The Spanish Experience in Taiwan 1626-1642

The Spanish Experience in Taiwan 1626-1642: The Baroque Ending of a Renaissance Endeavour

José Eugenio Borao Mateo
Copyright Date: 2009
Pages: 408
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1xcrpk
  • Citation Tools
  • Book Info
    The Spanish Experience in Taiwan 1626-1642
    Book Description:

    This book focuses in the Spanish presence in Taiwan during the years 1626-1642. It examines the motives which drove the Spaniards to come to Taiwan. There were two main reasons for the Spaniards to come to Taiwan from Manila; firstly, so that the civil authorities might counterbalance the Dutch expansion, which since 1625 had been threatening the traditional trade between Fujian and Manila; and secondly, to enable missionaries to find a staging post to enter Japan in moments of strong persecution, and to create an alternative entry point into China.

    eISBN: 978-988-220-568-0
    Subjects: History

You are not currently logged in.

Login through your institution for access.

login

Log in to your personal account or through your institution.

Table of Contents

  1. Front Matter (pp. i-iv)
  2. Table of Contents (pp. v-vi)
  3. List of Illustrations (pp. vii-viii)
  4. List of Tables (pp. ix-x)
  5. Acknowledgments (pp. xi-xii)
  6. [Map] (pp. xiii-xiv)
  7. Introduction (pp. 1-6)

    THE ARRIVAL OF THE SPANIARDS in Isla Hermosa (or Formosa in Portuguese, currently Taiwan) from the Philippines can only be understood as another Spanish enterprise in the East in the context of the late Renaissance impetus, which originally started one century earlier with the aim of gaining access to the Spice Islands. This Renaissance action in the East can be observed through different perspectives not only in the Philippines but also in Taiwan, as we will explore in the succeeding chapters: belligerent national affirmation (chapter 1), intellectual interrogation (chapter 2), ethnological encounters (chapter 3), colonial construction (chapter 4), economic expansion...

  8. Chapter 1 The Dutch-Spanish Rivalry (pp. 7-30)

    THE EUROPEAN VOYAGES OF DISCOVERY started when the Portuguese explored the African coast at the end of the fifteenth century. It was immediately followed by the discovery of America by Columbus in 1492 in the name of the queen of Castile, although the real aim of the expedition was to find the western route to the spices region, the Moluccas Islands, known in Europe since the Roman times. These discoveries created a colonial competition between Portugal and Spain joined soon after by Holland and England and to a lesser degree other European countries. Now we are going to present briefly...

  9. Chapter 2 The Arrival in Taiwan (pp. 31-52)

    IN 1571, SPAIN HAD ACCUMULATED almost seventy years of experience in colonial administration. The main discussions on the “right of conquest” and the “just war” were almost over in Spain, after the main contribution of the School of Salamanca, whose ideas gave way to the beginning of the Law of Nations. As a result, the Spanish monarchs produced a core of legislation that limited theoretically the authority of the Spanish governors (although sometimes they were beyond the king’s control). The occupation of the Philippine Islands by Governor Miguel López de Legazpi is oftentimes referred to as an example of colonization...

  10. Chapter 3 The Encounter (pp. 53-102)

    THE NATIVES OF TAIWAN whom the Spaniards and Dutch encountered belonged to the linguistic group called Austronesians. According to linguistic studies, the Austronesian family extends along the Pacific and Indian Ocean from Easter Island to Madagascar. The number of Austronesian-related languages is difficult to estimate; scholars’ estimates are from 500 to 1000. Academia Sinica researcher Paul Jen-kuei Li (李壬癸) considers that the Austronesians started in the north of present Myanmar around 7,000 B.C. and they spread in three directions, to the Ganges delta, along the Mekong River and along the Yangtze River. This latter group, around the year 5,000 B.C.,...

  11. [Illustrations] (pp. None)
  12. Chapter 4 The “Embryonic” City of San Salvador (pp. 103-134)

    FOLLOWING THE PATTERN set by the Roman Empire, Spain when starting the conquest of the New World proceeded to the establishment of a network of cities as administrative, military, and economic centers. Also, as in the Roman times, some cities were developed over pre-existing ones, like Mexico City; but most of them were created ex novo with a rectangular perimeter, containing a regular network of streets, and following strict regulations, especially since Philip II issued in 1573 his Plan de Ordenamiento Urbano para las Indias (Norms for Urban Design in the Indies). The first cities were located in the Caribbean...

  13. Chapter 5 Commerce in Northern Taiwan (pp. 135-170)

    DURING SOME DECADES OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY Taiwan experienced the economic effects of the European expansion that had started in the fifteenth century. Portugal, Spain, Holland, and England, the main European actors in the East, shared some common economic principles under the name of mercantilism which lead these countries to rivalry, but no clear definition can be given of this economic doctrine. In fact, most of the concepts involved in this doctrine were not entirely original, and were even shared by local actors, particularly China, a country that ultimately absorbed most of the silver produced around the world.

    The most...

  14. Chapter 6 The Missionary Activity (pp. 171-200)

    IN THE SAME WAY THAT BUDDHISM entered in China along different waves, Christianity experienced a similar process, although with much more discrete results. The first one was made by the Nestorians, who reached China from the West by land and made the first Bible in Chinese. In the late Middle Ages with the improvement of maritime communications the Franciscans reached the Middle Kingdom, Montecorvino being the most representative figure, and finally the Portuguese Jesuits reached Japan and China during the Renaissance. It was during this time that Christianity accidentally visited Taiwan for the first time, in 1582. We can start...

  15. Epilogue The Baroque Ending (pp. 201-206)

    THE EL DORADO MYTH, which characterized the Renaissance period, was considered only as a dream and recorded legend during the Baroque. It was transferred to a chronicle as a way to make it stand out from contemporary endeavors. This was the case with the novelized narrative El Carnero, published in 1638 by the Creole Juan Rodríguez Freyle, narrating the first century of the life of the city of Bogotá. Chapter 2 describes the ceremony of the proclamation as a king of the native heir, being bathed with gold, and fully covered by this precious metal, in the middle of a...

  16. Annexes (pp. 207-248)
  17. Notes (pp. 249-272)
  18. Bibliography (pp. 273-288)
  19. Index (pp. 289-299)