Selected Sources of Japanese Colonial History in Taiwan
Paul D Barclay, Lafayette College   barclayp@lafayette.edu

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Primary sources:

1. 『台湾総督府文書目録』ゆまに書房, serial.  Bound-volume 30-plus volume TOC.
            Use these serially published lists of titled records to find the document number of interest. The hard copies are housed at:

Taiwan Historica No. 252, Kwang-min 1st Rd., Chunshin Village, Nantou City
http://www.th.gov.tw/sotokufu.htm

Advantages: Complete Records
Disadvantages: Remote location, formerly very difficult to navigate and use. With digitization of finding aids and other improvements, this archive is no longer as formidable. There are some on-line materials and a search engine at the URL given above.
Many of these files are not yet accessible on-line, they are still being digitized.

2.  Academia Sinica’s Portal to the Digitized Sotokufu Archive:

台灣總督府公文類纂
http://sotokufu.sinica.edu.tw/sotokufu/index.html

This archive has been developed in cooperation with the National History Institute in Nantou.  There is limited access, though. Individual passwords are only available to Taiwan nationals or members qualified institutions. However, you may use the search function without a password and see the titles of the documents available; this in itself is a valuable feature.

3. Manuscripts related to Aborigine Administration at the Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica
These are bound volumes of photocopies of the above archives, selected for their relevance to “Aborigine Administration.” They are on the shelves with these call numbers.
台湾総督府蕃族事情公文累算原文  R/T 536.29/4390
1895/96 (vol.1) [040796]

4. Recent annotated reproductions by local and prefectural history institutes in Taiwan. The one I am using, for the township of Puli, has transcribed, printed Japanese characters on the facing page, complete with furigana readings. These are available at academic bookstores and museums in Taiwan.

Newspapers.

5.  『台湾日日新報』1898-1945 This is available on microfilm [the Yumani shobo copy of the Hokkaido University originals is the best] through interlibrary loan. The digitized version I used was purchased on a one-year license from a broker in Nagoya;

http://www.kaixi.jp/ddnc/index.asp

it missing some pages and hard to read, but keyword searchable. There are some volumes of the hard copies at the Tokyo University Information and Media Studies building right next to the Shakken building, my access has depended upon who happens to be in the library on a particular day.

6. 『台湾民報』1900-190４. This opposition paper was often critical of government policy but was not an anti-colonial paper by any stretch. It is available on microfilm, I don’t believe it is digitized yet, but it has articles and information not contained in the govt. newspaper. THIS IS NOT THE SERIAL BY THE SAME NAME PUBLISHED IN THE 1920s: here is the detailed NACSIS info:

臺灣民報<タイワン ミンポウ>[マイクロフィルム(リール)]. -- [マイクロフィルム版]. -- (AA11459665)初號 (明33.8)-1047號 (明37.3). -- 東京 : ゆまに書房  NOTE: 原本の刊行頻度: 日刊  VT: 台湾民報

7. 『読売新聞』明治』、大正版CD-ROM  Search engine capability, but the microfilm is much more readable. 読売新聞<ヨミウリ シンブン>[コンピュータファイル]. -- [CD-ROM]版. -- (AN10560257). -- 東京 : 読売新聞社  NOTE: 記述は1994年版による ; 付:電子縮刷版システム取扱説明書  VT: 読売新聞電子縮刷版  AL: 読売新聞社<ヨミウリ シンブンシャ>

The microfilm version of the東京朝日新聞.

Bound digests of news from the Meiji period:

Shimbun ga kataru meijishi 新聞が語る明治史. Vol. 2. Tokyo: Hara shobō, 1979.

Meiji nyuuzu jiten: Meiji 26-Meiji 30. Vol. 5 明治ニューズ辞典. Tokyo: Mainichi Shimbun, 1983.

9. 伊能嘉矩関係文書 at the Tōno municipal library and at National Taiwan University.
Field notes, scrap books, correspondence, translations of Qing documents, photos, seals, miscellaneous raw documentation from ethnologist, scribe, and bureaucrat Inō Kanori.

10. 台湾総督府統計書  Annual statistics from the Government General (ILL).

11. 台湾慣習記事　Reports of the Survey of Taiwanese Customs (1901-1907)
            Taiwan kyōkai kaihō 台湾協会会報
            Taiwan jiho 台湾時報

12. 東京人類学会雑誌  Articles, travelogs, nature of Taiwanese ethnic groups, Japanese ethnicity and origins, translations of Western anthropological literature.

13. Commemorative and commercial photo albums.
            Text and photos of conquest, natural resource extraction, tourist sites. Example:
Narita Takeshi. Taiwan seiban shuzoku shashinchô  (A Photograph Album of Taiwan's Savage Tribes). Tokyo, 1912/1995.

14. Manuscript travelogs and reports of soldiers and officials.
            Digitized Documents of Meiji Period (on-line through NDL portal, formerly the Maruzen reels at Yenching), National Diet Library in Tokyo. http://kindai.ndl.go.jp/index.html

15. Periodicals Taiyō 太陽, digitized, manuscript form, travelogs, reports, journalistic accounts Fūzoku gahō  風俗画報 has printed indexes

16. Reprinted bound series of govt. documents (books01)

Riban shikō (Records of Aborigine Administration) 理番誌稿. Vol. 1-2. Taihoku: Taiwan sōtokufu keisatsu honsho, 1918.

_______. Vol. 3. Taihoku: Taiwan sōtokufu keimukyoku, 1921.

Taiwan sōtokufu keimukyoku. 1986. Taiwan sōtokufu keisatsu enkakushi. Edited by Tai Kuo Hui. 5 vols. Vol. 1-5. Taihoku: Rokuin shobō.

17.  Taiwanese-Japanese collaborative research and other bound basic sources
            『台湾原住民研究』see TOCs at: http://www.fukyo.co.jp/08-taiwan.html

            『台湾近現代史研究』 Six issues of detailed, serious research on all aspects of Japanese colonial rule in Taiwan, including a long bibliography of known works in Japanese about Taiwan.

18. Japan Yearbooks, annual statistics and summaries of bureaucratic history in English, Japanese govt. presents itself to the “community of nations”

Title: The Japan year book. Publication: Tokyo : Japan Year Book Office Year: 1905-1931 Description: Began with 1st (1905); ceased with 27th (1931).; 24 v. :; ill., maps (some folded) ;; 19-23 cm. Language: English

20. Digital Backfiles of Western Newspapers:

  • ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851 - 2004)
  • ProQuest Historical Newspapers The Washington Post (1877 - 1991)

21.  US Consular Archives for Formosa (Microfilm and NARA)

See volume 12 of:
Huang, Fusan. Taiwan shi dang an, wen shu mu lu
1997 Chinese Book 13 v. ; 27 cm. Taibei : Guo li
Taiwan da xue, ; ISBN: 9570088893 (v.1) 9789570088892
Language: In Chinese,
                    Dutch, English, and Japanese.

22. Genealogy of photographic images from colonized Taiwan; material culture of a hybrid Sino-Japanese-Austronesian social-economy: http://imago.lafayette.edu/warner/

editable area