The island of Timor, in the Indonesian archipelago, has been populated for up to 40,000 years, occupied by successive waves of immigrants from southern India, Malaysia and Melanesia. It was ruled by small kingdoms that traded spices, slaves and sandalwood with their neighbours. Portugal established a settlement on the eastern part of the island in 1633. Timor was formally divided between the Netherlands and Portugal in 1661, and the first governor of Portuguese Timor was appointed in 1701. For most of the next three centuries, East Timor was a Portuguese colony. During the Second World War, East Timor was occupied by Australian and Dutch forces, and then invaded by the Japanese on 19 February 1942. Sparrow Force, the Australian commandos and Dutch troops on the island, waged a guerrilla campaign until the Australian and Dutch forces were withdrawn in January 1943. The assistance of the East Timorese people in helping the Australians created a bond between Australia and East Timor that became part of popular mythology in Australia. After the war ended, Timor was occupied by Australia, which supported Indonesian independence from the Netherlands, and proposed that East Timor become a United Nations (UN) trusteeship, but backed down in the face of objections from the United Kingdom.