Vĩnh Tế Canal
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The Vĩnh Tế Canal (, ''or'' ) is an canal in
southern Vietnam Southern Vietnam () is one of the three geographical regions of Vietnam, the other two being Northern and Central Vietnam. It includes 2 administrative subregions, which in turn are divided into 19 ''First Tier units'', of which 17 are provi ...
, designed to give the territory of
Châu Đốc Châu Đốc is a city in An Giang Province, bordering Cambodia, in the Mekong Delta region of Vietnam. As of 2019, the city had a population of 101,765, and cover an area of . The city is located by the Hậu River (a branch of the Mekong Ri ...
a direct access to the Hà Tiên sea gate,
Gulf of Siam The Gulf of Thailand (), historically known as the Gulf of Siam (), is a shallow inlet adjacent to the southwestern South China Sea, bounded between the southwestern shores of the Indochinese Peninsula and the northern half of the Malay Peninsula. ...
.


Background

Construction of the Vĩnh Tế Canal began in 1819, during the
Nguyễn dynasty The Nguyễn dynasty (, chữ Nôm: 茹阮, chữ Hán: 朝阮) was the last List of Vietnamese dynasties, Vietnamese dynasty, preceded by the Nguyễn lords and ruling unified Vietnam independently from 1802 until French protectorate in 1883 ...
, a period that saw significant expansion and consolidation of the Vietnamese state during
Trịnh Trịnh is a Vietnamese language, Vietnamese Vietnamese family name, family name. It exists in Calque, equivalent forms in other languages of the Sinosphere such as (Zheng (surname), 鄭, Zheng, Cheng) in Chinese language, Chinese and Korean languag ...
and
Nguyễn Nguyễn (阮) (sometimes abbreviated as Ng̃) is the most common surname of the Vietnamese people. Outside of Vietnam, the surname is commonly rendered without diacritics as ''Nguyen''. By some estimates 30 to 39 percent of Vietnamese peopl ...
lords era. In particular, the Khmer regions of
Siem Reap Siem Reap (, ) is the second-largest city of Cambodia, as well as the capital and largest city of Siem Reap Province in northwestern Cambodia. Siem Reap possesses French-colonial and Chinese-style architecture in the Old French Quarter ...
,
Battambang Battambang (, Romanization of Khmer#UNGEGN, UNGEGN: ) is the capital of Battambang province and the List of cities and towns in Cambodia, third largest city in Cambodia. The city is situated on the Sangkae River, which winds its way through t ...
, the
Cardamom Mountains The Cardamom Mountains (, ; , ), or the Krâvanh Mountains, is a mountain range in the southwest part of Cambodia and Eastern Thailand. The majority of the range is within Cambodia. The silhouette of the Cardamom Mountains appears in the Sea ...
, the southern coast, and Hà Tiên were sites of contestation for both Siamese and Vietnamese rule. After the construction of
Thoại Hà Canal The Thoại Hà Canal () is a canal of southwestern Vietnam. It flows through An Giang Province and Kiên Giang Province Kiên Giang was a former province of Vietnam, located in the Mekong Delta region of southern Vietnam. It is known for fi ...
, Emperor
Gia Long Gia Long (Chữ Hán, Chữ hán: 嘉隆) ( (''Hanoi, North''), (''Ho Chi Minh City, South''); 8 February 1762 – 3 February 1820), born Nguyễn Phúc Ánh (阮福暎) or Nguyễn Ánh (阮暎), was the founding emperor of the Nguyễn dynas ...
of
Nguyễn dynasty The Nguyễn dynasty (, chữ Nôm: 茹阮, chữ Hán: 朝阮) was the last List of Vietnamese dynasties, Vietnamese dynasty, preceded by the Nguyễn lords and ruling unified Vietnam independently from 1802 until French protectorate in 1883 ...
ordered the
mandarin Mandarin or The Mandarin may refer to: Language * Mandarin Chinese, branch of Chinese originally spoken in northern parts of the country ** Standard Chinese or Modern Standard Mandarin, the official language of China ** Taiwanese Mandarin, Stand ...
Nguyễn Văn Thoại to dig a new canal along the today
Cambodia Cambodia, officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country in Southeast Asia on the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula. It is bordered by Thailand to the northwest, Laos to the north, and Vietnam to the east, and has a coastline ...
n–Vietnamese border. The emperor's edict said: "this canal-digging project is tough, but its role in urnational security and national defense is not small, we should accept the hardship so that our descendants would have the benefit". Alongside other canals constructed in the early nineteenth century, the Vĩnh Tế Canal facilitated the advancement of the Vietnamese state into the Kampuchea Krom region of the Khmer world through both infrastructural and defense support.


Construction

The construction of the canal was started in the end of 1819. The project used about 80,000 local
Vietnamese Vietnamese may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Vietnam, a country in Southeast Asia * Vietnamese people, or Kinh people, a Southeast Asian ethnic group native to Vietnam ** Overseas Vietnamese, Vietnamese people living outside Vietna ...
and Khmer workers. After the death of Emperor Gia Long, the succeeding Emperor
Minh Mạng Minh Mạng (), also known as 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 of the Nguyễ ...
continued the project.


Working Conditions

The workers, especially the Khmers, were heavily exploited by being forced to do hard work, resulting in thousands of deaths from fatigue and consequent disease during the canal's construction. Further, Cambodian nationalists relate that Khmer workers who disobeyed orders were reportedly buried to their necks, with their heads used by the Vietnamese as cooking tripods for boiling tea. Consequently, the Vinh Te Canal became a symbol of Vietnamese mistreatment of the Khmer and was used later by the
Khmer Rouge The Khmer Rouge is the name that was popularly given to members of the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK), and by extension to Democratic Kampuchea, which ruled Cambodia between 1975 and 1979. The name was coined in the 1960s by Norodom Sihano ...
in anti-Vietnamese propaganda.


Rebellions

Khmer sources documented the abusive working conditions to have sparked numerous Khmer-led rebellions, including one where several thousand Khmer workers led by a
Theravada Buddhist ''Theravāda'' (; 'School of the Elders'; ) is Buddhism's oldest existing school. The school's adherents, termed ''Theravādins'' (anglicized from Pali ''theravādī''), have preserved their version of the Buddha's teaching or ''Dhamma'' in th ...
monk ambushed an ethnically mixed Vietnamese military regiment. While the Khmer soldiers in the unit "refused to fire on the workers", the rebellion was eventually crushed by reinforcements sent by the Nguyễn viceroy in Sài Gòn. When the construction was completed in 1824, Emperor Minh Mạng named the canal after Châu Vĩnh Tế, the wife of its builder Nguyen Van Thoai. Historian David Biggs suggests that the naming of the canal sought to honor her for " rrangingaid for and onsolingloved ones of workers killed by disease and fighting" resulting from its construction. Biggs further suggests that the rebellions initiated by Khmer workers against the construction of these canals were not solely a product of poor working conditions, but were driven by a broader political consciousness. Given Khmer workers' awareness that projects like the Vĩnh Tế canal facilitated Vietnamese control over the Cambodia frontier, Biggs argues that the uprisings were a form of resistance against further Vietnamese expansion into Khmer territory.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Vinh Te Canal 19th-century establishments in Vietnam Canals in Vietnam Ship canals Buildings and structures in An Giang province Geography of An Giang province Canals opened in 1824