Taiwan becomes a european settler colony

[jackalope]

Possible Correction

Doing a fact check, it turns that the story maybe mere tourist literature:

http://www.xpatmag.com/magazine/volume1/issue1disaster/vile2.htm

Of possible interest for this thread, an alternate version:

The incident at what would become Black Ghost Cave had its roots in the hostility between the Dutch colonists in southern Taiwan and the Lamayans (the aboriginal tribe that inhabited Xiou Liouchiou) in the early years of Dutch rule. The Lamayans were a fierce people who earned the Dutch's enmity after massacring the shipwrecked crews of the ships The Golden Lion in 1621 and Beverwijck in 1631.

The Dutch enforced a policy of depopulating areas it considered troublesome, and launched a punitive raid against the Lamayans, successfully depopulating the island of its 1,100 inhabitants in May 1636.

In the raid, Dutch forces aided by aboriginal braves from the Lamayans' enemies the Saccam, Soulang, and Pangsoya tribes of southern Taiwan, cornered a large group of Lamayans (mostly women and children) in a cave that had acted as a traditional refuge for the islanders. Intent on solving the "Lamayan problem" once and for all, the invaders dumped hot oil and pumped smoke and gas into the cavern until the screams of the Lamayans could no longer be heard. 327 Lamayans died in the cave, most of them women and children.

 

[kasumigenx]

Why just not have Luzon aka Mayi or what ever they called it impossible to completely subdue and have the Spanish conquer Taiwan, I think that will work by having Brunei get kicked in the ass by Sulu or Malacca before they try to destroy the dominant Tondo dynasty in Luzon.

 

[Koxinga]

Koxinga has determined this to be an interesting thread!!!

edit: lol, I get the same shit about my nose. "Oh, son, your nose looks so European! See, I always said we had Dutch blood!"

Your mother should be prouder to be Chinese!

I'm thinking that if a European power held onto Taiwan for any period of time, it would alter the racial dynamics considerably, but not in the way people think.

Basically, I think the Dutch (and later, perhaps the British, or someone else) would want to do everything they could to keep Taiwan out of the Chinese sphere. This would probably entail some level of white settlement, but quite likely a lot movement of laborers from elsewhere in Asia. Establishing plantations which drew on a mixture of Indians, Malays, Javanese, and a smattering of African slaves, perhaps, would make for a highly diverse populace which wouldn't want to be part of China, but also wouldn't be a good fit anywhere else.

The end result would essentially be a giant Trinidad, Suriname, or Mauritius - a veritable constellation of races, with numerous examples of admixture. Europeans might leave at de-colonization, but could also stick around and remain the economic elite. The lingua franca would probably be a European tongue or some creole derivative, although it's unlikely Christianity would develop into the overwhelmingly dominant religion, given such a heavy leavening of Muslims and Hindus.

This is really a fascinating discussion from a Fanonian perspective, thinking of his reading of Mayote Capecia in Black Skin, White Masks regarding her desires for Lactification, as she asks of her grandmother, "How could a Canadian woman have loved a man of Martinique? I could never stop thinking of our priest, and I made up my mind that I could never love anyone but a white man, a blue-eyed blonde, a Frenchman.” The politics of admixture resulting in a dynamic between White, Han, Aboriginal, and in-between would be intriguing, particularly were the timeline to move in a pro-Han direction while keeping the European setter-state on Taiwan intact.

To the Dutch interests:
Chinese are a) available b)close c) industrious
but are also a) unreliable b) rebelious c) want to own at least some of the land

My guess is instead of Javanese, a reliable group would be the Malluccas, who were even from those days heavily Christian and just as close. All would be less than the Chinese for a days work, and none would want to be slaves. Making a one year stay is a possible way for most of the Chinese to be muted, with a favored few having a few acres.

This is why the POD needs to be pretty early, i'd think, and the colonialist desire would need to be very high. I'd argue that the largest issue with a European Settler-State on Taiwan is really the availability of so many other, easier potential Settler-States that would be found on the way to and inbetween Taiwan from the original nation. The fact that there is so much "low hanging fruit" in terms of low-tech, low-population, fair climate/resources areas for Imperialists traveling between Western Europe and Taiwan means potential locations for settlement would be exploited earlier.

You do realize the Chinese have settled the island centuries ago and with China being right next the door, the likelihood of a white Taiwan is simply unlikely if not downright ASB.

Aside from the TLs being posited beginning within the 15th or 16th century, one way around this and like criticisms would be to just start the TL really early, with some kind of Roman/Viking/Vandal/other pre-1000 civilization-wank who then weaken China spectacularly going back a long way... but then you'd just be wanking a whole other thing rather than OTL "long sixteenth century" colonialism...

 

[Valdemar II]

I find this thread interesting, but I agree the biggest problem is that Taiwan is so far from Europe. On the other hand if we look at the Dutch presence in the far east in the late 17th century, beside the permanent Dutch and mixed population around 22 thousand Dutch administrators, soldiers and sailors served in the far east, and these wasn't permanent settlers, but people who returned to Netherlands after ended service. This show us that the Dutch transferred enormous populations back and forth.

That we lack is a incentiment for settling Taiwan with European settlers. But a solution could be that Taiwan becomes a "retirement home", where European employers of the company get some land after ended service in the Far East. Another solution could be that the Dutch believes Formosa is necessary as a strategic stronghold rather than as cash colony, and they do as in South Africa and settle farmers. I personal find the later most likely.

Of course I doubt Whites will end up in majority, but we could end up see a significant White and mixed population.

 

[Emperor Qianlong]

I find this thread interesting, but I agree the biggest problem is that Taiwan is so far from Europe. On the other hand if we look at the Dutch presence in the far east in the late 17th century, beside the permanent Dutch and mixed population around 22 thousand Dutch administrators, soldiers and sailors served in the far east, and these wasn't permanent settlers, but people who returned to Netherlands after ended service. This show us that the Dutch transferred enormous populations back and forth.

That we lack is a incentiment for settling Taiwan with European settlers. But a solution could be that Taiwan becomes a "retirement home", where European employers of the company get some land after ended service in the Far East. Another solution could be that the Dutch believes Formosa is necessary as a strategic stronghold rather than as cash colony, and they do as in South Africa and settle farmers. I personal find the later most likely.

Of course I doubt Whites will end up in majority, but we could end up see a significant White and mixed population.

The question that I have with Taiwan is, up to what point was Taiwan still predominantly aboriginal, and at what point did it actually get Chinese majority in OTL?

 

[jackalope]

Probably the most one could expect for a sub tropical island is that some isolated yet flat area (Puli, probably eventually, but the interior upper part of Pingtung/Kaoshuing county would also do for much closer to Anping Zeelandia. Mosquitoes are horrendous anywhere you go in these areas, however. ) could be a center for "Whites" much like Mexico has some highland areas to this day. But Mexico had/has better climate, rich silver mines the envy of the world, and a huge population that was already trained by the Aztecs to be fairly docile, plus a much closer comute/transportation from the mother country. And the white population is 10% presently, with more than half mixed. Taiwan would be an extreme scenario having more than 1% with 30% mixed, I think. These areas are not highlands in the European preference, and the highest areas of Taiwan are simply too rugged, remote, and of tangled vegetation (Alishan/Yushan used to be a 19,000 foot peak, but broke off in a landslide a couple million years ago, to give an idea of ruggedness).


So this white enclave would be very small and highly contrived. Possible, but unlikely since these folks were motivated by greed and greed alone. Even whites were highly expendable. In the Dutch Indies, the company would not rotate people back, as transportation costs were too great, instead let them rot till they dropped and in the meantime, as the island url posted yesterday, let them have the luxuries as they were (women assigned to them, alcohol, etc.) Not so different than the Conqistadors, or even General Custer (then demoted Colonel) who is alleged to nabbing the best looking 13 year old from the indian village they just sacked -- for almost a year til his wife found out and complained. The other officers got their spoils, but Benteen and others envied.

All of this was profit motivated, from the investors getting an incredible 17% average return for 200 years of the Dutch East Indies Company down to the lowly grunt from the back side of the polder. Visions of permanent white enclaves came about only many years afterwards, but a small one would have been possible.


The Dutch East India Company (Dutch: Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, VOC

Statistically, the VOC eclipsed all of its rivals in the Asia trade. Between 1602 and 1796 the VOC sent almost a million Europeans to work in the Asia trade on 4,785 ships, and netted for their efforts more than 2.5 million tons of Asian trade goods. By contrast, the rest of Europe combined sent only 882,412 people from 1500 to 1795, and the fleet of the English (later British) East India Company, the VOC’s nearest competitor, was a distant second to its total traffic with 2,690 ships and a mere one-fifth the tonnage of goods carried by the VOC. The VOC enjoyed huge profits from its spice monopoly through most of the 17th century.[5]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_East_India_Company

 

[kasumigenx]

Bumping this thread.

 

[kasumigenx]

I was thinking what if Magellan landed in Taiwan instead of an unknown place in either Mindanao or Visayas, what would happen to Taiwan?

 

[kahing]

kasumigenx western propoganda suck off. Taiwan is part of China.

 

[Badshah]

I was thinking what if Magellan landed in Taiwan instead of an unknown place in either Mindanao or Visayas, what would happen to Taiwan?

Maybe a Macau like scenario, except for the Portuguese own it completely. Mainly used for trading with China and Japan, methinks.