Page 29

The Formation of the Modern East Asian Economy
Furthermore, once the Dutch acquired slaves, they had the custom of manumitting them in a way that would have undermined the easy continuation of a slave system. Often, a Batavian, as well as a Portuguese, slaveowner would have a will drawn up to free his closest slaves and given the others some cash upon his death. (*) Such efforts to appease his God did little to solve the more earthly problem of how to settle areas with people sympathetic to his commands.

      Probably then a principal obstacle to the use of such slavery on a large scale for Taiwan would have been the Western traders' lack of direct access to the sizable East Asian market, not just in metals and manufactures, but also in servitude. Chinese constantly complained about the violent intrusions of Westerners, ranking them only below the Japanese as persistent troublemakers.

     A second solution lay in women. One seventeenth century Western merchant who invest in East Asia wrote that " trade is the bride around which we dance." If he had actually lived there, he would have reversed the relationship for the bride to be the trade around which they all needed to dance. For Taiwan to be manned, it first had to be womaned. For the Dutch to settle the island successfully, they had to be able not only to control the land, but also to reproduce themselves at a sufficient rate of growth to have their numbers increase and assimilate other peoples to its growth.

     Thus, a high rate of reproduction and, since they were devout Calvinists, a Christian marriage were indispensable ingredients for a successful Dutch settlement of this island. This problem was particularly difficult since the men needed women. Virtually all the Dutch in East Asia, like the Portuguese in these paintings, were males. Some were already married, some bachelors, and some widowers. But all felt the need to have access to women while they were working on Taiwan and elsewhere in East Asia.

     So a basic problem in the Dutch rule over Taiwan was where they would find the necessary women. Like other Europeans, the Dutch did not usually take women on board their ships. When, for instance, the first Dutch expedition arrived at Banten without a single woman on board, the Javanese, to show their human feelings, quickly brought out some women to greet them.

     Consider then the problems of the Dutch male. Sent out to East Asia at about the age of 20, he faced less than one chance in three of ever seeing his home country again. Most likely, by the age of 40 he would succumb to the recurrent epidemics that ravaged Asian lands and waters; otherwise, he would settle in East Asia permanently. Even if he were to refrain from marriage, how was this man to survive 20 years without women? Where was he going to find his wife, or his woman?

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