Republic of Formosa
The Republic of Formosa (), was a short-lived republic that existed on the island of Taiwan in 1895 between the formal cession of Taiwan by the Qing Dynasty of China to the Empire of Japan by the Treaty of Shimonoseki and it being taken over by Japanese troops. The Republic was proclaimed on 23 May 1895 and extinguished on 21 October, when the Republican capital Tainan was taken over by the Japanese. Though sometimes claimed as the first Asian republic to have been proclaimed, it was predated by the Lanfang Republic in Borneo, established in 1777, as well as by the Republic of Ezo in Japan, established in 1869.
Luis Jorge Fontana
In 1879, Fontana founded the city of Formosa, and he was awarded the rank of lieutenant colonel. He then returned to Patagonia, which he had visited as a child, and in 1884 he was named the first governor of the national territory of Chubut. There he directed the expedition to the west with an exploratory group named the Chubut Riflement (Rifleros del Chubut), which discovered the October 16 Valley (Valle 16 de Octubre), a fertile area in the foothills that would later be the site of the Welsh colony of Trevelin.