Formosa

FORMOSA. - Island of the Far East, annexed to China in 1683, ceded to Japan in 1895 and returned to China in 1945. One and a half times the size of Sardinia (35,961 sq km including the Pescadores Islands), it has 6.1 million inhabitants, almost all Chinese (in the interior, covered with forests, about 150,000 Malays live in a wild state).

It has a tropical climate and monsoon rains. Agricultural production is rich (rice, tea, sugar cane, cotton) as is forestry (camphor, 90% of the world quantity); its mining possibilities are also notable (coal, gold, sulfur, petroleum). The large population centers are numerous: Taipeh (capital, 340,000 inhabitants), Tainan (124,000 inhabitants), Takao (110,000), etc.

Giuseppe Caraci

EVANGELIZATION - The first missionaries landed in F. in 1626, sent by the Dominicans of the province of the Most Holy Rosary of the Philippines. Father Bartolomé Martinez was the inspirer and soul of the noble missionary expedition that began on 28 February 1626. A temple was raised to the Lord of Heaven and dedicated to all the saints at Kilung. The first fruits of the Christian religion in F., says Dominican history, were two sons of a Chinese Christian, long married to a pagan island woman. He was the first inhabitant of the island to enter into relations of confidence with the ministers of God and had his two sons publicly baptized, to the great astonishment and wonder of the natives. Numerous conversions followed, and martyrs were not lacking. Father Francesco di S. Domingo may be considered the protomartyr. But the expulsion of the Spaniards, after barely sixteen years, at the hands of the Dutch, and the subsequent rule of the pirate Koxinga halted and destroyed Catholicism. The missionaries strove in vain to re-enter F. after the Chinese conquest of 1683 and during the various attempts at rebellion that followed one another for nearly two centuries.

In 1854 the council of the province of the Dominicans of the Philippines decided, on 14 December, to make a new attempt, electing Fathers Fernando Sainz and José Dutras. These, aided by an experienced missionary of China, Father Angelo Bofurull, landed in F. and restored the ancient mission of Kilung, and founded another among the aborigines called that of Ban-Kim-Chiang. In 1868 the evangelical work was continued by Father Angelo Chinchon. In 1872 a new mission was inaugurated at Daitotei, in the northern part of the island. In December 1872 Leo XIII divided the vast vicariate of Fukien into two, one northern with its seat in Fukien, the other central-southern with its seat in Amoy. To the latter the island of F. was united. In 1895 F. became a Japanese possession by the treaty of Shimonoseki which put an end to the war between China and Japan. The chapels were destroyed or stripped, the Christians dispersed and some killed by the Japanese. But with peace the missionary stations came back to life and developed. On 9 July 1913 the mission of F., detached from the vicariate of Amoy, was erected into an apostolic prefecture. On 30 December 1940 the northern provinces of Teipeh, Schinchu, Hoalien were detached from the same mission and erected into the apostolic prefecture of Taiphe, while the remaining territory, consisting of the central-southern provinces of Taichung, Tainan, Kaohsung and Tait-ung, received, in place of the ancient name of apostolic prefecture of the Island of F., the name of Kaohsung (v.).

Edoardo Pecorino