User:Taiwantaffy/Dutch Formosa/Pacification Campaign
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The Dutch Pacification Campaign on Formosa was a series of military actions and diplomatic moves undertaken in 1635 and 1636 by Dutch colonial authorities in Formosa (modern-day Taiwan), aimed at subduing hostile aborginal villages in the south-western 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, who in 1629 ambushed and slaughtered a group of sixty Dutch soldiers.
Dutch Pacification Campaign on Formosa | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
![]() | Natives of Mattau, Bakloan, Soulang, Taccariang and Tevorang | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Hans Putmans | unknown | ||||||
Strength | |||||||
500 Dutch soldiers | unknown | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
exact numbers unknown, casualties slight |
c. 30 killed Mattau and Taccariang destroyed by fire | ||||||
After receiving reinforcements from the colonial headquarters at Batavia, the Dutch launched an attack in 1635 and were able to crush opposition and bring the area around present-day Tainan fully under their control. After seeing Mattau and Soulang, the most powerful villages in the area, defeated so comprehensively, many other villages in the surrounding area came to the Dutch to seek peace and surrender sovereignty to the Europeans. Thus the Dutch were able to dramatically expand the extent of their territorial control in a short space of time, and avoid the need for further fighting. The end of the campaign came in February 1636, when representatives from twenty-eight villages attended a ceremony in Tayouan to cement Dutch sovereignty.
Solidifying the southwest under their rule, the Dutch were able to expand their operations from the limited entrepôt trading carried out by the colony prior to 1635. The expanded territory allowed access to the deer trade, which later became very lucrative, and guaranteed security in food supplies. It provided fertile land, which the Dutch used imported Chinese labour to farm. The aboriginal villages also provided warriors to aid the Dutch in times of trouble, notably in the Lamey Island Massacre of 1636, the Dutch defeat of the Spanish in 1642 and the Guo Huaiyi Rebellion in 1652. The allied villages also provided opportunities for the Dutch missionaries to spread their faith. The pacification campaign is considered the foundation stone on which the later success of the colony was built.