Chapter 1 Introduction 1-1 Historical archaeology of Bạch Mã Mountain This is a study of Bạch Mã Hill Station in Central Vietnam, or Old Bạch Mã (OBM) as I will refer to it. OBM was located just south of Huế, one of a series of hill stations established in high altitude locations across French Indochina, originally as climate retreats or sanatoria for the expatriate French colonisers. The plateau of Bạch Mã Mountain was surveyed and proposed for development by the French in 1932 but development on the plateau was limited before 1938. OBM reached its zenith during World War II (WWII), under the pro-Vichy, French colonial administration of Governor-General Admiral Jean Decoux and during the Japanese occupation of Indochina. It was abandoned by the French in 1945. This is an historical archaeology study that will examine the material fabric and the oral history of OBM within the context of the historical period in which it flourished. OBM is a distinctly colonial construct, developed at a point in time that represents the boundary between colonial French Indochina and an independent Vietnam. It is a symbol of that moment under a Vichy colonial administration when Vietnam stood at the crossroads between colonialism and postcolonialism. The story of OBM is explored through an archaeological perspective of intercultural social relations expressed in the cultural landscape and material fabric of OBM. This approach examines the material expression of social relations and is an approach that has not been used to explore colonial intercultural relations in Vietnam to date. It is used also to introduce to the study a greater focus on the Vietnamese people involved in OBM. Archaeology provides opportunities to study aspects of colonial life that are unlikely to be incorporated in historical documents. One of the advantages of OBM is that it was created in a previously undeveloped environment. The summit plateau of Bạch Mã Mountain was completely forested when French engineer M. Girard surveyed it in 1932 (Kéo, 2001). As a constructed landscape, OBM became a cultural phenomenon that symbolised the French colonial system in Central Vietnam, largely separated from the material culture of the majority Vietnamese (J. Thomas, 2001:166). Recent developments in the archaeology of cultural landscapes have introduced new perspectives that recognise landscapes as the space in which people engage with the world and in which they create and sustain their own sense of their social identities Bạch Mã (Knapp & Ashmore, 1999:15). People build their houses, villages, holiday resorts in landscapes and express not only who they are in the material culture they create, but who they want others to be. The houses in which they lived are more than a ‘surface veneer’, they are a fundamental expression of themselves (Lucas, 2006:17). In stratified societies such as colonial Vietnam (Marr, 1971:23-32), the construction, maintenance and use of the built environment contributed to both the creation of inequality and the maintenance of the character of social stratification (Paynter, 1982:1). Furthermore, in Indochina the French used architecture as an expression of colonial policy and urban development as a means and end for political and economic policy (Wright, 1997:333, 339). In OBM the French were creating a colonial identity by transforming a landscape to represent their vision of a post WWII colonial Indochina (Kealhofer, 1999:58). OBM provides an opportunity to examine archaeologically, through their material culture, the French perspective of colonialism in Central Vietnam in the late colonial era. The archaeology provides the best way to explore issues of colonialism that focus on the Vietnamese, and Bạch Mã is much more significant to the Vietnamese of Central Vietnam, both nowadays and in the 1930s and 1940s, than it ever was to the French. The archaeology at Bạch Mã plateau also suggests something of the attitudes towards colonialism of those Vietnamese who participated in Bạch Mã in the postcolonial period. OBM was abandoned by the French in March 1945 following a Japanese coup de force in which the French administration was overthrown following the liberation of France by allied forces in Europe. The summit plateau of Bạch Mã Mountain has experienced three subsequent occupation phases. From 1957 to circa 1963, during the administration of the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam), there was an unsuccessful attempt to re-establish horticultural ventures on the Bạch Mã plateau. Another occupation phase occurred from circa 1963 to 1975 and consisted of the military contest for control of the summits of Bạch Mã Mountain during the Second Indochina War. Together these two postcolonial occupations of the plateau resulted in OBM being left in ruins. The taphonomic processes at work on the relics of colonialism on Bạch Mã Mountain provide an additional perspective of the local people’s attitudes to colonialism. The third and current occupation by the administration of Bạch Mã National Park (BMNP) has seen the re-development of several of the old French villas as modern tourist accommodation while most of the 2 Bạch Mã French villas continue to lie, decaying in the forest as ‘enchanted reflections’ of the past (Stoler, 2008:203). European colonialism of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and the postcolonial period following WWII have been crucial in shaping the modern world political and economic environment. Vietnam occupied a central place in that global theme, and in many ways Central Vietnam is still experiencing the effects of being at the very frontline of the battle to create the postcolonial, post-Cold War, world of the twenty- first century. The period in which OBM was developed was similarly significant in shaping postcolonial Central Vietnam. OBM played a consequential role in that development through its role in the growth of a nationalistic, Vietnamese consciousness among many young Vietnamese people, even while the French were still in residence. At the same time, OBM symbolised the essence of French colonialism in Central Vietnam. Its peak of development is also still within the living memory of some local people, people who themselves participated in the transformation of Vietnam into a modern, independent Southeast Asian state. It is a rare opportunity to find a location so rich in symbolism, so little changed in its context, and open to analysis using a range of methodologies. Central Vietnam, including Bạch Mã, had a significant place in world politics from 1946 to 1975. However, it has not been central in the English language historical literature on Vietnam or in the intellectual consciousness of the West in the subsequent period. This seems to be a consequence of several local and international factors, including the history of colonialism in Indochina, the attitudes of France and the United States (US) towards Vietnam in the postcolonial period, and the priorities of the government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRVN). As a consequence of the general lack of historical information about Central Vietnam during the colonial occupation, at least in English, an archaeological study is not only appropriate and timely, but is also the only way to understand the historical significance of OBM. The lack of documented history combined with the developments over the last two or three decades within archaeology, of a range of techniques and approaches suitable to a colonial site in which cross-cultural influences are prominent, make OBM an excellent case-study in which to introduce this type of study to Vietnam. 3 Bạch Mã 1-2 Aims and objectives My introduction to Bạch Mã was in 2003 while working for the BMNP administration. The existence of the distinctly colonial cultural landscape at the summit plateau of Bạch Mã Mountain, represented in the ruins of OBM located within a distinctly Vietnamese natural environment, under Vietnamese management, led to my interest in the Vietnamese perspective of OBM. Where were the Vietnamese in this colonial landscape? Who were they and what had they been doing? My research approach here has followed a similar line, focusing on local issues, using local resources. An approach by BMNP to the French archives in 2001 had identified very little in the way of official documents relating to OBM. What was available provided an historical foundation for this site, but little in the way of understanding the French colonists’ reasons for their investment in OBM. There may well be further relevant documentary evidence of OBM available through archives in France as well as in Vietnam. However, I made a conscious decision not to pursue a French perspective of OBM at this stage. Clearly, it is not possible to study a French colonial site without addressing the French, and the following study does examine French colonial history and policy in as much detail as reliance on secondary sources allows. My focus, however, is on the Vietnamese of Central Vietnam and their perspective of OBM, and of colonialism. I approach this study by addressing issues of Vietnamese collaboration and resistance in the colonial landscape of OBM, and in the local oral and documentary history. The term ‘collaboration’ is not used here in a derogatory sense. Collaboration and resistance are basic social relationships in intercultural interaction, particularly in a colonial environment (Robinson, 1972). Given the resources locally available in Vietnam and in the English language literature on Vietnamese history and French colonial history, the specific objectives of the study are as follows: 1. The study aims to examine how Bạch Mã plateau developed over a series of occupations and abandonments, using archaeology and oral history to enhance the limited documentary record of the place and time. 2. It also aims to relate the development of OBM to the broader political and social environment to consider the nature and roles of twentieth century hill 4 Bạch Mã stations in Indochina and to explore the implications of the development of OBM for the maintenance of the French colonial occupation of Indochina.