When first entering the exhibition space for "Ilha Formosa-Taiwan's Emergence on the World Scene in the 17th Century," you arrive at the cabin of an old wooden sailing ship that displays "Instruments of Maritime Supremacy." This exhibit connects, on one side, to an East Asian gallery focusing on Taiwan, and, on the other side, to a European gallery focusing on the Netherlands.

When you walk on the deck and ascend to the cabin, you find models of Chinese and Dutch warships and merchant vessels from the 17th century, flanked on both sides by large cannon that belonged to the Dutch East India Company. The most eye-catching item is a model of the 17th-century Taiwanese ship Wanshou. This craft, replicated with the same techniques used by Chinese shipwrights of that time, with its glistening red and black bulwarks and white rippling sails, was a commercial vessel used for carrying goods between Taiwan and Japan.

The sound of waves washes over the display of maritime artifacts, which shows how 17th-century Taiwan, being explored by both Asian and European craft, was beginning to emerge as a pearl of the East Asian region.

After passing through the maritime gallery, time goes backward a bit to Taiwan during the twilight years of the Ming Dynasty, which fell in 1644. Although the Ming court forbade state-sponsored maritime activity, coastal residents organized their own fleets, which were active in Southeast Asia. During this same period, the European sea powers-Portugal, Spain, and Holland-followed new sea routes into East Asia and established strongholds for colonization. The Japanese Bakufu also had ambitions toward Southeast Asia. At that time in East Asia, maritime trade was flourishing in items such as spices from the South Seas, porcelain and silk from China, deerskin and molasses from Taiwan, and silver from Japan.

As a result of circumstance, Taiwan became the axis where sea powers from West and East met. Ming Dynasty Yongle coins, Indonesian gold, Dutch gold, Spanish real de ocho (silver), Japanese silver, and even silver dollars from the Spanish colony of Mexico all circulated in Taiwan. You could say that as early as the 1600s Taiwan was already a regional trading center in East Asia.

Politically, an amazing whirlwind of changes occurred during the 17th century. Taiwan was theretofore the living space of Aboriginal peoples. Then it was claimed by Western colonial powers (Spain, then the Netherlands), which established strongholds on the island. Next, the Ming Dynasty general Zheng Chenggong, fleeing to Taiwan with the collapse of that regime, expelled the Dutch and set up his own kingdom. Later in the century, Taiwan was brought back under the Chinese government, now controlled by the Qing Dynasty, opening the island to mass immigration from mainland China.

Passing through the ship's cabin, to the left of the exhibition area lies the European gallery, with the Netherlands representing the European commercial powers that made their entrance into East Asia. The display space, set against a backdrop of a 17th-century street scene in Amsterdam, includes numerous paintings and documents that elucidate East-West exchange and trade from the Dutch point of view at that time. These include oil paintings of a harbor established by the Dutch East India Company, a portrait of an astronomer dressed in Japanese attire lecturing in a room adorned with a Persian rug, a noblewoman attired in Oriental silk, a money box of the Dutch East India Company, and examples of blue-and-white porcelain exported from China to the Netherlands.

In those days, the Dutch looked forward with great hopes to opening up the China trade, but the Ming court continually put them off. Holland then turned its ambitions toward Macao (controlled by Portugal) and the Pescadores (controlled by the Ming Dynasty), before finally gaining a foothold on Taiwan, on the periphery of China. This unanticipated development not only brought considerable wealth to the Dutch East India Company, it also spurred Taiwan's development and launched East-West cultural interaction here. With systematic management and a strategic plan, the Dutch East India Company turned Taiwan into an Asian transshipment center.

The Dutch East India Company, founded in 1602, ultimately established more than 90 overseas bases, employing over 10,000 people. Control of the company was vested in six commissions, within each of which there was a committee of 17 regents. These regents decided how many ships the company would build, what kinds of goods the ships would carry, and so forth. The exhibition includes a chair cushion used by committee members, a reminder that these 17-man groups sat comfortably around conference tables while they decided the fate of many people in distant corners of the earth, including Taiwan.

Opposite the European gallery is the Asian gallery. The main objects on display include old maps of Taiwan, historical artifacts of the Aboriginal peoples, and evidence of the dynamics at work in East Asia.

In 1622, Ming Dynasty officials who were trying to persuade the Dutch to withdraw from the Pescadores advised them to move to an island just to the east that was not part of China-meaning Taiwan. Trade was opened between Dutch nationals and Chinese merchants in the Taiwanese harbor of Tayuan (near modern Tainan). Because of this, Europeans often referred to the whole island of Taiwan as Tayuan.

When the Dutch arrived in Taiwan, their first task was to build a citadel, which became Fort Zeelandia (today known as the Anping Historic Fort, located in Tainan). At the same time, just across the bay (a bay which, because of siltation, no longer exists), they established the town of Proventia (the main structure of which, now known as Chihkanlou, still stands). Deerskin pictures on loan from the Berlin Ethnological Museum and New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art show Fort Zeelandia and Proventia in fine detail, with many different types of ships visible in the bay between them. Even more rare is that these deerskins also have vivid depictions of Aboriginal life-a wedding, planting, hunting-which are really worth taking a close look at.

The population of Taiwan in the 17th century consisted mainly of Aborigines living in villages. Sadly, today we have virtually no documents about the indigenous peoples of that time, which makes those few pieces of evidence that exist all the more valuable.

In 1625, the first Dutch governor sent three expeditions around the island by sea, based on which a map was sketched out. This "Map of Peikang," on loan from the Netherlands National Archives in The Hague, was the first map ever to depict a yam-shaped Taiwan, thereby correcting the depiction of Taiwan as an archipelago in previous Portuguese and Spanish maps.

In his work A Complete History of Taiwan, Lien Heng wrote: "Taiwan itself had no history; it began with the Dutch." After the Dutch occupied Taiwan, they encouraged large numbers of Chinese to immigrate in order to undertake cultivation of rice and sugar cane. Water buffalo were imported from the Pescadores and Fujian, and large oxen for pulling carts were brought in from Vietnam and Java. The impact of these moves can still be felt and seen today.

At that time there were about 10,000 Chinese immigrants living in the vicinity of Chihkanlou. The Dutch traded rice, sugar, and deerskin from Taiwan for gold and silver from China and Japan, which they then took to India to buy cloth, which in turn they traded to indigenous peoples in Southeast Asia for pepper, clove, nutmeg, and other spices. The Dutch exported as many as 150,000 deerskins in a single year; virtually all the leather in the attire of Japanese samurai came from Taiwan.

In 1644, the last Ming emperor, Chongzhen, hanged himself, ending the dynasty. Zheng Chenggong, a Ming military leader who was unwilling to surrender to the new Qing Dynasty rulers, first tried a "northern expedition" to topple the Qing. When this failed, he set his sights on Taiwan, which he invaded in 1661. After a nine-month siege, the Dutch forces formally surrendered, writing the final page to their 38-year rule of the island.

The 1662 surrender agreement that Zheng signed with 28 Dutch officials in Taiwan stated forthrightly in its first article that both sides would forget all wrongs and animosities. The other articles set out in detail what belonged to the Dutch soldiers, and what the Dutch could take with them upon leaving. Carrying with them what they would need for their voyage-rice, bread, wine, rope, sailcloth, gunpowder, and ammunition-the Dutch left Taiwan with dignity, fully armed and in uniform, drums beating, flags held high. The nine-month standoff thus ended peacefully.

The surrender document, considered a national treasure in the Netherlands, is being lent out for the first time, so that Taiwanese can gain a full understanding of the process of compromise in this event that transformed Taiwan and stunned the Western powers.

Since the opening of the Ilha Formosa exhibition, schools have enthusiastically booked field trips to the National Palace Museum, and over winter break many parents brought their kids for a look. A fifth-grader named Teng, who had previously been to the Anping Historic Fortress with his parents, asked his Mom to bring him to the exhibition so that, with the help of the guide, he could understand how it is that Taiwan came to have an Anping Historic Fortress, and what lay behind the story in the folk song "Anping Memories."

For at least six millennia the only humans to know Taiwan were the Aboriginal peoples who called it home. But in the short span of the 1600s, it was transformed into a multicultural and multiethnic land, and into an internationally known and coveted hub in the world economy. Going back to the 17th century for another look at Formosa's emergence on the world scene is truly an eye-opening experience.

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Taiwan in the 17th century was a pearl in the age of maritime exploration. The photo on the opposite page shows a model of a ship, the Wanshou, which was used in trade between Taiwan and Japan. (photo by Jimmy Lin)

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After sending several expeditions by boat around Taiwan, in the 17th century the Dutch produced the first map of a yam-shaped Taiwan, correcting the idea that "Formosa" consisted of several islands. (courtesy of the Netherlands National Archives, the Hague)

In 1662, Zheng Chenggong captured Fort Zeelandia, and the Dutch formally surrendered. Because there are no Chinese language versions of the surrender agreement still extant, this Dutch version is especially valuable. (courtesy of the Netherlands National Archives, the Hague)

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(opposite page) This depiction of 17th century Fort Zeelandia puts a tangible face on the Dutch colonial era. (courtesy of the Netherlands National Archives, the Hague)