Minh Mạng () or Minh Mệnh (, vi-hantu,
明 命, lit. "the bright
favour of Heaven"; 25 May 1791 – 20 January 1841; born Nguyễn Phúc Đảm, also known as Nguyễn Phúc Kiểu) was the second
emperor
An emperor (from la, imperator, via fro, empereor) is a monarch, and usually the sovereignty, sovereign ruler of an empire or another type of imperial realm. Empress, the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife (empress consort), ...
of the
Nguyễn dynasty
The Nguyễn dynasty (chữ Nôm: 茹阮, vi, Nhà Nguyễn; chữ Hán: 阮朝, vi, Nguyễn triều) was the last Vietnamese dynasty, which ruled the unified Vietnamese state largely independently from 1802 to 1883. During its existence, ...
of
Vietnam
Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...
, reigning from 14 February 1820 until his death, on 20 January 1841. He was the fourth son of Emperor
Gia Long
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 unif ...
, whose eldest son,
Nguyễn Phúc Cảnh
Nguyễn Phúc Cảnh (1780–1801), also known as Prince Cảnh, was the eldest son of the Vietnamese Prince Nguyễn Phúc Ánh, the future Emperor Gia Long. At the age of seven, he famously visited France with the French Catholic Father Pignea ...
, had died in 1801. He was well known for his opposition to French involvement in Vietnam and his rigid
Confucian
Confucianism, also known as Ruism or Ru classicism, is a system of thought and behavior originating in ancient China. Variously described as tradition, a philosophy, a Religious Confucianism, religion, a humanistic or rationalistic religion, ...
orthodoxy
Orthodoxy (from Greek: ) is adherence to correct or accepted creeds, especially in religion.
Orthodoxy within Christianity refers to acceptance of the doctrines defined by various creeds and ecumenical councils in Antiquity, but different Churc ...
.
Early years
Born Nguyễn Phúc Đảm at
Gia Định in the middle of the Second Tây Sơn – Nguyễn War, Minh Mạng was the fourth son of lord
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 ...
– future Emperor Gia Long. His mother was Gia Long's second wife
Trần Thị Đang (historically known as Empress
Thuận Thiên). At the age of three, under the effect of a written agreement made by Gia Long with his first wife
Tống Thị Lan (Empress Thừa Thiên), he was taken in and raised by the lord consort as her own son.
[ ]
Following Thừa Thiên's death in 1814, it was supposed that her grandson,
Crown Prince Cảnh's eldest son
Mỹ Đường, would be responsible for conducting the funeral. Gia Long however, brought out the agreement to insist that Phúc Đảm, as Thừa Thiên's son, should be the one fulfilling the duty. Despite opposition from mandarins such as
Nguyễn Văn Thành
Nguyễn Văn Thành ( chữ Hán: 阮文誠; 1758 – 1817) was a Vietnamese general who was governor of Gia Định Province. He conflicted with the emperor Nguyễn Phúc Ánh or Gia Long, on several occasions, including using money reserved f ...
, Gia Long was decisive with his selection.
[ ]
In 1816, Gia Long appointed Đảm as his heir apparent. After the ceremony, Crown Prince Đảm moved to Thanh Hòa Palace and started assisting his father in processing documents and discussing country issues.
[ ]
Gia Long's death coincided with the re-establishment of the Paris Missionary Society's operations in Vietnam, which had closed in 1792 during the chaos of the power struggle between Gia Long and the Tây Sơn brothers before Vietnam was unified. In the early years of Minh Mạng's government, the most serious challenge came from one of his father's most trusted lieutenants and a national hero in Vietnam,
Lê Văn Duyệt
Lê Văn Duyệt)., group=n (1763 or 1764 – 30 July 1832) was a Vietnamese general who helped Nguyễn Ánh—the future Emperor Gia Long—put down the Tây Sơn wars, unify Vietnam and establish the Nguyễn dynasty. After the Nguyễn ca ...
, who had led the Nguyễn forces to victory at
Qui Nhơn
Quy Nhon ( vi, Quy Nhơn ) is a coastal city in Bình Định province in central Vietnam. It is composed of 16 wards and five communes with a total of . Quy Nhon is the capital of Bình Định province. As of 2019 its population was 457,400. Hi ...
in 1801 against the
Tây Sơn dynasty
The Tây Sơn dynasty (, vi, Nhà Tây Sơn (Chữ Nôm: 茹西山); vi, Tây Sơn triều ( Hán tự: 西山朝) was a ruling dynasty of Vietnam, founded in the wake of a rebellion against both the Nguyễn lords and the Trịnh lords befor ...
and was made regent in the south by Gia Long with full freedom to rule and deal with foreign powers.
Policy towards missionaries
In February 1825, Minh Mạng banned missionaries from entering Vietnam. French vessels entering Vietnamese harbours were ordered to be searched with extra care. All entries were to be watched "lest some masters of the European religion enter furtively, mix with the people and spread darkness in the kingdom." In an imperial edict, Christianity was described as the "perverse European" (practice) and accused of "corrupting the hearts of men".
File:Martyrdom of Joseph Marchand.jpg, Martyrdom of Joseph Marchand
Joseph Marchand (17 August 1803 – 30 November 1835) was a French missionary in Vietnam and a member of the Paris Foreign Missions Society.. He is now a Catholic saint, celebrated on 30 November.
Personal life
Marchand was born in Passavant ...
in Vietnam in 1835.
File:Matyrdom of Saint Pierre Borie 1838 Vietnam.jpg, Martyrdom
A martyr (, ''mártys'', "witness", or , ''marturia'', stem , ''martyr-'') is someone who suffers persecution and death for advocating, renouncing, or refusing to renounce or advocate, a religious belief or other cause as demanded by an external ...
of Saint Pierre Borie, 24 November 1838, in Tonkin, Vietnam. Vietnamese painting.
File:Jean-Charles Cornay.jpg, Martyrdom of Jean-Charles Cornay, 1837.
File:Vietnam martyrs Paul Mi Pierre Duong Pierre Truat 18 December 1838.jpg, Vietnamese catholic martyrs Paul Mi, Pierre Duong, Pierre Truat, martyred on 18 December 1838
File:Arrest of three martyrs, Ninh Bình, trial.png, Painting depicts the trial and execution of three Catholics in Ninh Bình. the offenders were forced to step on the holy cross.
Between 1833 and 1838, seven missionaries were sentenced to death, amongst them
Pierre Borie,
Joseph Marchand
Joseph Marchand (17 August 1803 – 30 November 1835) was a French missionary in Vietnam and a member of the Paris Foreign Missions Society.. He is now a Catholic saint, celebrated on 30 November.
Personal life
Marchand was born in Passavant ...
, and
Jean-Charles Cornay. He first attempted to stifle the spread of Christianity by attempting to isolate Catholic priests and missionaries from the populace. He asserted that he had no French interpreters after Chaigneau's departure and summoned the French clergy to Hue and appointed them as mandarins of high rank to woo them from their proselytising. This worked until a priest, Father Regereau, entered the country and began missionary work. Following the edict which forbade further entry of missionaries into Vietnam, arrests of clerics began. After strong lobbying by
Duyệt, the governor of Cochin China, and a close confidant of Gia Long and
Pigneau de Behaine
Pierre Joseph Georges Pigneau (2 November 1741 in Origny-en-Thiérache – 9 October 1799, in Qui Nhơn), commonly known as Pigneau de Béhaine (), also Pierre Pigneaux, Bá Đa Lộc ("Pedro" 百 多 祿), Bách Đa Lộc ( 伯 多 祿) and ...
, Minh Mạng agreed to release the priests on the condition that they congregate at
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 on ...
and return to France. Some of them obeyed the orders, but others disobeyed the order upon being released, and returned to their parishes and resumed preaching.
Isolationist foreign policy
Minh Mạng continued and intensified his father's isolationist and conservative Confucian policies. His father had rebuffed a
British
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies.
** Britishness, the British identity and common culture
* British English, ...
delegation in 1804 proposing that Vietnam be opened to trade; the delegation's gifts were not accepted and turned away. At the time, Vietnam was of no interest to the European powers, since most of
the continent
Continental Europe or mainland Europe is the contiguous continent of Europe, excluding its surrounding islands. It can also be referred to ambiguously as the European continent, – which can conversely mean the whole of Europe – and, by ...
was engaged in the
Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a series of major global conflicts pitting the French Empire and its allies, led by Napoleon I, against a fluctuating array of European states formed into various coalitions. It produced a period of Fren ...
. Nevertheless, Napoleon had seen Vietnam as a strategically important objective in the Anglo-French power struggle in Asia, as he felt that it would make an ideal base from which to contest the
East India Company
The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Southea ...
's