TAIWAN HISTORY - Formosa Files Episodes

Pavel Ivanovich Ibis, or Paul Ibis, a 22-year-old Russian naval officer (he was born in today’s Estonia) embarked alone on a dangerous and adventurous journey – on foot – through Taiwan in the winter of 1875. At the time, much of the island was under Qing rule; a prefecture of Fujian Province. So, …

The current Beijing authorities make bombastic claims as silly as “Taiwan has been part of China since the dawn of the universe!!” The reality, however, is quite different. Some Chinese dynasties may not have even known of Taiwan’s existence, while others definitely knew, and stayed away. Taiw…

Remember those two Polish cargo ships and one oil tanker from the USSR seized by the ROC Navy in the 1950s? Well, the story has one highly interesting extra element we didn't have time to get to in the last episode. Plus, John wants to write a book about an "ox ditch."

Taiwanese history would have been very different except for a few pivotal moments. “Sure,” you might be thinking, “that's true everywhere.” However, the “what ifs” Michael Turton and Eryk Michael Smith talk about today are especially fascinating because of Taiwan’s strategic location. The Spanish a…

Tamsui (Danshui) native John Groot and Formosa Files' John Ross continue their walk and talk around the old town. They’re on the trail of the 1884 Battle of Tamsui between French and Taiwanese forces, a battle which was a rare victory for the beleaguered Qing dynasty. As well as military matters, t…

Strategically located near the mouth of the Tamsui (Danshui) River, the port town of Tamsui has a long, rich history. The Spanish built a fort here in the 1600s, as did the Dutch, and numerous European traders came here in the nineteenth century when it was a treaty port. But perhaps the most surpr…

Now that we're well into Formosa Files season three, your co-hosts add some background to stories we've told, try to clear up misconceptions about the ROC’s exit from the United Nations, make some “controversial” comments on Dr. Sun Yat-sen, and finally, we agree that Mongolia is an independent cou…

Joyce Bergvelt's book Lord of Formosa is a novel, but she's an author who has extensively studied the Dutch colonial period and the main characters involved. Lord of Formosa, therefore, might be closer to a history book than fiction. Listen to John speak with Joyce as they discuss the complicated, …

Some of the earliest photos we have of Taiwan were taken by a British photographer who visited the southwest of the island in 1871. Taking pics back then was far from “point and shoot.” It was “get inside portable darkroom, grab delicate glass plate, cover with chemical A, then B, then C, then expo…

The southern peninsula of Taiwan was a "ship graveyard" for a very long time as unseen rocks and reefs gashed holes in the sides of vessels and left them stranded, or on the seafloor. The Western powers and Qing authorities both agreed that a lighthouse at the far southern end of Taiwan would be a …

Ever heard of Count Maurice Benyovszky? He's not well known in Taiwan, but after this Polish-Slovakian-Hungarian semi-nobleman had a chance encounter with this island in 1771, he wrote a travel account that remained influential into the twentieth century. And the best part? Most of what he wrote is…

Between the late 1600s and mid-1800s, there was no Western presence on Taiwan. There were, however, a couple of special Western visitors of whom the wonderfully-named Joseph-Anne-Marie de Moyriac de Mailla was the most notable. This Jesuit priest was a hardcore scholar who spent 45 years in China. …

Commodore Matthew C. Perry’s two expeditions of 1852–1854 pried open Japan. Less well known is that one of the American ships visited Keelung in northeastern Taiwan to investigate the harbor and its coal resources. And completely forgotten is another American project, the North Pacific Exploring an…

Why is "Kaohsiung" spelled so strangely? Shouldn't it be closer to "Gao-Shung"? (Or we could just use Hanyu Pinyin, "Gāoxióng"). Well, many names in Taiwan are spelled with the Latin alphabet, using a romanization system popularized by Mr. Herbert Giles, a British consul who spent 25 years in the t…

Koxinga's eldest son, Zheng Jing, -- the ruler of the short-lived Kingdom of Dongning (1661-1683) -- almost lost his head in his late teens. Daddy Zheng Chenggong (Koxinga) twice ordered his execution for fooling around with a wet nurse. But Zheng Jing survived and soon after became ruler-warlord u…

Kaohsiung Harbor was, in the late twentieth century, one of the world's busiest ports, but back during the time of the Opium Wars, it was still a rather secluded and hard-to-find place. Based on the somewhat embellished "A Cruise in an Opium Clipper," this is the story of how a British merchant shi…

After unifying Japan’s warring states, supreme feudal lord Hideyoshi launched a massive invasion of Korea. In 1593, a year into this Imjin War of 1592-1598, he sent an envoy to Taiwan on a doomed mission to establish formal diplomatic and trade relations. In 1609 and 1616, the Japanese Shogun Toku…

The Dutch were expelled from southwestern Taiwan by a pirate warlord and Ming loyalist Koxinga in 1662. Their relatively brief stay of 38 years was marked by impressive achievements and lasting impacts. But why they were there in the first place? What did they want? Who did they trade with? How did…

War in northern Vietnam spills over into Taiwan, with French troops occupying several ports. This wake-up call for the Qing prompts an upgrading of their neglected frontier prefecture; Taiwan becomes a province, and the authorities finally start to develop and strengthen the island. It's too little…

After native people in the far south of Formosa kill survivors from the wrecked US merchant vessel The Rover in 1867, the Americans send a punitive expedition. A few years later, the survivors of a Japanese (Ryukyuan) shipwreck are also killed, near Pingtung's Mudan. The Qing authorities' weak resp…

The Second Opium War (1856-1860) lead to the opening of Danshui, near Taipei, and Anping (Tainan) as treaty ports. Soon after, the Qing authorities opened Takao (Kaohsiung) and Keelung to foreign ships. First came the foreign traders, then the missionaries... one of the latter would become a househ…

Uprisings were exceptionally common over the 212 years of Qing Dynasty rule on Taiwan... but only one rebellion actually took the capital (Tainan) and led to officials fleeing for Penghu. Here's the story of Zhu Yi-gui 朱一貴, a duck farmer, who in 1721, became the self-declared ruler of Taiwan. His r…

After the heirs of Koxinga surrender to the Qing, the imperial court isn't sure what to do with the island -- but a wily admiral convinces Emperor Kangxi to keep it. Plus: the story of the person who arguably wrote the very first Taiwan travelogue.