Formosa

With a certain degree of foresight, the VOC had had a fortress, called Fort Zeelandia, built on the Bay of Tayouan as early as 1623.

Fort Zeelandia (click for a larger view)

The colony was headed by a governor and an island council. The Dutch were faced with a number of situations that required careful consideration. Although the island had only a few Chinese and Japanese inhabitants, there was still a fully manned Spanish fort on the north side of the island, where gold had been found. In addition, the local population was strongly divided. No less than 18 languages, most of Austronesian origin, were spoken on the island. The local peoples were related more closely to those of the Philippines than those of China. The different villages fought among each other in constantly changing alliances. This also involved punitive expeditions in which few prisoners were taken. At the beginning, the VOC formed alliances with the villages of Sinkan and Soulang.

Zeelandia and the surrounding territories, 17th century (click for a larger view)

Zeelandia and the surrounding territories

A village chief and a village council were appointed in the villages under VOC rule, and VOC employees who lived in the villages were assigned administrative and judicial or political duties. This group also included ministers, schoolteachers and people in other professional positions. Officials appointed especially for these administrative positions were known as the de politiek or ‘the politics’ of the villages in question. Perhaps we could see them as the predecessors of the later figure of the resident?
            Opponents of the VOC came from villages including Mattau and Baccluan. In 1629, Governor Nuijts heard that Chinese pirates were hiding in Mattau. The 63 soldiers Nuijts sent to investigate the matter did not find any pirates, but subsequently they did fall into the Mattauwers’ trap, and all but two members of the exhibition were wiped out.
            On the orders of J.P. Coen himself, the newly appointed Governor Putmans kept a journal for the whole colony. Putmans regarded the VOC as the owner of the whole island, and was therefore keen to involve the rest of Formosa in the Company’s trade too. Initially, this proved quite a challenge. In 1629, Mattauwers and Soulangers destroyed the Company’s buildings and farms. They also drove away the inhabitants of the village of Provintia. This was followed by a punitive expedition in November, during which the village of Baccluan, one of Mattau’s allies, was raided and destroyed. In 1633, attempts were made to persuade a Mattau chief to lead an expedition against the inhabitants of Lamey Island. The island’s inhabitants had recently slaughtered the crew of the ship the Golden Lion (Gouden Leeuw) when it wrecked on the island. The chief refused and instead went to other villages to turn them against the VOC. The following year, war broke out between Soulang and Sinkan on the one hand and Mattau on the other. Fearing that the VOC would side with the Sinkanese, the Mattauwers made a pact with Sinkan. The small Soulang-Sinkan army then advanced to Taccariang, a village in the south of Formosa, with which they had a score to settle. The alliance was aided by the VOC soldiers. In accordance with tradition, the Sinkanese and the Soulangers took back the heads of five of the fighters killed.
            In 1634, when the matter of the Chinese pirates had been settled and trade relations with Japan had improved, the government of Batavia decided to send reinforcements to Formosa. In November 1635, a force of 500 soldiers reinforced with fighters from Sinkan defeated a small army from Mattau, thereby revenging the bloodbath of 1629. One month later, a new expedition was required against the defiant Taccariang. After this, the soldiers searched the villages of Soulang, where they captured participants in the 1629 massacre, and Tevorang, where the enemy thought it was safe. This led to Mattau and a number of other villages making peace. Reports of the VOC’s military power spread across the island like wildfire  and other more faraway villages now also sought to make peace with the VOC. Even the village of Pansoia, located 100 km from Zeelandia, made a pact with the Company. From the spring of 1636, this resulted in a period of relative calm around Fort Zeelandia (the so-called Pax Hollandica). The Dutch called their new territory the United Villages (Verenigde Dorpen), which was an allusion to the United Netherlands (Verenigde Nederlanden). In 1636, the VOC decided to hold a landdag or grand convention to seal the alliance with all the villages and to emphasise the power and largesse of the VOC.

Grand convention on Formosa, 17th century (click for a larger view)

The governor presented the representatives of the 28 villages from central and southern Formosa with a robe, a prinsenvlag or ‘prince’s flag’ (in the colours orange, white and blue) and a staff, as symbols of their status (see illustration). In the Republic such grand conventions and assemblies (dagvaarten) had led to the formation of the Statencolleges or state assemblies. Could such a form of indirect democracy eventually have developed on Formosa?
            This also paved the way for the further economic development of the island. That same year, Governor Putmans began to lease farmland to Chinese farmers. Because these people were limited to a three-year stay by the Chinese government, they were not able to settle permanently. The new inhabitants were mainly involved in hunting, fishing and cultivating rice and sugar.

Cane-sugar

When, in time, the farmers returned to the mainland with their capital, the VOC instituted a capitation tax (hoofdgeld). This concerned levying taxes on hunting and fishing and tithes on all crops with the exception of sugar. Eventually, these taxes made up 40% of the island’s income. Trade on the mainland accounted for the other 60%. The VOC traded pepper, spices and silver for silk, porcelain and gold. The gold, in turn, was spent in India.
            In addition to the aforementioned agricultural products, a great deal of hunting of local game took place. When the VOC arrived, thousands of Sika deer (Cervus nippon) were soon found to inhabit the island.

Sika deer (Servus Nippon)

Although the deer were an important source of food for the local population, the villagers were also willing to hunt for the Dutch. There was a high demand for the tough deer hides in Japan, where it was used in the traditional samurai armour, while the meat was exported to China (see illustration).
            In 1641 and 1642, the VOC again expanded its territory, so that it eventually controlled the whole western coastal plain of Formosa. There was still a Spanish garrison of 450 men at Fort Kelang on the north coast where gold had been discovered. Following the siege of the fort, the soldiers were driven away, after which the VOC controlled the entire coast of Formosa in all directions, although the Dutch presence on the eastern side of the island was limited to a few individual posts. Most probably a live-and-let-live policy was pursued with regard to the mountain inhabitants.

Dutch map of  the island of Formosa, 17th century (click for a larger view)

By 1650, Formosa had become a flourishing and profitable colony.  The island was now home to around 25,000 Chinese, and the VOC population had also grown considerably. Whereas the VOC had a primarily military presence at first, in time others came to settle in the town as well. There was even a small community of citizens who were not affiliated with the VOC, known as the vrijburgers or free citizens.
            The following were directly connected to the VOC: The governor, the fiscal (fiscaal), all military personnel from captain to soldier, the provost-marshal  (provoost-geweldige), the schoolteachers (schoolmeesters), the chirurgeons (chirurgijns)  -- divided into ordinary, chief and under-chirurgeons (gewone, opper- en onderchirurgijns) -- , sailors (matrozen), midshipmen (adelborsten), helmsmen (stuurlieden), boatswains (schiemannen / bootsmannen), the stable master (stalmeester), the saddler (zadelmaker), the armoury servant (knecht van de wapenkamer), the gunsmith (roermaker / geweermaker), the Company masonry overseer (oppasser over ‘s compagnies metselwerken), the garrison clerk (garnizoensschrijver), the gardener (hovenier), various interpreters (tolken), the pilot (loods) on the Tayovan channel and, last but not least, the senior merchant (opperkoopman), the ordinary merchants (gewone koopmannen) and the under-merchants (onderkoopmannen), the first assistant (eerste assistant) and the ordinary assistants (gewone assistenten). The politijcque opperhoofden or ‘political chiefs’ held a special position. These were people who represented the VOC in one or more villages with regard to administrative and legal matters. The sources mention ‘the politics’ in the Sinkan district and the provisional political chief ‘for the south of Formosa’ (‘om de zuijd van Formosa’).
            We have already seen that the island was governed by the governor and an island council. Linked to these is of course the office of secretary of the highest government of the island.
The city of Zeelandia also had local officials. The judicial system was in the hands of the bailiff (baljuw) -- an office that seems to have been combined with that of fiscal -- and aldermen (schepenen), assisted by ‘the secretary of the Board of Justice (Raed van Justitie)’, a deputy (substituut) (of the bailiff?), an executioner (scherprechter) and a court usher (gerechtsbode). The city itself also had a town messenger (stadbode) and a market guard (‘basaerwachter’ / marktwachter). Finally, a number of other trades are mentioned in the records, which cannot always be clearly linked to the VOC, such as that of smith (smid), smith’s labourer (smidsknecht), carpenter (timmerman), locksmith (slotenmaker), cooper (kuiper) and bookbinder (boekbinder). Spiritual care was provided by ministers (dominees), ordinands (proponenten), visitors of the sick (ziekenbezoekers) and readers (voorlezers). It is striking that Provintia was sometimes also referred to as a city.
            With things going so well for the colony, it seems incomprehensible that the government thought it necessary to double the capitation tax in 1651. This led to a peasants’ revolt in September of that year, during which the Dutch village of Provintia was destroyed. That same month, with the aid of 2000 indigenous allies, order was restored through heavy-handed tactics, leaving some 4000 farmers dead. In order to be able to better supervise the farmers in the future, the small Fort Provintia was built near the village of Saccam.
            Everything seemed to be running smoothly after this; however dark clouds had started gathering over mainland China, where the Manchu invaders had defeated the army of the Ming Emperor. But between 1646 and 1659, the whole southern coast of China was still under the authority of a Ming dynasty loyalist. His name was Zheng Chenggong, but he was allowed to bear the imperial surname due to his loyalty. The local pronunciation of this title was Koksengya, which the Dutch soon corrupted to Koxinga. Koxinga was a powerful warlord with tens of thousands of soldiers and hundreds of ships at his disposal. Throughout the whole period, there was a great threat of attack by this rebel army, extending all the way to Formosa.
            After the 1652 revolt, epidemics raged in 1653, and a plague of locusts destroyed the crops in 1654. A year later, Koxinga imposed a trade embargo between the mainland and Formosa. Although Governor Coyet managed to have the embargo lifted two years later, all of the issues mentioned above and the decreasing supply of silk due to the civil war on the mainland caused Formosa to lose its key position in the sea trade with China. In the years that followed, the number of refugees from the mainland increased to more than 25,000. Koxinga’s position became increasingly difficult, and rumours soon spread that he was planning to conquer Formosa as a port of refuge. The governor prepared for possible war as well as he could, banning shipping to the mainland and sending a ship to Batavia for help on 12 May 1660. The fleet sent by Batavia arrived too early, making it seem like the governor had overreacted. After the fleet had departed, word reached Batavia on 23 June 1661 that Koxinga had landed on Formosa after all, with vastly superior numbers. Koxinga’s forces had landed on 30 April 1661 and the island was overrun without much resistance. The small Fort Provintia surrendered on 4 May 1661, leaving Zeelandia as the VOC’s last bastion on the island. The Chinese city on the Tayouan sandbar also had to be evacuated later that month. The governor held on nevertheless, but after the fall of the Redoute Utrecht he felt he had no choice but to start negotiations.  On 1 February 1662, after a siege lasting almost 10 months, the governor finally surrendered. The VOC officials were allowed to withdraw unhindered. They were even allowed to take their archives with them, but they had to leave everything else behind.
            Although the Dutch only ruled Formosa for a relatively short time, many changes took place during that period. Cities, polders, waterworks, bridges and roads were constructed, and agriculture was introduced as a source of income. A semi-successful literacy campaign was also implemented.

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