A General History of Taiwan (revised by Wu Mi-cha, a scholar at Academia Sinica's Institute of Taiwan History) notes that the groups involved in the early settlement of Taiwan recruited settlers from their own ethnic group or hometown. Any dispute over land or water tended to spark fighting between distinct social groupings. Escalation into armed conflict was often the end result.
《台灣通史》指出，台灣開墾初期，開墾集團或以同旅，或以同鄉相援引，如遇爭地、爭水糾紛，往往釀成集團間的砍殺，演成械鬥。