Taiwan was a strange island for the British people. Known as “Formosa” in European literature, this East Asian island’s engagement with Great Britain did not begin until the seventeenth century.
When the Dutch East India Company (VOC) colonised Taiwan from 1624 to 1662, some British people set their feet on Taiwan as employees of the Dutch company. Scottish man David Wright was one of them. As an employee of the VOC, Wright visited Taiwan around 1650 and wrote reports about indigenous Formosan and the Chinese religion. Both reports were published in Dutch author Olfert Dapper’s collection of Dutch embassies to China and then translated into English by Scottish publisher John Ogilby (1600–1676). Besides Wright’s reports, Ogilby incorporated VOC chaplain Georgius Candidius’s 1628 report on the indigenous Formosan, making Atlas Chinensis (1671) the most authoritative English publication about Taiwan in the seventeenth century.
While Ogilby was collecting travellers’ accounts, the East India Company also settled a trade treaty with Cheng’s regime in Taiwan, who expelled the Dutch in 1662 and was referred as the “King of Tywan (Taiwan)” at that time. The British factory was established in 1672, and the trade was maintained until the Qing Empire conquered Taiwan in 1683. Then Taiwan was locked into the Qing Empire for nearly two centuries. People soon forgot all British engagements with Taiwan within a decade; Taiwan became terra incognita again.
In 1704, a “native of Formosa” appeared in London that awakened British people’s curiosity toward this remote island. The man was called George Psalmanazar (ca. 1679– 1763). He said a Jesuit took him out of his native country Formosa, converted him to the Catholic religion, and brought him to Europe. In the southern Netherlands, he encountered a British chaplain who converted Psalmanazar to the Church of England. “George” was the christened name at this time. As a native of Formosa, Psalmanazar became a walking wonder in London. Many people wanted to witness the young man from a strange island in East Asia.
On 11 August 1703, Psalmanazar was invited to join the meeting of the Royal Society. On the meeting, Psalmanazar announced that he would soon publish a book about his native country. However, some participants left their doubts in the minute that Psalmanazar looked “like a young Dutch-man.” On 2 February 1704, Psalmanazar was invited to the Royal Society again, but he encountered Jean de Fontaney, a Jesuit missionary who had just returned on a British ship from China. That night, Psalmanazar had an intense debate about East Asia with Fontaney.
Psalmanazar knew he must have his book published as soon as possible to gain an advantage to defend his account. In the spring of 1704, Psalmanazar published his book An Historical and Geographical Description of Formosa and reported many strange customs beyond people’s imagination. He claimed Formosa had a sophisticatedly organised society but was conquered by Japan in the seventeenth century. People of Formosa sacrificed thousands of boys’ hearts to worship their deities. Their religion was given by a prophet named “Psalmanaazaar,” meaning “the Author of Peace,” and our George was named after this prophet. There are many other detailed but exaggerated descriptions of every aspect of Formosa that fascinated contemporary readers. However, they also raised doubts because many historical and ethnographical accounts from Psalmanazar were different from known ones.
Georgius Candidius’s account of Formosa was the most cited source to challenge Psalmanazar, which was re-published in Great Britain in 1704, just before Psalmanazar’s book. When Candidius wrote the report in 1628, he had already lived with the indigenous people in southwest Formosa for sixteen months. Like many casual ethnographies in that time, Candidius reported what he had observed in the indigenous villages near VOC’s Fort Zealandia (in today’s Tainan City). The indigenous people are collectively known as Siraya in modern literature. Candidius described the physical complexion of the Formosa indigenous, their lifestyle, labor division, housing, food and drink, hunting and battling, indigenous government, social organisations, and life cycle rituals. He also reported the most important topic, perhaps the strangest and disliked one for him, the indigenous religion.
Candidius mentioned several religious notions which were either known or unknown to the indigenous people. For the known notions, he compared the differences with the Christian religion. Candidius also detailed the functions of indigenous priestesses (inibs). Among all rituals performed by priestesses, the strangest and unverifiable custom is the prohibition of pregnancy before 35, 36, or 37 years old and the forced abortion performed by indigenous priestesses. There is no supportive evidence besides Candidius’s account to verify this strange custom, and thus it became the most controversial issue for eighteenth-century readers. British readers questioned Psalmanazar’s account about the custom to sacrifice thousands of boys’ hearts to worship their deities with Candidius’s report, which he did not report. To counterattack, Psalmanazar critisised Candidius’s account of forced abortion as absurd and accused it of lacking credibility.
Psalmanazar manipulated the rhetoric of overgeneralisation. By that, he excluded Candidius’s account from the debate and monopolised the authority about Formosa. He also appealed to sincerity through religious piety. Psalmanazar was a native of Formosa and a pious believer who sincerely converted to the Church of England. Shouldn’t the British people trust his religious sincerity and accept his account about his native country Formosa?
No, they shouldn’t. Psalmanazar was an imposter. He was probably from southern France and had never been to Formosa. His voyage from Formosa to Europe was fictional, and his accounts about Formosa were all fabricated. However, because Psalmanazar claimed himself as a native of Formosa, no one had sufficient counterevidence to challenge his account successfully. Some members of the Royal Society were eager to expose Psalmanazar. Hans Sloane asked Jean de Fontaney to verify Psalmanazar’s journey, and Fontaney replied from France that no one in Avignon knew a man called Psalmanazar. Dutch politician-scientist Nicolaas Witsen published a Chinese Jesuit’s account about China, including the latest news about Formosa. In his Navigantium atque Itinerantium Bibliotheca, or, A Compleat Collection of Voyages and Travels (1705), John Harris also included a passage about Formosa from a German traveller travelogue, which was extracted from Candidius’s account.
Edmond Halley, the astronomer who successfully predicted the comet’s return, was the most enthusiastic scholar to expose Psalmanazar. He presented a map of East Asia drawn in 1667 on the society’s meeting, and that was significantly different from Psalmanazar’s. He also questioned Psalmanazar if the sunlight came straight down to the chimney on the summer solstice. Formosa lies on the Tropic of Cancer, so the answer should be positive. However, Psalmanazar said it does not. Perhaps noticing falling into Halley’s trick, Psalmanazar argued Formosan chimney was not straight but crooked, so sunlight could not come through it.
Unfortunately, most scholars attacked Psalmanazar based on secondary sources or indirect evidence. They could not challenge Psalmanazar’s authority because he claimed himself a native of Formosa; Psalmanazar himself was the primary source! Therefore, the Royal Society needed someone who had been to Formosa to report what Formosa really was in order to contest with Psalmanazar.
A surprising help came from the outside of the Royal Society in mid-1705. Henry Newman, who later became the secretary of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (SPCK), found a Suffolk physician Samuel Griffith who had been to Formosa and introduced him to the Royal Society. Griffith was a former employee of the East India Company and arrived in Formosa in 1672 as a merchant and a physician. According to the extant letters between Newman and Griffith, Newman first asked Griffith many questions based on Psalmanazar’s book. Perhaps the SPCK was considering sending missionaries to Formosa, so they needed to verify Psalmanazar’s account. Griffith replied to Newman quickly and disapproved of Psalmanazar.
Later, Newman let John Chamberlayne, his friend in the Royal Society, know this communication. Chamberlayne urged Newman to obtain more information about Formosa from Griffith so that the Royal Society could expose Psalmanazar at once. Again, Griffith gave a prompt reply in which he described the situations of Formosa. Griffith’s Formosa account was mostly correct except for a few mistakes. To conclude the letter, Griffith remarked his history of service in the East India Company, which we can still verify in the company’s archive today.
Finally, Newman presented his communication with Griffith to the Royal Society on 20 June 1705. With Griffith’s strong testimony against Psalmanazar, the Royal Society decided to reject Psalmanazar’s account. However, they neither publish their conclusion nor notify their colleagues in other countries. This communication failure allowed Psalmanazar’s false account to circulate on the European Continent for several decades, even when Psalmanazar had lost all his credit in British society.
The silence of the Royal Society led to some unfortunate consequences. In the first half of the eighteenth century, people cited Psalmanazar’s work when they wrote about Formosa, though they took a cautious attitude toward his account. German publisher Johann Heinrich Zedler warned his readers not to trust Psalmanazar, though Zedler still mentioned his account in his encyclopaedia Universal-Lexicon (Vol. 9, 1735). Besides cautious readers, some scholars mistrusted Psalmanazar’s account. Prominent French natural philosopher Comte de Buffon cited Psalmanazar to criticise Dutch traveller Jan Janszoon Struys’s account about tailed men on Formosa. Although Struys’s tailed man was just a common travel lies popular in the Malay world, Comte de Buffon was still wrong to cite a fake source to criticise Struys’s account.
Psalmanazar was in his twenties during the Psalmanazar affair, and he spent the rest of his life in Great Britain. With erudite knowledge and excellent language skill, Psalmanazar became a hack writer on Grub Street who wrote and compiled articles for his customers. He helped complete The Ancient Part of An Universal History (1730-1744) and was probably involved in the compilation of The Modern Part of An Universal History (1754-1765). The most important announcement in Psalmanazar’s later life was his apology in A Complete System of Geography, which was published under Emanuel Bowen’s name in 1747. In this book, Psalmanazar apologised for his imposture and promised to provide readers with the most accurate information about Formosa. He cited Dutch accounts to describe Formosa in the seventeenth century, and he also cited French Jesuit Joseph de Mailla’s travelogue from 1714 to describe the Formosa under the rule of the Qing Empire. He believed they were the most reliable accounts about Formosa and hoped this action would compensate his imposture forty years ago. Perhaps Psalmanazar’s correction notice in Bowen’s book successfully refuted his fake book. In the latter half of the eighteenth century, British writers no longer considered Psalmanazar’s book as a must-mentioned source when they wrote about Formosa. In the third edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica (1797), there was no mention of Psalmanazar.
In Bowen’s book, Psalmanazar not only corrected his mistakes but also announced that he would publish a memoir to tell the story of his life after his death. This posthumous work appeared on the market in 1765, two years after Psalmanazar’s death. Now, this memoir is the most important source to study Psalmanazar’s extraordinary life. However, perhaps Psalmanazar did not realise, that his bold imposture and brave apology opened the critical Taiwan studies in Europe and built an unexpected link between the United Kingdom and Taiwan.
This article was originally published on Taiwan Insight (2021-10-19):
https://taiwaninsight.org/2021/10/19/george-psalmanazar-and-the-fake-history-of-taiwan/
