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The Formation of the Modern East Asian Economy
Much Dutch thought was expended on this problem, not surprisingly since it was commonly thought that the survival of the Dutch venture in East Asian and the Dutch East India Company depended on the success of this policy. Initially, then, the Company quietly purchased and shipped slave women from India to satisfy the demands of their sailors and soldiers. But marriage was another matter, and for a time the Dutch East India Company concentrated on sending out Dutch families and young women and men to the colonies, with the thought that these Dutch women would fructify the earth. Certainly, their arrival pleased many Dutch men, one early Dutch historian comparing them to the Dutch delicacy of "roasted pears." Yet in the end, this strategy failed to win the approval of anyone in power. On the way out to Asia, the presence of women aboard these ships was found to damage sailors' discipline. Upon arrival, the Dutch men found to their surprise that these Dutch women tended to die quickly in these tropical climes, and not to have the desired number of offspring. Some of these Dutch women left the home country registered officially as spinsters, but once in the Far East set up brothels as madams. Others arrived, only to be rejected as unfit and ill-mannered, "almost as if they originate from the wilderness instead of having been brought up among people." Another potential source was young virgins straight out of the Dutch orphanages in Holland. But these girls, not surprisingly, proved too few to satisfy the demand of both the settlers and their rulers. In short, Dutch women were not up to it, and even if they had been, the directors of the Dutch Company felt that their shipment was too costly for the few rewards.

A temporary solution like a brothel was effective in Batavia , but whether it was tried in Taiwan is not clear. The overall solution the Dutch sought for their problem then was the most obvious one, even if it was the solution they had first sought to avoid-intermarriage or cohabitation with Asians. By as early as 1607 some Dutch soldiers and sailors were marrying local women in Ambon. There was, however, two catches to this solution. First the marriage had to be Christian, and that meant the wife had to be converted. Thus marriage was sometimes a marriage of inconvenience for many women not willing to surrender their religious beliefs to the Dutch East India Company. Secondly, even when that was possible, the Dutch East India Company regulations barred any man from bringing a "native black woman" and their children back to Holland. Consequently, many a Dutchman chose either to make a temporary marriage, from which commitments he could purchase his release upon his own repatriation, or to simply live with a local woman outside the state of matrimony. The Dutch ministers, and doubtless many women, condemned the men for descending to such pagan practices. But descend they did, since they found few ways of satisfying their needs.

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