Dutch Formosa
The island of Taiwan, also commonly known as Formosa, was partly under colonial rule by the Dutch Republic from 1624 to 1662 and from 1664 to 1668. In the context of the Age of Discovery, the Dutch East India Company established its presence on Formosa to trade with neighboring Ming China and Tokugawa Japan, and to interdict Portuguese and Spanish trade and colonial activities in East Asia.
The Dutch were not universally welcomed, and uprisings by both aborigines and recent Han arrivals were quelled by the Dutch military on more than one occasion. With the rise of the Manchu-led Qing dynasty in the early 17th century, the Dutch East India Company cut ties with Ming China and allied with the Manchu Qing instead, in exchange for the right to unfettered access to their trade and shipping routes. The colonial period was brought to an end after the 1662 siege of Fort Zeelandia by Koxinga's army who promptly dismantled the Dutch colony, expelled the Dutch and established the Ming loyalist, anti-Qing Kingdom of Tungning.
History
Background
The Dutch Republic and England came, at the beginning of the 17th century, inevitably in conflict with the forces of Spain and Portugal, in various parts of the world, as they further expanded their area of naval expeditions outside of Europe. In addition to the commercial conflict, the Dutch had also broken with the Roman Catholic Church in the 16th century, unlike the staunchly-Catholic Iberian powers. The Dutch also fought Spain from the 1560s through the 1640s for formal recognition of their independence and the integrity of their territory in Europe.The Dutch first attempted to trade with China in 1601 but were rebuffed by the Chinese authorities, who were already engaged in trade with the Portuguese at Macau from 1535.
In a 1604 expedition from Batavia, Admiral Wybrand van Warwijk set out to attack Macau, but his force was waylaid by a typhoon, driving them to the Pescadores, a group of islands west of Formosa. Once there, the admiral attempted to negotiate trade terms with the Chinese on the mainland, but was asked to pay an exorbitant fee for the privilege of an interview. Surrounded by a vastly superior Chinese fleet, he left without achieving any of his aims.
The Dutch East India Company tried to use military force to make China open up a port in Fujian to trade and demanded that China expel the Portuguese, whom the Dutch were fighting in the Dutch–Portuguese War, from Macau. The Dutch raided Chinese shipping after 1618 and took junks hostage in an unsuccessful attempt to get China to meet their demands.
In 1622, after another unsuccessful Dutch attack on Macau and the failure to set up a trading post in Fat Tong O, the fleet sailed to the Pescadores, this time intentionally, and proceeded to set up a base there at Makung to disrupt trade with Manila. They built a fort with forced labour recruited from the local Chinese population. Their oversight was reportedly so severe and rations so short that 1,300 of the 1,500 Chinese enslaved died in the process of construction.
The Dutch threatened Ming China with raids on Chinese ports and shipping unless the Chinese allowed trading on the Pescadores or Taiwan. They declared that merchants would be given Dutch passes for trips to Batavia and maybe Siam and Cambodia, but not to Manila, which would be subject to seizure by the Dutch. They demanded that the Ming open up ports in Fujian to Dutch trade, which the Chinese refused. The governor of Fujian, Shang Zhouzuo, proposed that the Dutch leave the Pescadores in favor of Formosa, where the Chinese would then authorize them to engage in trade. This led to a series of clashes between the Dutch and China from 1622 to 1624. After Shang's proposal on 19 September 1622, the Dutch raided Amoy in October and November. The Dutch intended to "induce the Chinese to trade by force or from fear." by raiding Fujian and Chinese shipping from the Pescadores. Long artillery batteries were erected at Amoy in March 1622 by Colonel Li-kung-hwa as a defence against the Dutch. Although the Dutch officers on site realized that the Ming would not be bullied into trading with them, the command in Batavia were slow to catch on, as they commanded repeated violence against the Chinese with whom they intended to trade.
On the Dutch attempt in 1623 to force China to open up a port, five Dutch ships were sent to Liu-ao and the mission ended in failure for the Dutch, with a number of Dutch sailors taken prisoner and one of their ships lost. In response to the Dutch using captured Chinese for forced labor and strengthening their garrison in the Pescadores with five more ships in addition to the six already there, the new governor of Fujian, Nan Juyi, was permitted by China to begin preparations to attack the Dutch forces in July 1623. A Dutch raid was defeated by the Chinese at Amoy in October 1623, with the Chinese taking the Dutch commander Christian Francs prisoner and burning one of the four Dutch ships. Yu Zigao began an offensive in February 1624 with warships and troops against the Dutch in the Pescadores with the intent of expelling them. The Chinese offensive reached the Dutch fort on 30 July 1624, with 5,000 Chinese troops and 40-50 warships under Yu and General Wang Mengxiong surrounding the fort commanded by Marten Sonck, and the Dutch were forced to sue for peace on 3 August and folded before the Chinese demands, withdrawing from the Pescadores to Formosa. The Dutch admitted that their attempt at military force to coerce China into trading with them had failed with their defeat in the Pescadores. At the Chinese victory celebrations over the "red-haired barbarians," as the Dutch were called by the Chinese, Nan Juyi paraded twelve Dutch soldiers who were captured before the Emperor in Beijing. The Dutch were astonished that their violence did not intimidate the Chinese and at the subsequent Chinese attack on their fort in the Pescadores, since they thought them as timid and a "faint-hearted troupe," based on their experience with them in Southeast Asia.
Colonization
When the Dutch arrived in Taiwan, they found the southwest already frequented by a mostly transient Chinese population numbering close to 1,500. On deciding to set up in Taiwan and in common with standard practice at the time, the Dutch built a defensive fort to act as a base of operations. This was built on the sandy peninsula of Taoyuan. This temporary fort was replaced four years later by the more substantial Fort Zeelandia. By 1626 there were 404 soldiers and 46 artillery specialists manning the fort. According to Salvador Diaz, a Portuguese man working with Chinese pirates to undermine the Dutch presence in favor of the Portuguese, there were only 320 Dutch soldiers and they were "short, miserable, and very dirty."In 1624, the Dutch ship Golden Lion crashed into the coral reefs of Lamey and its crew was killed by the natives. In 1631, another ship wrecked on the reefs and its survivors were also killed by the inhabitants of Liuqiu Island. In 1633, an expedition consisting of 250 Dutch soldiers, 40 Chinese pirates, and 250 Taiwanese natives were sent against Liuqiu Island but met with little success.
The Dutch allied with Sinkan, a small village that provided them with firewood, venison and fish. In 1625, they bought a piece of land from the Sinkanders and built the town of Sakam for Dutch and Chinese merchants. Initially the other villages maintained peace with the Dutch but a series of events from 1625 to 1629 eroded this peace. In 1625, the Dutch attacked 170 Chinese pirates in Wankan but were driven off, damaging their reputation. Encouraged by the Dutch failure, Mattau warriors raided Sinkan, believing that the Dutch could not defend them. The Dutch returned with their ships and drove off the pirates later, restoring their reputation. Mattau was then forced to return the property stolen from Sinkan and make reparation. The people of Sinkan then attacked Mattau and Baccluan before seeking the Dutch for protection. Feeling that the Dutch could not sufficiently protect them, the people of Sinkan went to Japan for protection. In 1629, Pieter Nuyts visited Sinkan with 60 musketeers. After leaving the next morning, the musketeers were killed in an ambush by Mattau and Soulang warriors while crossing a stream. Nuyts avoided the ambush since he left the evening prior.
On 23 November 1629, an expedition set out and burned most of Baccluan, killing many of its people, who the Dutch believed harbored proponents of the previous massacre. Baccluan, Mattau, and Soulang people continued to harass company employees in the following years. This changed in late 1633 when Mattau and Soulang went to war with each other. Mattau won the fight but the Dutch were able to exploit the division.
In 1634, Batavia sent reinforcements. In 1635, 475 soldiers from Batavia arrived in Taiwan. By this point even Sinkan was on bad terms with the Dutch. Soldiers were sent into the village and arrested those who plotted rebellion. In the winter of 1635 the Dutch defeated Mattau, who had been troubling them since 1623. Baccluan, north of the town of Sakam, was also defeated. In 1636, a large expedition was sent against Liuqiu Island. The Dutch and their allies chased about 300 inhabitants into caves, sealed the entrances, and killed them with poisonous fumes over eight days. The native population of 1100 was removed from the island. They were enslaved with the men sent to Batavia while the women and children became servants and wives for the Dutch officers. The Dutch planned to depopulate the outlying islands while working closely with allied natives. The villages of Taccariang, Soulang, and Tevorang were also pacified. In 1642, the Dutch massacred the people of Liuqiu island again.
Some Dutch missionaries were killed by aboriginals whom they had tried to convert: "The catechist, Daniel Hendrickx, whose name has been often mentioned, accompanied this expedition to the south, as his great knowledge of the Formosa language and his familiar intercourse with the natives, rendered his services very valuable. On reaching the island of Pangsuy, he ventured—perhaps with overweening confidence in himself— too far away from the others, and was suddenly surrounded by a great number of armed natives, who, after killing him, carried away in triumph his head, arms, legs, and other members, even his entrails, leaving the mutilated trunk behind."