User:Taiwantaffy/Dutch Formosa/Demographics of Dutch Formosa

This article is about the demographics of Dutch Formosa, a colonial state that existed on Formosa (Taiwan) from 1624 to 1662.

Prior to the arrival of the Dutch colonists, Taiwan was almost exclusively populated by Taiwanese aborigines; Austronesian peoples who lived in a hunter-gatherer society while also practicing swidden agriculture. It is difficult to arrive at an estimate of the numbers of these native Formosans when the Dutch arrived, as there was no island-wide authority in a position to count the population, while the aborigines themselves did not keep written records. Even at the extent of greatest Dutch control in the 1650s there were still large regions of the island outside the pale of Dutch authority, meaning that any statistics given necessarily relate only to the area of Dutch suzerainty.

Ethnicity
The population of Dutch Formosa was composed of three main groups; the aborigines, the Dutch contingent, and the Chinese. There were also a number of Spanish people resident in the north of the island between 1626 and 1642 in the area around Keelung and Danshui. At times there were also a handful of Japanese trader-pirates known as Wakō operating out of coastal areas outside Dutch control.

The Dutch
The Dutch contingent was initially composed mostly of soldiers, with some slaves and other workers from the other Dutch colonies, particularly the area around Batavia (current day Jakarta). The number of soldiers stationed on the island waxed and waned according to the military needs of the colony, from a low of 180 troops in the early days to a high of 1,800 shortly before Koxinga's invasion.

The Chinese
When the Dutch arrived in Taiwan there was already a network of Chinese traders living on the island, buying merchandise (particularly deer products) from the native Formosans. This network has been estimated at some 1,000–1,500 people, almost all male, most of whom were seasonal residents in Taiwan, returning to Fujian in the off-season. Beginning in the 1640s the Dutch began to encourage large-scale immigration of Chinese to Formosa, providing not only transportation from Fujian, but also draft oxen and seed for the new immigrants to get started in agriculture.