Bima

Bima, known locally as Mbojo, is a kingdom on eastern Sumbawa. Its harbour and fertile lands made it an important centre in the seas between Java, Sulawesi and Flores. Early Portuguese accounts describe exports of horses, cloth, enslaved people and dyewood. Bima's rulers developed close ties with Makassar, while their influence reached across the strait to Manggarai on Flores.

Makassarese expeditions attacked Sumbawa in the early seventeenth century, and Bima's ruling house adopted Islam. The sultanate's court drew on Makassarese models and maintained marriage ties with Sulawesi's nobility. After the Dutch East India Company defeated Makassar, Bima accepted an agreement with the company in 1669. The Dutch sought a monopoly over sappanwood, but the sultan continued to govern locally and to pursue interests in Flores. In 1815 the immense eruption of Mount Tambora devastated Sumbawa, bringing destruction and famine to the lands of Bima and its neighbours.