Cochinchina or Cochin-China (, ; vi, Đàng Trong (17th century - 18th century, Việt Nam (1802-1831), Đại Nam (1831-1862), Nam Kỳ (1862-1945); km, កូសាំងស៊ីន, Kosăngsin; french: Cochinchine; ) is a historical
exonym for part of
Vietnam, depending on the contexts. Sometimes it referred to the whole of Vietnam, but it was commonly used to refer to the region south of the
Gianh River.
In the 17th and 18th centuries, Vietnam was divided between the
Trịnh lords to the north and the
Nguyễn lords to the south. The two domains bordered each other on the
Son
A son is a male offspring; a boy or a man in relation to his parents. The female counterpart is a daughter. From a biological perspective, a son constitutes a first degree relative.
Social issues
In pre-industrial societies and some curren ...
–Gianh River. The northern section was called
Tonkin by Europeans, and the southern part, , was called Cochinchina by most Europeans and Quinam by the
Dutch.
Lower Cochinchina (), whose principal city is
Saigon, is the newest territory of the Vietnamese people in the movement of (Southward expansion). This region was also the first part of Vietnam to be colonized by the French. Inaugurated as the
French Cochinchina in 1862, this colonial administrative unit reached its full extent from 1867 and was a constituent territory of
French Indochina from 1887 until early 1945. So during the French colonial period, the label ''Cochinchina'' moved further south, and came to refer exclusively to the southernmost part of Vietnam. Beside the French colony of Cochinchina, the two other parts of Vietnam at the time were the French protectorates of
Annam (Central Vietnam) and
Tonkin (Northern Vietnam).
South Vietnam (also called ) was reorganized from the
State of Vietnam
The State of Vietnam ( vi, Quốc gia Việt Nam; Chữ Nôm: 國家越南; french: État du Viêt-Nam) was a governmental entity in Southeast Asia that existed from 1949 until 1955, first as a member of the French Union and later as a country ...
after the
Geneva Conference in 1954 by combining Lower Cochinchina with the southern part of Annam, the former protectorate.
Background
The conquest of the south of present-day Vietnam was a long process of territorial acquisition by the Vietnamese. It is called ''
Nam tiến'' (Chinese characters:
南 進, English meaning "South
rnAdvance") by Vietnamese historians. Vietnam (then known as
Đại Việt) greatly expanded its territory in 1470 under the great Emperor
Lê Thánh Tông, at the expense of
Champa. The next two hundred years was a time of territorial consolidation and civil war with only gradual expansion southwards.
In 1516,
Portuguese traders sailing from
Malacca landed in
Da Nang, Đại Việt,
and established a presence there. They named the area "Cochin-China", borrowing the first part from the Malay ''Kuchi'', ''Kochi'', ''Kuci'', or ''Koci'' (unrealated to Indian or Japanese cities of
Kochi), which referred to all of
Vietnam, and which in turn derived from the Chinese ''
Jiāozhǐ'', in
Cantonese
Cantonese ( zh, t=廣東話, s=广东话, first=t, cy=Gwóngdūng wá) is a language within the Chinese (Sinitic) branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages originating from the city of Guangzhou (historically known as Canton) and its surrounding a ...
''Kawci'', pronounced ''Giao Chỉ'' in Vietnam. They appended the "China" specifier to distinguish the area from the
city
A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...
and the
princely state of Cochin in India, their first headquarters in the
Malabar Coast.
As a result of a civil war that started in 1520, the Emperor of China sent a commission to study the political status of Annam in 1536. As a consequence of the delivered report, he declared war against the
Mạc dynasty
The Mạc dynasty ( vi, Nhà Mạc / ''Mạc triều''; Hán Nôm: 茹莫 / 莫 朝) (1527-1627), as known as House of Mạc ruled the whole of Đại Việt between 1527 and 1540 and the northern part of the country from 1540 until 1593, and ...
. The nominal ruler of the Mạc died at the very time that the Chinese armies passed the frontiers of the kingdom in 1537, and his father,
Mạc Đăng Dung
Mạc Đăng Dung (chữ Hán; 莫 登 庸; 23 November 1483 – 22 August 1541), also known by his temple name Mạc Thái Tổ (), was an emperor of Vietnam and the founder of the Mạc dynasty. Previously a captain of the imperial guard (Prae ...
(the real power in any case), hurried to submit to the Imperial will, and declared himself to be a vassal of China. The Chinese declared that both the
Lê dynasty and the Mạc had a right to part of the lands and so they recognised the Lê rule in the southern part of Vietnam while at the same time recognising the Mạc rule in the northern part, which was called
Tunquin (i.e. Tonkin). This was to be a feudatory state of China under the government of the Mạc.
However, this arrangement did not last long. In 1592,
Trịnh Tùng
Trịnh Tùng (19 December 1550 – 17 July 1623), also known as Trịnh Tòng and later given the title ''Bình An Vương'' (平安王), was the de facto ruler of Đại Việt from 1572 to 1623. Trịnh Tùng is the first official Trịnh lord, ...
, leading the Royal (Trịnh) army, conquered nearly all of the Mạc territory and moved the Lê emperors back to the original capital of
Hanoi. The Mạc only held on to a tiny part of north Vietnam until 1667, when
Trịnh Tạc
Trịnh Tạc ( Hán: 鄭 柞; 11 April 1606 – 24 September 1682) ruled northern Dai Viet in 1657–1682.
Trịnh Tạc was one of the most successful of the Trịnh lords who ruled Bắc Hà. During his rule, he made peace with the Nguyễn, ...
conquered the last Mạc lands.
Cochinchina Kingdom of the Nguyễn lords (1600–1774)
In 1600 after returning from Tonkin, lord
Nguyễn Hoàng built his own government in the two southern provinces of Thuận Hóa and Quảng Nam, today in central Vietnam. In 1623, lord
Nguyễn Phúc Nguyên
Nguyễn Phúc Nguyên (阮福源; 16 August 1563 – 19 November 1635) was an early Nguyễn lord who ruled the southern Vietnam from the city of Phú Xuân (modern-day Huế) from 1613 to 1635. During his rule, the Nguyễn established a cit ...
established a trading community at
Saigon, then called Prey Nakor, with the consent of the king of Cambodia,
Chey Chettha II. Over the next 50 years, Vietnamese control slowly expanded in this area but only gradually as the Nguyễn were fighting a protracted
civil war with the Trịnh lords in the north.
With the end of the war with the Trịnh, the Nguyễn were able to devote more effort (and military force) to conquest of the south. First, the remaining Champa territories were taken; next, the areas around the
Mekong river were placed under Vietnamese control. At least three wars were fought between the
Nguyễn lords and the Cambodian kings in the period 1715 to 1770 with the Vietnamese gaining more territory with each war. The wars all involved the much more powerful
Siamese kings who fought on behalf of their vassals, the Cambodians.
During the late 18th century emerged the
Tây Sơn Rebellion, coming out from the Nguyễn domain. In 1774, the Trịnh army captured the capital
Phú Xuân of the Nguyễn realm, whose leaders then had to flee to Lower Cochinchina. The three brothers of Tây Sơn, former peasants, however, soon succeeded in conquering first the lands of the Nguyễn and then the lands of the Trịnh, briefly unifying Vietnam.
;Cochinchina Empire of the Nguyễn (1802–1862)
Final unification of Vietnam came under
Nguyễn Phúc Ánh
Gia Long ( (''North''), (''South''); 8 February 1762 – 3 February 1820), born Nguyễn Phúc Ánh (阮福暎) or Nguyễn Ánh, was the founding emperor of the Nguyễn dynasty, the last dynasty of Vietnam. His dynasty would rule the unifie ...
, a tenacious member of the Nguyễn noble family who fought for 25 years against the Tây Sơn and ultimately conquered the entire country in 1802. He ruled all of Vietnam under the name Gia Long. His son
Minh Mạng reigned from 14 February 1820 until 20 January 1841 what was known to the British as Cochin China and to the Americans as hyphenated Cochin-China. In hopes of negotiating commercial treaties, the British in 1822 sent
East India Company agent
John Crawfurd
John Crawfurd (13 August 1783 – 11 May 1868) was a Scottish physician, colonial administrator, diplomat, and author who served as the second and last Resident of Singapore.
Early life
He was born on Islay, in Argyll, Scotland, the son of ...
,
and the Americans in 1833 sent
diplomatist Edmund Roberts,
who returned in 1836.
Neither envoy was fully cognizant of conditions within the country, and neither succeeded.
Gia Long's successors (see the
Nguyễn dynasty for details) repelled the Siamese from Cambodia and even annexed
Phnom Penh and surrounding territory in the
war between 1831 and 1834, but were forced to relinquish these conquests in the
war between 1841 and 1845.
Colonial Cochinchina: 1862–1945
French conquest
For a series of complex reasons, the
Second French Empire of
Napoleon III, with the help of
Spanish troops arriving from the
Spanish East Indies, attacked
Đà Nẵng
Nang or DanangSee also Danang Dragons ( ; vi, Đà Nẵng, ) is a class-1 municipality and the fifth-largest city in Vietnam by municipal population. It lies on the coast of the East Sea of Vietnam at the mouth of the Hàn River, and is one ...
(Tourane) of
Nguyen Dynasty Vietnam in September 1858. Unable to occupy Đà Nẵng, the alliance moved to
Lower Cochinchina in the South. On 17 February 1859, they
captured Saigon. Later on, the French defeated the Nguyễn army at the
Battle of Ky Hoa
The Battle of Kỳ Hòa (Vietnamese: Trận Đại đồn Chí Hòa) on 24 and 25 February 1861 was an important French victory in the Cochinchina campaign (1858–62). This campaign, fought between the French and the Spanish on the one side and ...
in 1861. The
Vietnamese government was forced to cede the three southern Vietnamese provinces of
Biên Hòa,
Gia Định and
Định Tường to France in June 1862
Treaty of Saigon.
In 1867, French Admiral Pierre de la Grandière forced the Vietnamese to surrender three additional provinces,
Châu Đốc,
Hà Tiên
Hà Tiên is a Provincial city in Kiên Giang Province, Mekong Delta in Vietnam. Its area is and the population as of 2019 is 81,576. The city borders Cambodia to the west. Hà Tiên is a tourist site of the region thanks to its beaches and la ...
and
Vĩnh Long
Vĩnh Long () is a city and the capital of Vĩnh Long Province in Vietnam's Mekong Delta. Vĩnh Long covers and has a population of 147,039 (as of 2009). The name was spelled 永 隆 ("eternal prosperity") in the former Hán Nôm writing syst ...
. With these three additions all of southern Vietnam and the Mekong Delta fell under French control.
French colony
In 1871 all the territories ceded to the French in southern Vietnam were incorporated as colony of Cochinchina, with Admiral
Dupré as its first governor. As a result, the name "Cochinchina" came to refer exclusively to the southern third of Vietnam. (In Catholic ecclesiastical contexts Cochinchina still related to the older meaning of ''Đàng Trong'' until 1924 when the three
Apostolic Vicariates of Northern, Eastern, and Western Cochinchina were renamed to Apostolic Vicariates of
Huế,
Qui Nhơn, and
Saïgon).
In 1887, the colony became a confederal member of the
Union of French Indochina
French Indochina (previously spelled as French Indo-China),; vi, Đông Dương thuộc Pháp, , lit. 'East Ocean under French Control; km, ឥណ្ឌូចិនបារាំង, ; th, อินโดจีนฝรั่งเศส, ...
. Unlike the protectorates of
Annam (central Vietnam) and
Tonkin (northern Vietnam), Cochinchina was ruled directly by the French, both ''de jure'' and ''de facto'', and was represented by a deputy in the
National Assembly in Paris. Within Indochina, Cochinchina was the territory with the greatest European presence. At its height, in 1940, it was estimated at 16,550 people, the vast majority living in Saigon.
The French authorities dispossessed Vietnamese landowners and peasants to ensure European control of the expansion of rice and rubber production. As they expanded in response to the increased rubber demand after the
First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...
, the European plantations recruited, as indentured labour, workers from "the overcrowded villages of the
Red River Delta in
Tonkin and the coastal lowlands of
Annam". These migrants brought south the influence of the
Communist Party of Nguyen Ai Quoc (
Ho Chi Minh), and of other underground nationalist parties (the ''Tan Viet'' and ''
Việt Nam Quốc Dân Đảng
The Việt Nam Quốc Dân Đảng (; chữ Hán: ; ), abbreviated VNQDĐ or Việt Quốc, was a nationalist and democratic socialist political party that sought independence from French colonial rule in Vietnam during the early 20th century. ...
''—VNQDD). At the same time, the local peasantry were driven into debt servitude, and into plantation labour, by land and
poll taxes. Such conditions contributed to the
1916 Cochinchina uprising, and to widespread agrarian and labor unrest in 1930-32.
In 1936 the formation in France of the
Popular Front government led by
Leon Blum
Leon, Léon (French) or León (Spanish) may refer to:
Places
Europe
* León, Spain, capital city of the Province of León
* Province of León, Spain
* Kingdom of León, an independent state in the Iberian Peninsula from 910 to 1230 and again fro ...
was accompanied by promises of colonial reform. Failure to deliver, helped generate further unrest culminating in the summer of 1937 in general dock and transport strikes. The left anti-colonial forces split between the Moscow-oriented
Communist Party and their
Trotskyist left opposition and, following the French declaration of war against Germany in September 1939 was suppressed. Under the slogan "Land to the Tillers, Freedom for the workers and independence for Vietnam", in November 1940 the Communist Party in Cochinchina instigated a widespread
insurrection. Fighting in the Mekong Delta continued until the end of the year.
Southern Resistance War and incorporation into South Vietnam, 1945-1955
Cochinchina was occupied by Japan during World War II (1941–45). After the Japanese surrender in August 1945, the Communist-front Viet Minh had declared a provisional government (a Southern Administrative Committee) in Saigon. In Saigon, the violence of a French restoration assisted by British and surrendered Japanese troops, triggered a
general uprising on September 23. In the course of what became known as the
Southern Resistance War (Nam Bộ kháng chiến) the Viet Minh defeated rival resistance forces but, by the end of 1945, had been pushed out of Saigon and major urban centres into the countryside.
After 1945, the status of Cochinchina was a subject of discord between France and
Ho Chi Minh's
Viet Minh. In 1946, the French proclaimed Cochinchina an "autonomous republic", which was one of the causes of the
First Indochina War. In 1948, Cochinchina was renamed as the ''Provisional Government of Southern Vietnam''. It was merged the next year with the
Provisional Central Government of Vietnam
The Provisional Central Government of Vietnam was an entity proclaimed in Vietnam during the First Indochina War. It was created as a transitional government replacing the protectorates of Tonkin (Northern Vietnam) and Annam (Central Vietnam), u ...
, and the
State of Vietnam
The State of Vietnam ( vi, Quốc gia Việt Nam; Chữ Nôm: 國家越南; french: État du Viêt-Nam) was a governmental entity in Southeast Asia that existed from 1949 until 1955, first as a member of the French Union and later as a country ...
, with former emperor
Bảo Đại as head of state, was then officially established.
[Philippe Franchini, ''Les Guerres d'Indochine'', vol. I, Pygmalion - Gérard Watelet, Paris, 1988, pp. 399-406]
After the
First Indochina War and temporary partition of Vietnam
agreed at Geneva, with French and American patronage Cochinchina was merged in 1955 with Annam south of the 17th parallel to form the Republic of Vietnam, "
South Vietnam", under the presidency of
Ngo Dinh Diem.
Gallery
File:NamKy1829.jpg, Cochinchina in 1829 under Nguyễn Dynasty
File:NamKy1832-1841.jpg, Cochinchina in 1832-1841
File:NamKy1863.jpg, The six provinces of Lower Cochinchina in 1863
File:Cochinchine-map-03.jpg, Cochinchina in 1876
File:NamKy1878.jpg, Cochinchina in 1878
File:Cochinchine 1882.jpg, Cochinchina in 1882
File:NamKy1906.png, Cochinchina in 1906
File:Atlas colonial français Colonies Protectorats (...)Pollacchi Paul bpt6k1100182m (1).jpg, Cochinchina in 1929
See also
References
Further reading
*
*
{{Authority control
Geography of Vietnam
Former countries in Vietnamese history
History of South Vietnam
Former kingdoms