| Abstract: |
This chapter sketches the early history of the eastern archipelagos and their trade, concluding with 1683, the year rebel Formosa fell to the Qing. In the archipelagos themselves the most dramatic event of the later 1600s was undoubtedly the fall of Makassar in 1669, which destroyed a major regional power. However, the effects of China’s official reopening were more widely transformative. In Maluku 1683 was also of great symbolic significance, marking the reduction of the Ternate Sultanate to vassal status.
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