The people generically called the Makassar occupy the far south of South Sulawesi (Sulawesi’s southwest peninsula). They speak three related languages — Konjo and Selayar in the east, and Makassar proper in the west (Grimes and Grimes 1987). The lowlands support generally denser populations than those found in the Bugis heartland to the immediate north, even though the latter region contains South Sulawesi’s most extensive wet rice lands. Indeed, South Sulawesi’s southwest corner between Gowa and Sanrabone (see Map 1) holds rural population densities comparable to those in Java and Bali. The coastal strip, rich in maritime and littoral resources, backs against extensive alluvial plains which are ideal for sawah. Irrigation schemes first developed by the Dutch permit double cropping and hence higher populations in favoured areas. Nonetheless the traditional annual sawah cultivation, based on the very pronounced monsoon, also supported hundreds of thousands of people by the seventeenth century, with densities apparently reaching towards 1000 people per square kilometre (Bulbeck 1992).

Two major trade routes from Java lay along the south coast by at least the fourteenth century. One route extended via Selayar to the spice islands, and the other extended to Luwuk with its nickeliferous iron and other valuable primary produce (Caldwell 1988). Selayer, Luwuk, plus Bantaeng and Makassar along the south coast, are the only identifiable South Sulawesi toponyms mentioned in the Majapahit literature. Selayer, Luwuk and the south coast are also the parts of South Sulawesi evincing the strongest Javanese influence (Reid 1983; Bulbeck 1992). The origins of the Bugis kingdom of Luwuk specifically invoke Majapahit (Caldwell 1988), while the founder of the Makassar kingdom of Sanrabone was reportedly an immigrant from north Majapahit (Bulbeck 1992).

The Bugis agrarian kingdoms show the reverse constellation of traits — absence from the Majapahit literature, little direct Javanese influence, and Tomanurung with explicitly local, Bugis origins. However, far from having been a cultural backwater, by c. 1400 AD this area had apparently developed the first South Sulawesi scripts. The resulting texts show that the Bugis heartland supported the largest fourteenth-century kingdoms in South Sulawesi, and probably the oldest kingdoms as well (original study by Caldwell [1988] as interpreted by Bulbeck [1992]).

Granted the general dichotomy between maritime kingdoms with their external orientation and occasional claims to foreign origins, and the locally oriented agrarian kingdoms, Gowa combines the two. Gowa’s origins are ascribed to the marriage between a mortal called Karaeng Bayo or the “Bajau King”, and a heavenly nymph who descended on a hill within Gowa’s rice fields (Reid 1983). Although dressed up as legend the origin story appears to reflect a real historical memory, to judge from the concordance between the archaeological and genealogical data. At c. 1300 AD a Bajau chief, based at the river mouth port which later became Sanrabone, apparently married a Katangka (pre-Gowa) princess of Makassar ethnicity to give rise to Gowa’s royal line (Bulbeck 1992).

By around 1500, when a detailed picture emerges of South Sulawesi’s southwest corner (see Map 1), the near-coastal agrarian kingdoms dominated the small trading communities based at the river mouths. For instance, after a succession dispute within Gowa the defeated faction moved to the mouth of the Tallok River, overpowered the local inhabitants and established the kingdom of Tallok. In the same vein Gowa, Tallok and Siang successively conquered Garassik, then a small port-polity named after Gresik (north Java) but containing a significant Bajau component. After finally wrestling back Garassik by the 1540s, Gowa developed its demographic and geographical advantages to dominate South Sulawesi’s long distance trade. In a series of sweeping military campaigns, Gowa raided other polities throughout the peninsula, and directly conquered the kingdoms from Maros in the north to Bajeng and Katingang in the south (Bulbeck 1992).

In 1593 Tallok instigated a palace revolution whereby the area conquered by Gowa now supported a confederation of powerful status lineages. While the Gowa royalty formally headed the larger political umbrella, which I call “greater Gowa”, leadership often resided with Tallok. For instance it was the Tallok raja who adopted Islam in 1605 and established political hegemony throughout the South Sulawesi peninsula under the banner of Islam. The individual in question, Sultan Abdullah, also developed the entrepôt of Makassar to the point where greater Gowa rivalled the Dutch East India Company (VOC) for control over the Moluccan spice trade (Andaya 1981). Makassar grew so large during the mid-seventeenth century that its population can be estimated at 100,000 inhabitants, and its status as a major rice exporter during the early seventeenth century changed to one of major rice importer (Reid 1987).

Legend to Figure 1

In 1667 the Bone noble Arung Palakka (later Sultan Sahaduddin) and his Bone and Soppeng Bugis rebels joined forces with the VOC and defeated greater Gowa during the battle known as the Makassar War. The new overlords then divided up greater Gowa’s empire while retaining Makassar as South Sulawesi’s effective capital. In this new arrangement the VOC superintended Makassar’s trade, while Sahaduddin settled in Makassar to rule South Sulawesi’s internal affairs (Andaya 1981; Bulbeck 1990).