered communities into a coherent political network. By the late eighteenth century, the Bugis homeland itself had been reimagined as “abroad,” signalling the completion of their assimilation into the Malay world (pp. 135–136).
Context
- Primary sources include the Tuhfat al-Nafis (Raja Ali Haji, ed. Matheson & Andaya, 1982), the Silsilah Melayu dan Bugis, VOC archival records, and English East India Company documents from Bengkulen; the article is a revised version of a paper presented at the Thirteenth Conference of the International Association of Historians of Asia, Tokyo, 1994 (p. 136).
- The study’s historiographical contribution lies in its systematic comparative analysis of the two diasporas and its deployment of Bugis cultural concepts—siri’, ma’sedi siri’, asseajingeng, and the Tomarilaleng offices—to explain diaspora governance, moving beyond purely political or economic explanations (pp. 130–135).