Archaeology of Colonialism: the 17th Century Spanish Colony of Hoping Dao, Taiwan  

Summary

We will present an overview of our ongoing archaeological project on  Hoping Dao, Taiwan, where, according to the historical written sources, a Spanish colony was founded in 1626.

Starting from the local scale, the excavation of the Spanish colonial posts and Taiwanese native settlements, we aim to understand the reasons, mechanisms and long-term consequences (local, regional and global) of the social interaction that gathered together Europeans, Taiwanese native people (themselves extremely diverse and complex), Chinese and Japanese traders, Filipino soldiers and slaves of different geographies in this very specific colonial setting. We place particular stress in presenting the Taiwanese case, which has so far received scant attention, as an extremely valuable contribution to our knowledge of multi-range transformations in trade and cultural exchange, as well as to the understanding of a particularly rich and complex colonial process.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Territory, settlement and material culture in the Iberian colonial empires (16-18th centuries)   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2013

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 167