Article #2 in A Seven-Article Series >>>>> An Overview of the History of Taiwan: The Case for Independence

The Dutch Period of Rule, 1624-1661

 

One could observe European powers beginning to exert a presence when in 1557 sailors on a Portuguese ship passed by the island and produced a journal that included a reference to Ilha Formosa (“Beautiful Island”), the latter part of which would endure into the 20^th century as a Western appellation for Taiwan.  In the early 17^th century, seafaring representatives of the Netherlands began nosing around Taiwanese coastal areas, tried to establish themselves on Penghu, were ousted by the Ming naval captain Shen Yourong, but then resumed coastal explorations in 1622 in a thrust that landed them on Taiwan to begin construction of Fort Zeelandia at Anping, close to today’s city of Tainan, in 1624.  In this latter year another European power began an effort to occupy part of the island when officials sailing for Spain arrived;  by 1629 Spaniards had completed construction of Fort San Domingo (near today’s Danshui).  The Spaniards also built Fort San Salvador close to today’s Jilong (Keelung) during their period of occupation of northern Taiwan.  But suffering from various diseases, bloodied by battles with the Dutch, and deciding that the Philippines offered them ideal bases for their Asian-Pacific activities, the representatives of Spain gave up their claims on Taiwan in 1642, so that for 20 years Dutch assertions of rule on the island went mostly uncontested by other outside powers, although that rule did provoke rebellions by those living under the Dutch yoke.

 

Taiwan became an important Dutch base of trading operations, from which the colonial administration extracted sugarcane, for trade mainly to Japan;  rice, for which China was the most important market,   and sulfur, for transport and sale in Cambodia and China.  Through this carrying trade the Dutch also procured porcelain, silks, and pottery for which the home country of the Netherlands provided the greatest market.  During the Dutch tenure, an important figure by the name of Zheng Zhilong operated variously as a freelance pirate, a ship captain hired to keep other pirates at bay by the Ming court, and a merchant plugging into the carrying trade of the Dutch.  Zheng Zhilong  secured a contract from the Dutch for providing such services, and for bringing Han Chinese immigrants into Taiwan from Fujian Province, especially those whose homes had been in the prefectures of Quanzhou and Zhangzhou.  The Dutch encouraged this immigration, still officially proscribed by the Ming, so as to establish more farmers on land producing rice and sugarcane.  These lands during the Dutch period of control on Taiwan were known as the “King’s Lands” (wangtian), rented to these immigrant farmers under conditions of heavy taxation.  The Dutch colonial regime used various devices to extract as much wealth as possible from the island;  these included a head tax, customs duties, trade tax, fishing tax, hunting tax, sulfur extraction tax, and liquor brewing tax.  Many taxes in these latter categories fell heavily on the aboriginal population.  Aborigine discontent with the Dutch overlords culminated in the Great Matou Resistance of 1635;  Han Chinese unrest became manifest in the Guo Huaiyi Rebellion (1652).  But operating with 2,000 troops out of Fort Zeelandia at Anping and Fort Provintia (located in the present city of Tainan), the Dutch put these Taiwanese rebellions down in bloody but decisive fashion.

 

The Dutch were supplanted as overlords of Taiwan not by troops of an administration exerting imperial rule in China, but by forces of Zheng Chenggong, the son of the pirate Zheng Zhilong and an important commander of forces in his own right.