Some old newspaper articles are strange because of what they describe. Others are disturbing because of the casual way they describe it.
This 1908 report from The Brandon News is one of the latter. Under the headline “Use Electricity on Savages,” the article describes a brutal method allegedly used by Japanese forces in Formosa, now Taiwan, against Indigenous head-hunting groups along the island’s eastern coast.
According to the account, soldiers surrounded targeted areas with electrified wire fences, opened fire, and drove people into the charged barriers.
The language of the article is harsh, dehumanizing, and very much a product of the colonial attitudes of its time. Indigenous people are presented not as communities resisting occupation, but as a “problem” to be eliminated.
Use Electricity on Savages
The extermination of savage, murderous head hunters by electricity is the latest novelty introduced by the Japanese in Formosa, according to Walter Clifton, manager of a Formosan mercantile company, who arrived here recently on the Japanese liner America Maru.
“These head hunters,” said Clifton, “number about 100,000 and infest the entire eastern coast of the island. All efforts to civilize them have failed. They recently inveigled a party of 300 Chinese and Japanese into an ambush, on the pretense of showing some treasure, and killed all but three.
“Large bodies of troops were sent out, and now when a company of head hunters is located, the place is surrounded by a wire fence. The wires are charged with electricity. The soldiers begin to shoot; the savages stampede, and then the deadly wires get those that the bullets miss.”
Source: The Brandon News. Brandon, Miss. March 5, 1908.
