The kingdom of Makassar in Indonesia is primarily known in the West for its pre-British contact with Australia, but it was quite a bit more interesting than just that. Just a few interesting things about it:
With this in mind, what PODs could there be for Makassar?
- It rose from a small animist village in the 16th century to a city of at least fifty thousand by the early 17th century.
- It was probably one of the most free trade-minded countries in the 17th century: its sultan repeatedly pointed out that "my country stands open to all nations" and that "God made the land and the sea... the sea He gave in common." To quote one English source, "the King requires that both [English and Portuguese] may be alike free in the port of Makassar, but is loath to displease either." Due to this policy, it was a center of trade for the Portuguese, the English, the Danes, the Malay, the Spanish, the Acehnese, the Indians and the Chinese attempting to buy cheap spices out of the Dutch monopoly.
- It was the most tolerant kingdom in a tolerant archipelago: one English merchant notes that "the King is very affable and true harted towards Christians" and the Portuguese Viceroy of Goa, "in all the Southern Archipelago there is no other ruler who protects the Portuguese with greater firmness and allows conversion to the Christian faith."
- It was the foremost center of adopting European technology in Southeast Asia. As one Jesuit said, "the high governor of the whole kingdom... is called Carim Patengaloa... He knew all our mysteries very well, had read with curiosity all the chronicles of our European kings. He always had books of ours in hand, especially those treating with mathematics, in which he was quite well versed... To here him speak without seeing him one would take him for a native Portuguese, for he spoke the language as well as people from Lisbon himself." Makassar was the first Southeast Asian kingdom to translate European texts (in this case, a Spanish book about gunnery) as well as one of the first kingdoms in the world to buy telescopes. Not only that, indigenous chronicles note that "ships were for the first time nailed together with large iron nails; for the first time the Makassarese were able to make the warship called a galley." The Makassarese were also the few Southeast Asians to build European-style fortifications (many Southeast Asian kingdoms just relocated their capital).
With this in mind, what PODs could there be for Makassar?