Timeline

While the Company was created to seize control of the rich spice trade of Southeast Asia, it also moved aggressively into East Asia. There, it quickly became clear that the organization’s fortunes depended on gaining access to Chinese commodities. The problem was that Chinese administrators had repeatedly rejected VOC requests for trade. Dutch officials believed they had at last found the solution in 1622 when their forces began to fortify the Penghu or Pescadores islands, which lay in the Taiwan straits between China and Japan seemingly outside the influence of the Chinese state. Rather than going unnoticed, however, the establishment of a small fortress on the Penghus provoked a fierce response from local commanders who massed a fleet to expel the invaders and restore order. Eventually a compromise was reached when the Dutch agreed to retreat to nearby Taiwan, which lay, they were assured, “outside the jurisdiction of China.” In 1624, the Company commenced construction of a stronghold, later christened Fort Zeelandia, on a sandbank in the bay of Tayouan, a key maritime hub that lay on the west coast of the island. From a thin sliver of land, VOC control quickly spilled over to Taiwan proper where the Company came into contact with several thousand Siraya villagers, the members of sub-group within the larger Taiwanese aboriginal population that occupied the coastal plans spread across the southwest of the island.