INDIGENOUS-DRIVEN MISSION RECONSTRUCTING RELIGIOUS CHANGE IN SIXTEENTH-CENTURY MALUKU Brett Charles Baker A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of The Australian National University January 2012 ii DECLARATION I, Brett Charles Baker, hereby declare that this thesis is entirely my own work. ____________________________________ Brett Charles Baker 11 January 2012 iii iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to express my gratitude to my supervisor, Dr Robert Cribb. He is both a consummate scholar and a valuable mentor. I have benefited from his expertise, his experience, and his wise counsel. He expressed confidence in me and in my ideas before I became his student, and his constant encouragement was exactly what I needed to keep me going through sometimes difficult circumstances. He has advocated on my behalf and sent good opportunities my way. I am especially grateful for his endless reserve of patience. Because of his willingness to invest in me, I have become a better researcher and a better writer, and I hope that I will someday be at least half the scholar he is. I would also like to thank Dr Chris Ballard and Dr Bronwen Douglas for serving on my advisory panel. They too have been constant sources of encouragement and support. They both took interest in my work very early on and enthusiastically volunteered to help me succeed as a researcher. The ideas which they shared with me have shaped my research, and their critical feedback has greatly improved the quality of my work. I feel indebted to the entire ANU community and especially to many members of the former Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, now integrated into the College of Asia and the Pacific. I doubt a more supportive collection of academics could be found anywhere else. My every request for an opportunity to meet and discuss ideas was warmly received and cheerfully fulfilled. I feel as though I have enjoyed a dozen or more academic advisors, all interested in my success. I wish to express thanks as well to the administrative staff who made my experience as a student run smoothly, many of whom also took a personal interest in me. My ability to complete my studies was greatly aided by the support of an Australian National University Postgraduate Scholarship, for which I am sincerely grateful. v Finally, I wish to acknowledge the support and encouragement of my family. My parents, Charles Arnold Baker and Vena Collier Baker, taught me when I was very young that a boy from a tiny country town could do anything he put his mind to, and I had the good sense to believe them. They enthusiastically endorsed my decision to pursue PhD research and repeatedly reminded me of how proud they were of me. I regret that neither of them lived to see the outcome of my labours, but I sense their continued love and approval. I also wish to acknowledge my sister, Arlynn Baker, who, when others told me I was crazy to leave behind a good job to resume study, told me to ‗go for it!‘ I feel buoyed by her enthusiasm despite her unexpected passing. Lastly, I wish to express deep gratitude to my eldest sister, Kay Baker. She has been my counsellor and my confidante throughout this process, my booster and also my best friend. _______________________ Note: All translations from Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, Latin, Dutch, and Indonesian are my own. vi ABSTRACT During the sixteenth century, tens of thousands of people in the region which the Europeans called Maluku embraced Christianity. Contemporary writers of both secular and mission chronicles celebrated this Christianisation as the work of Europeans, both colonial administrators and missionaries, who had won over the converts by persuasion, by godly attributes, and by military prowess. Though always focussed on European actors, these chroniclers also expected indigenous rulers to play a role in conversion. These kings and chiefs, once they had been persuaded by captains or missionaries to become Christians themselves, were understood to have the power to bring their subjects with them into the new faith in an effortless top-down process. Consequently, religious change was often reported as instances of passive and rather superficial ‗mass conversion.‘ This representation of early Christianisation in Maluku has persisted in texts as divergent as reports written by seventeenth-century Dutch ministers, twentieth-century Catholic mission histories, and more recent works by secular scholars. During the past four decades, thousands of pages of contemporary letters and reports composed by colonial authorities, Portuguese merchants, and Jesuit missionaries have been published by the Portuguese Government and the Society of Jesus. Careful, critical reading of these primary source materials reveals that the Europe-centric view of conversion in sixteenth-century Maluku is mostly erroneous. In actuality, religious change in the region occurred as a consequence of an indigenous-driven mission effort. Interest in Christianity originated with indigenous people, not with Europeans, and not with missionaries once they arrived. Local individuals actively sought out opportunities to explore and embrace the new faith. They then aggressively attempted to draw Christian influence into their lands. Jesuit missionaries in Maluku served as appendages to the local mission effort, frequently told where they would labour and whom they would vii visit. In some instances, missionaries and other Europeans found themselves either held against their will or even traded like exotic goods. Although conversion to Christianity often generated strong opposition, it never occurred as the result of outside pressure. When faced with threats and intimidation from others, indigenous Christians stubbornly maintained the ability to act for themselves, in many cases prodding the Portuguese colonial apparatus to wield its power in support of Christian communities. Though religious change often appeared to be a mass movement, with villages or particular ethnic groups converting in totality, this was never the case. Conversion remained an individual act, resulting in a religiously diverse landscape. Despite persistent Portuguese expectations that mass conversion to Christianity in Maluku should occur as a consequence of the power of Christian rulers over their people, kings and chiefs who did convert lacked both the power and the will to impose a new faith on their subjects. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS Declaration .......................................................................................................................... iii Acknowledgments................................................................................................................ v Abstract .............................................................................................................................. vii Chapter One: Introduction .................................................................................................. 1 Chapter Two: The Indigenous Roots of Christian Mission in Maluku ............................. 59 Chapter Three: Indigenous-Driven Mission in Moro ....................................................... 99 Chapter Four: Indigenous-Driven Missionaries in Ambon ............................................ 145 Chapter Five: Village, Clan, and Conversion in Ambon and Lease ............................... 201 Chapter Six: Conversion and the Constraints on Christian Rulers in Bacan .................. 227 Chapter Seven: Conclusion ............................................................................................. 279 Bibliography .................................................................................................................... 287 ix CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION In the accounts which he wrote after returning to Europe, António Galvão, captain of the Portuguese fortress in Ternate from 1536 to 1539,1 made mention of some conversions to Christianity which had occurred in the Maluku region2 during his captaincy.3 Most of the details he provided concern the baptisms of two Muslim nobles—one ‗a first cousin to the King of Jailolo‘ and the other a Ternatan ‗of great esteem, he being one of the counsellors to the king.‘4 In addition to these two nobles from the heart of Maluku, Galvão in each of his accounts also highlighted the conversion of six kings in the island of Mindanao. Other, seemingly less significant conversions in north Sulawesi,5 Ambon, and the Moro6 area of Halmahera were mentioned as well,7 and 1 Florbela Cristina Veiga Frade, "A Presença Portuguesa nas Ilhas de Maluco: 1511-1605," Universidade de Lisboa, 1999. 4. 2 Historically, ‗Maluku‘ (and its numerous variants) has been an extremely fluid term. In this work, it designates the broad geographic region which in the sixteenth century had regular interactions with the clove-producing islands of Ternate and Tidore: stretching from the southern periphery of Mindanao in the north to the Banda and Kai archipelagos in the south, from the Raja Ampat Islands of New Guinea in the East, to the peninsulas of north and central Sulawesi. 3 Of the two texts referred to, only one of them is known conclusively to have been written by Galvão, the Tratado, translated into English as The Discoveries of the World. The other one, published under the title A Treatise on the Moluccas, bears all the marks of having been written by Galvão and is universally accepted as being an early version of his lost História das Molucas. 4 A Treatise on the Moluccas (c. 1544). Probably the preliminary version