Abstract：
Ever since the Spanish took over Keelung in 1626, the soldiers and officers stationed in northern Taiwan had had to rely on aid from Manila due to limited local resources. On the basis of documents from the accounting office of the General Archive of the Indies of Seville, this paper analyzes records related to Taiwan from 1626 to 1662, which detail people, including the Sangleys (mestizo), and their goods sent by the government of Manila to northern Taiwan. The analyses reveal the following. Firstly, the people sent included Sangley pilots and sailors sailing the junks, as well as stonemasons, bricklayers, sawyers and carpenters for building forts in northern Taiwan. Among the Sangleys with names recorded were Rufu and his uncle who were merchants, Pablo Pacheco and Francisco Hernándes who served as interpreters for communicating with Fujian merchants. Secondly, the Spanish government at Manila depended much on the Sangleys during their occupation of northern Taiwan and the supplies sent, such as daily necessities and food, were mostly bought from Sangley traders in Manila, including the Sangley governor of the Parian. Thirdly, after 1630, around nine Sangley merchants went from northern Taiwan to Manila for trade, although their trading volumes were rather limited. Fourthly, after the Spanish withdrew from northern Taiwan in 1642, few Sangley merchants continued trading between Taiwan and Manila. Only three names, Chapsaqua, Quianco and Yocsay, were mentioned in documents of the 1650s. Moreover, the trade route changed from Keelung in northern Taiwan to Tayguan in southern Taiwan.

Keywords：Taiwan, Manila, Sangleys, 17th Century, Spanish Accounting Books

Abstract：
This paper examines Taiwan’s sugar industry in the Dutch colonial era. Primary data on the Han population, area of cultivated land, sugar production and exports to markets around the world were extracted from original files of the Dutch East India Company. Analysis reveals that it was the demand from the Netherlands that motivated sugar production in Taiwan. However, following the end of the Brazilian rebellion in 1654, Amsterdam was glutted with sugar from Brazil, and the Dutch lost interest in sugar from the East Indies. Persia, Japan and China then became main markets for Taiwan’s sugar. In the early period, the profit margin of Taiwan’s sugar exports to the Netherlands exceeded 400%, much larger than that of spices or pepper. On the other hand, natural hazards in Taiwan caused large fluctuations in farmers’ income. Even in the best years, a Taiwanese farmer earned less than one third of a Dutch hod carrier, though it far exceeded what their counterparts in China could make.

Keywords：Dutch Colonial Taiwan, Sugar in the Mid-17th Century, Cross- Country Income Comparison

Abstract：
Tea, an exotic drink from China, was first introduced to the Europeans in the 16th century, but its consumption became more widespread only after mid- 18th century. Scholars have attributed the sudden surge in tea consumption to urbanization and rise of the middle class in early-modern Europe. While Dutch, English and Portuguese residents in Asia had become very accustomed to drinking tea throughout the 17th century, the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and English East India Company (EIC) carried it as a profitable commodity and imported regular supplies to the homeland only after the 1680s. In mid-17th century, tea gradually began to appear on cargo manifests of VOC and EIC ships, but it was for sale to India and Persia, especially Surat (west coast of India). Consequent to the downfall of Ming dynasty and rise of Qing rule between 1644 and 1683, which disrupted the tea trade route on China’s western borders, Persians who used to purchase tea from Mongolian traders in Central Asia sought alternative supplies by sea route. The VOC, which then occupied Taiwan and built close ties with Chinese traders in Fujian, responded rapidly to this call until it lost Taiwan in 1662. This article examines the Taiwan-India tea trade from c. 1641 to 1660, in particular the ways tea was prepared and consumed by Chinese, Indians, Persians and Europeans on the maritime tea route, before the sudden upsurge in tea-drinking in Europe. The author argues that their daily engagement in teadrinking parties on official and private occasions in cross-cultural settlements in Tayouan, Batavia, Bantam, Ayutthaya (central Thailand), and Surat, enabled VOC and EIC personnel to develop a tea-drinking habit, especially a taste for sugared tea. Such might have arisen from cross-cultural encounters along the maritime tea route. Although sugared tea was served only on special festive occasions in Fujian, Muslim communities in Southeast Asia, India and Persia were accustomed to taking tea with sweets or preserves. While tea-drinking habit could have spread via diverse channels, Euro-Asian cities, such as Tayouan or Zeelandia town, on the maritime tea route were likely to have contributed to the Dutch adaption to such habit with their roles as tea-provider and crosscultural middle ground.

Keywords：Tea Drinking Habit, VOC, Taiwan (Tayouan), Zeelandia Town, Surat

Abstract：
With reference to annual reports of the Customs, annual trade reports of the British consul, early investigations carried out by Japanese colonial officials, photographs and historical materials of various sources, this paper traces the evolution of the labor pool employed for second-stage tea processing by firms in Dadaocheng, Taiwan during the nineteenth century and the early Japanese colonial era. The size of this labor pool was estimated using specific data on tea-processing firms, annual tea export statistics, and firmbased employee figures. This paper also explores the gendered division of labor, working conditions for different tasks, and the brief historical data on wages for laborers involved in this second-stage processing of oolong and baozhong tea in northern Taiwan.

Keywords：Labor Conditions, Nineteenth Century, Taiwan, Tea Industry, Tea Labor

Abstract：
This article focuses on the political history research of postwar Taiwan during 2018- 2019, and discusses the major issues examined. Moreover, this article also traces the changing trend of political history research of postwar Taiwan since 2007. Between 2018 and 2019, there are four domains of intense research, namely Taiwanese in foreign affairs, political events like February 28 incident, internal governance and propaganda, and military affairs. In fact, for more than a decade, white terror and February 28 incident have been the leading research topics, while the governance of the ROC, the change of regime from wartime to postwar era, and the status of Taiwan in the political arena have also been widely studied. Thanks to newly opened archives, recent political history studies on Taiwan can have complementary internal and external perspectives. Directions for future research will be on “how the ROC evolves” and “what Taiwan should become”. Topics related to internal affairs such as the role of the Taiwan Provincial Government and international issues such as cultural cold war are also worth exploration. Furthermore, beyond the concepts of non-governmental, resistance and oppression, the thoughts and activities of Taiwanese in important foreign affairs still await more attention. In line with the abovementioned would be research on the role of overseas Taiwanese during the formation of the Taiwan Relations Act, the Taiwanese government after the year 2000, and the history and primary data of other political parties in addition to KMT. Last but not the least, a general political history of postwar Taiwan by Taiwanese scholars would be much anticipated.

Keywords：Political History, Postwar Taiwan History, Foreign Affairs, Political Events, Cold War History