2020 Volume 72 Issue 4 Pages 337-359
In the early 20th century, many Japanese settled into government-managed immigration villages in eastern Taiwan. In the original plan, these immigration villages were designed to distribute equal areas of housing and farmlands to settling families. This study clarified the details of the structure of Yoshino-mura and Toyota-mura, and investigated changes in their structure until the end of World War II. The cadasters revealed that the number of houses decreased until 1945 and some housing sites became general agricultural or paddy fields. Furthermore, some immigrants who owned land in these villages emigrated when the number of houses began decreasing because of the surrounding natural environment. However, in principle, land possession and transfer in both villages were limited to the original immigrants and their relatives only. At the time that the immigration villages were established, many immigrants resided in houses that were distant from those of their relatives because a lottery system used to distribute houses. Subsequently, relatives of these immigrants gradually came to live in the same neighborhood by acquiring housing sites belonging to the original immigrants who left the village, and landownership frequently changed in Yoshino-mura. On the other hand, ownership of farmlands around Toyota-mura, which was located in a harsh natural environment, was complicated when they were disposed of around 1933. In Toyota-mura, farmlands were often located a considerable distance from the landowner’s house. Moreover, landowners who remained in the village integrated the lands of the emigrants into their own after they abandoned them.
