The earliest origin for the term
ang mo could be traced to the contact between
Hokkien (Southern Min) speakers in southern
Fujian with the
Portuguese Empire and
Dutch East India Company during the
Haijin ("Sea Ban") period in the 16th and 17th centuries. One of the earliest known uses of the term in writing is found in the early 1600s
Selden Map, which labels the
Maluku Islands of Indonesia with
ang mo, likely referring to the Dutch presence there. In the late 1500s, Ming Ministry of Justice official Wang Linheng submitted a memorial reporting on the arrival of "red-haired devils" on China's southern coast, while in 1755 Zhejiang provincial authorities reported on the arrival of "red hair" seafarers under British merchant James Flint. During the 17th century, the Dutch East India Company failed in its attempt to force their way into Fujian to trade in the 1620s during the
Sino-Dutch conflicts and were called
ang mo by the locals. The Dutch East India Company and then the
Spanish Empire had colonized
Taiwan, and the Spanish built
Fort Santo Domingo in
Tamsui,
Taiwan. The Dutch later drove the Spanish out and seized the fort, which also became known as the "City of the Red-Haired" () in
Taiwanese Hokkien.
Dutch people were known in Taiwan as
ang mo lang ("red-haired people") in Taiwanese Hokkien. This is most likely because red hair is a relatively common trait among the Dutch. This historical term
ang mo lang continues to be used in the context of Taiwanese history to refer to Dutch people. The Chinese characters for
ang mo are the same as those in the historical Japanese term , which was used during the
Edo period (1603–1868) as an epithet for (Northwestern Europeans) white people. It primarily referred to Dutch traders who were the only Europeans allowed to trade with Japan during the
Sakoku, its 200-year period of isolation. Portuguese and Spanish traders were in contrast referred to as , which is in turn cognate to the Chinese
nanman and means "southern barbarians". During the 19th century,
Walter Henry Medhurst made a reference in his academic work
A Dictionary of the Hok-Këèn Dialect of the Chinese Language that
âng mô ("red haired") generally applied to the
English people. With the large migration of
the Hoklo to
Southeast Asia, predominantly
Malaysia and
Singapore, the term
ang moh became more widespread and was used to refer to white people in general. ==Racial controversy==