The island was originally inhabited by the
aboriginal Amis people. In March 1864 the
British brig Susan Douglas was swept off course and wrecked on the island. Her captain then sailed by
junk from the island to
Kaohsiung, In the early 1870s,
William Campbell saw the island from aboard the
Daphne, and wrote: On 11 December 1937 the
Dollar Steamship Company luxury
ocean liner ran aground in a
typhoon on a reef at Zhongliao Bay. All 503 passengers and 330 crew survived and were safely brought ashore. A shipwreck of Dutch origin dating to the 19th century was found in June 2013.
Prisons Green Island first served as an isolated spot and place of
exile for
political prisoners during the
martial law period during the
Kuomintang government, and especially in the
White Terror. After their release, many of the prisoners jailed between the late 1940s and the late 1980s went on to establish the
Democratic Progressive Party, most notably
Shih Ming-teh. Writer and political dissident
Bo Yang served his prison terms there. During the 1950s, while
National Taiwan University Hospital physicians , , and were held at Green Island, they established a clinic alongside others who had medical training, including , to treat other inmates, prison guards, and Green Island residents. As prisoners with medical backgrounds were released, the clinic shrank, then closed in 1960 with the departure of Hu Hsin-lin. The place where most of the political prisoners (such as Shih Ming-teh) were held was "Green Island Lodge" (). "Oasis Village" was the main penal colony. The prison was later closed, and its interior is now open to the public. "Green Island Prison" () is also on the island and has housed prisoners considered to be among Taiwan's most dangerous criminals and gangsters. However, this has changed in recent years. ==Geography==