How Timor Became Portuguese and the Rush to Let Go 🚢 East Timor's connection to Portugal began in the early 1500s, during the Age of Discoveries. Portuguese explorers and traders arrived seeking spices, sandalwood, and profit. Dominican priests came to convert people to Catholicism. Slowly, Portugal established control, though their grip on this distant island remained light for centuries. Timor was never wealthy or strategically crucial like other colonies. For most of five hundred years, it was simply a remote outpost on the edge of the Portuguese world. Administrators sat in colonial offices in Dili. Trade came and went. Life moved slowly. But Timor was still Portuguese, counted as part of an empire that stretched across continents. In April 1974, the Carnation Revolution freed Portugal from dictatorship. The new government made a radical choice, end the empire, quickly. No more war. No more colonies. But decolonisation happened in chaos. Lisbon was overwhelmed, changing governments, ending colonial wars in Africa, rebuilding a broken economy. East Timor was at the bottom of the list. It was small, distant, with no obvious wealth. While attention focused on Angola and Mozambique, East Timor was left to figure out its own future with almost no support from Portugal. That silence would prove catastrophic. 📉 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Three Visions For Timor 🤝 When parties were legalised in 1974, three main groups emerged in East Timor, each with different dreams. ✦ The Timorese Democratic Union (UDT) wanted independence but slowly, with Portugal staying involved in some form of protective relationship. They represented senior administrators, plantation owners, and tribal leaders who were nervous about rapid change. ✦ The Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor (FRETILIN) wanted fast, radical independence with sweeping social and economic reform. They had grassroots support from ordinary people and spoke to young Timorese who wanted a clean break with colonialism.