Taiwan under European rule
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In 1624, the Dutch East India Company, headquartered in Batavia, Java, established the first European-style government ever on the soil of Taiwan, and inaugurated the modern political history of Taiwan. They did not just collect taxes, but also tried to convert to Christianity the native Formosans, who enjoyed a friendly relationship with the Dutch, and learned the Dutch language. Some aborigines still retain their Dutch Bibles even today. The records of the Dutch rule are well-preserved in a museum in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Documents there show that they even set up orphanages on Taiwan at that time (a rare occurrence in East Asia then). Today, their legacy in Taiwan is visible in Anping District of Tainan City where the remains of their Castle Zeelandia are preserved, in Tainan City itself where their Fort Provintia is still the main structure of what is now called Red-topped Tower, and finally in Tamsui where Fort Anthonio (part of the Fort San Domingo museum complex) still stands as the best preserved Redoubt (minor fort) of the Dutch East India Company anywhere in the world. The building was later used by the British consulate until the United Kingdom severed ties with the KMT (Chinese Nationalist Party or Kuomintang) regime and its formal relationship with Taiwan.
It was the Dutch who started importing on a large scale Chinese workers from China's Fujian province as laborers, many of whom became naturalized. The Dutch had their colonial capital at Tayoan City (source of modern name "Taiwan", and present day Anping). The Dutch military presence concentrated at a fort called Castle Zeelandia.[1] The Dutch colonialists also used the aborigines to hunt the native Formosan Sika deer (Cervus nippon taioanus) that inhabited Taiwan, contributing to the eventual disappearance of a small subspecies in the wild.[2] (A small population of the subspecies is being kept in captivity and currently being reintroduced into the Kenting National Park in southern Taiwan.) The pelt of the deer was shipped to Japan, from which the commodity continued its trip to Europe, the U.S., etc.
The Spaniards occupied the northern part of Taiwan for seventeen years before finally being driven away by the Dutch. There are no visible remains of their presence left. Their forts in Tamsui and Keelung were destroyed. A trace of Spanish influence remains in the name of the Sandiao Cape (三貂角, the easternmost part of Taiwan), which derives from "Santiago".
Dutch traders, in search of an Asian base first claimed Formosa (Taiwan) in 1623 as a base for Dutch commerce with Japan and the coast of China. Three years later, the Spanish established a settlement at Santissima Trinidad (Taiwan) building Fort San Salvador on the northwest coast of Taiwan near Keelung, which they occupied until 1642 when they were driven out by the Dutch. The Dutch East India Company (VOC) administered the island and its predominantly aboriginal population until 1662, setting up a tax system, schools to teach romanized script of aboriginal languages, the Sinckan writing, and also evangelizing. Although its control was mainly limited to the southwest and north of the island, the Dutch systems were adopted by succeeding occupiers. The first influx of migrants from China came during the Dutch period, in which merchants and traders from China sought to purchase hunting licenses from the Dutch or hide out in aboriginal villages to escape the authorities in China. Most of the Han Chinese immigrants were young single males, who were discouraged from staying on the island, often referred to the island by the Chinese as "The Gate of Hell" for its reputation in taking the lives of sailors and explorers.
The Dutch originally sought to use their castle Fort Zeelandia at Tayowan (Anping) as a trading base between Japan and China, but soon realized the potential of the huge deer populations that roamed in herds of thousands along the alluvial plains of Taiwan's western regions. Deer were in high demand by the Japanese who were willing to pay premium for use of the hides in samurai armor. Other parts of the deer were sold to Chinese traders for meat and medical use. The Dutch paid aborigines for the deer brought to them and tried to manage the deer stocks to keep up with demand. The Dutch also employed Chinese to farm sugarcane and rice for export, some of these rice and sugarcane reached as far as the markets of Persia. Unfortunately the deer the aborigines had relied on for their livelihoods began to disappear forcing the aborigines to adopt new means of survival.
The Dutch built a second administrative castle on the main island of Taiwan in 1633 and set out to earnestly turn Taiwan into a Dutch colony. The first order of business was to punish villages that had violently opposed the Dutch and unite the aborigines in allegiance with the VOC. The first punitive expedition was against the villages of Baccloan and Mattauw, north of Saccam near Tayowan. The Mattauw campaign had been easier than expected and the tribe submitted after having their village razed by fire. The campaign also served as a threat to other villages from Tirossen (Chiayi) to Lonkjiaow (Hengchun). The 1636 punitive attack on Lamay Island in response to the killing of the shipwrecked crew of the Beverwijck and the Golden Lion (Xiao Liu Qiu) ended ten years later with the entire aboriginal population of 1100 removed from the island, including 327 Lamayans killed in a cave, having been trapped there by the Dutch and suffocated by the fumes and smoke pumped into the cave by the Dutch in cooperation with aborigines from Saccam, Soulang and Pangsoya. The men were forced into slavery in Batavia (Java) and the women and children became servants and wives for the Dutch officers. The events on Lamay changed the course of Dutch rule to work closer with allied aborigines, though there remained plans to depopulate the outlying islands.
In 1661, a naval fleet of 1000 warships, led by the Ming loyalist Koxinga, landed at Lu'ermen to attack Taiwan in order to destroy and oust the Dutch from Zeelandia. Following a nine month siege, Koxinga captured the Dutch Fort Zeelandia and defeated the Dutch. Koxinga then forced the Dutch Government to sign a peace treaty at Zeelandia on 1 February 1662, and leave Taiwan. From then on, Taiwan became Koxinga's base for the Kingdom of Tungning.
[edit] See also
- History of Taiwan
- Fort Zeelandia (Taiwan)
- Taiwanese aborigines:The European period
- Dutch East India Company
- Koxinga
- Kingdom of Tungning
- List of governors of Formosa
[edit] References
- ^ Finding the Heritage — Reasons for the project. National Anping Harbor Historical Park. Retrieved on 2006-03-08.
- ^ Hsu, Minna J.; Govindasamy Agoramoorthy (August 1997). "Wildlife conservation in Taiwan". Conservation Biology 11 (4): 834–6. doi:.
