List of colonial Residents of Dutch Timor

This is a list of colonial Residents of Dutch Timor from the mid-seventeenth century to decolonization in 1949. Colonial rivalry on Timor between the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and the Portuguese began in 1613, conditioned by the desire to control the sandalwood trade in the region. The Dutch were permanently established on the island Solor, to the north of Timor, from 1646.[1] In 1653 they founded a fortress in Kupang in West Timor, Fort Concordia, and made it their main regional base in 1657. The fortress was headed by a colonial Resident who, during the VOC era, carried the name opperhoofd. The territory controlled by the VOC on Timor was originally restricted to the vicinity of Kupang, the so-called sespalen gebied. After 1749 large parts of West Timor fell under Dutch suzerainty, although attempts to subjugate areas in East Timor were thwarted by 1761. The VOC was dissolved in 1799 and replaced by a new colonial organization under the Batavian Republic.[2] Fort Concordia capitulated to the British in January 1812 and stood under British rule until 1816 when it was returned to the new Kingdom of the Netherlands. Agreements with the Portuguese in 1851 and 1859 established the borders between Dutch and Portuguese Timor. In the late colonial period the Residency of Timor and Dependencies (Timor en Onderhoorigheden) consisted of West Timor, Roti, Savu, Sumbawa, Flores, the Solor Islands, and the Alor Islands.[3] The Dutch administration was ousted through the Japanese attack in 1942. The Dutch, assisted by a force from Australia returned in the fall of 1945. During the Indonesian Revolution in 1945-49 there was widespread republican and anti-colonial agitation, but no physical fighting. The last Dutch Resident A. Verhoef handed over his powers to a new Indonesian administration in late 1949.[4]