Editing History of Taiwan (section)

===Dutch colonization===
[[Image:Zeelandia-environs.png|thumb|The villages around Fort Zeelandia]]
[[File:Atlas Blaeu-Van der Hem - Taioan.jpg|thumb|Bird's eye view of [[Fort Zeelandia (Taiwan)|Fort Zeelandia]] in [[Dutch Formosa]] in the 17th-century]]
{{see also|Dutch pacification campaign on Formosa}}
	
According to Salvador Diaz, a pirate informant who worked in the protection racket business with ties to the Portuguese, initially there were only 320 Dutch soldiers and they were "short, miserable, and very dirty."{{sfn|Andrade|2008b}} Conditions were probably not as bad as described by Diaz. Dutch records state that there were 450 soldiers in 1626.{{sfn|Andrade|2008b}} Dutch ships wrecked at Liuqiu in 1624 and 1631; their crews were killed by the inhabitants.{{sfn|Blussé|2000|p=144–145}} In 1633, an expedition consisting of 250 Dutch soldiers, 40 Chinese pirates, and 250 Taiwanese natives were sent against Liuqiu Island but met with little success.{{sfn|Blussé|2000}}

The Dutch allied with Sinkan, a small village that provided them with firewood, venison and fish.{{sfnp|van Veen|2003|p=142}} In 1625, they bought land from the Sinkanders and built the town of [[Fort Provintia|Sakam]] for Dutch and Chinese merchants.{{sfnp|Shepherd|1993|p=37}} Initially the other villages maintained peace with the Dutch. In 1625, the Dutch attacked 170 Chinese pirates in Wankan but were driven off. Encouraged by the Dutch failure, Mattau warriors raided Sinkan. The Dutch returned and drove off the pirates. The people of Sinkan then attacked Mattau and Baccluan, and sought protection from Japan. In 1629, [[Pieter Nuyts]] visited Sinkan with 60 musketeers. After Nuyts left, the musketeers were killed in an ambush by Mattau and Soulang warriors.{{sfn|Andrade|2008b}} On 23 November 1629, an expedition set out and burned most of Baccluan, killing many of its people, who the Dutch believed harbored proponents of the previous massacre. Baccluan, Mattau, and Soulang people continued to harass company employees until late 1633 when Mattau and Soulang went to war with each other.{{sfn|Andrade|2008b}}

In 1635, 475 soldiers from Batavia arrived in Taiwan.{{sfnp|van Veen|2003|p=149}} By this point even Sinkan was on bad terms with the Dutch. Soldiers were sent into the village and arrested those who plotted rebellion. In the winter of 1635 the Dutch defeated Mattau and Baccluan. In 1636, a large expedition was sent against Liuqiu Island. The Dutch and their allies chased about 300 inhabitants into caves, sealed the entrances, and killed them with poisonous fumes. The native population of 1100 was removed from the island.{{sfnp|Blusse|Everts|2000}} They were enslaved with the men sent to Batavia while the women and children became servants and wives for the Dutch officers. The Dutch planned to depopulate the outlying islands.{{sfnp|Everts|2000|pp=151–155}} The villages of Taccariang, Soulang, and Tevorang were also pacified.{{sfn|Andrade|2008b}} In 1642, the Dutch massacred the people of Liuqiu island again.<ref name=LeeYuchung>{{cite web |last=Lee |first=Yuchung |title=荷西時期總論 (Dutch and Spanish period of Taiwan) |url=http://taiwanpedia.culture.tw/en/content?ID=1214 |publisher=Council for Cultural Affairs |access-date=29 September 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131203002944/http://taiwanpedia.culture.tw/en/content?ID=1214 |archive-date=3 December 2013 |df=mdy-all}}</ref>

The Dutch estimated in 1650 that there were around 50,000 natives in the western plains region;{{sfnb|Shepherd|1993}} the Dutch Formosa ruled around "315 tribal villages with a total population of around 68,600, estimated 40–50% of the entire indigenes of the island".{{sfnb|Tai|2007|p=246}} The Dutch tried to convince the natives to give up hunting and adopt sedentary farming but their efforts were unsuccessful.{{sfnb|Shepherd|1993|p=366}} The VOC administered the island and its predominantly aboriginal population until 1662. They set up a tax system and schools to teach [[Romanization|romanized script]] of [[Formosan languages]] and [[Evangelism|evangelize Christianity]].{{sfnp|Campbell|1915}}{{sfnp|Blusse|Everts|2000}} They tried to teach the native children the [[Dutch language]] but the effort was abandoned after failing to produce good results.{{sfnb|Everts|2000|p=151}} The native Taiwanese religion was primarily [[animism|animist]]. Practices like mandatory abortion, marital infidelity, nakedness, and non-observation of the [[Christian Sabbath]] were considered sinful. The Bible was translated into the native languages. This was the first entrance of Christianity into Taiwan.{{sfnb|Tai|2007|p=246}}

The Dutch levied a tax on all imports and exports. A tax was also levied on every non-Dutch person above the age of six. This poll tax was highly unpopular and the cause the major insurrections in 1640 and 1652. A tax was imposed on hunting through licenses for pit-traps and snaring.{{sfnb|Roy|2003|p=16}}<ref name="p. 71">Huang, C 2011, 'Taiwan under the Dutch' in A new history of Taiwan, The Central News Agency, Taipei, p. 71.</ref> Although its control was mainly limited to the western plain of the island, the Dutch systems were adopted by succeeding occupiers.{{sfnp|Shepherd|1993|pp=1–29}} The Dutch originally sought to use their castle Zeelandia at Tayowan as a trading base between Japan and China, but soon realized the potential of the huge deer populations that roamed Taiwan's western regions.{{sfnp|Shepherd|1993}}