Ebook: When Valleys Turned Blood Red: The Ta-pa-ni Incident in Colonial Taiwan

When Valleys Turned Blood Red tells the story of colonial policies and their tragic impact on local communities. Of the numerous acts of armed and unarmed resistance that occurred in colonial Taiwan, one uprising in particular underscored the successes and failures of fifty years of Japanese rule (1895–1945): the insurgency that swept through the rural southern town of Ta-pa-ni and its environs during the summer of 1915. The Ta-pa-ni Incident was the largest single act of Han Chinese armed resistance during the fifty years of Taiwan’s colonial era. More than a thousand villagers and Japanese were killed during the fierce fighting and thousands more were later arrested and made to stand trial. Many Taiwanese were subsequently executed or died during long years of imprisonment.

Based on detailed archival research, interviews with survivors, painstaking demographic analysis, and a thorough reading of secondary scholarship in all of the relevant languages,! Paul Katz examines the significance of the Ta-pa-ni Incident by focusing on what Paul Cohen terms history’s "three keys": event, experience, and myth. Katz provides a vivid description of events surrounding the uprising as well as the ways in which it has been mythologized over time. His primary emphasis, however, is on the experiences of the men and women who were caught up in the flow of history. As a result, the book’s analytical framework centers on the individual and family backgrounds of participants and the socioeconomic and religious factors underlying their decision to join the uprising. In addition, Katz explores the impact of the Ta-pa-ni Incident on subsequent Japanese colonial policy.

This meticulously researched and illuminating study makes available for the first time in English the social history of one of the most important events in Taiwan’s colonial history. When Valleys Turned Blood Red is an invaluable resource for scholars of colonialism, peasant rebellion, and East Asian history and society.