Reconstruction of proto-South-Sulawesi suggests the lower course of the
Sa'dan River as the homeland from which Bugis dispersed, moving
up the Sa'dan Valley and across to the Gulf of Bone, settling in
the Palopo area and then expanding to the south. Luwu', centered
at the head of the Gulf of Bone, was the first great kingdom. Although
Luwu' was based on control of trade, especially iron and nickel,
by the fourteenth century the rise of complex chiefdoms based on
wet-rice agriculture among Bugis to the south had led to its eclipse.
After the sixteenth-century rise of Makassar to commercial preeminence,
the Makassarese realms of Goa and Tallo achieved overlordship over most
Bugis areas by the mid-seventeenth century. The Bugis realm of Bone
allied with the Dutch to overthrow Makassar in 1667 and became the most
powerful of the South Sulawesi kingdoms thereafter, a position
maintained more or less throughout the colonial era. Refugees from Bugis
realms, especially Wajo', formerly allied with Makassar, began
the great diaspora of Bugis throughout the archipelago in 1670. Bugis
mercenaries attained positions of power in Johor, the Riau Archipelago,
Aceh, and elsewhere (including Thailand), while in later migrations
Bugis opened settlements in Jambi and elsewhere in eastern Sumatra. Many
Bugis nobles associated themselves with twentieth-century Indonesian
independence movements. Thus they and their descendants have retained
considerable prestige and power by occupying positions of influence in
the bureaucracy of modern Indonesia.