Andre’s Reviews > How Taiwan Became Chinese: Dutch, Spanish, and Han Colonization in the Seventeenth Century > Status Update

That was a good ending for a book. The author made a good point about colonization in Asia relying so much on local help and the experience of the New World being an exception and not the rule.

Yep, He Tingbin was apparently quite influential here, mostly as a swindling middleman apparently. Makes me wonder whether he was also involved in the rumor of Koxinga's upcoming invasion of Taiwan.

that they mention this He Tingbin at the end of this chapter about the beginning of the end of dutch taiwan makes me suspect that the next chapter will feature him heavily.

So it was claimed that Chenggong was born on a beach during a rainsteam, heralded by a mysterious fire in the heavens, turned a monstrous sea turtle into an island, vanguished demons and made wells by striking his sword into the ground. And apparently the name Koxinga is derived from the Fujianese pronounciation of his title Guoxingye

a chinese rebellion, a strange star or light in the sky, a plague, a huge earthquake and now locusts, no wonder that those Dutch in May 1654 believed that it was God's wrath punishing them. Naturally penance did them no good.

Oh, so the aboriginals were so pro-Dutch because, while the Dutch made the policy, the actual exploitation of areas, hunting ground etc. was done by the Chinese colonists and the Dutch made a constant effort to impress the natives.

So the pachten system by the Dutch had so much influence it entered the Taiwanese language as the term pak and even stayed in use for a while after the Dutch left.

Oh, so even back then civil war in China caused people to come into a European colonial area.

So the company considered chinese as citizens and aboriginals as vassals. I would have assumed that the latter status would be the worse one, but looks like it protects aboriginal lands, the company cannot sell any of it to chinese colonists.

So this is Spanish Taiwan. That didn't last long. I guess if they had done similar things to the Dutch, maybe the history of Taiwan would have been different and there would have been more spanish buildings in the country now. However, they didn't manage to make it financially viable.