Sinckan Manuscripts

The Sinckan Manuscripts (Chinese: 新港文書; pinyin: Xīngǎng wénshū; Wade–Giles: Hsin-kang wen-shu; also spelled Sinkang or Sinkan) refers to a series of leases, mortgages, and other commerce contracts written in the Sinckan language; they are commonly referred to as the "fanzi contracts" (Chinese: 番仔契; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: hoan-á-khè). Some are written only in a romanized script, while others were bilingual with adjacent Han writing. Currently there are approximately 140 extant documents written in Sinckan; they are important in the study of Siraya culture and Taiwanese history in general although there are only a few scholars who can understand them.

The Sinckan language was spoken by the Siraya tribe that lived in what is now Tainan. During the time when Taiwan was under the administration of the Dutch East India Company, Dutch missionaries learned Sinckan to facilitate both missionary work and government affairs. They also created a romanized script and compiled a dictionary of the language, teaching the natives how to write their own language.

In 1625, Maarten Sonck, the Dutch governor of Taiwan, requested that the Netherlands send two to three missionaries to Taiwan for the purpose of converting the natives. However, the first group to arrive were visiting missionaries who did not have the authority to perform baptism rites. It was not until June 1627 that the first real minister, Rev. Georgius Candidius, arrived, upon which missionary work in Taiwan began in earnest. The first area to be targeted, the Sinckan settlement (modern-day Xinshi), had many converts by 1630.

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