Qualla: The Three Summits Pact

The Three Summits Pact: Introduction

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Sapripamulu, CC BY-SA 4.0. In 1582, three kingdoms buried stones together at Timurung. The ceremony sealed an alliance between Bone, Wajo, and Soppeng -- the Tellumpocco'e, or "Three Summits" -- forged against the expanding power of the Sultanate of Gowa-Tallo to the south. It was the kind of pact that sounds mythological but was recorded in the Lontara chronicles with the matter-of-fact precision the Bugis people preferred. No embellishment, no divine intervention. Just three kingdoms agreeing that survival required solidarity. The alliance would be tested repeatedly over the next four centuries, as Bone navigated forced conversion, colonial occupation, and the slow dissolution of the royal order that had governed South Sulawesi since the early 1400s.

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Image: Sapripamulu | CC BY-SA 4.0

The Three Summits Pact: From Hamlet to Kingdom

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit M.T.H. Perelaer, Public domain. Bone began modestly. In the early 15th century, under a ruler named La Umasa, the state amounted to a handful of settlements clustered around what is now Watampone, the modern capital of Bone Regency. La Umasa and his nephew La Saliu expanded these holdings into a small kingdom o...

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Image: M.T.H. Perelaer | Public domain

The Three Summits Pact: Swords and Conversion

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Sapripamulu, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Three Summits pact of 1582 held for decades, but it could not prevent what came next. In 1611, during the reign of Bone's tenth ruler, We Tenrituppu -- one of several women who held the throne -- the Sultanate of Gowa invaded. The pressure was not merely military. Gowa demand...

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Image: Sapripamulu | CC BY-SA 4.0

The Three Summits Pact: Queens on the Throne

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, CC BY-SA 3.0. One of the most striking features of Bone's royal succession is the recurrence of female rulers in a region often assumed to have been exclusively patriarchal. We Benrigau, the fourth ruler, governed from 1470 to 1490. We Tenrituppu held the throne when Gowa's armies arrived in 1...

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Image: Unknown author | CC BY-SA 3.0

The Three Summits Pact: The Dutch Arrive, Then Leave

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, CC BY-SA 3.0. Bone's independence ended in 1905. The South Sulawesi military expeditions of that year brought Dutch colonial forces directly into the highlands and coastal kingdoms that had resisted European control for centuries. Bone's last independent ruler, La Pawawoi, was defeated and exi...

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Image: Unknown author | CC BY-SA 3.0