The shortlist for the 57th Golden Bell Awards was announced, and SEQALU: Formosa 1867 was nominated for a number of awards, as expected. It is always interesting to watch dramas re-enact historical events (though the plot of SEQALU was not to my liking, its language representation and setting design were eye-catching). Did you watch this drama last year? And were you curious about the 1867 Rover Incident and Charles Le Gendre, one of the protagonists, after watching it?
This time, I present the first half (the second half will be published next time) of an essay written for Museum Tamsui, vol. 14 earlier this year: “Traveling in Taiwan for Knowledge: Charles Le Gendre’s Natural History Knowledge and his Theory of ‘Terra Nullius in Taiwanese Aboriginal Area.’” Probably you will have a different idea about the drama after reading about the historical backgrounds. I express my sincere gratitude to the Tamsui Historical Museum for generously allowing me to repost this essay here.
Regarding our reading club, the next meeting will be held at 10:00 am (Taipei Time) on September 24 for The Stolen Bicycle by Wu Ming-Yi. This time we will meet in person in Taipei! If you are interested, feel free to leave a comment, reply to this e-mail message or write to me at transcreation@substack.com to register by September 16.
《翻譯寫作的文字風景》是中英文雙語電子報。如果只想收到中文版,請到網站右上角的「My Account」內進行操作。有任何問題都歡迎來信聯絡,請直接回覆這封 E-mail 或寫信到 transcreation@substack.com。再次感謝你的訂閱支持!
這篇文章的中文版在這裡。
Foreword
In the 1860s, more than 160 years ago, an important event took place in Taiwan: faced with the defeat in the Second Opium War, the Qing Empire signed the Treaty of Tientsin and the Convention of Peking, opening up Tamsui (1861), Keelung (1863), Takao (1864), and Anping (1865) in Taiwan as treaty ports. The opening of treaty ports influenced the development of these places and resulted in the arrival of numerous Westerners1 in Taiwan, one of whom was the main figure of this essay, Charles W. Le Gendre (1830-1899)2.
In fact, long before the official opening of treaty ports in Taiwan, Westerners had been deeply interested in this island. They were attracted by the commercial potential of Taiwan, but were at the same time troubled by the frequent shipwrecks around Taiwan. For example, in 1851, there were already foreign ships trading in Tamsui, Keelung and other ports under official acquiescence; from 1854 to 1857, American merchant William Robinet set up a hong (store) in Takao, trading camphor, tea, and pulses. The signing of the treaty and the official opening of the port can be said to legalize trade, to avoid unreasonable taxes and regulations, and to further expand the scale of trade.
In addition, with dense shipping routes and frequent storms in the surrounding waters of Taiwan, shipwrecks were reported from time to time. A total of 182 foreign shipwrecks occurred over the more than 200 years of the Qing rule in Taiwan (1683 to 1895). Although the Qing Empire established rescue systems and repatriation regulations for foreign shipwrecks, whether the shipwrecked survivors could be rescued was still at fate’s disposal. For one thing, some fishing villages in Taiwan had the habit of robbing ships, and the valuables of the shipwrecked ship were an important source of subsistence for the residents of the fishing villages. For another, the ruling authority of the Qing Empire did not extend to the entire island of Taiwan, and if the ship drifted to areas controlled by the indigenous peoples, the crew might face the calamity of death. The 1867 Rover Incident and the 1874 Mudan/Botan Incident were both international disputes over shipwrecks — and Charles Le Gendre played a major role in both.
Westerners at that time imagined Taiwan as both a desirable island of abundance and also a fearful island of savagery, full of ignorant peoples and uncivilized lands. Westerners had all kinds of imaginations and expectations about Taiwan, yet equipped with only limited knowledge: the records left by Westerners in the 17th and 18th centuries were probably outdated, and the writings of literati in the Ming and Qing China were not “accurate” enough in their opinion. They aspired to explore Taiwan, to understand Taiwan, and also to develop Taiwan; if need be, they would even bring “order” and “civilization” to realize their ambitions.
Charles Le Gendre, a U.S. diplomat, came to Taiwan at the juncture of these incidents. In 1867, Rover, a U.S. ship, was shipwrecked at the southernmost tip of Taiwan and drifted to the South Bay, which was not under the control of the Qing Empire. 13 crew members on board were killed by indigenous peoples, and only one Han Chinese fled to Chasiang (車城). As the U.S. Consul at Amoy, Charles Le Gendre came to Taiwan to negotiate with Qing officials to retrieve the bodies of the victims and to punish the murderers. From 1867 to 1872, he came to Taiwan for at least 8 times, learned about the reality of the Qing rule in southern Taiwan, also learned about the products and ethnic groups in a large part of Taiwan, and compiled his knowledge into Notes of Travel in Formosa3.
Charles Le Gendre learned about Taiwan through travel, but it was not easy to travel in 19th-century Taiwan. He not only made good use of his status as a diplomat but also traveled around with the help of the community of Westerners in Taiwan formed after the opening of the treaty ports. In this essay, I will use Charles Le Gendre’s Notes of Travel in Formosa as the main primary source to describe how he managed to travel by using the social network, what were the characteristics or limitations of his knowledge acquired in this way, and how his knowledge exerted an influence on the Mudan Incident.
Natural History Interests of the Western Community in Taiwan and the Difficulties in Travels They Faced
After the opening of the treaty ports in Taiwan, Westerners came as merchants, missionaries, diplomats, customs staff, naturalists, navy officers or sailors; institutions such as hongs, churches, consulates, and customs served as the centers of their activities. Their residence was mainly restricted to treaty ports, and the average number of people in Taiwan each year was only about a hundred. Although the community was small, they witnessed the changes of Taiwan in the late Qing Dynasty and left many records about Taiwan, or Formosa.
The Westerners helped each other to settle down and often traveled together, forming a small but intimate community. From their records, it was clear that natural history was one of their common interests: in addition to Charles Le Gendre, many other Westerners were also naturalists, such as Robert Swinhoe (1836-1877), the British Consul in Taiwan), and George Leslie Mackay (1844-1901), a missionary of the Presbyterian Church. Natural history was a subject for which Westerners had strong enthusiasm in the 19th century. The objects to be studied included not only animals and plants, but also fungi, geology, paleontology and so on — an almost all-encompassing discipline and also the common language of Westerners for exploring and describing terra incognita.
Natural history-based knowledge relies much on travel; probably as the Chinese saying goes, “it is better to travel ten thousand miles than to read ten thousand books.” Westerners had to actually travel to various places to collect specimens, or to entrust local people to assist in the collection of specimens. They either identified the specimens themselves or sent them back to museums in their home country. Field naturalists who collected specimens abroad and sedentary naturalists who analyzed specimens at home not only cooperated but also competed with each other, and knowledge about terra incognita was gradually established with the progress on both sides.
The establishment of natural history knowledge relied on travel, yet travel was not an easy task in the 19th-century Taiwan. The hot and humid climate was challenging for Westerners; malaria was very common, and people could fall ill at any time. As the east-west rivers cut off the north-south land transportation, land transportation was inconvenient and far less reliable than sea routes. But the most serious problem was probably the “Aboriginal Boundary”4 and the boundaries between ethnic groups and villages. The Qing Empire set up the Aboriginal Boundary in Taiwan, prohibiting people to cross the Aboriginal Boundary at will, and the Qing jurisdiction does not reach the indigenous peoples outside the boundary. Separated by the Aboriginal Boundary, the island of Taiwan consisted of uneven spaces where the government wielded different degrees of authority. With ethnic relations being complex and changing, the settlements might be at peace with each other for one moment and at war for the next, and the indigenous peoples had the custom of hunting heads. To travel in Taiwan, one had to overcome the visible and invisible obstacles caused by difficulties in transportation and animosity among the ethnic groups.
For someone like Charles Le Gendre who did not live in Taiwan for a longer term, the Western community provided valuable resources, especially the church network established by the long-time cultivation of missionaries which formed important nodes in traveling routes. Charles Le Gendre learned about travel precautions and routes through the community network, and his status as a diplomat was of course of great use — Qing officials had to take his requirements seriously and even offered him military protection. Charles Le Gendre traveled with other Westerners, hired coolies, guides and interpreters, and brought gifts and medicines to show his amity. Having overcome the restrictions of transportation and the boundaries of ethnic groups, he managed to travel to most of the Western Taiwan and lower hills. Next, we will observe the reality of the travel at that time through the records of Charles Le Gendre and examine the characteristics of the knowledge Charles Le Gendre acquired through travel.
The above is the first half of “Traveling in Taiwan for Knowledge: Charles Le Gendre’s Natural History Knowledge and his Theory of ‘Terra Nullius in Taiwanese Aboriginal Area,’” adapted from my master’s thesis, which has been published as Travel for Knowledge: Knowledge about Taiwan Constructed by Charles Le Gendre, James Davidson and Other Westerners (1860-1905) 行旅致知:李仙得、達飛聲等西方人建構的臺灣知識(1860-1905).
After finishing the thesis, unexpectedly, I was given the opportunity to write about George Leslie Mackay and Robert Swinhoe (both of whom have been mentioned above) — a pleasant surprise (or probably I should say that what I shunned away would eventually come back to me anyway…).
That is, Europeans and Americans.
Charles W. Le Gendre (1830-1899), born in France, was later naturalized as an American. He fought in the Civil War, retired with the brevetted rank of General in 1865 and turned to seek a career in diplomacy. He served as the U.S. Consul at Amoy from 1866 to 1872, during which the 1867 Rover Incident took place, and he came to Taiwan to handle the dispute. He traveled to Taiwan frequently when stationed in Amoy, and his thorough knowledge of Taiwan earned him a position as a consultant to the Japanese Meiji government from 1872 to 1875, and he planned the deployment of troops for Japan in the 1874 Taiwan Expedition (Mudan Incident). After leaving Japan, Le Gendre was hired as an adviser to the Korean government in 1887, and died in Seoul in 1899 at the age of 69.
Notes of Travel in Formosa was not published after its completion, and the manuscript is housed in the Library of Congress in the U.S. and the National Archives of Japan. In recent years, the complete version of this book was compiled and published in Taiwan, as Charles Wm. Le Gendre, Notes of Travel in Formosa, ed. Douglas L. Fix and John Shufelt (Tainan: National Museum of Taiwan History, 2012).
For the term “番界” (literally meaning “savage boundary”), I use the most common translation, “Aboriginal Boundary,” and do not use quotation marks in the following paragraphs.