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In the sixteenth century, Sugar conquered the world. It replaced honey and became a dietary favorite. It also became important in the world trade. In the seventeenth century, Taiwan started producing sugar under the Dutch rule. Sugar gained profit for the Dutch East India Company and introduced Taiwan to the world trade. During the Dutch colonial period, sugar cane became one of the most representative crops grown in Taiwan. Research showed that the production of sugar led to change in land use, which affected the ecological system and environment.Footnote 1 This article analyzes the sugar policies of the Dutch in Taiwan, to examine how sugar cane was successfully cultivated, as well as the environmental consequences of its cultivation in Taiwan.

Four volumes of De Dagregisters van het Kasteel Zeelandia and three volumes of The Diaries of Batavia were used as the primary material for this research. Two volumes of The Collections of the Dutch Governors’ Letters, both translated into Chinese and published in Taiwan,Footnote 2 were also reviewed. Academic publications, such as Tonio Andrade’s How Taiwan Became Chinese: Dutch, Spanish and Han Colonization in the Seventieth Century, and Pol Heyns’ Economy, Land Rights and Taxation in Dutch Formosa, as well as publications of some Taiwanese scholars, were valuable references for this research. Among works of Taiwanese scholars, Tsao Yung-ho’s Studies on the History of Early Taiwan, Part I and II, were also important resources for this research. Tsao pioneered the research of Dutch in Taiwan since the 1950s and many have followed his footsteps.Footnote 3

1 Sugar Cane in Taiwan Before Dutch Colonization

When was sugar cane first cultivated in Taiwan? Did Taiwan have its own indigenous species of sugar cane? In 1349, before the Dutch colonized Taiwan, Wang Ta-yuan mentioned sugar cane in Brief Account of the Island (Dao Yu Zhi Lue)《島嶼志略》. He wrote about that indigenous people in Taiwan producing salt by boiling sea water and making wine with sugar cane juice. In 1603, Chen Di, a Confucius scholar of the Ming Dynasty, depicted his encounters in Taiwan in Record of Eastern Indigenous People (Dong Fan Ji)《東番記》. He documented vegetables grown in the land, such as scallion, ginger, potato, and taro. He also listed a number of fruits, such as Coconut Palm, Taiwan Persimmon (velvet apple), Buddha’s Hand Citron, and sugar cane.Footnote 4

By 1624, the Dutch had established their ruling system in Taiwan. We found two records mentioning sugar cane in The Diary of Batavia, a Dutch document, in which they described animals, plants, vegetables and fruits present on the island. Many fruits were listed, including Siri, Pinang (areca catechu), banana, orange, watermelon, bottle gourd, sugar cane and others, but not coconut trees. It stated that there were plenty of such fruit plants around Da Yuan (大員) and Hsiuh Long (蕭壠), along Taiwan’s southwestern plain.Footnote 5 However, it seemed as though the indigenous people did not harvest fruit from those plants.

At that time, there was a large number of deer in the land. The indigenous people used to hunt deer and turn their skin and dried meat to merchandise sold to the Chinese at a low price, or exchanged for other goods.Footnote 6 In the late 1620s, Sun-yi Peng 彭孫貽 (1615–1673) began writing The Document of Conquering the Ocean《靖海志》, in which he documented the geography and landscape of Taiwan for almost five decades. He pointed out that many indigenous tribes lived under the mountains where there was fertile soil and exchanged goods with each other. Peng’s book highlighted: “many poor immigrants came from Mainland China and lived along the coast. They grew sugar cane and produced sugar for a living.” He estimated that there were thousands of Chinese families involved in the business of producing sugar.Footnote 7

Through such documents, we learned that sugar cane already existed in Taiwan before the Dutch, and the indigenous people consumed sugar but not sugar cane. J. E. Heeres stated that there were some indigenous species of sugar cane in Taiwan before the Dutch arrived, because the environmental condition was very suitable for growing the plant,Footnote 8 but no record of cultivation could be found. One possible reason for the lack of documentation is that the Chinese brought sugar cane to Taiwan before the Dutch, but it wasn’t grown for business purposes. During the Sung Dynasty, sugar cane plantations were common in the south of the Yangzi River in China. Since Chinese people had been travelling between Taiwan and the mainland regularly, we can assume that the “indigenous species” of Taiwan—species that came before the Dutch—originally came from China.

2 Sugar Cane Policies Under Dutch Rule (1624–1662)

After the Dutch colonized Taiwan, they established plantations to be cared for specifically by Chinese farmers.Footnote 9 With the help of these farmers, the Dutch were able to launch their sugar business in Taiwan.Footnote 10 There were 13 governors over the period of the Dutch colonization. Four of which—Hans Putmans, the 5th Governor (1629–1636), Johan van der Burch, the 6th Governor (1636–1640), Pieter Anthoniszoon Overtwater, the 10th Governor (1646–1649), and Nicolaes Verburch, the 11th Governor (1649–1653)—are representatives of the Dutch administration of sugar policies in Taiwan.

In 1632, Governor Putmans encouraged the Chinese farmers, providing financial aid and cattle, to grow sugar cane in Chi Kan (赤崁)—the first Chinese agricultural colony. The next year, a new species called “Bamboo Sugar Cane” was imported to Da Yuan. The harvest in 1634 was successful.Footnote 11 Then in 1635, the Dutch East India Company recruited two Chinese businessmen (also called landlords), Lin Hen-wan (林亨萬) and Su Ming-gang (蘇鳴崗) to Taiwan. Lin and Su led a total of 300 Chinese farmers to attend to the sugar cane fields assigned by the Dutch. Each of them had approximately 20 ha. It was estimated that 200–300 picul of black sugar were produced that year.Footnote 12

At a meeting in 1635, Putmans decided to continue providing money and cattle to the Chinese farmers.Footnote 13 In 1636, the Dutch Congress in Taiwan decided to waive taxes for 5–6 years, and guaranteed the purchasing price of sugar. They also built hospitals for the Chinese farmers.Footnote 14 The Dutch found that indigenous people often harassed the farmers. Therefore, in 1635, to improve farming conditions, Putmans requested Batavia to send troops to attack Taiwanese indigenous people. Batavia sent 475 soldiers to Taiwan under the commend, and conquered Ma Dou She (麻豆社), which was the largest tribe in that area. The Dutch also signed peace treaties with other tribes nearby in 1636. In all, Putmans’ policies were aimed to facilitate sugar production in Taiwan.Footnote 15

In order to reach the annual goal of sugar production, Governor Burch banned the eating of sugar cane grown in Chi Kan on August 13, 1639. The ban also declared that the Chinese farmers are not allowed to sell sugar to anyone besides the Dutch.Footnote 16

The agricultural policies by the 7th governor Paulus Traudenius (1640–1643), the 8th governor Maximiliaen le Maire (1643–1644), and the 9th governor Francois Caron (1644–46), showed that the Dutch maintained a sugar industry throughout that time. By 1641, Taiwan had increased its sugar production and cultivated more land for that purpose. Around the same time, seeds of indigo plants were distributed to farmers, as the colonial government was also seeking other profitable agricultural investments.Footnote 17 In 1645, the Dutch learned that the fertile soil in Taiwan was suitable for growing crops, especially sugar cane, which could produce an abundant amount of sugar for trade. According to the records, in 1645, Chi Kan area alone could produce 1,000,000 kg of white sugar, and up to 1,500,000 kg of sugar a year.Footnote 18 Although the Dutch decided to import and grow several kinds of vegetables, such as ginns (Wolfiporia extensa) and ginger in addition to sugar cane, their focus was on sugar.

Governor Overtwater’s policy on sugar was to cooperate with Chinese landlords to develop local sugar businesses and international trade. In 1639, he drafted seven landlords—Jacoma, Simtocq, Sanloe, Cambingh, Lampack, Boijcko, and Peco—to grow 262,000 sugar cane plants. Like Putmans, Overtwater protected Chinese farmers from the harassment of indigenous people and guaranteed the purchase price of sugar. Chinese farmers also grew other crops, including rice, tobacco, indigo, ginger, and ginns, for various demands.

The following table shows the numbers of sugar cane plants cultivated by the Chinese farmers led by the seven Chinese landlords:Footnote 19

Landlord

Jacoma

Simtocq

Sanloe

Cambingh

Lampack

Boijcko

Peco

Number of sugar cane plants

50,000

30,000

40,000

12,000

30,000

70,000

30,000

Other crops

Rice, tobacco, indigo, ginger, ginns (Wolfiporia extensa), etc

In the late 1640s, China was in short of food supply. Food shortages affected the production of sugar in Taiwan. Chinese famers were more inclined to grow rice instead of sugar cane, because rice could be sold at a better price. In 1649, Governor Verburch raised the price of sugar in response to this situation. It was proven to be an effective strategy. He also took this opportunity to export Taiwanese sugar to Japan.Footnote 20

In the 1650s, the sugar business in Da Yuan had been revived. In 1651, the amount of sugar being produced had reached 120,000 kg per year. After 1652, the amount of sugar exported continued to increase due to the expansion of sugar cane fields from Da Yuan to other regions in central Taiwan. As a result, Taiwanese sugar changed its name from “Da Yuan Sugar” to “Formosa Sugar”.Footnote 21 In December 1658, there was an abundant harvest of rice and sugar, and “Formosa Sugar” was traded to Japan, Iran, and China.Footnote 22

3 Sugar Cane Success in Taiwan

When the Dutch began their agricultural projects in Taiwan, they grew a variety of crops, for example, indigo, mulberry trees, cotton, and Cantonese ginger. Most of the crops had failed, but the cultivation of sugar cane was successful. There are a few explanations.

First of all, the growing condition in Taiwan and the nature of sugar cane plants were crucial to the success. In general, sugar cane grows well between the latitudes of 36° north and 30° south, and Taiwan is located precisely within that range. The Dutch imported “Bamboo Sugar Cane” from the southeastern part of China to Taiwan. The trunk of such variety is small but strong enough to bear wind. Therefore, it was easy to grow in Taiwan and had better chance to survive without well-established irrigation systems, which was lacking.Footnote 23 Notably, the natural environment was more suitable for the cultivation of sugar cane than for rice in seventeenth century Taiwan.

The contribution of Chinese labor was also crucial. It was an effective strategy of the Dutch to rely on Chinese farmers. The Dutch preferred Chinese workers to slaves from other continents, because they were skillful and more affordable. They were also more capable when working without instructions and supervision. As a result, the Dutch East India Company owned 60 slaves, but employed 3000 Chinese workers during that period.Footnote 24 The Dutch governors in colonial Taiwan had encouraged the cultivation of various crops since 1636, a policy that called for many Chinese farmers to relocate to and settle in Taiwan.Footnote 25 Besides sugar, Chinese landlords were eager to grow rice, so they also recruited Chinese farmers to cultivate their land for rice,Footnote 26 and that attracted more people to immigrate.

In December 1645, the Dutch government in Taiwan learned that China was undergoing civil war, so they decided to waive the taxes of Chinese farmers in Taiwan to encourage agricultural production.Footnote 27 In 1649, during the civil war period between late Ming and early Qing dynasties, approximately 14,000 people fled to Taiwan from China. The population of Taiwan continued to increase since.

Acknowledging the Chinese immigrants’ contribution to the colonial government, the first Dutch governor in Batavia, Jan Pieterson Coen, once stated: “No one could compete with the Chinese who have served us best.” In 1649, Batavia Governor Cornelis van der Lijn wrote in a letter to Governor Pieter Overtwater expressing that the Chinese were the only “honey bees” who produced honey. He believed that without the Chinese, the Dutch East India Company would not have been able to maintain their authority in Taiwan.Footnote 28

4 Changes in Economy, Demographics and the Environment

The Dutch East India Company considered sugar a valuable product in the world trade. Under Dutch rule, sugar and other products from Taiwan were integrated into the Dutch’s worldwide supply network. From there on, Taiwan was officially participating in the world trade, as J. H. Galloway mentioned:

Sugar cane was a crop of long-standing domestic importance throughout Southeast Asia before the first European merchants appeared in the region, and a few places, such as southwestern Taiwan, produced a surplus for export. During the years of colonial administration, the production of sugar in Java, Taiwan, the Philippines and Malaya was transformed, commercialized, and the four countries became significant exporters.Footnote 29

Taiwan had been isolated for thousands of years. In the seventeenth century, the Dutch not only laid a foundation for the sugar industry in Taiwan, they also brought Taiwan to the world.Footnote 30

The large number of Chinese immigrants changed the demographics of Taiwan. There was an estimated 100,000 Chinese who immigrated to the island during the four decades of Dutch colonization. Ever since the Dutch began recruiting farmers from mainland China to assist with agricultural activities in Taiwan, the nature of Chinese people’s visits changed. In the past, fishermen from China’s Fujian Province would come to Taiwan at certain times of the year to fish and conduct trade with the indigenous people and then return to the mainland. Under Dutch rule, more Chinese started to settle in Taiwan. Fishing activities increased as well.Footnote 31 With the assistance of Cabessas—Chinese landlords—Chinese farmers became useful labor to the Dutch. Footnote 32Severe living conditions due to food shortage in southeastern China in the beginning of the seventeenth century, also propelled the Chinese to leave for Taiwan.

Chinese settlers were also allowed to enter the Formosa Congress Meetings as representatives. The close relationship between the Dutch and the Chinese settlers formed a “co-colonization” in Dutch colonial Taiwan.Footnote 33 This new political and demographic construct reflected the diaspora of trade and labor in East Asia,Footnote 34 which was a result of the world trade.

After the Dutch, when Zheng Chenggong was governing Taiwan (1662–1683), the Chinese immigrant population increased from 150,000 approximately to 200,000. The number reached 250,000 at the end of the seventeenth century.Footnote 35 Zheng, as a child of Ming Dynasty, intended to develop Taiwan as an anti-Qing Dynasty base.

Dutch agricultural policies in Taiwan changed the use of land and landscape. With permission from the Dutch colonial government, Chinese farmers started cultivating land beyond existing fields.Footnote 36 On Feb. 25, 1643, despite there being sufficient supply, the indigenous people in Da Yuan were demanded to grow more rice to increase the tax income for the Dutch East India Company. Chinese farmers had cultivated 3737 morgen of rice by 1654.Footnote 37 The Dutch also ordered them to cut down forests to create new farmland—a policy that led to rapid deforestation.Footnote 38 The process of creating new farmland also spoiled the habitat of deer in Taiwan, causing its population to decrease.

The change in land use also affected the livelihood of the indigenous people, which had traditionally depended on fishing and hunting. The 1655 locust plague led to poor harvest of rice that year. The people pled for the right to hunt, but was denied by the authority.Footnote 39 It showed that the Dutch were strongly committed to policies favoring agriculture.

As a result of Dutch agricultural policies, cows in Taiwan became domesticated. The number of cows had increased rapidly since the 1630s. There were roughly 20 cows in the 1620s, and 360 by 1635.Footnote 40 Records show that more cows had been imported to Taiwan since.Footnote 41 Contrary to the decline of the deer population, the number of cows grew with the development of agriculture.

5 Balance of Sugar and Rice

In The World that Trade Created, Kenneth Pomeranz and Steve Topik argued that, Taiwan had the highest chance of monoculture during the 1600s under Dutch rule. Sugar cane monoculture would have been caused by the demand for sugar production and the need for trade—an incident they called the “sugar shock”.Footnote 42 They agreed that Taiwan avoided the sugar shock because sea merchant Zheng Cheng-gong’s invasion of Taiwan, which overthrew the Dutch, had brought attention to the importance of other crops, particularly rice.

However, before Zheng, the Dutch had experimented with the cultivation of several kinds of crops. They were seeking crops that could be grown successfully in Taiwan, especially the kinds that were valuable in trade. As promising as sugar seemed at that time, it wasn’t as profitable as the Dutch had expected. Also, local dietary needs demanded additional crops. The fact is, there was little chance that the Dutch policies on sugar cane could have resulted in monoculture. There had always been a variety of crops grown simultaneously in Taiwan.

While Pomeranz and Topik’s concern of the sugar shock was from an ecological standpoint, Zheng’s concern was political. As a child of the Ming Dynasty, Zheng took Taiwan as an anti-Qing base. Both Zheng and the Qing government realized that internal stability was key to keeping Taiwan under control, and having a steady supply of rice was important. Producing large amounts of sugar for foreign trade, on the other hand, was not.Footnote 43

While in Taiwan, Zheng administered the “wasteland reclamation program”—a system often applied by previous Chinese Empires to cultivate fields for rice production.Footnote 44 The British East India Company records revealed that, in 1683, the amount of sugar produced in Taiwan was one third of the average annual amount during the Dutch period.Footnote 45 Even though Zheng made food crops the priority, he didn’t give up on sugar production. Sugar was still beneficial in generating extra income for his regime in Taiwan.

The enormous profit gained by exporting sugar to Japan and the Philippines was one reason that prompted the Qing Empire to include Taiwan in its political territory.Footnote 46 Sugar production was continued after Qing defeated Zheng’s grandson and took over the island in 1683. But when more and more farmers started growing sugar cane instead of rice, the Qing government intervened. In the late 1670s, Kao Kong-chien (高拱乾), Administrator of Taiwan and Hsiamen, began to worry that sugar would take over rice, so he issued a ban on the cultivation of sugar cane, declaring the need for people to grow rice to prevent Taiwan from food shortages.Footnote 47 Besides, Taiwan had to supply food to Fujian, Canton, and Zhejiang provinces as well.Footnote 48

From the Dutch colonial period to Zheng’s regime, and later the Qing Dynasty, sugar and rice had always coexisted and become correlated agriculturally and economically. The balance between sugar cane and food crops demanded authorities to deliberate their policies on land use.

6 Conclusion

In the 1600s, imperial powers in the world trade, such as the British, Spanish, Portuguese, and the Dutch, established sugar industries in many colonies. Sugar was one of the most profitable colonial products at that time. When the Dutch colonized Taiwan from 1624 to 1662, they transformed sugar cane from its original state as a wild plant into a cash crop.

The cultivation of sugar cane plants and the production of sugar, systemized by the Dutch, impacted Taiwan in a few ways: First of all, Taiwan entered the world trade through producing sugar for the Dutch East India Company. The Dutch established a foundation of sugar industry in Taiwan, which continued after they left. Secondly, the large number of Chinese who immigrated to Taiwan and settled as farmers and workers changed the demographics of the island. They contributed their labor and farming skills to the cultivation of crops at first, and later became an important political asset for regimes that entered Taiwan after the Dutch. If “Asian species, American land, European skill, and African labor” was the trans-continental model of sugar production,Footnote 49 “Chinese species, Chinese farming skill, Chinese labor” was the Taiwanese format.

More importantly, the cultivation of sugar cane influenced policies of land use in Taiwan. Forests were cut down to create farmland. This resulted in deforestation of the southwestern Taiwan and changed the habitat of animals, which led to the decline of some species. On the other hand, the number of cows increased as they were employed for farming. Changes in land use also altered the lifestyle of the indigenous people whose livelihood depended heavily on hunting.

Sugar cane became an important part of Taiwan’s diverse agriculture. Even though sugar cane plantations was a major crop at that time, the Dutch colonial government, as well as local farmers, had always grown a variety of crops for different needs. The profit of sugar trade had tempted many to give up growing food crops. The danger of food shortage alerted authorities to not over-emphasize the production of sugar and overlook food crops, especially rice. Throughout the Dutch colonial period, Zheng Chenggong’s regime, and the Qing Dynasty, policies were enforced in Taiwan to maintain a balance between rice and sugar productions. Therefore, we can argue that the sugar trade in Taiwan under Dutch rule initiated a long-lasting debate in Taiwan regarding the politics of land use and food supply. Between the seventeenth century and the Japanese colonial period, the contradictory relation of rice and sugar in Taiwan was common. It can be concluded that sugar influenced Taiwan ecologically and culturally.