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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 April 2010
In the late nineteenth century, the distance from Qui Nhon to Kontum – a trip of about two hundred kilometers – was nearly insurmountable. The route most travellers took led from the port town in southern Annam out across a narrow coastal plain of cultivated fields before crossing rivers and gorges, and ascending rocky mountains. Then the path leveled out on a high plateau of extreme weather and dense forests where fever, tigers, and unwelcoming local communities intimidated even the hardiest of travellers. Though well within the borders of French-controlled Annam, there was little Vietnamese – and even less French – about these highlands. The region was inhabited almost exclusively by a variety of indigenous groups like the Sedang, the Bahnar, and thejarai, who were both ethnically distinct from the majority Vietnamese population of Annam, and politically independent from the emperor in Hué as well as the French colonial administration. The region was so isolated from the rest of the colony that Frenchmen invoked the Vietnamese name for the area, calling it the Pays Moï– ‘savages' country’ – and even the missionaries, the only Europeans to live in the region until the early 1900s, referred to their headquarters in Kontum as the ‘Mission des Sauvages’. It was an unlikely focal point for one of the most divisive controversies in the French empire.
2 Annam was the central region of Vietnam that became a French protectorate in 1884, bordered by Tonkin to the north and Cochinchina to the south. ‘Annam’ was also often used by the French to refer to all of Vietnam, just as ‘Annamites’ signified ethnic Vietnamese people. In this article, I will use ‘Annam’ to refer to the French protectorate, and ‘Vietnam’ as a more general term, signifying the three regions together. Likewise, because of derogatory connotations of ‘Annamite’ in French, I will refer to the inhabitants of these areas as Vietnamese. Indochina – the union of which was created in 1887 – refers to the three Vietnamese regions, plus Cambodia and, in 1892, Laos. For a useful discussion of the colonial government structure of Indochina, see Lam, Truong Buu, Colonialism Experienced: Vietnamese Writings on Colonialism, 1900–1931 (Ann Arbor 2000) ‘Chapter One: The Colonial Administrative Reality’, 8–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
3 A number of studies of the region reflect this usage. (M. l'Abbé) Dourisboure, Pierre, Les Sauvages Ba-Hnars, Souvenir d'un missionnaire (Paris 1875)Google Scholar; le Barthélémy, Marquis, Au Pays Moï (Paris 1904)Google Scholar; Maître, Henri, Les Jungles Moï (Paris 1912)Google Scholar; and for usage in French administrative documents and newspaper articles, see those collected in Marquet, Jean, ‘Un Aventurier du XIXe Siècle: Marie Ier, Roi des Sédangs (1888–1890)’, Bulletin des Amis du Vieux Hué 14, 1 (January 1927) 107–128Google Scholar.
4 For the purposes of this article, the most useful of the works on Mayréna is Marquet's ‘Marie Ier, Roi des Sédangs’, as it reproduces a wide array of documents from government and missionary archives in Indochina and France that the author collected in the 1920s. Many of these archives have since been lost. A more romantic take on the Mayréna legend, published the same year as Marquet's, is Soulié, Maurice, Marie Ier, Roi des Sédangs, 1888–1890 (Paris 1927)Google Scholar. Both of these texts were reviewed by Ner, Marcel in Bulletin de l'Ecole Francaise d'Extrème Orient XXVII (1927) 308–350Google Scholar in an article long and detailed enough to be considered a study in its own right. The only English-language source solely dedicated to Mayréna is Hickey, Gerald, Kingdom in the Morning Mist: Mayréna in the Highlands of Vietnam (Philadelphia 1988)Google Scholar. Hickey's clear account is based exclusively on these and other published French sources, and provides excellent detail of the events.
5 Centre d'Archives d'outre mer (Aix-en-Province) (CAOM): Indochina: Gouvernement General de l'Indochine (GGI): 11890: Dossier Mayréna (8), 5 Janvier 1888 – 10 Août 1888: ‘Traité avec Pim’.
6 Mayréna complained of severe fever at the time he became king, and his letters at times were nearly incomprehensible. See for example the rambling notes in CAOM: Indo: GGI: 11890: Letter from Mayréna à M. le Gouverneur-Général. Kon-Jeri-Krong, 25 July 1888.
7 Marquet, ‘Un Aventurier du XIXe Siècle’, 39.
8 Mayréna's army never received the uniforms because the king never paid for them. CAOM: Indo: GGI: 11894: Dossier Mayréna (12): Letter from M. Liébard à Père Guerlach. Haiphong, 23 January 1889.
9 Soulié claims that older Parisians in boulevard cafes still reminisced about Mayréna's exploits in the 1920s. Marie Ier, Roi des Sédangs, 5. And his legend lived on in Indochina for decades after his mysterious death in 1890: in the 1920s, the three studies appeared, and as late as 1967, Mayrena's antics even made their way into André Malraux's Antimémoires. Gerald Hickey provides a useful essay on printed sources dealing with the King of the Sedangs. Kingdom in the Morning Mist, xxi-xxix.
10 The bite of a poisonous snake was the official cause of death, though other possibilities abounded. Marquet suggested that rumors that Mayréna was killed in a duel seemed unfounded, but he did not rule out suicide by poisoning, as Mayréna's body had no sign of a bite. See ‘Un Aventurier du XIXe Siècle’, 101–105.
11 CAOM: Indo: GGI: 11897: Dossier Mayréna (15): Letter from the Consulat de France à Singapore to M. le Gouverneur-Général de l'lndochine, no. 145. Singapore, 24 November 1890.
12 On the role of republican ideology in French colonial expansion, see Betts, Raymond, Assimilation and Association in French Colonial Theory, 1890–1914 (New York 1961)Google Scholar; and Conklin, Alice, A Mission to Civilize: The Republican Idea of Empire in France and West Africa, 1895–1930 (Stanford 1997) esp. 1–10Google Scholar.
13 This is especially true of the three main French sources on Mayréna, Marquet, ‘Un Aventurier du XIXe Siècle’; Soulié, Marie Ier: Roi des Sédangs; and Ner's review. As Hickey's book relies heavily on these documents, he too examines in detail the relationship between Mayréna and the French colonial government. Hickey, however, also makes connections between Mayrena and the general position of the central highlands in Vietnamese history.
14 Patrick Tuck provides partial reproductions of a number of useful documents, as well as a handy historical overview: French Catholic Missionaries and the Politics of Imperialism in Vietnam, 1857–1914: A Documentary Survey (Liverpool 1987) 237–238Google Scholar; 241–247.
15 Marr, David, Vietnamese Anticolonialism, 1885–1925 (Berkeley 1971) 47Google Scholar.
16 Ibid., 54–55.
17 A useful discussion of the ‘Siamese Question’ and its relation to Mayréna is in Hickey, Kingdom in the Morning Mist, ch. 4.
18 Marquet, ‘Un aventurier du XIXe Siècle’, 9.
19 In 1887, a French administrator investigated Mayréna's home on suspicion of arms trafficking, found and impounded a number of weapons, but never – for reasons that remain unclear – brought charges against him. Marquet, ‘Un Aventurier du XIXe Siècle’, 18–19.
20 CAOM: Indo: GGI: 11883: Letter from le Directeur de l'lntérieur, Cochinchine Française, to M. le Gouverneur-Général, no. 19. Saigon (reçu), 15 June 1885. Emphasis in the original.
21 Ner, review, 326.
22 CAOM: Indo: GGI: 11890: Letter from the Cabinet Lieutenant-Gouverneur de Cochinchine Française to M. le Gouverneur-Général de l'lndochine, no. 9. Saigon, 7 January 1888.
23 For protection, Mayréna brought along 21 rifles, 4 revolvers, and 2,500 cartridges – an arsenal he thought rather too light for conquest. Marquet, ‘Un Aventurier du XIXe Siècle’, 25–26.
24 Letter from Lemire to Mayréna, no. 728. Qui Nhon, 15 April 1888, reproduced in Marquet, ‘Un Aventurier du XIXe Siècle’, 27–29.
25 The letter of 24 March 1888 is reproduced in Marquet, ‘Un aventurier du XIXe Siècle’, 25.
26 The first missionaries to try to proselytise in the highlands were captured in 1842 and sentenced to death by Vietnamese mandarins. Dourisboure, Les Sauvages Ba-Hnars, 3. In 1852 the Vicariate of East Cochinchina established a mission at Kon Trang. See Tuck, French Catholic Missionaries, 237–240.
27 Jean Marquet, ‘Un aventurier du XIXe Siècle’, 31; for a complete discussion of French expeditions in the highlands, see Hickey, Gerald, Sons of the Mountains: Ethnohistory of the Vietnamese Central Highlands to 1954 (New Haven 1982) 207–259Google Scholar.
28 The Pavie Mission was a sixteen-year expedition that explored the Mekong River and surrounding lands. Cupet, Le Capitaine, Mission Pavie, Indo-Chine 1879–1895. Géographie et voyages, Vol. III: Voyages au Laos et chez les sauvages du sud-est de l'Indo-Chine (Paris 1900) 329Google Scholar.
29 Marquet, ‘Un Aventurier du XIXe Siècle’, 30.
30 The task of securing treaties had not been asked of Mayréna by the French government; he simply signed agreements which would later require official ratification by the French government. See the letter from Governor-General Richaud to Emile Jamais, Undersecretary for the Colonies (Hanoi, 14 December 1888) reproduced in Tuck, French Catholic Missionaries, 241–242.
31 Marquet, ‘Un Aventurier du XIXe Siècle’, 34.
32 Lemire in 1888, in Marquet, ‘Un Aventurier du XIXe Siècle’, 111. Both Navelle, who travelled in the region in 1884, and Pere Vialleton, the superior of the Mission at Kontum, discussed the benefits of such alliances.
33 Archives de la Société des Missions-Etrangères de Paris (ASME): 751 (Cochinchine Orientale), v. 2 (1887–1900); Folder 1889; Doc. 110: Letter from Marie I to Mgr Van Camelbeke, no. 939. Paris, 9 March 1889.
34 CAOM: Indo: GGI: 11890: Letter from Mayréna to M. le Gouverneur-Général, 15 May 1888; and Letter from Mayréna to M. le Gouverneur-Général. Kon-Jeri-Krong, 25 June 1888.
35 Hickey, Kingdom in the Morning Mist, 93.
36 ‘Lettres de l'Annam’, Le Temps, 28 August 1888.
37 Mayréna was extremely busy during his first month in office, signing more treaties and decrees. For a full discussion, see Hickey, Kingdom in the Morning Mist, 99–104, and 106–107.
38 CAOM: Indo: GGI: 11892: Dossier Mayréna (10): Letter from the Résident de France à Qui Nhon to M. le Gouverneur de l'Indo-Chine, Saigon, no. 865. Qui Nhon, 20 Sept. 1888.
39 Marie I to Monsieur le Directeur du Courrier d'Haiphong (Qui Nhon, 8 October 1888) reproduced in Marquet, ‘Un Aventurier du XIXe Siècle’, 44–45.
40 Marquet, ‘Un Aventurier du XIXe Siècle’, 45; Marquet was able to see Guerlach's copy of the Courrier d'Haiphong at the archives of the Mission of Kontum.
41 Marquet, ‘Un Aventurier du XIXe Siècle’, 46.
42 Ibid., 46.
43 This prediction ended up being remarkably accurate. In Mayréna's letter to Monsieur le Président de la République Française (Haiphong, 4 November 1888) in Marquet, ‘Un Aventurier du XIXe Siècle’, 50.
44 Marquet, ‘Un Aventurier du XIXe Siècle’, 46.
45 For example, Ner rejects Marquet's assertion that Lemire was blinded by anti-clericalism; see Ner, review, 329–330.
46 Marquet, ‘Un Aventurier du XIXe Siècle’, 70–71.
47 Letter from Governor-General Richaud to Emile Jamais, Undersecretary for the colonies (Hanoi, 14 December 1888) reprinted in Tuck, French Catholic Missionaries, 241–242.
48 ASME: 751, v. 2; Folder 1889; Doc. 113: Letter from Guerlach to M. Pean. Kon-Jori-Krong, 9 April 1889.
49 Letter form Rheinart to Mgr Van Camelbeke (Hué, 27 November 1888) reprinted in Tuck, French Catholic Missionaries, 242.
50 CAOM: Indo: GGI: 11894: Extrait de la lettre de Mgr Van Camelbeke en date du 25 Décembre 1888 (à Qui Nhon).
51 CAOM: Indo: GGI: 11894: Extrait de la lettre de Mgr Van Camelbeke en date du 5 Décembre 1888 (à Qui Nhon).
52 Letter from Mgr Van Camelbeke to Resident General Rheinart (1 December 1888) reprinted in Marquet, ‘Un Aventurier du XIXe Siècle’, 72.
53 CAOM: Indo: GGI: 11894: Letter from Guerlach to the Résident-Général Rheinart. Hanoi, 28 December 1888.
54 ASME: 751, v. 2; Folder 1888; Doc. 109: Résident-Général en Annam et au Tonkin à Monseigneur Van Camelbeke à Qui Nhon, no. 86G. Hanoi, 27 December 1888.
55 Letter from Rheinart to Guerlach reprinted in J.-B. Guerlach, ‘L'Oeuvre Néfaste’: Les Missionnaires en Indo-Chine (Saigon, Imprimerie Commerciale, 1906) 147–148.
56 ASME: 751, v. 2; Folder 1888; Doc. 109.
57 Mayréna in his letter to the editor, Courrier d'Haiphong, 8 October 1888, reproduced in Marquet, ‘Un Aventurier du XIXe Siècle’, 49.
58 ‘Lettres de l'Annam’, Le Temps, 28 August 1888.
59 ‘Chez les Sédangs’, Courrier d'Haiphon (27 December 1888) reprinted in Marquet, ‘Un Aventurier du XIXe Siecle’, 62–63.
60 ‘Chez les Sédangs’, Courrier d'Haiphong (3 January 1889) reprinted in Marquet, ‘Un Aventurier du XIXe Siècle’, 66–7.
61 Marquet, ‘Un Aventurier du XIXe Siècle’, 68–69.
62 Ibid., 69.
63 Hickey, Sons of the Mountains, 236.
63 ‘Lettre d'Annam’ (letter from Guerlach, 29 June 1889) in Courrier d'Haiphong (25 July 1889) reprinted in Marquet, ‘Un Aventurier du XIXe Siecle’, 117–120.
65 ‘La Nouvelle Confédération des Bahnars-Rongaos-Sédangs’, by X.X.X. in Courrier d'Haiphong (8 Augustus 1889) reprinted in Marquet, ‘Un Aventurier du XIXe Siècle’, 110–111.
66 Marquet, ‘Un Aventurier du XIXe Siècle’, 112.
67 ‘Boite aux lettres’, letter from Guerlach, 7 October 1889 in Courrier d'Haiphong (7 November 1889) reprinted in Marquet, ‘Un Aventurier du XIXe Siècle’, 121–122.
68 CAOM: Indo: GGI: 11894: Report from the Vice-Résident de France à Qui Nhon to M. le Résident-Général, Hué. Qui Nhon, 6 May 1889.
69 CAOM: Indo: GGI: 11894: Report from the Vice-Résident de France à Qui Nhon, 6 May 1889.
70 CAOM: Indo: GGI: 11894: Report from the Vice-Résident de France à Qui Nhon, 6 May 1889.
71 Van Camelbeke, quoted in Ner, review, 332.
72 ASME: 751: v. 2: Folder 1889: Doc. 115: Letter from Guerlach to ‘Bien cher et Vénéré Père’. Mission des Sauvages, Kron-Jori-Krong, 21 June 1889.
73 ASME: 751: v. 2: Folder 1889: Doc. 115.
74 Tuck, French Catholic Missionaries, 245–46.
75 The original quote was in English. Marquet, ‘Un Aventurier du XIXe Siècle’, 112.
76 On this general subject, Tuck is indispensable: French Catholic Missionaries, 20–80; on Catholic collaboration in the ‘Francis Gamier Affair’ see McLeod, Mark W., The Vietnamese Response to French Invasion, 1862–1874 (New York 1991) ch. 6Google Scholar.
77 CAOM: Indo: GGI: 11624: Rapport de Mgr Puginier sur les meurtres de missionnaires francais et de Chrétiens, et sur les pillages et incendies de chrétientés par des mandarins au Tonkin: Report from Puginier, Vic. Apostolique du Tonkin Occidental, to M. le Général de Division, Commandant en chef, le Corps expéditionnaire du Tonkin. Hanoi, 27 March 1884.
78 ASME: 759: Cochinchine Occidentale, 1888–1898; v. 2; Folder 1890: Doc. 367: Compte-Rendu, 1 September 1890.
79 ASME: 757: Folder 1901: Doc. 87: Compte-rendu, 1900–1901 from the Vicariat Apostolique de Cochinchine Occidentale. Saigon, 1 October 1901.
80 CAOM: Indo: GGI: 22548: A.S. d'une communication de Mgr Marcou relatif au recensement de la population de Ninh Binh, et des Chrétientés en particulier. 1904–05: Letter from Mgr Marcou, V.A. du Tonkin Maritime, to Résident-Supérieur. Phat Diem, 16 December 1904.
81 CAOM: Indo: GGI: 22555: Enquête dur l'affaire de Banam (Cambodge): le père Pianet compromis dans une affaire d'assassinat, Avril-Mai 1891: Letter from the Résident-Supérieur au Cambodge à M. le Gouverneur-Général de l'lndochina, Hanoi, no. 25. Phnôm- Penh, 15 May 1891.
82 CAOM: Indo: GGI: 22555: Letter from Dr Hanh au Résident-Supérieur of Cambodia. Phnom Penh, 24 May 1891.
83 Tuck, French Catholic Missionaries, 166.
84 Ibid., 206–208.
85 CAOM: Indo: GGI: 9234: Affaire du Père Magat, 1889; Letter from M. Hector, Résident Supérieur en Annam à Monsieur le Gouverneur Général de l'lndo-Chine, Saigon, no. 614. Hué, 21 Août 1889; another case in 1896 resulted in a similar exchange of letters. See CAOM: Indo: GGI: 9800: Difficultés survenues entre MM Duranton et Guillet et la mission du Tonkin méridional.
86 ASME: 787: Lettres de M. Guerlach: Missions des Sauvages Bahnar - Sedang, District de Notre Dame de Lourdes, Pelei Maria, 29 Janvier 1893, à Mr l'Abbé Cauvigny, Curé, Fontenay-le-Vicomte, par Mennacy (Seine-et-Oise).
87 For more on de Rhodes' work on missionary methods of ‘inculturation’, see Phan, Peter C., Mission and Catechesis: Alexandre de Rhodes and Inculturation in Seventeenth-Century Vietnam (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1998): 75–81Google Scholar.
88 ASME: 787, 9; emphasis in original.
89 Ibid., 13.
90 Ibid., 35.
91 Ibid., 36; emphasis in the original.
92 Ibid., 38. In the manuscript, an editor as deleted these lines with a blue pen; as much of the letter was later published in Missions Catholiques, the editor was like a superior at the Missions Etrangères who wanted to clear out contentious material.
93 ASME: 787, 61, 64.
94 Ibid., 120; the anti-Masonic rant was marked for deletion.
95 Ibid., 157, 164.
96 Ibid., 199.
97 Ibid., 190, 191–193.
98 ASME: 785: Vie du Père Jean Baptiste Pierre Marie Guerlach des Missions-Etrangères de Paris, Provicaire de la Mission des Sauvages au Vicariat de la Cochinchine Orientale, 1858–1912. Par l'abbé Cauvigny, curé de campagne. Deux cahiers, 25 June 1913 to 12 September 1914. Notebook I: 6. According to another biography, Guerlach was an ambulance worker in 1870; see (no author), Le Père Guerlach, Provicaire Apostolique, Supérieur de la Mission de Kontum (Sauvages Bahnars) (1858–1912) (Quinhon 1912) 2Google Scholar.
99 ASME: 786: Lettres du Père Guerlach. Letter to his parents, 15 December 1874.
100 ASME: 787, 40.
101 Ibid., 41–43.
102 Ibid., 44–46.
103 His role of the common ‘father’ to a large family of Sedang ‘sons’ also mirrored French official attitudes vis-à-vis the Indochinese population. For example, French announcements to the Vietnamese population commonly referred to the local population in familial terms. At the declaration of the First World War, French officials described the Vietnamese as the ‘preferred children’ in the colonial family. See, for example, Trung Tam Luu Tru Quoc Gia 1 (National Archives of Vietnam, no. 1) (Hanoi): Résidence Supérieur du Tonkin (RST): 20,324: Proclamation au peuple annamite a.s. de la déclaration de la Grande Guerre. 1914.
104 ASME: 787, 200–201; emphasis is Guerlach's.
105 Ibid., 202.
106 For example, ‘the battle that our soldiers fight in Africa is a holy war, as our compatriots destroy the empire of the devil, fetishism, and human sacrifices’. ASME: 787, 200.
107 ASME: 787, 200.
108 Rémond, Réné, ‘La Fille ainée de l'Eglise’ in: Nora, Pierre ed., Les lieux de mémoire III: Les Frances, 3. De l'Archive à l'emblème (Paris 1992) 540–581Google Scholar.