State of Gowa

About 1530 the Makarese state of Gowa began to expand its power over its neighbours by conquest. By the mid-sixteenth century Gowa had established itself at the head of loosely united empire and had emerged as a major trading power in eastern Indonesian.

In 1605 the king of Gowa adopted Islam. The ruler of Gowa publicly pronounced the Islamic profession of faith in September 1605. In a society where rulers were the focus of social life and its norms, other Makarese quickly followed these rulers.

Apparently the invitation to the Bugis state of Bone and other states to adopt the new faith was rejected. Gowa responded with a series of campaigns in 1608-11, as a result which Islam was imposed throughout the Bugis-Makarese area.

During the seventeenth century these trends and the general pattern of Gowa’s expansion and rising power continued at an even swifter pace.

At the end of these wars Gowa was the predominant state of South Sulawesi. Its ‘empire’ like other Indonesian states, was founded on military supremacy but was not a tightly centralised system of domination.

Sultan Hasanuddin (reign 1653 to 1669) was the last independent ruler of Gowa, and the one who saw the debacle of the Makassar Wars (1666-1669), which ended in Gowa’s subjugation.
State of Gowa