The history of the island of Taiwan dates back tens of thousands of years to the earliest known evidence of human habitation. The sudden appearance of a culture based on agriculture around 3000 BC is believed to reflect the arrival of the ancestors of today's Taiwanese indigenous peoples. People from China gradually came into contact with Taiwan by the time of the Yuan dynasty (1271–1368) and Han Chinese people started settling there by the early 17th century. The island became known by the West when Portuguese explorers discovered it in the 16th century and named it Formosa. Between 1624 and 1662, the south of the island was colonized by the Dutch headquartered in Zeelandia in present-day Anping, Tainan whilst the Spanish built an outpost in the north, which lasted until 1642 when the Spanish fortress in Keelung was seized by the Dutch. These European settlements were followed by an influx of Hoklo and Hakka immigrants from Fujian and Guangdong.
Taiwanese indigenous peoples, formerly called Taiwanese aborigines, are the indigenous peoples of Taiwan, with the nationally recognized subgroups numbering about 600,303 or 3% of the island's population. This total is increased to more than 800,000 if the indigenous peoples of the plains in Taiwan are included, pending future official recognition. When including those of mixed ancestry, such a number is possibly more than a million. Academic research suggests that their ancestors have been living on Taiwan for approximately 15,000 years. A wide body of evidence suggests that the Taiwanese indigenous peoples had maintained regular trade networks with numerous regional cultures of Southeast Asia before the Han Chinese colonists began settling on the island from the 17th century, at the behest of the Dutch colonial administration and later by successive governments towards the 20th century.
Zheng Chenggong, Prince of Yanping, better known internationally as Koxinga, was a Southern Ming general who resisted the Qing conquest of China in the 17th century, fighting them on China's southeastern coast.
Fort Santo Domingo is a historical fortress in Tamsui District, New Taipei City, Taiwan. It was originally a wooden fort built in 1628 by the Manila-based Spanish East Indies of the Spanish Empire, who named it in Spanish: el Fuerte de Santo Domingo, lit. 'the Fort of Saint Dominic'. However, after refurbishing it in stone, the initial fort was repeatedly ordered to be dismantled and withdrawn from around 1637 by Spanish Governor-General Sebastián Hurtado de Corcuera for economic downsizing and retrenchment, which their rival Dutch East India Company (VOC) of the Dutch Empire soon found out and later invaded in 1641 and won by the Second Battle of San Salvador in 1642. After the battle, the Dutch rebuilt a fort in the original site in 1644 and renamed it in Dutch: Fort Antonio, after Antonio van Diemen, the then Governor-General of the Dutch East India Company (VOC). Since the Dutch were called in Taiwanese Hokkien Chinese: 紅毛; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Âng-mn̂g; lit. 'Red-haired (people)') by the Han Chinese immigrants during the time, the fort was then nicknamed in Taiwanese Hokkien Chinese: 紅毛城; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Âng-mn̂g-siâⁿ; lit. 'Red-hair fort'.
The island of Taiwan, also commonly known as Formosa, was partly under colonial rule by the Dutch Republic from 1624 to 1662 and from 1664 to 1668. In the context of the Age of Discovery, the Dutch East India Company established its presence on Formosa to trade with the Ming Empire in neighbouring China and Tokugawa shogunate in Japan, and to interdict Portuguese and Spanish trade and colonial activities in East Asia.
The Kingdom of Tungning, also known as Tywan, was a dynastic maritime state that ruled part of southwestern Taiwan and the Penghu islands between 1661 and 1683. It is the first predominantly ethnic Han state in Taiwanese history. At its zenith, the kingdom's maritime power dominated varying extents of coastal regions of southeastern China and controlled the major sea lanes across both China Seas, and its vast trade network stretched from Japan to Southeast Asia.
Pieter Nuyts or Nuijts was a Dutch explorer, diplomat and politician.
Madou District is a district of about 43,071 residents in Tainan, Taiwan. It owes its name to the Siraya language word Moatau or Mattou. Mattau was one of the four core Sirayan villages during much of Taiwan's colonial history and figured heavily in the formation of colonial policy in Dutch Formosa. Currently, it is a well-known town in Tainan for its local culinary specialties and historical sites, and has become more prosperous in recent five years due to the presence of two universities. As an example of the increased attention Madou is receiving, the New Year Countdown Night for 2006 in Tainan was held at Madou Junior High School.
The island of Taiwan, together with the Penghu Islands, became an annexed territory of the Empire of Japan in 1895, when the Qing dynasty ceded Fujian-Taiwan Province in the Treaty of Shimonoseki after the Japanese victory in the First Sino-Japanese War. The consequent Republic of Formosa resistance movement on Taiwan was defeated by Japan with the capitulation of Tainan. Japan ruled Taiwan for 50 years. Its capital was located in Taihoku (Taipei) led by the Governor-General of Taiwan.
The Qing dynasty ruled over the island of Taiwan from 1683 to 1895. The Qing dynasty sent an army led by general Shi Lang and defeated the Ming loyalist Kingdom of Tungning in 1683. Taiwan was then formally annexed in April 1684.
The siege of Fort Zeelandia of 1661–1662 ended the Dutch East India Company's rule over Taiwan and began the Kingdom of Tungning's rule over the island.
Hans Putmans was the Dutch governor of Formosa from 1629 to 1636.
Robert Junius, also recorded as Robertus Junius was a Dutch Reformed Church missionary to Taiwan from 1629 to 1643. Along with Antonius Hambroek and Joannes Cruyf, he was among the longest-serving missionaries of the Dutch colonial era in Formosa.
The Lamey or Liuqiu Island Massacre was the slaughter of aboriginal inhabitants of Liuqiu Island off the coast of Taiwan by Dutch soldiers in 1636. The killings were part of a punitive campaign in retaliation for the massacre of shipwrecked Dutch sailors in two separate incidents in 1622 and 1631 by natives of the island.
The Guo Huaiyi rebellion was a peasant revolt by Chinese farmers against Dutch rule in Taiwan in 1652. Sparked by dissatisfaction with heavy Dutch taxation on them but not the aborigines and extortion by low-ranking Dutch officials and servicemen, the rebellion initially gained ground before being crushed by a coalition of Dutch soldiers and their aboriginal allies. It is considered the most important uprising against the Dutch during the 37-year period of their colonisation of Taiwan.
Daniel Gravius (1616–1681) was a Dutch missionary to Formosa. He was a gifted linguist, who translated portions of the Bible and other Christian texts into the Siraya language. After falling out with Governor of Formosa Nicolas Verburg, he was accused of libel and censured. Later he was completely exonerated and returned to his native Netherlands with his reputation intact.
A series of military actions and diplomatic moves were undertaken in 1635 and 1636 by the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in Dutch-era Taiwan (Formosa) aimed at subduing hostile aboriginal villages in the southwestern region of the island. Prior to the campaign the Dutch had been in Formosa for eleven years, but did not control much of the island beyond their principal fortress at Tayouan, and an alliance with the town of Sinkan. The other aboriginal villages in the area conducted numerous attacks on the Dutch and their allies, with the chief belligerents being the village of Mattau, whose inhabitants in 1629 ambushed and slaughtered a group of sixty Dutch soldiers.
The Spanish expedition to Formosa was a campaign mounted by the Spanish based in Manila, Philippines in 1626. It was the Spanish response to Dutch settlements being built in Formosa, now known as Taiwan. In cooperation with the Portuguese, this venture was made to attract Chinese traders and curtail the expansion of Dutch power in Asia.
The Battle of San Salvador (1641), also known as the First Battle of San Salvador, was an expedition launched by the Dutch and their aboriginal allies in Taiwan against the Spanish in 1641.
The military history of Taiwan spans at least 400 years and is the history of battles and armed actions that took place in Taiwan and its surrounding islands. The island was the base of Chinese pirates who came into conflict with the Ming dynasty during the 16th century. From 1624 to 1662, Taiwan was the base of Dutch and Spanish colonies. The era of European colonization ended when a Ming general named Koxinga retreated to Taiwan as a result of the Ming-Qing War and ousted the Dutch in 1661. The Dutch held out in northern Taiwan until 1668 when they left due to indigenous resistance. Koxinga's dynasty ruled southwestern Taiwan as the Kingdom of Tungning and attacked the Qing dynasty during the Revolt of the Three Feudatories (1673–1681).
