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The Rise and Fall of Dutch Taiwan, 1624–1662: Cooperative Colonization and the Statist Model of European Expansion*
TONIO ANDRADE
Emory University
| How did the states of Europe establish colonies throughout the world starting in the 1500s? It is one of the most important questions of global history, but our attempts to answer it keep coming up short. Two phenomena distort our explanations: the spectacular European conquests in the New World, whose societies were particularly vulnerable to the guns, germs, and steel of invading Europeans; and the imperialism of the nineteenth century and beyond, when industrialization opened a technological gap between Europeans and most other peoples of the world. To free themselves from these distorting influences, historians have begun paying more attention to colonialism in Asia during the early modern period (1500–1750). Here we have a sporting chance of identifying the key factors behind European expansion. |
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The best place to start is an important article by John Wills Jr., whose nuanced argument can be distilled to two hypotheses. First, colonialism in Asia evolved out of relationships between indigenous groups and the newly arrived European powers, in a process Wills calls the "interactive emergence of European dominance."1 Second, Europeans did have a decisive advantage over most Asians in the establishment of overseas colonies, but it was not any of the factors so often adduced (technology, military techniques, and economic organization). It was a political advantage: state support, or, as Wills puts it, "the organization, cohesion and staying power of [Europeans'] state and corporate organizations."2 European states were interested in sponsoring overseas colonialism whereas Asian states generally were not. |
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This article evaluates the Wills model by examining a highly instructive colony. In 1624, the Dutch founded a small outpost on Taiwan with the aim of trading Chinese silk for Japanese silver, as their Portuguese rivals did in Macao, but they soon realized that Taiwan could become a thriving land colony, producing hides, venison, rice, and sugar.3 The problem was labor. Taiwan was inhabited by Austronesian headhunters who were not interested in raising crops for sale— most planted only enough for themselves and their families. To bring settlers from Europe was too costly.4 Yet across the Taiwan Strait lived millions of "poor hard-working Chinese." Dutch officials, working closely with Chinese entrepreneurs, placed signs in coastal cities in China: come to Taiwan, and the Dutch East India Company will provide land, four years of freedom from taxes, and guaranteed payments for rice and sugar. Over the next decade thousands of pioneers crossed to Taiwan, eager to exploit a new frontier. By 1645, as many as fifteen thousand Fujianese immigrants lived in southwestern Taiwan. |
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Taiwan was in essence a Chinese colony under Dutch rule, and, as such, supports the first of Wills's two hypotheses: it is an unambiguous example of "interactive emergence." The Dutch colony would not have flourished without farmers, artisans, laborers, and entrepreneurs from China, people who invested the blood, sweat, and money necessary to found a commercial agricultural colony. Thanks to Dutch protection and encouragement, these migrants prospered, and so did the Dutch East India Company. As one Dutch official put it, "The Chinese are the only bees on Formosa that give honey."5 |
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