Previous to the European interference in the indigenous scheme of life, the island of Timor was inhabited by barbarian people that couldn't write but used iron and was already agricultural, as reported by Portuguese Afonso de Castro.
Although not all authors agree with Osório de Castro when he says that the Timorese knew all the great inventions of mankind, <<presenting an agricultural and pastoral civilization with a curious draft of an elective-hereditary monarchy and notable artistic manifestations>>, it is unanimously considered that the political and social sketch was in fact consistent, as concludes Hélio A. Felgas.
The fact, however, is that subsisted a state of general retardment of the population. Industry was limited to the fabrication of cotton cloths with which they covered themselves and the commerce reduced to the trade of wax and sandalwood for certain products that brought to Timor makasare, malays and javanese.
Much before the arrival of Portuguese and Dutch, Timor was part of the commercial nets politically centered east of Java, after in the Celebes, and linked by trade to China and India. In documents published during the Ming dynasty, in 1436, the commercial value of Timor is put in relief and described as a place where <<the mountains are covered by trees of sandalwood producing the country nothing else>>. One of the first Portuguese to visit the island, Duarte Barbosa, wrote in 1518: <<there's an abundance of sandalwood, white, to which the Muslims in India and Persia give great value and where much of it is used>>. Dutch administrator Schulte-Nordholt is also refers to the interest it represented for the Portuguese.
Other products were exported such as honey, wax and slaves, but trade relied
mainly on sandalwood.
(To be continued.)