The ancestors of the contemporary Formosans abandoned the Chinese mainland with its poverty and inequalities, in the latter half of the sixteenth century, and emigrated to Formosa in order to open up and settle in new territory. Yet they have had little independence. The Dutch East India Company conquered Formosa and used it as a commercial base between 1624 and 1661; Koxinga and his supporters expelled the Dutch in 1661 and used Formosa as an anti-Manchu base until 1683; then the Manchus of the Ch'ing Dynasty gained control of Formosa until 1895; the island was ceded to the Japanese in 1895 and it was not until the collapse of Japan hi 1945 that the Chinese Nationalist Government was able to rule Formosa.