History of Flores
The island Flores thanks it’s name to the captain of a Portuguese expedition that was on his way to the Moluccas. This captain named the peninsula far east ‘Cabo das Flores’, cape of flowers. The Portuguese were also the first that halfway the sixteenth century established on the island. Before that it were the Makassaren and Buginezen form South-Sulawesi that held the most areas of the coast of Flores. For the Buginezen the island belonged to their trade network in the archipelago. In the fifteenth and sixteenth century the largest part of west and central Flores belonged to the kingdom of Gowa in South-Sulawesi and the east part of Flores belonged to Ternate in the Moluccas. The Portuguese were active in de profitable sandalwood trading with Timor, considering Flores was on the route they established forts at Solor and Ende. In 1561 Dominican priests establish a mission post on Solor. From there the Portugues expanded their mission area to the east of Flores, in 1575 the number increased tot 20 mission posts. The Dominican were dealing with attacks of pirates, local Islamic kings and troops from Gowa. In spite of al that they managed to convert many.
In the end the fort at Ende was captured by the Moslems in 1637 and al the mission post in South-Flores were abandoned. De grow of Christianity would however continue. In the seventeenth century the Portuguese were driven out the Flores and the surrounding areas by the V.O.C. so they could monopolise the trades in sandalwood and cinnamon. In seventeenth century Gowa and Ternate distanced themselves from their rights to Flores and the surrounding areas. However it would last till 1907 before the Dutch sort of controlled Flores. In approximately 1850 the last Portuguese settlements were bought by the Dutch. The Dutch Jezuiten also took control of the missionary work and settled post at Maumere and Sikka. In the twenties the missionary also went in the isolated mountains to the west. The Portuguese an Dutch missionary work paid of. Nowadays in almost every village has a Christian church.