Vietnamese History

Vietnamese History

Hope Benne

Salem State College

Purpose of Discussion

The purpose of this discussion is to show the Vietnamese people have an ancient, rich history one they developed and maintained for thousands of years despite numerous invasions and occupations.

Despite great odds, they kept their strong cultural identity in tact. The Sa Huyen Culture

Dating to the first millennium BC, the Sa Huyen culture was a bronze culture. They had their own style axes, daggers and ornaments, jewelry and glass. They are thought to be forbearers of the Cham people. The Sa Huynh culture developed in the first millennium CE. These people used iron when bronze was still used elsewhere. Bronze Drum There are four main stages of Vietnamese history:

1. Chinese rule (111B.C.-939 A.D.) 2. Vietnamese Independence (939 CE- 1883 CE) 3. Occupied and dominated by French, Japanese, and Americans (1884-1975) 4. Independence (1975-Present) Chinese Rule (111 BC – 939 AD) Chinese rule for nearly 1,000 years meant imperial, bureaucratic, hierarchal structures, Chinese language, and Chinese Confucian values imposed on the Vietnamese.

The Vietnamese resented foreign hegemony and many of their heroes are those who fought the Chinese trying to gain independence. In 218 BC a Chin Dynasty general named Trieu Da founded a kingdom called Nam Viet and ruled it from his capital, Guangzhou. The population of Nam Viet was Austronesian. Trieu adopted their customs and ruled a vast state extending to Danang in central Vietnam today. Han dynasty Emperor Wu reconquered Nam Viet in 111 BC and incorporated it as a province of China. Chinese administrators were assigned to replace local nobility. The Vietnamese were pressured to adopt Chinese written language, Chinese Confucianism, and Chinese political structures. The long distance from Chinese power centers and original culture enabled the Vietnamese to keep their cultural identity. Mandarin Scholar Warrior The Trung sisters, Trac and Nhi, led an army of 80,000, including 36 women, to defeat the Chinese who had dominated Vietnam for 246 years. Trac had a fearless disposition. After defeating the Chinese, they named her Trung Vuong, which means She-king Trung. During her 3-year long rule, she abolished hated taxes and simplified the political structure. A warrior friend of the Trung sisters, Phung Thi Chinh, was a pregnant noblewoman who tried to protect Central Nam Viet. She led troops against the Chinese, delivered a child at the battle front, and later carried this child into battle. When she heard the Trung sisters had committed suicide, she also ended her life and that of her baby’s. The inspiration of the Trung sisters continues to flourish in the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese people to this day. Even though they adopted much from the Chinese, the Vietnamese resented the foreign hegemony of the colossus to the north and for nearly 1,000 years they persisted in struggling for their independence. Vietnamese women have been greatly respected in Vietnamese society from earliest times. Their important role in planting and harvesting rice gave them authority and economic power. Women could select their own spouse. Daughters had a high value.

There was no premium placed on virginity. Most Vietnamese couples remained monogamous once married. At the marriage ceremony, the groom paid the bride and her family a sum of money called bride wealth which remained under the bride’s control. A married couple usually resided in the bride’s home village. Women could become political leaders, judges, traders, and warriors.

Vietnamese women enjoyed a higher status than Chinese or Indian women. Dinh Bo Linh Defeated Vietnamese warlords and united Vietnam in 968 Vietnamese Independence (939-1883) For the next 900 years a series of strong Vietnamese families dominated the political landscape, the Le Dynasty and Tran in the North who held their own against Cham, Mongolian and Chinese attacks. The Cham people were of different ethnic descent than the Vietnamese and settled along the coast. It is thought they are Austronesian (Malay and Polynesian) and came to the Vietnamese coast from Borneo around 200-100 BC. The Cham language, like Malay, Javanese and Polynesian, was based on Sanskrit. The Cham people were Indianized in the 300’s BC. Stone inscriptions were in Sanskrit and their own language.

The Cham Kingdom (192-1400)

This kingdom was formed by a local leader rebelling against the Chinese.

The basis of their livelihood was farming, fishing, and maritime trade throughout Southeast Asia. Their families were matriarchal with the bride’s family organizing the wedding and the couple living with the wife’s family. They adopted Islam in the 900’s AD. There’s an Arabic stone pillar near Phan Rang.

Cham temple Cham used hard-baked brick and sandstone. Their temples were exquisitely decorated. Riser on a stairway at My Son (Hoi An) showing a dancer associated with Shiva and Vishnu dating back to 600 AD.

Exquisitely decorated Cham Shaivite Hindu temple in Quy Nhon made of hard-baked brick and sandstone Towers of Po Sa Nu in Phan Thiet, the oldest Cham buildings which resemble pre-Ankor-Wat towers in the Mekong Delta region of Cambodia. My Son was a Cham religious center Tower temple ruins at My Son

Asia in 800 CE showing Champa city-states and their neighbors Bas relief of late 1100’s at Ankor Temple Bayon showing Cham mariners in action against Khmer As time went on, the Chams were caught in a vise between Khmers to the west and Dai Viet to the north.

In the 1470’s Cham ships raided Vietnamese ships, so the Vietnamese invaded their lands thus beginning a 300-year long expansion southward. The Vietnamese killed 60,000 Cham and imprisoned another 60,000. Under Le Thanh Tong they destroyed Cham culture and abolished Cham identity.

Remaining Cham spread out in a diaspora and there are 77,000 Chams in Vietnam who are half Himdu and half Muslim. Later the Trinh Dynasty in the North and Nguyen Dynasty in the South both claimed to be heirs to the Le Dynasty and these two families fought civil wars from 1600-1802. the Tay Son in Central Vietnam. The first French to come to Vietnam were Catholic missionaries. Alexander Rhodes, a French bishop, converted Vietnamese characters into the Roman alphabet in the 1600’s. The Vietnamese eventually conquered the Mekong River Delta in 1757 extending their control over Southeast Asia’s entire eastern coast.

Nguyen Hue, a Tay Son brother, repelled the Chinese in a surprise attack Tet 1789. He had also defeated the Nguyen and Trinh families in 1771. He ruled in Hanoi 1787-1795, until Gia Long took control in 1802. Emperor Gia Long, founder of the Nguyen Dynasty, ruled from 1802 until 1820. In 1802 the Nguyen Dynasty came to power after 30 years of peasant rebellion and civil war. They fashioned a centralized scholar bureaucracy after the Chinese model, energetically build irrigation canals, roads, bridges and palaces in Hue, the new imperial capital city. In 1821 a European who had lived in many Asian cities wrote Hue had “a neatness, magnitude, and perfection” that made other Asian achievements look like “the works of children.

Gia Long’s reign was noted for its Confucian orthodoxy. He reinstated classical Confucian education and the civil service exam system.

He obtained French help to modernize the army, tolerated French missionaries and made Cambodia a vassal state. In 1825 Emperor Ming Mang, who ruled Vietnam from 1820-1841, outlawed the teachings of Christianity and killed and expelled Roman Catholic missionaries, killed 30,000 Vietnamese Christians, and annexed remaining Cham territories.

In response a French naval force seized Saigon and 3 surrounding provinces and made them a French colony in 1860. French Colonization (1884-1954) In 1884 France colonized the rest of the country. Laos and Cambodia were added to French Indochina in 1887. In all 3 countries local rulers were left on the their thrones, but France dominated and promoted French culture. The French built roads, schools, hospitals, libraries, canals, dikes, and railroads.

First Indo-China War (1946-1954) France governed through an elite minority of French- educated Vietnamese Catholics. Ho Chi Minh led an independence movement. He formed the Indochinese Communist Party in 1930. He also joined with other Nationalists in a coalition called Vietminh, the Vietnamese Independence Brotherhood League. Former history teacher Vo Nguyen Giap, led the military effort, used guerilla tactics to wear down the French, and then amassed a giant army with Chinese help. In spring 1954 he trapped and defeated the French at a place called Dien Bien Phu. Then, according to the Geneva Accords, North Vietnam would be led by the Vietminh under Ho Chi Minh and South Vietnam would be led by Ngo Dinh Diem until 1956 when nationwide elections would be held to unite the country. Those elections weren’t held, the US was afraid Ho Chi Minh would win, and helped Ngo Dinh Diem block the elections. Ho Chi Minh Second Indochina War By 1963 Diem had alienated Nationalists and Buddhists, Buddhist monks were burning themselves in the streets and there was an insurgency against the repressive rule of Ngo Dinh Diem. The Communists in South Vietnam formed a coalition called the NLF with guerilla units called Viet Cong. In 1964 the North Vietnamese Communists started sending armed units south to support the Viet Cong. That same year in the Gulf of Tonkin, US ships reported being shot at by North Vietnamese patrol boats. North Vietnam denied firing and US reports were never verified, but the US Congress passed a resolution authorizing Johnson to take “all necessary measures…to prevent further aggression.” This was a license to wage war. American troops arrived the next year in large numbers and in the next years the war intensified. Advanced American weapons and mass bombing, exceeding all firepower used in World War II, caused extensive damage and countless casualties, but failed to crush the Communists. Second Indochinese War (con’t) In early 1968 Vo Nguyen Giap surprised the Americans with simultaneous attacks throughout South Vietnam during the Lunar New Year celebrations called Tet. The US regained all ground lost, but the offensive undermined American morale. Americans seeing TV pictures of the violence concluded victory was not in sight and Johnson announced he wouldn’t seek reelection. Nixon initiated Vietnamization transferring the fighting to South Vietnamese and withdrawing US troops. But the US bombed Cambodia in 1969 destroying the country’s only oil refinery and considerable infrastructure and invaded that country in 1970 to destroy Communist bases and supply lines. In 1972 when negotiations stalled, he resumed massive bombing of North Vietnam. A peace agreement was signed in Paris in 1973 providing for the withdrawal of US troops. In 1974 with US troops gone, North Vietnam sent troops south for al all-out offensive and conquered the south uniting Vietnam under Communist rule. Nguyen Van Thieu Leader of Vietnam 1967-1975

The Catastrophe in Cambodia

The US bombed the Ho Chi Minh trail located partly in Cambodia where North Vietnamese troops were coming south in 1969. This destroyed the country’s only oil refinery, damaged infrastructure, killed civilians, and destroyed Communist bases and supply lines. These actions enlarged the war and destabilized Cambodia causing the flight of its King Sihanouk and opening up rule by a Maoist fanatic, Pol Pot. During this time a genocide caused the deaths of over one million Cambodians. What This Means Hard line advisors to three Presidents of the United States (Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon) advised these presidents to “look strong” and “stand tall” in the face of the Communist threat, interfere in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, and use US government’s military power to support illegitimate leaders.

This all eventually led to a US defeat, with 58,000 Americans killed, 3 million Vietnamese killed, 200,000 Cambodians and 100,000 Laotians killed.

This also led to enormous physical damage to Vietnam from 15 million tons of firepower – more than was ever used in all other wars in human history combined. It was 600 times more than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima and over twice as much firepower as was used in World War II. (6 million tons used in World War II). US military used 18,000,000 gallons of chemical herbicides called Agent Orange to kill trees and killed 700,000 water buffalo, oxen, and cows.

Next Steps

What can we do? Vietnam independent since 1975