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.
Subsequently in 1631 a yacht named the Beverwijck was also wrecked on the treacherous reefs, with survivors (numbering around fifty) battling the Lameyans for two days before being overwhelmed and slaughtered to a man.
Following the murder of the Gouden Leeuw survivors, the island was sometimes referred to by the Dutch as Gouden Leeuwseylant (Golden Lion Island). There was a desire at the very highest levels of the Dutch East India Company not to let the killings go unpunished, with Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies Hendrik Brouwer ordering Governor of Formosa Hans Putmans to "punish and exterminate the people of the Golden Lion Island as an example for their murderous actions committed against our people."
Read more about this topic: Lamey Island Massacre
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