The Black Gunners of Formosa

Taiwan’s initial statehood corresponds with Zheng Chenggong’s triumph – more widely known as Koxinga (1624–1662) – over the Dutch East India Company ( voc ) at the Siege of Fort Zeelandia in 1662. Decisive to this victory was a Black musketeer regiment, many former slaves of the Dutch and Portuguese. Intermittent in Chinese history, folklore, and popular culture – and in more recent times, touted as exemplars of ethnic pluralism, liberties, and patriotism in Taiwanese society since its inception – they remain little-known. Accounts of the Zheng kingdom’s Black Guard are virtually absent in 17 th -century Ming and Qing dynasty literature and seldom appear in Western histories, except in Catholic and voc excerpts. Nevertheless, these elite soldiers, along with the Black diaspora they helped free from Hollander captivity during Taiwan’s first battle for independence, represent a milestone in human rights, marking the first emancipation of the post-Medieval world by Koxinga, the Modern Age’s first great emancipator.