Sketch of the 1693 map (Andaya 1981)
In 1693 the VOC drew up a detailed map of the coastline of Sulawesi, which it controlled as regional overlord. The map was made primarily to record the political landscape but took into account major features, such as the rivers and hills that formed boundaries between major and minor kingdoms.
The Changing Landscapes project will involve two research stages. The first is a systematic comparison of the map with early twentieth-century Dutch maps with the original held in the Rijksarchiev in the Hague. The second stage will involve ‘ground-proofing’ the map in Sulawesi in the summer of 2012. This will involve visiting many of the settlements marked on the map and discussing with locals topographical anomalies such as altered river courses, the sites of old settlements, and political alliances remembered in oral tradition. The aim is to relate the map to the physical landscape of modern South Sulawesi in order to shed light on Dutch knowledge of the peninsula, as well as changes in hydrology and landscape use over the intervening centuries.
The two-year project will be led by Rose Ahmed. A report is in preparation.
Reference
Andaya, L.Y. 1981. The heritage of Arung Palakka. A history of South Sulawesi (Celebes) in the seventeenth century. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.