In the summer of 1867, the American merchant vessel Rover, sailing north from southern China's Guangdong Province, lost its way during a storm, drifted into waters off the southern coast of Taiwan, struck a reef, and sank.
While the captain and crew of the ship managed to reach shore alive, all were subsequently killed by local aborigines.
Four years later, sailors of the Ryukyu Kingdom (present-day Okinawa Prefecture) met a similar fate, surviving a wreck off the same coast only to be massacred after they came ashore.