THE GROOMING OF A RAJA

摘要

On 14 September 1887 Don Lorenzo Diaz Vieira Godinho of Larantuka, Flores, was appointed raja. On 1 July 1904 he was deposed. Throughout this period he was the great hope of the local Jesuit mission. He was also often the despair of the Dutch officials. As a devout Christian Don Lorenzo Diaz Vieira Godinho of Larantuka pleased members of the Jesuit Mission much more than had his father and uncles. The missionaries placed great hopes in him and prepared him carefully for his role when he eventually became raja. Despite disappointments, the missionaries finally saw him assume that office on 14 September 1887. He approached his responsibilities with an unprecedented vigour. However, in time he began to assert an independence that to the missionaries seemed to verge on the tyrannical and immoral and to the colonial authorities on insubordination. Eventually, on 1 July 1904, Resident Heckler deposed and exiled him, to the consternation of the missionaries. He was the last Raja of Larantuka to assert his own sovereignty and independence before the position became absorbed into the bureaucracy of the colonial state.