A relic of the ageless life-history of the planet, the Three Peak Crag within the park is clear evidence of the volcanic activity that came to an end 500,000 years ago. As archeological investigations have proven, there was prehistoric human activity on the island from the time of the Cord Pattern Red Pottery Culture era, that is, from about 4000 years ago. In the oral histories of the various Austronesian peoples can be found their common name for Green Island, “Sanasai,” so the prehistorical cultural links between this island and the Austronesian peoples spread throughout the vast Pacific Ocean and Indian Ocean have long piqued the interest of archeologists and anthropologists.
Two hundred years ago the Han people first came to the island from Siao Liuciou, off the southwestern coast of Taiwan, landing in this area and gradually spreading throughout the island, to where they now comprise four villages. Early-period dwellings were squat structures with roofs made of local wood atop walls of stacked coral. Green Island and Orchid Island, on the one hand, and Siao Liuciou, on the other, lie in separate marine provinces on either side of Taiwan’s southern extremity, so the appearance of both similaritiesand differences between the histories and cultures of the human activities found on the three islands is a hot topic for anthropologists. As far as can be known today, Green Island was the easternmost extreme of immigration coming to Taiwan from the Chinese mainland nation in the seventeenth century.
The area’s seclusion and flat topography, together with Liuma Gulley as water source and the direction of the Kuroshio Current, led the Han visitors to first settle near here in Kongkuan, Burnt Island’s first village. Liuma Ditch is near where a prison was established during the period of Japanese colonial rule, the Burnt Island Detention Center for Vagrants, which operated from 1911 to 1919. After the war, the Kuomintang government twice opened political prisons here: the New Life Correction Center concentration camp, and the Ministry of National Defense Green Island Reform and Instructional Prison. Between the closing of the former and the opening the latter, the Taiwan Garrison Command had its Green Island headquarters here, while once martial law ended it became the Ministry of Interior’s Green Island Vocational Training Center. Each of these prisons has left behind different signatures of political slogans.
2011 Dialogue on Peace in Green Island 