| has gloss | eng: The Lamey Island Massacre was the slaughter of aboriginal inhabitants of Hsiao Liuchiu island (then known as Lamey, Lamay or Gouden Leeuwseylant) off the coast of Taiwan by Dutch soldiers in 1636. The killings were part of a campaign in retaliation for the murder of shipwrecked Dutch sailors in two separate incidents in 1622 and 1631 by natives of the island. Background Two years before the Dutch East India Company established a presence on Taiwan in 1624, a Dutch ship named the Golden Lion (Early Modern Dutch: Gouden Leeuw) was wrecked on the coral reefs of Hsiao Liuchiu, then known to the Dutch as Lamey or Lamay island. The entire crew was killed by the native inhabitants. The first expedition arrived in 1633, led by Claes Bruijn and consisting of 250 Dutch soldiers, forty Han Chinese pirates and 250 Aboriginal Formosans. It met with little success, but they did manage to find evidence of the murdered crew of the Beverwijck, including coins, copper from the ship's galley and a Dutch hat. They also learned that a large cave on the island was used by the natives as a refuge in times of trouble. |