Chapter 7

The Challenges of a Chinese Frontier

Thomas Pedel was looking for pirates. It was 1640, and he was deep in the wilds of central Taiwan, an area not yet fully controlled by his employer, the Dutch East India Company. He found no pirates, but he did meet another company employee, who said he was searching for an arsonist named Captain Favorolang. Having failed with the pirates, Pedel decided to help. Together the two men captured Captain Favorolang, but on their way back toward headquarters, they ran into trouble. Across their path lay their captive's hometown: Favorolang, one of the largest and most powerful aboriginal villages in Taiwan. As they approached, a mob formed and demanded that Captain Favorolang be released. Pedel and his companion were forced to flee, "not without great peril," and leave their quarry behind.1

When they made their report to the Dutch governor, he got angry, feeling that his employees had acted rashly and without orders. He sat down and wrote a message to Favorolang's elders. He apologized for his men's actions but wrote that, had Captain Favorolong indeed committed the offense for which he was sought, he should be handed over to be punished. Messengers rushed to Favorolang, but in vain. As a Dutch official wrote, "One half of the village had gathered together and begun making a ruckus, so that our men finally . . . had to leave, since which time [the people of Favorolang] have done much harm to the Chinese."2

What are we to make of the last few words of this curious report? Why should this bungled attempt to catch an aboriginal arsonist have incited violence against Chinese? The question will take us deep into the deer industry, one of the most lucrative enterprises in colonial Taiwan. In 1636, after its military victory over Mattau, the company began issuing passes allowing Chinese hunters to hunt in the lands north of the Bay of Tayouan. People from the village of Favorolang harassed and killed scores of these hunters, despite repeated promises to cease such actions and in the face of company threats and admonitions. At first, company officials responded by enacting policies designed to protect Chinese from aborigines, hoping thereby to make it safe for them to pass through and profit from Favorolang's lands. As time passed, however, the Dutch learned that the villagers' resistance was not simply a case of aborigines versus Chinese. Deer-rich Favorolang turned out to be the focus of a group of Chinese smugglers, who were doing their best to keep rivals off their turf. Company officials changed their tack and began struggling to control Chinese influence among the aborigines. By the time Favorolang was finally subjugated, the company's policies vis-à-vis the deer economy and the Chinese who partook of it had changed completely.

Deer Hunting

In the early seventeenth century, Taiwan sika deer (Cervus nippon taiouanus) ran in huge herds through western Taiwan, "sometimes two or three thousand in a flock together."3 Although they were not the only deer species on Taiwan, they were the most numerous and the most important for the ecology and economy of the island's western plains.4 Long before the Dutch had arrived, venison and deerskins were traded among aborigines, Chinese, and Japanese. The producers of the skins were, so far as we can tell, aboriginal hunters. There may have been Chinese hunters, such as the pirate Yan Siqi, who is said to have died of a fever after hunting (打圍), but they were likely few, for aboriginal villages jealously guarded their hunting fields.5 The aborigines exchanged venison and hides for salt, iron, and clothing brought by Chinese traders, many of whom sojourned in aboriginal villages. These traders in turn sold their purchases to larger-scale traders, who were affiliated with yet larger networks.6 The buying and selling took place in coastal areas, such as the Gierim area, the Wankan River, and the Bay of Tayouan, that had easy access to the interior.7 Here deerskins were loaded onto Chinese or Japanese junks and taken to Japan, where they were made into valuable items of clothing, such as ceremonial armor. Most other deer products were taken in smaller junks to China, where they were eaten or used in medicines.

The first decade after its arrival, the Dutch East India Company was powerless to monopolize the trade in deerskins. It tried to control aboriginal sources of distribution, for example building a house in the village of Sinkan "in order to obtain . . . goodly amounts of deerskins."8 But its authority was weaker beyond the Bay of Tayouan, so it could not hope to dominate the Sino-aboriginal trade. Dutch officials tried instead to control the export of deerskins from Taiwan by regulating the trade of their main competitors, the Japanese and the "Japanese-Chinese"—that is, those Chinese who lived in Japan. Although they early forbade Japanese-Chinese from trading in deerskins, they were afraid to do likewise to the Japanese because the company depended on its trade privileges in Japan. Yet due to the low cost of silver and the high price of deerskins in Japan, the arrival of Japanese merchants sometimes drove Taiwanese deerskin prices up 15 to 30 percent.9

The temptation to monopolize the deerskin trade proved too great, and the Dutch tried to limit the Japanese deerskin trade. As we have seen, their actions caused the company to lose its trading privileges in Japan from 1628 to 1633. During those years, deerskins were of little importance to the company. When trade resumed in 1633, deerskin prices once again increased dramatically. Dutch officials tried reaching agreements with Chinese suppliers, hoping to bring prices down through large contracts. But the policy failed because the suppliers themselves could do little against the Japanese demand, complaining to the Council of Formosa that prices had risen so high that they would lose money if they supplied the skins at the agreed-on price. The Council had no choice but to acquiesce to a higher price.10 In another effort to apply downward pressure on prices, the Dutch negotiated with the heads of the junks from Japan, persuading them not to buy deerskins without company licenses. In 1634, however, the governor complained that the Japanese were not keeping to their agreement, and prices were rising again.11 The Council of Formosa therefore resolved to confiscate all deerskins they could find and to inspect sampans—small boats used mostly for coastal and riverine travel—coming to the Bay of Tayouan.12

In October 1634, the Council of Formosa took more drastic measures, resolving that "Chinese may sell deerskins to no one but the company." An added clause stated that if a Japanese junk arrived bearing the emperor's red seal, Dutch officials would look the other way while it obtained deerskins but that the Chinese who provided them would later be punished, "as the case shall merit [naar exigentie van saacken]."13 The following spring, the Council of Formosa decided to banish "the Chinese who have most hurt the company by . . . selling deerskins to the Japanese." At the same time, it strengthened its previous resolution by declaring that "no one shall sell, trade, or otherwise convey deerskins to any foreign nation or take deerskins from here to any other place, but that everyone shall be required to deliver all deerskins to the company."14 Such draconian measures would not have helped but for two other events. First, in 1635 the shogun forbade his subjects to trade abroad. The absence of junks sailing with the emperor's seal removed Japanese competitors at a stroke. Second, and equally important, the company defeated Mattau and extended the pax hollandica to large parts of southwestern Taiwan. Control over Taiwan's hinterlands allowed the company to monopolize local sources of supply and, more importantly, to derive income directly from a growing class of hunters: the Chinese. Beginning in 1636, Chinese hunters entered previously native-controlled fields. Equipped with company licenses, they introduced large-scale commercial hunting to Formosa, using pitfalls and snares.15 In order to profit from Taiwan's natural resources, the company had thus begun to remove the aborigines from the deerskin economy. Company profits went up. Deer populations plummeted. Aboriginal villages got poorer.16

Although the company gained more control over the production of deerskins, it did not relax its attempts to monopolize their export. Owing to the great value of deerskins, it is no surprise that Chinese traders, and perhaps hunters as well, tried to avoid delivering skins to the company. Much of this smuggling activity occurred to the north of the Bay of Tayouan, in the areas near Favorolang. When Governor Putmans stepped down as governor of Formosa in 1636, he left a letter of advice for his successor, Johan van der Burch (r. 1636–40), writing, "Each year in January and February, you should send one or two junks to the north to patrol for Chinese junks, which yearly go there to buy deerskins and venison without our licenses, in order to prevent them from doing so and bring all who are found without passes to Tayouan for warning and punishment."17 Scholars have argued that such smuggling was so difficult to prevent that in 1637 the Council of Formosa resolved to abrogate measures calling for all deerskins to be sold to the company and imposed instead a toll of 10 percent on all deerskins and venison exported from Taiwan.18 This appears, however, not to have been the case. The resolution of 1637 concerned venison and only certain animal skins, including those of mountain goats and two types of deerskin (elandtshuijden and reekensvellen).19 It did not concern the most important type of deerskin, that of the sika deer, for subsequent documents indicate that the measures requiring Chinese traders to deliver all of their deerskins to the company remained in effect until around 1641.20 In 1639, for example, van der Burch, considering ways to make money from the Chinese, wrote, "However, concerning the deerskins, we collect nothing [i.e., no tolls or company's dues], and they acquire them at very little cost from the natives under the stipulation that they deliver them to the company, and may not export them under pain of great penalties."21 Thus, the company's attempt to monopolize deerskin exports remained in effect until 1641, and each year Dutch junks were sent to deerskin-producing areas to gather skins from Chinese traders.

Smuggling continued, leading the Dutch to respond with new measures. In 1638, for example, the Council of Formosa resolved to require that all junks engaged in the venison trade, which sometimes tried to export deerskins illegally, call at the Bay of Tayouan or at the company's new redoubt at Wankan to receive licenses. After collecting their venison they were required to call again to have it weighed, the company's dues collected, and a seal affixed.22 Company officials found, however, that even though junks could usually be counted on to call at Tayouan or Wankan when they first arrived from China, they frequently failed to return to declare their purchases and pay company dues.23 Some smuggled deerskins as well as venison.

While it was difficult to prevent individual traders from purchasing and smuggling deer products on the coasts, it proved far easier to encourage a new class of deerskin producers over whom the company had greater control. Traditional Chinese deerskin traders bought their skins from aborigines. A new class of commercial hunters, who flourished under Dutch protection, produced far more deer products far more quickly than aborigines could, and, by removing the aboriginal step in deerskin production, brought more profits to themselves and the Dutch. The mechanism by which the company replaced aboriginal hunters with Chinese commercial hunters was the hunting-license system. It is not clear when exactly it went into effect. Documents from the years 1623 through 1635 contain few references to Chinese hunters. A document from 1636, however, refers to an arrangement in the village of Sinkan whereby funds for missionary work were drawn partly from "Chinese who hunt deer with traps and other means."24 These hunters were probably provided licenses. In any case, by the late 1630s a hunting-license system was firmly established, and traditional hunters and traders were finding it difficult to compete. The new commercial hunters, who had the Dutch as partners and protectors, invaded aboriginal hunting grounds and killed deer more quickly than was possible by traditional methods.

Traditional hunting was conducted with spears, bows and arrows, nets, and snares. It was effective but labor-intensive. In the years after 1636, Chinese hunters, carrying Dutch passes, introduced the use of the pitfall, a more deadly technique. Its effectiveness was reflected in the prices hunters paid for permission to use it. Whereas a one-month license to use a snare cost 1 Spanish real, a one-month license to use a pitfall cost 15 reals. The new method changed hunting in Taiwan. For example, some 100,000 deerskins were exported from Taiwan in 1634.25 During the year 1637, the first year we can say for certain that pitfalls were used, 151,400 deerskins were exported, an increase of 50 percent over the 1634 figure.26 Pitfalls were probably responsible for most of this increase.27

In any case, the traditional ecology and economy of deer hunting was altered by Sino-Dutch cooperation. Indeed, so effective was the new system that company officials found it necessary to begin passing laws to limit hunting. In 1638, for example, the Council of Formosa discussed the problem: "The Chinese with their pitfalls . . . hunt without regard to the fact that . . . in the months of May and June the does have young, such that, if they continue to be caught and killed [at this rate], in the future the [deer] population will decrease considerably, which will hurt the company."28 The Council therefore instituted a hunting season, forbidding the Chinese to hunt after the end of April. In 1639 company officials grew even more alarmed about the decrease in deer populations and called for a stop to the use of pitfalls before the season ended.29 Then they sat down to consider how best to preserve deer populations while continuing to profit from Chinese hunting. First, they decided to begin and end the hunting season earlier. Because "the does are with young in the months April and May," they decided that the hunting season would last from the beginning of October to the end of March.30 Second, and more importantly, they decided to prohibit entirely the use of pitfalls. This was not only because of their devastating efficiency—a pitfall could catch 450 to 600 deer whereas a snare could catch only one at a time—but also because pitfalls produced bloodstained skins because the deer, once trapped, had to be bludgeoned to death.31 Bloody skins were worth only half as much as those produced by snares.32 Therefore, forbidding the use of pitfalls would hurt the company little, since "100,000 snare-skins . . . bring as much in Japan as 200,000 pitfall-skins."33 Company officials decided to try to export around 70,000 deerhides per year, which they judged to be a sustainable number.34 Chinese hunters objected to the new rules and in 1640 asked repeatedly for licenses to use pitfalls, but the company steadfastly refused.35 Indeed, missionary Robertus Junius believed that there should be no permits at all that year, "because in almost all of the hunting fields the deer have been greatly depleted, owing to the constant hunting."36 Junius's advice was heeded for the 1641–42 season, in which snares and pitfalls both were forbidden altogether, a measure that appears to have led to a slight recovery in deer populations.37 Although aborigines continued hunting, contributing the majority of deerskin production, Chinese hunters licensed by the Dutch became more and more numerous in the mid to late 1630s, even after the company imposed hunting restrictions.38 Since they hunted on aboriginal lands the Dutch had recently opened up, they came into conflict with groups—both Chinese and aboriginal—that still made their livelihood from traditional methods of hunting. The most important locus of this conflict was in the lands around the powerful village of Favorolang and its allies.

Violence Against Chinese

Favorolang was located some eighty kilometers northeast of the Bay of Tayouan. It was the largest and most powerful aboriginal village in the region to the north of Mattau, and its inhabitants had a reputation as fierce fighters. The village was important economically because some of Taiwan's richest hunting grounds lay in its environs. It was important strategically because it provided access to Gierim, one of the primary centers for Sino-aboriginal trade and a favorite haunt of pirates and smugglers.39 In early 1636, shortly after the company's war of expansion, delegates from Favorolang sought peace with the company, but no formal accord was concluded.40 But even though there was no formal transfer of Favorolang's lands to the United Provinces of the Netherlands, the governor and the Council of Formosa appear to have authorized missionary Junius to issue passes to Chinese hunters to hunt near the village. In June 1636, Favorolangers killed three Chinese who were fishing south of Favorolang and severely wounded several others, cutting off their victims' hair as a sign of victory.41 These were the first "arrogant actions" noted about Favorolang in Dutch records, and they were rapidly followed by others.42 Throughout the summer of 1636, Favorolangers harassed Chinese hunters and fishers. Finally, in late August the head of the Chinese in Favorolang (overste der Chinesen in Vovorolang woenachtich) told the governor that a large band of Favorolangers had appeared at Wankan, some twenty-five kilometers north of Fort Zeelandia, and were threatening the company's defenses there.

This was a direct challenge to company authority. The governor demanded that the villagers cease their attacks, saying he was ready to use force if they did not. The villagers' response was divided. One man, called "Captain Favorolang," said he was displeased with his neighbors' actions. If Dutch soldiers came, he said, he would disappear into the bush with four hundred of his followers, "as a sign that he was willing to live in peace and not war."43 He would put a Chinese sign on his houses so that the company could recognize and spare them. Thereafter he would return and make peace.44 This Captain Favorolang was perhaps Chinese, for he proposed to identify his houses with a Chinese sign. Indeed, it is possible that he and the "head of the Chinese in Favorolang" whose warning had precipitated the governor's ultimatum were the same person. In any case, officials in Taiwan felt that a military response was necessary. They were opposed, however by their superiors in Batavia, who believed that burning the village would force its inhabitants to flee, and they would "infest the bush and become a hindrance to hunting."45 They ordered Taiwanese officials to use diplomacy. But despite parleys and promises, the violence continued. In November, Favorolangers captured a Chinese fishing junk, killing one Chinese and injuring eleven others. The violence nearly always involved tearing or stealing company licenses: "The missionary Robertus Junius has reported that the Favorolangers are acting up again, having attacked several Chinese who were hunting with our license-killing one, and taking prisoner six others, and beating others and taking away their hunting licenses."46

The Council of Formosa began gathering information about Favorolang from aborigines and Chinese sojourners in order to plan a military expedition.47 A reconnaissance team reported that, although the village was difficult to reach by water, an expedition would be feasible provided the company had the assistance of other aboriginal villages. When Favorolangers heard about the company's preparations, they sent two Chinese to Zeelandia to tell the governor that they were ready to enter into a lasting peace.48 Because of the severity of the villagers' defiance and because they appeared systematically to be destroying and stealing the company's hunting and fishing licenses, the Council of Formosa felt that diplomacy would likely bear little fruit. Council members decided to allow matters "to take their course" until they received more troops from Batavia.49 Shortly thereafter, a new employee, Johannes van den Eynde, whose duties made him a frequent visitor of territories in which the Favorolangers were active, reported that, "even though they want to enter into peace with us . . . , [they] have once again begun showing hostility to our Chinese, who have been fishing, making mortar, and otherwise pursuing their business near the Limestone-island."50 Favorolangers continued to attack Chinese hunters and fishers through the summer and autumn of 1637.

On October 25, 1637, the governor of Formosa and three hundred company soldiers set out for Favorolang. In sixty-eight boats they sailed north along the coast and then northeast up a small river.51 There they met missionary Robertus Junius, who had been charged with gathering a force of aboriginal allies.52 The villagers were eager for a headhunting expedition, and the villages Mattau and Baccluan had been skirmishing with Favorolang for years.53 Company officials encouraged their enmity. When in 1637 officials in Batavia learned that inhabitants from Mattau had killed and beheaded three Favorolangers, they told the governor of Formosa to encourage the Mattauwers to continue such attacks, in order to increase the bitterness between them and thereby gain devoted allies for a military action.54 Perhaps the incitements were successful, for Junius managed to gather a force of 1,400 aboriginal warriors. After he led a prayer for victory, the combined forces set off overland toward Favorolang. The Favorolangers fought fiercely. Governor van der Burch describes how they captured one of the company's aboriginal allies: "In their fury they pulled his legs one from the other and bit them to quench their bloodthirsty hearts."55 Yet they could do little against company's musketeers. Company forces marched through the village's bamboo defenses and burned 2,200 houses and sheds "full of rice [padie] and barley."56 The company's aboriginal allies obtained twenty-two Favorolang heads. The expedition was a success.

The Dutch, wrote company scribes, had triumphed over a mighty nation (natie): "The Favorolangers are a head taller than the natives under company authority. They are considered the best soldiers and are feared by our subjects. We believe that if these Favorolangers had faced only our [aboriginal] inhabitants, they would won, even though our [subjects] were just as numerous as the Favorolangers."57 The Favorolangers themselves appear to have been devastated by their defeat. A native of Sinkan, a village allied to the company, limped into the company's camp the night after the battle and told a gripping story. During the fighting he had been hit by a Favorolang arrow. He crept to safety, too wounded to follow the Dutch and their allies out of Favorolang. Alone in enemy territory, he struggled to pull the arrow out of his leg, but just as he succeeded, the Favorolangers returned to their burned and pillaged village. He quickly threw away his shield and spear ("since the Favorolangers use no weapons other than a bow and arrow") and put on some Favorolang clothes ("which he had obtained as booty in the plundering"). Thus disguised, he walked, unnoticed, through the village. The Favorolangers were devastated. He heard "men, women, and children, who saw their houses, fields, and the like . . . reduced to ashes, wailing and crying miserably."58 He managed to reach the edge of the village and escape. Company documents report his story with relish: It was clear that the enemy village of Favorolang had suffered greatly. The escapee had his wound bound and was taken to his people.

The governor and the Council of Formosa portrayed the defeat of Favorolang as a victory not just for the company but also for Chinese enterprise. When the triumphant forces returned to Fort Zeelandia, they were welcomed by cannonades and musket salvoes "as a sign that they have achieved victory for the Chinese. 59 The governor and his Council were quite explicit on this count:

This expedition stands to result [redonderen] not only in profits for the company . . . but also, it appears, has already obtained a door and entrance, so that the Chinese here and further those under our authority [living] along the fields of Mattau, as well as those of Favorolang, may pursue the deer hunt without fear.60

Given that the benefits would accrue to the Chinese and that therefore "the company should not have to be responsible for [the expenditures]," a general collection was made among the Chinese colonists to defray the expedition's costs.61 The company saw itself now as a protector of the Chinese. Indeed, when a Chinese man with an injured leg complained that he had been bitten during the expedition by one of the governor's hunting dogs, company scribes found the event important enough to note down in the Zeelandia journal. It is not known whether the man was granted the "small gratitude" he requested.62

Not long after the victory celebration, five Chinese men came before the governor and said they had been sent from Favorolang to talk peace. The governor refused to negotiate with them, demanding that Favorolang's aboriginal elders themselves come, bringing trees planted in their native soil as a sign that they were willing to hand their lands over to the United Provinces of the Netherlands. Three days later, Favorolang elders arrived in Zeelandia and signed a treaty with the governor. Its conditions were identical to those of the treaties with the company's other aboriginal subjects, containing a clause requiring them not to harass Chinese who carried company passes. The governor was pleased, writing that the treaty would help the Dutch "obtain more deerskins than we have hitherto been able to do."63

The peace fell apart. Company officials were surprised because the last time they launched such a large expedition, in the winter of 1635–36, its results had been spectacular: Not only the target villages but also their neighbors asked for peace with the company. And the peace had held, ushering in a pax hollandica. In contrast, people from Favorolang continued their "hostile actions." Baffled,company officials sent ensign (vendrich) Thomas Pedel to Favorolang to fetch a few village elders for questioning. Pedel returned to Zeelandia empty-handed, but he did uncover a clue about Favorolangers' recalcitrance. The elders, he reported, were frightened to come to Zeelandia because a Chinese man who lived in Favorolang had told them the Dutch would murder them. More important, Pedel reported:

Ten of the principal Chinese residing in Favorolang had put up signs in Favorolang . . . which expressly forbade the villagers to allow Chinese with Dutch licenses to hunt in Favorolang fields, saying further that [such Chinese] should rather be attacked and captured, and promising that if the Dutch sought revenge for these actions they [the Chinese in Favorolang] would assist them [against the Dutch].64 Pedel brought one of the signs back and showed it to Dutch officials, who record that it "forbade any Tayouanese Chinese [tayouanse chinesen] to hunt in the Favorolang fields."65 The sign reveals that the Chinese of Favorolang distinguished themselves from the Chinese who cooperated with the Dutch—that is to say, from the tayouanse chinesen.

Pedel was sent back to Favorolang with a small detachment of soldiers. This time he succeeded in bringing some Favorolang elders back to Zeelandia. The company treated them well and excused them for not coming when called, "the blame for their failure to come being placed on the Chinese."66

Shortly thereafter, the Council of Formosa adopted a policy it felt would help solve the problem: It divided Favorolang's hunting fields into two parts. Two thirds of the fields would be reserved for the "Dutch Chinese," and one third for people from Favorolang.67 It also warned the "Favorolang Chinese" (vavorolangh chinesen) that if they did not refrain from violence they would face armed punishment.68 These resolutions marked a significant shift in company discourse: Dutch officials now made a distinction between "our Chinese," or "Dutch Chinese" (niederlandschen chinesen), and the "Favorolang Chinese" (vavorolangh chinesen). Their aim was no longer to protect "the Chinese" against "the Favorolangers" but to protect certain Chinese against aborigines incited by other Chinese.

The division of hunting grounds failed to resolve the violence. Indeed, it may have exacerbated it. All Chinese hunters to whom the company provided licenses to hunt in Favorolang during the months of October and November 1638 were chased away.69 Indeed, Favorolangers even began chasing hunters out of fields belonging to other villages.70 The most violent incident occurred in November 1638, when Favorolangers killed three hunters, wounded seven others, and "chased all the other Chinese hunters away . . . even though we had given them permission to hunt."71 Were these Chinese hunting in the fields allotted to them? Had they crossed into fields reserved for the Favorolangers and the "Favorolang Chinese"? We do not know, for the company spent no time trying to find out. The governor immediately set out with 210 Dutch soldiers "to exact a fitting revenge and attack this evil-hearted nation if they should refuse to hand over those who have killed and injured the Chinese."72 This second expedition was different from the first. The governor relied more on dialogue and diplomacy than on brute force. After reaching the rendezvous with his aboriginal allies, he sent word to the elders of Favorolang that he "had come with a powerful army, combined with a great number of natives [inhabitanten] in order to punish . . . those malevolent and evil-hearted Favorolangers who, out of pure evil intent and insufferable perniciousness, chased away all the Chinese we had permitted to hunt in the Favorolang fields, killing three and badly injuring others."73 The messenger was to say that the governor believed the elders themselves were innocent and that he merely wanted the elders' cooperation in finding those guilty of the violence. Eventually, the son of one of the senior Favorolang elders came out to meet the governor, a Dutch flag (prinsevlagge) in his hand.74 He said the Favorolangers would not resist the company as long as the governor promised "that the good would not suffer in the least and that only the evil-doers would feel [the company's] punishment."75

The Dutch and their allies entered Favorolang without resistance. The governor called the Favorolang elders together and asked them to reveal the identities of those responsible for killing and wounding the Chinese, "advising them that they had better make their deliberations short, because we were not in the mood to tarry long."76 The elders replied that the governor must have patience, that they had sent some people to find those responsible for the murders. Some time later, they brought the clothes of the three murdered Chinese, "in which we showed no interest but rather distributed to the Chinese who had come with us."77 The Favorolangers did not  name the murderers, and after two hours of waiting, the governor began to feel that the elders of Favorolang, accompanied by the head of the Favorolang Chinese (‘t opperhoofft der Chinesen aldaer residerende), were not cooperating.78 Tensions were also rising between the company's allies and small bands of armed Favorolangers. The governor warned the Favorolang elders "to stop their games or we will destroy with fire everything around."79 At this, some aboriginal allies began to act as though they had already received orders to set fire to a nearby house. "Seeing this, the elders of Favorolang pointed out to us a house, which the Sinkanders immediately began to plunder, chopping and trampling everything."80 The company and its allies set fire to several other houses and rice sheds and captured four Favorolang elders and a "Favorolang Chinese." As the company and its allies withdrew from the village, a band of Favorolangers attacked: "They tried to obtain the heads of some of our natives, who stayed within the protection of our muskets. In the skirmish that followed, one Favorolanger was shot. Our natives immediately took the [dead Favorolanger's] head and chased the Favorolangers back to their village."81 Other Favorolangers set fire to fields and forests to impede the company's progress back to Zeelandia, but to little avail. The governor and his forces arrived safely at Zeelandia, greeted by cannonades. They displayed the prisoners "as a sign of victory." "There appeared around us curious Chinese, who came to look at the captured Favorolangers."82 Perhaps these "curious Chinese" were as interested in the captured Chinese as in the aboriginal elders.

Dutch officials freed one of the elders and sent him home to talk peace with his people. Two weeks later he returned with thirteen compatriots. Dutch sources record his description of his trip in unusual detail. After arriving in his village, he called the elders and the young men of Favorolang together "at the usual meeting place" and, standing on a raised area, told them of the advantages of submitting to the company: "Why should we Favorolangers not willingly submit ourselves to the Dutch state, in order to live . . . a peaceful life?" In the future, he continued, if young Favorolang men persisted in their stubbornness, "not only will the entire village be reduced to ashes, and all our rice and goods be destroyed, but we will also be delivered to the mercy of our enemies, who will chase us, kill us, and not spare our children, so that they can hold a . . . celebration over our heads."83 Each of the Favorolangers then swore, "by breaking a straw as is their custom," that they would no longer harass Chinese but would willingly become subjects of the Dutch state. Those who in the future harassed Chinese would be handed over to the governor for punishment.84

The governor and the Council of Formosa were delighted and the two sides signed a new peace. It stipulated not only that Favorolangers refrain from harming Chinese but also that they help Chinese in need. In addition they agreed to return to the governor, in the presence of the Chinese of Formosa, all the goods they had stolen as well as apologize publicly to the Chinese and promise that such things would not happen in the future. Most important, the Favorolangers agreed, as punishment for having set themselves against the Dutch state, that they would no longer be allowed to retain one third of the Favorolang hunting grounds for their own use: Henceforth only Chinese licensed by the company would be allowed to hunt in all Favorolang fields. At first, the peace was effective. For nearly nine months there were no reports of violence. Then, at the end of October 1639, a Chinese translator came to Zeelandia and reported that the Favorolangers had once again harassed Chinese hunters: "Not only did the Favorolangers take away their [hunting] licenses . . . but . . . they also shot at them with barbed arrows, wounding several of them."85 The company sent a small group of Dutch soldiers to Favorolang to warn the villagers to behave. The soldiers received a conciliatory response.

What happened next is unclear, for company records directly from the Taiwan colony are relatively scarce for the years 1640, 1641, and 1642.86 It appears that in 1640 the Favorolangers, now joined by people from Davole, a smaller neighbor, once again became a regular threat to Chinese hunters and fishers carrying company passes.87 The Dutch issued warnings and sent detachments of soldiers, with little result.88

But they also began finding evidence that Chinese pirates might be involved. In early July 1640, company officials learned that in the River Gierim, north of Favorolang, there were pirates who had recently captured two junks whose crews were gathering deerskins. This area had long been a locus of deer smuggling, and the line between piracy and smuggling was a blurry one. The governor therefore sent Thomas Pedel to investigate. As we saw in the vignette that opened this chapter, Pedel failed to find the pirates, but, when he met the Dutch translator and heard that Captain Favorolang was suspected of arson, he was only too happy to help. Pedel's capture of Captain Favorolang and the confrontation that ensued resulted in "much harm" to Chinese hunters.89 Might this Captain Favorolang be the same Captain Favorolang who earlier had cooperated with the Dutch, offering to disappear into the bush with four hundred followers? If so, why might he have become less cooperative? The Captain Favorolang who appears first in the records was either Chinese or a man with ties to Chinese living in Favorolang (he had proposed that Chinese signs be put on his houses before the company's first expedition against the village) and, as such, he would almost certainly have been involved in the deer trade. But each of the two peace treaties the company signed with Favorolang took hunting fields away from Favorolangers and the "Favorolang Chinese." The Favorolang Chinese, who had long had access to Favorolang's deer products, doubtless resented the company's attempts to limit their access or to allow competitors into their turf. Thus, it is entirely possible that the Captain Favorolang who had originally cooperated later became hostile. As for the arson incident, company records are silent.

In any case, violence soon hit the Dutch themselves. In 1640, three Dutchmen were killed while hunting near Favorolang.90 It was the first episode in a new wave of bloodshed. Missionary Robertus Junius told the governor that the Favorolangers "denigrate our authority in this area, trying by all means to draw our allies . . . away from us. It seems that the two times that the Favorolangers have been attacked have not sufficed to bring them to . . . obedience. They must therefore be punished in a harder, more severe, and more awesome manner in order for them to be more careful and not rebel against us so readily."91 Other officials called for an expedition too, and so in November 1641 the governor once again led troops northward. They entered Favorolang with no resistance and took over part of the village to serve as temporary headquarters.92 They demanded that the murderers be handed over within twenty days and began torching homes and rice sheds to make their point, being careful to spare houses of those they believed had been faithful to the company.93 Then the governor returned to Zeelandia to await a response. Two months later, elders from Favorolang delivered to the governor the skulls of the three murdered company officials. Although they did not hand over the murderers, the company decided nonetheless to sign a new peace with the village.94 This peace, however, was different. Whereas the previous two treaties had forbidden the Favorolangers from harassing Chinese, this one forbade all Chinese from hunting in Favorolang fields. This radical departure was a sign that company relations with the Chinese on Formosa had grown increasingly strained.

What happened next is difficult to determine because records are sparse, but it is clear that company officials became increasingly suspicious toward Chinese sojourners in and around Favorolang. In the summer of 1642, officials in Batavia sent an intriguing letter to the governor of Formosa:

From your written and oral reports we have learned to our disappointment that the power of the Chinese to the north is utterly damaging to our state. . . . Indeed, the Chinese even appear to have more authority than we do, continually inciting the natives on the coast and northwest of our island to take up arms against us.95

The letter fulminated against Chinese and ordered officials in Taiwan to place restrictions on Chinese residency and travel. The governor and Council of Formosa were ordered to allow no Chinese vessel in or around the Taiwan coast unless it carried a company license. More important, they were to conduct a major expedition northward to and beyond Favorolang. The expedition was to "chase the Chinese from the land and subjugate the natives—not with kind words but with armed force, killing and taking prisoner those who do not cooperate and renounce [verlaten] the Chinese."96 The letter chastised Dutch officials in Taiwan for using gifts and kindness when instead they should have "ridden with hard spurs."97 In case there were any room for doubt about the orders, officials in Batavia used language that was unusually forceful for such letters: "We order with this letter that you will allow no Chinese without a license or without your special knowledge to go about on Formosa, much less live among the natives. . . . Let the great empire of China do and the rich Chinese of Tayouan say what they will, but you will make sure that this our order takes effect."98

The Council of Formosa complied immediately. In November 1642, the fourth and last punishment expedition left for Favorolang. When its commander, Johannes Lamotius, returned to Fort Zeelandia a month later, he reported that he and his forces had executed thirty persons: nineteen aborigines and eleven Chinese "instigators."99 He also apprehended the "Chinese and Formosan" murderers of the three Dutchmen and executed them publicly in a northern village.100 Their punishment would, he said, teach the Favorolangers "that the Chinese and other evil instigators were nothing but trouble."101 The governor and the Council of Formosa also implemented the other orders from Batavia. The most important measure stipulated "that no Chinese, no matter who he might be, shall be permitted . . . to have his domicile to the north of Mattau."102 Here the language was remarkably similar to that contained in the letter from Batavia. A resolution of the Council of Formosa from December 1642, for example, reads:

It becomes indeed daily more evident how damaging the hordes of Chinese living in the villages far to the north and south are to the company, [since they] not only extract great profits from the aborigines but also portray the Dutch nation as odious by means of various pretexts, and . . . some Chinese try to convince the aborigines that we are their servants, which we have learned not only from experience but also because the aborigines (being cheated by the Chinese) have told us so and have delivered the Chinese (who have always incited them to evil) into our hands.103

Reflected in these resolutions is an attitude toward Chinese that departs sharply from precedent. Before 1638 company officials had felt the company's interest was best served by protecting Chinese from the "evil-hearted" northern natives. By the end of 1642 they felt that the company must protect the northern aborigines from the "brutal" Chinese. The new measures allowed the company to establish more effective control in the village and to get to the bottom of the "troubles" (onheilen) there.

In late 1644, missionary Simon van Breen, "a man of acute judgment," was stationed in Favorolang.104 He spent much of his time investigating the activities of the "brutal hordes" and gradually uncovered a network of Chinese pirates in the Favorolang area. "He it was who opened our eyes," wrote the Council of Formosa in a letter to Batavia:

Since the time when he took up his residence in that north region, he has by degrees become acquainted with the dens and hiding-places of the Chinese, and traced their private footpaths. He also found out several rivers, with their different branches, which have been hitherto unknown to our own sailors. It seems that when the tide was high, the Chinese—pretending to be fishermen and provided with licenses to fish—managed to enter those rivers. They allowed themselves great liberty in the villages; inciting the inhabitants against the Company, and doing whatever they chose in their usual manner.105

The band's organization was elaborate, with one kingpin, a certain Kinghwangh (also known as Sico), three great captains, and seven lesser captains.106 The smugglers proved difficult to catch, thanks to their superior knowledge of Taiwan's waterways and their small vessels: "Some of the rogues . . . had the effrontery to demand of the inhabitants, in our name, the tribute due to the Company, and succeeded in carrying it off in their small junks, proceeding along those branches of the river which were unknown to us."107 The company broke the band gradually, executing the captains and chasing the rest to the far north of Taiwan.

It is possible that this organization was active in Favorolang from the beginning, when the company had little information and weak control, or it may have arrived later, as the Dutch presence impinged more and more on Favorolang. It must be recalled that the scale of Dutch deerhide exploitation increased dramatically during the time that the Favorolang troubles were occurring: from around 100,000 per year in 1634 to more than 150,000 in 1637. Much of this increase came from the Favorolang area. At the same time, deer stocks were falling in the areas closest to the Bay of Tayouan, causing Chinese hunters from the south to seek their quotas farther afield. Deer-rich Favorolang was an attractive alternative. The Chinese who lived there and their aboriginal trading partners would have viewed the new commercial hunters with suspicion. Once the Dutch began reserving Favorolang's fields for licensed hunters, suspicion would have turned to alarm. The manner in which Favorolangers systematically destroyed Dutch hunting passes indicates that they meant to impress on their victims the economic motivations behind their violence. Only when the company had firm control over all Chinese access to the village did the attacks cease and the trader-pirate band unravel.

After dealing with the trader-pirates, the company began to reintegrate Favorolang into the Sino-Dutch colonial system. In 1644 the village began sending deputies to the annual landdagen, political ceremonies the company used to strengthen its rule over the aboriginal villages of Taiwan.108 That same year the Council of Formosa also decided to try allowing Chinese, "with the approval of the village's inhabitants," to live in Favorolang to trade with the villagers. They would, of course, "pay a good sum of money for this each year."109 The following month a company employee visited Favorolang and found that the experiment had been a success: "The elders of Favorolang . . . are extremely grateful that we have allowed a few good Chinese to come live and trade in their village."110

Conclusion

Thus it was that Favorolang became part of the Dutch colony of Formosa. All told, its "conquest" took nearly a decade: from 1636, when the first Favorolang attacks against Chinese were reported, to 1644, when the company began selling Chinese the right to live and trade in Favorolang. By 1644, the pax hollandica had been extended to include the once "stubborn" and "evil-hearted" Favorolangers. Yet even in 1644, when the governor and the Council of Formosa finally felt secure enough to permit Chinese to live and trade again in Favorolang, they remained wary, ordering the Favorolangers to report any suspicious Chinese activities. In a ceremony of 1644, the governor of Taiwan delivered an address to seventy aboriginal elders, telling them that the Chinese "were despicable people [vuyle menschen] who sought to instill in them false opinions of us [the Dutch] and who had caused the ruin of many villages, as those of Favorolang . . . can attest."111 In the years that followed, the company's anti-Chinese rhetoric softened, but every year after 1644, in his general address to aboriginal elders, the governor of Formosa admonished his subjects to capture and turn over any Chinese who came to their villages without company permission, promising for each such illegal Chinese delivered to the company a reward of five colorful Coromandel shawls.112

Chinese and Dutch both enjoyed profits from turning sparsely populated plains and forests into commercial hunting fields and farms, but this process removed traditional sources of livelihood from the aborigines. Indeed, the latter appear to have grown noticeably poorer during this period. When the Dutch first arrived, the aborigines had plentiful fields and gardens and all the deer they needed. Traditional hunting practices and low population densities meant that deer stocks had remained plentiful. By the late 1630s, however, deer populations were greatly depleted, and much of the hunting had been taken over by Chinese. As Junius wrote in 1638, the people of Sinkan were "now very poor" and required company subsidies.113 These subsidies, paid in the form of rice or clothing, were usually taken from the proceeds of the deer hunt. In the case of Sinkan, less than 25 percent of revenues from hunting licenses was returned to the aborigines, who had once controlled the fields.114 When, in the mid-1640s, the company began trying to tax the aborigines, their conditions worsened even more.

The company's experiences in Favorolang—and other experiences with Chinese living in aboriginal villages—had persuaded it to adopt new policies. It exiled the Chinese that lived in Favorolang and other villages. But then it began allowing other Chinese to go to Favorolang, thereby finally gaining a measure of control over Sino-aboriginal trade in the village. The means by which it did this is unusual. It held annual auctions for monopoly trading privileges in Favorolang and other villages. In this way it controlled the Chinese presence, licensing only those Chinese it could trust and who could pay the price. The Favorolang franchise always fetched top prices.115 This was only one of a number of revenue-increasing measures the company adopted. With agriculture established, its authority extended northward and southward, the company turned its attention to raising revenues.115

Thanks to Sino-Dutch co-colonization, Formosa was indeed on its way to becoming a "breadbasket for the Indies" by the end of the 1630s, and the company's Chinese colony was growing quickly. The pace would quicken in the 1640s, as China entered a protracted civil war. Refugees flowed into Taiwan, and the process that had begun in the 1630s accelerated. Civil war also disrupted trade, leading the company to raise revenues by instituting new tolls and taxes on its Chinese inhabitants. As taxes increased, some Chinese immigrants began asking themselves whether they really needed the Red-Haired Barbarians.

Notes: