Pentecost of the Hills in Taiwan: The Christian Faith among the Original Inhabitants

The Christian Faith Among the Original Inhabitants Ralph R. Covell. The Dutch East India Company exercised this sovereignty in their rule over Taiwan. At first.
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One Dutch physician carried out a vivisection on a Chinese prisoner. The Taiwanese aboriginal tribes who were previously allied with the Dutch against the Chinese during the Guo Huaiyi Rebellion in turned against the Dutch during the siege and defected to Koxinga's Chinese forces. They then proceeded to work for the Chinese in executing captured Dutchmen. On 17 May , the frontier aboriginals in the mountains and plains also surrendered and defected to the Chinese, celebrating their freedom from compulsory education under the Dutch rule by hunting down Dutch people and beheading them and trashing their Christian school textbooks.

After arriving in Jakarta, Coyett was imprisoned for three years and tried for high treason , for surrendering the post and the loss of valuable goods. After lobbying by friends and relatives he was partially pardoned in , and exiled to the most eastern of the Banda Islands.

He published Neglected Formosa Dutch: After the loss of the post at Tayoan, the Dutch East India Company mounted several attempts at recapture—even forming an alliance with the Qing Empire to defeat Koxinga's fleet. The alliance captured Keelung in northern Taiwan, but was forced to abandon it because of logistical difficulties and the inferiority of the Qing fleet when pitted against Koxinga's veteran sailors. During the Siege of Fort Zeelandia the Chinese took many Dutch prisoners, among them the Dutch missionary Antonius Hambroek and his wife, and two of their daughters.

Koxinga sent Hambroek to Fort Zeelandia to persuade the garrison to surrender; if unsuccessful, Hambroek would be killed upon return. Hambroek went up to the Fort, where two of his other daughters still remained, and urged the garrison to not surrender. He subsequently returned to Koxinga's camp and was beheaded. Additionally, a rumor was spread among the Chinese that the Dutch were encouraging the native Taiwan aboriginals to kill Chinese. In retaliation, Koxinga ordered the mass execution of Dutch male prisoners, [34] mostly by crucifixion and decapitation [35] with a few women and children also being killed.

The remainder of the Dutch women and children went into slavery, with Koxinga taking Hambroek's teenage daughter as his concubine she was described by the Dutch commander Caeuw as "a very sweet and pleasing maiden", and some sources report her submission to have been voluntary while other Dutch women were sold to Chinese soldiers to become their secondary wives or mistresses. Happy was she that fell to the lot of an unmarried man, being thereby freed from vexations by the Chinese women, who are very jealous of their husbands. In Quemoy a Dutch merchant was contacted with an arrangement to release the prisoners which was proposed by a son of Koxinga's but it came to nothing.

The Chinese taking Dutch women as concubines was featured in Joannes Nomsz's famous play "Antonius Hambroek, of de Belegering van Formoza" "Antonius Hambroek, or the Siege of Formosa" , which documented European anxieties at the fate of the Dutch women and defeat by non-Europeans. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Warfare and Armed Conflicts: The whole force sent to Taiwan was 25, men, but only 6, advanced on Zeelandia.

Clodfelter states that Koxinga's army lost half its men. China in Tigers' Jaws illustrated, reprint, revised ed. University of California Press. Formosa Under the Dutch: Voices from the Ming-Qing Cataclysm: Inez de Beauclair, ed. Sealords live in vain: Fujian and the making of a maritime frontier in seventeenth-century China A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Hi story. Toward a Global Microhistory". Journal of World History. Pentecost of the Hills in Taiwan: Retrieved December 10, The Colonial 'civilizing Process' in Dutch Formosa: Conflict and Commerce in Maritime East Asia: The Search for Modern China illustrated, reprint ed.

Archived from the original on December 10, Twentieth century impressions of Netherlands India: Its history, people, commerce, industries and resources illustrated ed. Lloyd's Greater Britain Pub. Across India and Pakistan to Formosa. A History of Christianity in Asia: Volume 2 of A History of Christianity in Asia: Volume 2 2, illustrated, reprint ed.

A Century of Advance. University of Chicago Press. South China Morning Post.

Siege of Fort Zeelandia - Wikipedia

Archived from the original on Feb 26, The Fall of Dutch Taiwan". How Taiwan Became Chinese: Formosa under the Dutch: Coyett, Frederick [First published in 't verwaerloosde Formosa ]. Formosa under the Dutch ". The island of Formosa, past and present: History, people, resources, and commercial prospects. Tea, camphor, sugar, gold, coal, sulphur, economical plants, and other productions. London and New York: Asia in the Making of Europe: A Century of Advance: Voices from the Ming-Qing cataclysm: China in tigers' jaws. Retrieved from " https: Pages using ISBN magic links Interlanguage link template link number Articles containing traditional Chinese-language text Articles containing Dutch-language text Taiwan articles missing geocoordinate data All articles needing coordinates.

Views Read Edit View history. 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. Following the pacification campaigns of —, more and more villages came to the Dutch to swear allegiance, sometimes out of fear of Dutch military action, and sometimes for the benefits which Dutch protection could bring food and security.

The relative calm of this period has been called the Pax Hollandica Dutch Peace by some commentators [24] a reference to the Pax Romana. One area not under their control was the north of the island, which from had been under Spanish sway, with their two settlements at Tamsui and Keelung.

The fortification at Keelung was abandoned because the Spanish lacked the resources to maintain it, but Fort Santo Domingo in Tamsui was seen as a major obstacle to Dutch ambitions on the island and the region in general. In , the Dutch sent an expedition of soldiers and aboriginal warriors in ships to Tamsui, managing to dislodge the small Spanish contingent from their fortress and drive them from the island.

Following this victory, the Dutch set about bringing the northern villages under their banner in a similar way to the pacification campaign carried out in the previous decade in the south. The Dutch began to encourage large-scale Han immigration to the island, mainly from the south of Hokkien.


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Most of the immigrants were young single males who were discouraged from staying on the island often referred to by Han as "The Gate of Hell" for its reputation in taking the lives of sailors and explorers. Multiple Aboriginal villages rebelled against the Dutch in the s due to oppression like when the Dutch ordered aboriginal women for sex, deer pelts, and rice be given to them from aborigines in the Taipei basin in Wu-lao-wan village which sparked a rebellion in December at the same time as the Chinese rebellion.

Two Dutch translators were beheaded by the Wu-lao-wan aborigines and in a subsequent fight 30 aboriginals and another two Dutch people died. After an embargo of salt and iron on Wu-lao-wan the aboriginals were forced to sue for peace on February Following a nine-month siege , Koxinga captured Zeelandia.

Koxinga then forced the local representatives of the Dutch East India Company to sign a peace treaty at Zeelandia on 1 February , and leave the island. From then on, the island became Koxinga's base for the Kingdom of Tungning. After being ousted from Taiwan, the Dutch allied with the new Qing dynasty in China against the Zheng regime in Taiwan.

Following some skirmishes the Dutch retook the northern fortress at Keelung in The Dutch held out at Keelung until , when aborigine resistance likely incited by Zheng Jing , [28] and the lack of progress in retaking any other parts of the island persuaded the colonial authorities to abandon this final stronghold and withdraw from Taiwan altogether.

The Dutch claimed the entirety of the island, but because of the inaccessibility of the central mountain range the extent of their control was limited to the plains on the west coast, plus isolated pockets on the east coast. This territory was acquired from to , with most of the villages being required to swear allegiance to the Dutch and then largely being left to govern themselves.

The manner of acknowledging Dutch lordship was to bring a small native plant often betel nut or coconut planted in earth from that particular town to the Governor, signifying the granting of the land to the Dutch. The Governor would then award the village leader a robe and a staff as symbols of office and a Prinsenvlag "Prince's Flag", the flag of William the Silent to display in their village. The Governor of Formosa Dutch: Gouverneur van Formosa ; Chinese: He was assisted in his duties by the Council of Tayouan , a group made up of the various worthies in residence in Tayouan. The President of this council was the second-in-command to the Governor, and would take over his duties if the Governor died or was incapacitated.

There were a total of twelve Governors during the Dutch colonial era. A cash economy was introduced using the Spanish real , which was used by the VOC and the period also saw the first serious attempts in the island's history to develop it economically.

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The original intention of setting up Fort Zeelandia at Tayowan Anping in southern Formosa was to provide a base for trading with China and Japan, as well as interfering with Portuguese and Spanish trade in the region. Goods traded included silks from China and silver from Japan, among many other things. After establishing their fortress, the Dutch realised the potential of the vast herds of the native Formosan sika deer Cervus nippon taioanus roaming the western plains of the island. The tough deer skins were highly prized by the Japanese, who used them to make samurai armour.

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. Unfortunately the deer the aborigines had relied on for their livelihoods began to disappear, forcing the aborigines to adopt new means of survival. After Chinese people settled in Taiwan, they started to grow tea on less fertile hilsides where rice could not be cultivated.

Although sugar cane was a native crop of Taiwan, the indigenous people had never been able to make sugar granules from the raw sugar. Another one of Taiwan's major export items was sulfur collected from near Keelung and Tamsui. Taiwan, especially Taoyuan , became an important transshipment center for East Asian trade networks. The Dutch also employed Chinese to farm sugarcane and rice for export; some of this rice and sugar was exported as far as the markets of Persia.

The Dutch therefore imported labour from China, and the era was the first to see mass Chinese immigration to the island, with one commentator estimating that 50—60, Chinese settled in Taiwan during the 37 years of Dutch rule. After the Dutch took control over Taiwan, they immediately levied a tax on all the import and export duties. Another form of taxation was the poll tax which the Dutch levied on every person who was not Dutch and above six years of age. The Dutch imposed a tax on hunting as well. They sold a license to dig a pit-trap for 15 reals a month and a license for snaring was sold for one real.

By , the Dutch revenue from Taiwan was estimated at , gulden 3 stuiver and 12 penning, including the revenue of , from tradings. Prior to the arrival of the Dutch colonists, Taiwan was almost exclusively populated by Taiwanese aborigines ; Austronesian peoples who lived in a hunter-gatherer society while also practicing swidden agriculture. It is difficult to arrive at an estimate of the numbers of these native Formosans when the Dutch arrived, as there was no island-wide authority in a position to count the population, while the aborigines themselves did not keep written records.

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Even at the extent of greatest Dutch control in the s there were still large regions of the island outside the pale of Dutch authority, meaning that any statistics given necessarily relate only to the area of Dutch suzerainty. The population of Dutch Formosa was composed of three main groups; the aborigines, the Dutch contingent, and the Chinese. There were also a number of Spanish people resident in the north of the island between and in the area around Keelung and Tamsui.

The native Formosan peoples had been in Taiwan for thousands of years before the Dutch arrived. Estimates of the total numbers of aborigines in Taiwan are difficult to come by, but one commentator suggests that there were , over the entire island during the Dutch era. They lived in villages with populations ranging from a couple of hundred up to around 2, people for the biggest towns, with different groups speaking different Formosan languages which were not mutually intelligible. The Dutch contingent was initially composed mostly of soldiers, with some slaves and other workers from the other Dutch colonies, particularly the area around Batavia current day Jakarta.

The number of soldiers stationed on the island waxed and waned according to the military needs of the colony, from a low of troops in the early days to a high of 1, shortly before Koxinga's invasion. There were also a number of other personnel, from traders and merchants to missionaries and schoolteachers, plus the Dutch brought with them slaves from their other colonies, who mainly served as personal slaves for important Dutch people. Dutch women were kept as sexual partners by the Chinese after the Dutch were expelled from Taiwan in The Dutch missionary Antonius Hambroek , two of his daughters, and his wife were among the Dutch prisoners of war with Koxinga.

Koxinga sent Hambroek to Fort Zeelandia demanding that he persuade them to surrender or else Hambroek would be killed when he returned. Hambroek returned to the Fort, where two of his other daughters were. He urged the Fort not to surrender, assuring them that Koxinga's troops were growing hungry and rebellious, and returned to Koxinga's camp. He was then executed by decapitation. In addition to this, a rumor was spread among the Chinese that the Dutch were encouraging the native Taiwan aboriginals to kill Chinese, so Koxinga ordered the mass execution of Dutch male prisoners in retaliation.

A few women and children were also killed. The surviving Dutch women and children were then turned into slaves.

Koxinga took Hambroek's teenage daughter as a concubine; [50] [51] [52] [53] she was described by the Dutch commander Caeuw as "a very sweet and pleasing maiden". Happy was she that fell to the lot of an unmarried man, being thereby freed from vexations by the Chinese women, who are very jealous of their husbands. Some Dutch physical characteristics such as auburn and red hair among people in regions of south Taiwan are a consequence of this episode of Dutch women becoming concubines to the Chinese commanders.

In some were reported to be living in captivity. Dutch-language accounts record this incident of Chinese taking Dutch women as concubines and the date of Hambroek's daughter. When the Dutch arrived in Taiwan there was already a network of Han traders living on the island, buying merchandise particularly deer products from the native Formosans. This network has been estimated at some 1,—1, people, almost all male, most of whom were seasonal residents in Taiwan, returning to Fujian in the off-season.

Beginning in the s the Dutch began to encourage large-scale immigration of Han people to Formosa, providing not only transportation from Fujian, but also oxen and seed for the new immigrants to get started in agriculture. Estimates of the numbers of Han people in Taiwan at the end of the Dutch era vary widely, from 10—15, up to 50—60,, although the lower end of that scale seems more likely. The Dutch had Pampang and Quinamese Vietnamese slaves on their colony in Taiwan, and in offered rewards to aboriginal allies who would recapture the slaves for them when they ran away.

Before Dutch settlement in the seventeenth century, Taiwanese aborigines lived in numerous tribal systems uniquely autonomous of each other; with populations between a thousand and a hundred, a census conducted by Dutch colonizers in surmised that there were below 50, natives in the plains area. Despite temporary alliances, similar agricultural practices and few inter-marriages, there also exhibited distinct linguistic and internal structure differences of the tribes.

These differences coupled with the widespread practice of head-hunting caused Formosan groups to be suspicious and cautious of strangers. This interventionist process included the massacre of the indigenous people inhabiting Lamay Island in by Dutch forces led by Officer Francois Caron.

One of the key pillars of the Dutch colonial era was conversion of the natives to Christianity. From the descriptions of the early missionaries, the native religion was animist in nature, in one case presided over by priestesses called Inibs. The Formosans also practiced various activities which the Dutch perceived as sinful or at least uncivilised, including mandatory abortion by massage for women under 37, [84] frequent marital infidelity, [84] non-observation of the Christian Sabbath and general nakedness.

The Christian Bible was translated into native aboriginal languages and evangelised among the tribes. This marks the first recorded instance of Christianity entering into Taiwanese history, and preludes to the active Christian practices experienced in Taiwan in modern times.

The missionaries were also responsible for setting up schools in the villages under Dutch control, teaching not only the religion of the colonists but also other skills such as reading and writing. Prior to Dutch arrival the native inhabitants did not use writing, and the missionaries created a number of romanization schemes for the various Formosan languages.

This is the first record in history of a written language in Taiwan. Experiments were made with teaching native children the Dutch language , however these were abandoned fairly rapidly after they failed to produce good results. At least one Formosan received an education in the Netherlands; he eventually married a Dutch woman and was apparently well integrated into Dutch society.

The unique variety of trading resources in particular, deerskins, venison and sugarcane , as well as the untouched nature of Formosa led to an extremely lucrative market for VOC. A journal record written by the Dutch Governor Pieter Nuyts holds that "Taiwan was an excellent trading port, enabling per cent profits to be made on all goods".

Similarly, Dutch colonizers upheaved the traditional agricultural practices in favor of more modern systems. The native tribes in the field-regions were taught how to use Western systems of crop management that used more sustainable and efficient ecological technologies, albeit attributed mostly to the fact that due to the increased exploitation of the land, alternative means of management were needed to veer off the extinction of deer and sugar resources.

The Dutch introduced well-digging, [87] as well as bringing both oxen and cattle to the island. Taiwanese aborigines became an important part of maintaining a stable milieu and eliminating conflicts during the latter half of Dutch rule. Such was the case during that of the Guo Huaiyi Revolt in , where the conspirators were eventually bested and subdued by the Dutch through the sourcing of over a hundred native Taiwanese aborigines.

However, the Taiwanese Aboriginal tribes who were previously allied with the Dutch against the Chinese during the Guo Huaiyi Rebellion in turned against the Dutch during the later Siege of Fort Zeelandia and defected to Koxinga 's Chinese forces. Today their legacy in Taiwan is visible in the 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 Antonio [90] 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.

Similarly, much of the economic policies driven by the Dutch during the colonial period were subsequently used as a basis for the beginnings of Taiwan's modern international trade; the beginnings of Taiwan's mercantile history and contemporary economy can be attributed to the port systems that were facilitated during the Dutch Formosa period. However, perhaps the most lasting result of Dutch rule is the immigration of Chinese to the island. At the start of the Dutch era, there were estimated to be between 1,—1, Chinese in Taiwan, mostly traders living in aboriginal villages.

Because of these reasons, by the end of the colonial period, Taiwan had many Chinese villages holding tens of thousands of people in total, and the ethnic balance of the island was already well on the way to favouring the newly arrived Chinese over the aboriginal tribes.

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The locations of Dutch Formosa in magenta , Kingdom of Middag in orange and the Spanish Possessions in green on Taiwan, overlapping a map of the present-day island. Part of a series on the. Sino—Dutch conflicts and Dutch—Portuguese War. Lamey Island Massacre and Dutch pacification campaign on Formosa. Siege of Fort Zeelandia. Culture, Self and Adaptation: Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica. How Taiwan Became Chinese. An account of missionary success in the island of Formosa: Retrieved Dec 20, A rejoinder to A.

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Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde. Retrieved 30 May A History of Christianity in Asia: Volume 2 of A History of Christianity in Asia: Volume 2 2, illustrated, reprint ed. Retrieved 10 December A history of Christianity in Asia, Volume 2 2 ed. Across India and Pakistan to Formosa.

Twentieth century impressions of Netherlands India: Its history, people, commerce, industries and resources illustrated ed. Lloyd's Greater Britain Pub.

Siege of Fort Zeelandia

South China Morning Post. Archived from the original on Feb 26, A Century of Advance. University of Chicago Press. Pentecost of the Hills in Taiwan: Onze vaderen in China in Dutch. De Gids, Volume 81, Part 1 in Dutch. De Hollanders op Formosa,