Topasses (Tupasses, Topas, Topaz) were a group of people in maritime
Asia in the early modern period, who claimed
Portuguese ancestry or had taken up Portuguese culture and language. Topasses were found in the various places of
South Asia and
Southeast Asia which were frequented by the Portuguese, such as
Goa,
Malacca and
Batavia. In particular they are associated with the ethnically mixed Portuguese group that dominated politics on
Timor in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
The etymology of the name is obscure. It is most likely derived from the Tamil expression tupasi (man of two languages, interpreter), but it may also be influenced by the Hindi word topi, hat. It partly overlapped with the Dutch concept mardijker, "free men", who also usually had a Portuguese cultural background, but had no European blood in their veins. While the mardijkers served under the Dutch colonial authorities, the Topasses of Timor were staunchly opposed to the Dutch and used the symbol of the King of Portugal as their ultimate authority.[1]
As a political entity in the eastern part of the Southeast Asian Archipelago, they arose with the Portuguese settlement on the small Island of Solor (from the 1560s), using Solor as a stepping-stone to the trade in sandalwood on Timor. When the Dutch East India Company (VOC) conquered Solor in 1613, the Portuguese community moved to Larantuka on Flores. In spite of continuous hostilities with the Dutch, the Topasses managed to obtain a steady foothold on Timor after 1641, and part of the population of Larantuka moved over to West Timor in the late 1650s, as a response to the establishment of the VOC in Kupang in 1653. They were able to defeat Dutch military expeditions on Timor with the help of Timorese allies, in 1653, 1655, 1656 and 1657.
The peace treaty between Portugal and the Netherlands in 1663 removed the acute threat from the latter. By this time the Topasses consisted of an ethnic mix of Portuguese, Florenese, Timorese, Indians, Dutch deserters, etc. Through their military skills they were able to dominate large parts of Timor, with their center in Lifau in the present-day Oecussi-Ambeno enclave.[2]
