Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-24T17:57:09.321Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Trương Định and Vietnamese Anti-Colonialism, 1859–64: A Reappraisal

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 August 2009

Mark W. McLeod
Mark W. McLeod
Affiliation:
University of Delaware
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

By any measure, Trương Định (1820–64) was one of the leading figures of nineteenth-century Vietnamese resistance to French colonialism. As such, he has received a good deal of scholarly attention in Vietnam, France, the United States, and elsewhere. This article analyses the anti-colonial movement led by Trương Định in southern Vietnam during the years 1859–64, focusing on the questions of Trương Định's relationship to the Vietnamese imperial government at Huế and his motivation for continuing the anti-French struggle after Huế had made peace with France in 1862. Its organization is as follows: first, the historical context is summarized; second, Trương Định's resistance movement and its relationship to the Huế court are analyzed; third, various explanations of Trươg Định's motivation are considered and my own hypothesis is offered.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Southeast Asian Studies , Volume 24 , Issue 1 , March 1993 , pp. 88 - 105
Copyright
Copyright © The National University of Singapore 1993

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 As John F. Cady has demonstrated, Napoleon III also calculated that his ostensible defence of Catholic interests in Asian lands would win him continued domestic support from the French Church. Cady, , The Roots of French Imperialism in Eastern Asia (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1954), pp. 97–102, 186–91Google Scholar. Cf. Tsuboi, Yoshiharu, L'Empire vietnamien face à la France et a la Chine (Paris: L'Harmattan, 1987), pp. 33–58Google Scholar.

2 Kim, Trần Trọng, Việt Nam sử lựơc, 2 vols. (Sài-gòn: Bộ Giáo Dục, Trung Tâm Học Liệu, 1971), 2: 225Google Scholar.

3 Đại Nam thực lục, 38 vols. (Hà-nội: Nhà Xuất Bản Xã Hội, Nhà Xuất Bản Sử Học, Nhà Xuất Bản Khoa Học, 1962–1978), 24: 80Google Scholar.

4 Tung, Bὺi Quang, Nườc Việt Nam trên con đương suy vong (Hội Nghiên Cửu Liên Lạc Văn Hóa Á-Châu Xuất Bản, 1958), p. 12Google Scholar.

5 Liệu, Trấn Huy, Lịch sὺ tám mươi năm chống Pháp, 2 vols. (Hà-nội: Văn Sủ Địa, 1957), 1: 24Google Scholar.

6 Binh, Nguyễn Công, Lịch sủi Việt Nam, 2 vols. (Hà-nội: Nhà Xuất Bản Khoa Học Xã Hội, 1985), 2: 43Google Scholar. After intensive diplomatic manoeuvring, France denied Spain any territorial aggrandizement at Vietnam's expense. See Thomson, R. Stanley, “The Diplomacy of Imperialism: France and Spain in Cochin China, 1858–1863”, Journal of Modern History, no. 12 (1940): 336Google Scholar.

6 Đại Nam thực lục 30: 86Google Scholar.

8 The role of French naval officers was crucial in French Cochin China's formative years. Having been conquered by naval forces and isolated from all but naval communications, the new colony was placed under the authority of the Ministry of the Navy, which assigned naval officers to govern the colony from its capital, Saigon. The first civilian governor was not appointed until 1879. See Tsuboi, , L'Empire vietnamien, pp. 74–76Google Scholar.

9 For a critique of the early French colonial authors' utilization of the “Asiatic treachery” thesis to justify France's frequent violations of its treaty commitments to the Huế court, see Chesneaux, Jean, “French Historiography and the Evolution of Colonial Vietnam”, in Historians of Southeast Asia, ed. Hall, D.G.E. (London: Oxford University Press, 1961)Google Scholar. Chesneaux makes the cogent point that, due to the paucity of scholarly studies of the conquest by modern historians, many of these early and highly partisan “Franco-centric” accounts have remained influential long after the colonial period itself ended.

10 Đại Nam thực lục 24: 257Google Scholar.

11 Trung, Tô Minh and Huy, Nguyễn Xuân, Bińh Tây đại guyên soái Taương Định (Hà-nôi: Nhà Xuất Bản Quân Đội Nhân Dân, 1965), p. 8. Emphasis addedGoogle Scholar.

12 Editors of Nghiên c u lịch s, “Tài liệu vế cuộc Kháng chiến của Trương Định”, Nghiên cứu lịch sửi, no. 77 (1965): 44Google Scholar. It is in reference to the title granted him by the Huế court that Trương Định is often known as Quản Dinh. The term đ n điển designated a variety of agricultural colonization projects organized with differing degrees of state support. For a discussion of the various types of đ n điển, see Ph⋯c, Vũ Huy, “Các lọai đn điển”, in Nông thôn Việt Nam trong lịch sử, ed. Nguyễn Đống Chi et al. (Hà-nội: ủy Ban Khoa Học Xã Hội, 1977), pp. 137–40Google Scholar.

13 Editors of Nghiên cứu lịch sử, “Cuộc kháng chiến”, pp. 44–45Google Scholar.

14 de la Barrière, Léopold Pallu, Histoire de l'expédition de Cochinchine en 1861 (Paris: Hachette, 1864), p. 226Google Scholar.

15 Ibid., p. 225.

16 Vial, Paulin, Les Premières années de la Cochinchine, colonie françcaise, 2 vols. (Paris: Challamel Ainé, 1874), 1: 162Google Scholar.

17 de Poyen, Henri, Notice sur l'artillerie de la marine en Cochinchine (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1893), p. 79Google Scholar.

18 Editors of Nghiên cứu lịch sử, “Cuộc khàng chiến”, pp. 51–52Google Scholar.

19 Văn Giáp, Trần, “Tài liệu mới về Trươdng Công Định (1820–64), anh huńg dân tộc”, Nghiên cứu lịch sử, no. 51 (1963): 56Google Scholar.

20 Khoang, Phan, Việt Nam Pháp thuộc sử (Sài-gòn: Khai-Trí, 1961), pp. 195–96Google Scholar.

21 Cited in Oanh, Nguyễn Duy, Chân dung Phan Thanh Gia (Sài-gòn: Bộ Văn Hóa Giáo Dục và Thanh Niên, 1974), pp. 160–62Google Scholar.

22 De Poyen, , Notice, p. 83Google Scholar.

23 Osborne, Milton, The French Presence in Cochin China and Cambodia: Rule and Response (1859–1905) (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1969), p. 60Google Scholar.

24 Cited in Khoang, Phan, Việt Nam Pháp thuộc sử, p. 183Google Scholar.

25 Đại Nam thực lục 31: 61Google Scholar.

26 Cited in Trung, Tô Minh and Huy, Nguyễn Xuân, Trương Định, p. 28Google Scholar.

27 Cited in Editors of Nghiên cứ lịch sử, “Cuộc kháng chiến”, p. 45Google Scholar.

28 Quốc triều chánh biên (Sài-gòn: Nhóm Nghiên Cứu Sử Địa Xuất Bản, 1971–1972), p. 321Google Scholar.

29 Thơ văn Nguyền Thông, ed. Thứơc, Lê et al. (Hà-nôi: Nhà Xuất Ban Văn Hóa, 1962), p. 194Google Scholar.

30 lbid.

31 Ibid.

32 Oanh, Nguyễn Duy, Chân Dung Phan Thanh Giản, p. 315Google Scholar.

33 Lâm, Tnương Bửu, Patterns of Vietnamese Response to Foreign Intervention, 1858–1900 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967), p. 10Google Scholar.

34 Marr, David, Vietnamese Anti-Colonialism, 1885–1925 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971), p. 32Google Scholar.

35 Ibid., p. 33.

36 Editors of Nghiên cứu lịch sử, “Cuộc kháng chiến”, p. 52Google Scholar.

37 Binh, Nguyễn Công, Lịch sử Việt Nam 2: 46Google Scholar.

38 These two related themes — the “reactionary” nature of the Nguyễn dynasty and the continuity between “progressive” popular movements of the Nguyễn period and the Communist Party — are repeated ad infinitum throughout the Marxist histories of nineteenth-century Vietnam published under the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and subsequently under the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Representative statements may be found in Trung, Tô Minh and Huy, Nguyễn Xuân, Trương Định, pp. 8ffGoogle Scholar, and, more recently, Anonymous, Việtnam, đất mươc anh huńg (Hà-nội: Nhà Xuất Ban Sự Thật, 1975), pp. 44–47Google Scholar.

39 Cited in Lâm, Trương Bửu, Patterns, p. 39Google Scholar.

40 Cited in Ibid., p. 11.

41 Editors of Nghiên cứu lịch sử, “Cuộc kháng chiến”, p. 54Google Scholar.

42 Kim, Trần Trọng, Nho giaó, 2 vols. (Sài-gòn: Bộ Giáo Dụe Trung Târn Học Liệu Xuất Bản, 1971), 1: 142–43Google Scholar.

43 Oanh, Nguyễn Duy, Chân dung Phan Thanh Giản, p. 72Google Scholar.

44 Ibid., p. 73.

45 Ibid.

46 Cited in Trung, Tô Minh and Huy, Nguyễn Xuân, Trương Định, p. 28Google Scholar.

46 Đại Nam thực liục 31: 49Google Scholar.

48 Đại Nam thực lục 33: 134Google Scholar.

49 Cited in Khiêu, Vũ and Sử, Nguyễn Đức, Nguyễn Đinh Chiều, ngôi sao sáng cửa người tri thức Việt Nam (Hà-nội: Nhà Xuất Bản Khoa Học Xã Hội, 1982), p. 82Google Scholar.