Before the seventeenth century, Taiwan was an isolated and virtually
unknown part of the world. With the surge of European interest in
the region, however, the island became a coveted strategic location
for both military and trade purposes, forever putting Taiwan on
the international map.
The late fifteenth century was a period of great voyages, and from a European standpoint, an era of great discoveries. In 1492, Christopher Columbus arrived in the New World. Six years later, Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama forged a sea route between Europe and India by way of the Cape of Good Hope.
Farther east, Portuguese sailors in 1517 caught sight of an island off the east coast of China while on their way to Japan. Captivated by the beauty of the green mountains rising from the island, they called it Ilha Formosa--the "beautiful island." For centuries afterward, Taiwan was identified on Western maps as Formosa. Decades later, in 1582, the first Europeans--a group of shipwrecked Portuguese traders on their way to Macao--set foot on the island. They stayed only six weeks on Taiwan's southwest coast, but the next Europeans to arrive showed greater staying power.
The Dutch, who were one step behind the Portuguese and the Spanish in the race to colonize Asian territory, were looking for a base from which they could trade with the Chinese and Japanese after having established a foothold in Indonesia in 1596. In 1622, the Dutch East India Co., which was founded to conduct trade with and manage newly acquired colonies, built a military base on the Pescadores, an island group to the west of Taiwan known locally as Penghu.
The company was forced to withdraw from Penghu after signing a treaty with the Ming Dynasty rulers, and it moved to Taiwan proper in 1624. The consequent meeting of the resident Chinese settlers and the Western trading fleets marked the beginning of Taiwan's modern history. "The Dutch occupation of Taiwan is a colorful, interesting, and important period in history," says Tsao Yung-ho, academician of Academia Sinica. "It marked the start of Taiwan's historical era. Another point of interest is the simultaneous involvement of Taiwan's aborigines, the Chinese, Japanese, Dutch, and Spanish." Because documented mention of Taiwan prior to the arrival of the Dutch is rare, the considerable volumes of correspondence, instructions and orders from the Dutch East India Co., as well as reports and diaries written by missionaries, are invaluable to the study of Taiwan at that time, Tsao adds.
The occupation of the island was important to the Dutch as a strategic military base as it allowed them to disrupt the shipping routes connecting China and the Spanish-held Philippines. From their first day on Taiwan, the Dutch prepared for resistance from local inhabitants and interference from foreign interlopers--the Portuguese, Spanish, and English. At Anping near the present-day city of Tainan, the Dutch settlers built Fort Zeelandia, and a year later at what is now known as Chihkanlou, they built Fort Provintia. The fortresses' cannons were aimed not only at potential invaders from the sea but also at those inland.
Taiwan also proved to be an ideal location for a transshipment hub for sea trade with countries throughout the Pacific. Although the Dutch forts were intended as military fortresses, Fort Zeelandia was primarily used as a trading post while Fort Provintia served as general living quarters and a warehouse.
Compared with the Ming Dynasty rulers, the Dutch were more conscious of the value of Taiwan. They showed a keen interest in developing the island into a colonial enterprise, making it their trading base on the international sea routes as well as a center for their Christian missionary efforts. They, however, were not the only Western force interested in Taiwan. The Spanish also wanted to secure the island to protect their interests in the Philippines and to prevent the Dutch from monopolizing trade with China and Japan.
In 1626, a Spanish fleet, making a wide berth off the eastern coast of Taiwan to avoid clashing with Dutch forces, reached the northeastern tip of the island and named it the Cape of Santiago. The Spanish then established a port where Keelung now stands, calling it La Santisima Trinidad. Forts San Salvador and San Domingo were built in Keelung and Tamsui respectively.
The following year, the Dutch sent a fleet northward in an attempt to drive away the Spanish but were defeated. At the time, the Dutch were too involved in developing their southern stronghold into a center for the import, export, collection, and distribution of goods to be able to effectively keep the Spanish from establishing a base in the north of the island. Taiwan was therefore subject to the rule of two colonial administrations.
Such efforts to establish a commercial center were not in vain. Of the Dutch East India Co.'s nineteen main trading centers in Asia, the profits earned from Taiwan were second only to those from Japan, accounting for 26 percent of the company's aggregated Asian earnings in 1649. Imports from Indonesia included spices, tin, amber, cotton, and opium, while porcelain, herbal medicines, and gold were brought to Taiwan from China. Meanwhile, sugar and deerskin from Taiwan were exchanged for silver with Japan.
Taiwan's agricultural development received a huge boost when the Dutch company established breeding farms to raise oxen imported from India. These animals replaced human labor in the tilling of fields, dramatically improving productivity. The amount of land devoted to farming was increased and new crops, such as cabbage, beans, tomatoes, mangos, and chili peppers were introduced.
Huang Fu-san, a history professor at National Taiwan University (NTU), notes that until the Dutch arrived, the island's economy was quite primitive. "The major impact of Dutch colonization was to transform Taiwan from a self-sufficient economy to a trade-based one," Huang remarks. "They sought to develop Taiwan's industries, which had commercial value, subsequently creating substantial economic benefits." This contribution established a tradition that helped Taiwan become one of the world's top economies, he adds.
Another significant contribution, Huang asserts, was the establishment and expansion of the island's sugar-cane crop. For the last three centuries until the late 1960s, sugar continued to be a major export commodity in Taiwan. To increase yields, the Dutch in the 1630s offered incentives for Chinese on the mainland to move to Taiwan and grow sugar cane. Prior to this period, only a small number of Chinese and Japanese pirates, who plundered the southeast coast of China, used the island as a base or hideout. At the same time, many Chinese, particularly from the coastal provinces of Fujian and Guangdong, sought to escape the civil wars, famines, and marauders by migrating to Taiwan. Since rice was a main staple among these new residents, its production increased dramatically. Rice not only fed the local population, but was also exported.
In the meantime, soon after the construction of Fort Provintia began, missionaries came to Taiwan from Jakarta, then known as Batavia. They propagated Christianity and mitigated the resistance of aborigines. For the first time, select aboriginal languages were romanized, allowing missionaries to print translated copies of the Bible among other documents. The Shinkang document, a land contract between the Chinese immigrants and the Sirayas who lived in Shinkang near Tainan, is one such example. The contract is now a valuable source of historical study, Huang Fu-san notes.
The Spanish, for their part, also launched pioneering projects such as the mining of sulfur in the Taipei suburb of Peitou with the help of new Chinese immigrants as well as aborigines. In converting local residents to Catholicism, the Spanish missionaries, who were predominately Dominicans, compiled a "Tamsui dictionary" and taught Western medical science.
Although the Spanish controlled northern Taiwan, their trade with China and Japan, and the propagation of Catholicism in Japan, did not go smoothly. Moreover, supplies from Manila were often lost in typhoons, and more than half of the small group of Spaniards succumbed to either aborigine attacks or illnesses such as malaria. Their ambition to control Taiwan was fading quickly, and in 1638, they reduced their forces and abandoned Fort San Domingo in Tamsui in an attempt to solidify their trade base in Fort San Salvador. Seeing this weakness as an opportunity, a Dutch fleet advanced northward in 1642 and took Keelung, putting an end to the Spanish control of northern Taiwan.
The impact of Spanish rule in Taiwan was rather limited, notes Jose Eugenio Borao, a professor at NTU's Foreign Language Department, because they were here for only sixteen years. "The beginning of a period of colonization usually serves to cultivate the base for a further expansion," states Borao, author of Spaniards in Taiwan, a two-volume series on the European occupation of Taiwan published in 2001. "The second stage, however, didn't even take place because the Spanish were expelled by the Dutch."
Taiwan was important to the Spanish for two reasons. One was to protect the Manila-Fujian Province trade route, which was threatened by the Dutch foothold in Tainan. The second reason was that Taiwan could be used as a springboard for missionary work in China, as Spanish Dominicans were forbidden to enter the mainland through Macao. When they first arrived on Taiwan, the Spanish were cautious about converting aborigines, but after 1635, they became more aggressive, Borao says. By the end of their rule, the Spanish claimed to have converted more than 1,000 aborigines. The Dutch, by comparison, recorded a total of 6,078 converts among 10,109 inhabitants in 1659.
Not long after the Spanish retreated, Cheng Cheng-kung, who is also known as Koxinga, arrived in Taiwan from the mainland with a small army in 1661. This die-hard Ming Dynasty loyalist intended to use the island as a base to defeat the Manchu invaders and restore the Ming emperor. Once in Taiwan, however, he sought to expel the Dutch occupiers. With help from the island's residents, who were growing increasingly resentful of the heavy taxes levied on them by the Dutch East India Co., Cheng drove out the Dutch in 1662, ending their thirty-eight-year occupation of the island.
Ang Kaim, a research fellow of Academia Sinica's Institute of Taiwan History Preparatory Office, says under Dutch rule Taiwan became an important trading base that attracted business from China, Japan, and Southeast Asia, and was connected to the world market. Ang, however, has reservations about how much the Dutch contributed to transforming Taiwan's economy, asserting that it may have been a natural progression that would have occurred without the Dutch influence. He also makes note that the enormous profits reaped from Taiwan's trade were mostly pocketed by the Dutch East India Co. "The contributions that the Dutch made in Taiwan's economic progress have been exaggerated," he opines. "We need to adopt a more neutral stance in looking at the impact of this period of Taiwan's history."
The Europeans, nevertheless, certainly left their mark on that earlier age of Taiwan's history. Under their rule, the Dutch, for example, sought to classify the island into four districts and organize regular meetings with the aborigines alternately in these places. This helped initiate exchanges among the different aboriginal groups that were previously isolated from each other. This classification of administrative districts and the methods of dealing with minority ethnic groups later served as a model for Ching Dynasty administrators.
In addition, several historical documents left during the Dutch and Spanish colonization provided evidence that many of the Chinese immigrants moved to Taiwan with the intention of making the island their permanent residence as they married, had children, and formed villages. This contribution, Ang notes, is significant.
The rich history of the early European presence on Taiwan is the subject of a large-scale exhibition at the National Palace Museum entitled "Formosa: Taiwan, Holland, and East Asia in the 17th Century" scheduled to run from January 24 to April 30 this year. With the cooperation of some thirty public and private museums, both locally and abroad, as well as private collectors, a total of 240 artifacts, including historical documents, paintings, maps, models, and illustrations will be showcased. Visitors to the exhibit will have an opportunity to take a journey back to the period of European occupation--a time when huge sailing ships, laden with various commodities, plied the busy waters around Taiwan. The voyage, like those of the past, will surely be one of new discoveries.