Traveling to 19th-Century Southern Taiwan with Charles Le Gendre
Charles Le Gendre’s Natural History Knowledge and his Theory of "Terra Nullius in Taiwanese Aboriginal Area"
Long time no see! It’s so nice to say hi again after a month’s time.
This post is a sequal to “Revisiting 19th-Century Taiwan” two months ago, and also the second part of “Traveling in Taiwan for Knowledge: Charles Le Gendre’s Natural History Knowledge and his theory of ‘Terra Nullius in Taiwanese Aboriginal Area’” in Museum Tamsui, vol. 14. Again, I express my sincere gratitude to the Tamsui Historical Museum for generously allowing me to repost this essay here.
The original plan was to publish the two parts in a row, but as I got Covid and had to take a break, it eventually took two months to get the second part ready. Another surprise in these two months was that SEQALU: Formosa 1867 was awarded Best Television Series, the biggest award of the Golden Bell Awards, which would probably arouse one’s interest in one of the protagonists/historical figures, Charles Le Gendre. “Revisiting 19th-Century Taiwan” talks more about Le Gendre’s biography, and this post focuses more on his travels and his understanding of Taiwan. For me, travel is a very intriguing topic, and I hope you enjoy these two posts.
Regarding our reading club, the next meeting will be held at 7:00 pm (Taipei Time) on December 1 for Last Words from Montmartre by Qiu Miaojin. We will meet online this time. 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 November 28.
《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。
Le Gendre's Travels and his Knowledge about Taiwan
Le Gendre came to Taiwan in 1867 to settle the Rover incident, and finally reached an agreement with Tokitok (卓杞篤), the Chief of Eighteen Tribes south of Liangkiau (琅𤩝十八社, in today’s Hengchun peninsula) and the actual ruler of this region, to protect the future shipwrecked. In order to reach an agreement and to ensure the validity of the agreement, Le Gendre visited Liangkiau many times, and could be said to have been the Westerner who knew Liangkiau best at that time. In addition, Le Gendre once traveled from Tamsui to Taiwanfu by land, which was also a rare accomplishment. Though he never lived in Taiwan over a long period of time, he came to Taiwan at least 8 times and accumulated knowledge of Taiwan through his numerous trips to the Aboriginal Area and to major settlements in western Taiwan.
Traveling in 19th-Century Taiwan was quite difficult. What was it like from Le Gendre’s viewpoint? Le Gendre once walked from Kookow (邱茍, today’s Chuhuangkeng in Gongguan, Miaoli) to Tyka (大甲, today’s Dajia in Taichung) with guides, porters, etc. He complained that the trip “had been a laborious and tedious one”:
The country is very undulating, and we had had to travel almost constantly over natural pathways formed by the dry beds of water courses that had been traced by the rain … in these hollows the reverberation of the sun was so great that it seemed to us as though the heat were concentrated just at the point where we were…1
The challenging road condition and the hot, humid weather made traveling a toilsome endeavor, but as a diplomat, Le Gendre was able to mobilize more resources. He hired porters and sedan chairmen to make the journey more comfortable. He sometimes traveled by boat to advance faster and easier.
To cross the boundary into the aboriginal area, one had to make thorough preparations, not only to find guides and interpreters, but also to procure gifts. It must have been a long-standing practice to bring gifts when one visited the indigenous peoples. Le Gendre’s knowledge of gifts might have come from guides or from other Westerners. In addition to gifts, Westerners often brought medicines, sometimes even doctors with them, and the missionaries distributed or sold medicines through the church network. Westerners were generally welcomed by the indigenous peoples, thanks probably to gifts and medicines.
Le Gendre’s travel routes were also influenced by the network of Westerners. One of his frequent travel companions, John Dodd (1838-1907), a British businessman, sometimes determined Le Gendre’s travel routes for him. Dodd ran business in northern Taiwan, promoted the export of Taiwanese tea, and often went to the mountains near the tea plantations in northern Taiwan. Dodd spoke the Tangow (桶後) dialect (one of the Atayal languages), and he must have been the key person to introduce Le Gendre into the Tangow tribe in Koo-cheu (屈尺, in today’s Xindian).
In January 1870, Le Gendre traveled from Takao to Taosiah (陶社, in today’s Pingtung) to visit the indigenous peoples, and stayed overnight at the Presbyterian Church in Ah-lu-kang (阿里港) and the Catholic Church in Bankimsing (萬金庄). Both his lodging places and his stopping points were related to the places where missionaries worked. William Alexander Pickering (1840-1907), who worked for foreign merchants, once traveled along a similar route, and probably informed Le Gendre of this route as the two were acquaintances.
With the help of the Western community, Le Gendre managed to travel to various places in Taiwan. His travel routes reflected the influence of the social network, and the knowledge acquired therefrom also bore the traces of travel: his objects of descriptions included points where the team took a break, points of lodging (usually villages or towns), and the countryside between towns, and the pace of descriptions reflected the rhythm of walking. Le Gendre was interested in natural history, and he also observed complex ethnic relations during his travels. He even developed a theory of “Terra Nullius in Taiwanese Aboriginal Area” based on his observations in Liangkiau.
Like many Westerners at that time, Le Gendre devoted himself to the study of natural history and seized the opportunity to collect plant and geological specimens. Le Gendre was particularly knowledgeable in geology: he used to run a mining business in the United States, though it turned out to be not very successful. Natural history was his tool for describing and analyzing the landscapes. Probably out of his own interest in geology and mining, or probably out of the Westerners’ desire for “development” at that time, an interest in commercial potential was woven into his narrative. For example, when Le Gendre passed through Gochey (梧棲), a prosperous small port in central Taiwan, he described its countryside as follows:
Like the hills of this group, they are rich in camphor trees and other useful timber. Tea culture has lately been introduced there with great success, and the leaf is considered by the Chinese to be superior to any other in the island. Besides tea and camphor, large quantities of tobacco and indigo are raised in these hills; while rice, sugar cane, ground-nuts, and sweet potatoes take up all the attention of the farmers of the plains.2
Le Gendre described the main crops of Gochey, evaluated their planting conditions, and paid special attention to whether there were “useful” products. The whole place seemed to be very prosperous.
As for geology, in addition to descriptions, Le Gendre even made a bold assumption. Based on his own observations, he believed that the “volcanoes” said to be widespread in Formosa were in fact burning oil wells. Then he concluded very excitedly:
As the Kelung sandstone has been seen as far south as the little village of Tossupong (大樹房) at the extreme south of the island, we may infer from this and other observations that the island of Formosa is pretty much uniformly composed of the same elements. If this be so, it is very probable that the three great staples, coals, sulphur and rock oil, may be found all over the island; and these productions, added to those already mentioned, indigo, tea, camphor, etc., etc., would make Formosa one of the richest lands on the face of the earth.3
According to his geological discoveries, important resources such as coal, sulfur, and oil might be rich in Taiwan, making it an ideal place for investment and development. Le Gendre’s natural history descriptions in both botany and geology were closely intertwined with his commercial interests. He made no effort to hide the connection between his pursuit of knowledge and his pursuit for profits, nor did he think the two in conflict. The desire to “explore” could be said to be something he shared with his contemporaries.
In addition to natural history knowledge, Le Gendre’s most notable “contribution” was probably his theory of “Terra Nullius in Taiwanese Aboriginal Area.” In his numerous trips to Liangkiau and his interaction with the Eighteen Tribes south of Liangkiau, he noticed that this area was not under the jurisdiction of the Qing government, and there was a boundary between different ethnic groups. He drew on the map the boundary he observed, which ran from north to south through the Hengchun Peninsula, different from the Qing government’s practice of treating all regions south of Pang-liau (枋寮) as the Aboriginal Area. Le Gendre’s map described the Eighteen Tribes south of Liangkiau as a “Confederation,” a loose alliance of independent states, which was tantamount to acknowledging that the indigenous peoples formed a political society of a certain scale independent of the Qing government. Paradoxically, according to the concept of international law in the 19th century, those who are more “civilized” than the indigenous peoples could still take over the “sovereignty” of the lands and the peoples.4
When Le Gendre was settling the Rover incident, he urged the Qing government again and again to take action to incorporate Liangkiau into their jurisdiction. However, for the Qing government, this was tantamount to asking them to expand their territory, which was a matter of grave consequences. The Qing government did not actively respond to Le Gendre’s request. In 1872, Le Gendre resigned as the U.S. consul at Amoy and became an adviser to the Japanese Meiji government, assisting Japan in sending troops to Taiwan in the 1874 Taiwan Expedition (Mudan Incident). At the same time, Le Gendre’s discourse for the Aboriginal Area in Taiwan was further developed: first, in his 1873 “Map of Southern Taiwan,” he changed the Aboriginal Boundary to include all regions south of Pang-liau, which was consistent with the Qing government’s practice to justify the landing location of the Japanese troops on the west coast of the Hengchun Peninsula.5 Second, he anonymously published a pamphlet titled Is Aboriginal Formosa a Part of the Chinese Empire?6 Le Gendre argued that the Qing government did not take over the sovereignty over the indigenous areas of Taiwan, and other civilizations such as Japan could take their place. He even stated that in order to avoid territorial disputes between China and Japan, the entire island would eventually be included in the Japanese territory.
Le Gendre endorsed Japan’s expedition with his theory of “Terra Nullius in Taiwanese Aboriginal Area” and planned the routes for the Japanese troops with the maps he drew during his investigations in Taiwan. His knowledge of Taiwan was put to use as strategic intelligence; in this light, his Notes of Travel in Formosa could be said to be a “colonization manual” for Japan. However, the Mudan Incident was finally resolved through diplomatic channels, and the Qing government responded to the sovereignty issue of the indigenous areas with campaigns to “open up the mountains and pacify the aboriginal people.” Such development might have disappointed Le Gendre, and it might also frustrated the publication of Notes of Travel in Formosa, whose strong colonial ideas were in conflict with the political atmosphere.
Conclusion
After the opening of treaty ports in the 1860s, Taiwan, with its rich commercial potential and frequent shipwrecks, became the focus of the Western world from time to time. The 1867 Rover Incident brought Charles Le Gendre, the U.S. consul at Amoy, to Taiwan, who managed to travel around with the assistance of the Western community in Taiwan. As much of Westerners’ understanding of Taiwan was based on travel, it was also limited by the places to which they had access. They looked at Taiwan with a desire to explore and develop, and perhaps judged what they saw with the standard of “civilization,” hoping to remove obstacles to development with the power of “civilization.”
Le Gendre’s natural history knowledge reflects these characteristics: his travel routes and observations were limited to the plains and hills in western Taiwan. Although he managed to cross the Aboriginal Boundary, he could not venture too deep into the mountains, and had to rely on the existing church networks. Le Gendre believed that this place was not civilized enough and hoped to promote more development. These ideas all echoed the views of his contemporaries, and were the characteristics of Westerners’ writing about Taiwan after the opening of treaty ports. Le Gendre’s most special argument was his theory of “Terra Nullius in Taiwanese Aboriginal Area” proposed in the Mudan Incident. Combining his knowledge acquired in the travels with arguments based on international law, he made “good” use of his understanding of Taiwan in a unique way. For Le Gendre, it was a pity that the tide was not on his side. As the Mudan Incident was resolved through diplomatic means, the publication of Notes of Travel in Formosa was aborted, and Le Gendre’s ambition was left unrealized.
Please refer to the journal for complete footnotes.
Westerners who visited Taiwan in the 19th century judged Taiwan from the viewpoint of “civilization” and “development,” but are we not more or less the same today? The economy must keep growing, and we have to keep up the progress, which is often a synonym for development. Although the more neutral term “culture” has replaced “civilization” to some extent, the ranking of civilizations has not disappeared yet.
The past more than 100 years ago seems to be remote, or perhaps not quite so?
Le Gendre, Notes of Travel in Formosa, 83.
Le Gendre, Notes of Travel in Formosa, 104.
Le Gendre, Notes of Travel in Formosa, 62.
In the 1870 map “Formosa Island and the Pescadores China” compiled by Le Gendre, one could see an Aboriginal Boundary running from north to south through the Hengchun Peninsula, and words of “CONFEDERATION OF EIGHTEEN TRIBES UNDER ONE CHIEF.”
Charles W. Le Gendre, Is Aboriginal Formosa a Part of the Chinese Empire? An Unbiassed Statement of the Question, with Eight Maps of Formosa (Shanghai: Lane, Crawford, 1874).