Vietnam

° Vietnam ° Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) ° Ba Rja Da Nang ° Hue Nha Trang

International Harbors

The earliest Vietnamese state occupied only the Red River Delta, today the heart of northern Vietnam. In the 2nd century B.C. this state was absorbed into the empire of Han dynasty China, the Chinese calling it Nan-y eh or Nan-viet. Thus began over 1,000 years of Chinese rule, during which the Vietnamese became familiar with Chinese political and social institutions, the Chinese writing system and Chinese learning and arts.

After winning their independence the Vietnamese continued looking to China for their models of culture, government and organization.

Culturally, Vietnam thus belonged to the "Confucian" world of East Asia. This distinguished it sharply from neighboring states with Theravada Buddhist or Islamic cultures. The difference in cultural outlook between Vietnam and her Southeast Asian neighbors has long contributed to conflict in the region.

After gaining independence from China southward expansion added to cultural tensions. Military in organization, the expansion was driven basically by the need to find farming land for a growing population. Between the 11th and 17th centuries it gradually extinguished the kingdom of Champa. It then took the Mekong Delta from the Khmers. During the 19th century the Thais challenged the Vietnamese advance and the French brought it to a halt by establishing a ‘protectorate’ over Cambodia in 1863.

The Tay Son Rebellion which broke out in Vietnam in 1771 swept away the Nguyen and Trinh regimes which had divided Vietnam. The rebels also repelled a Chinese invasion, and turned on Chinese merchants in Vietnam. They faltered only when faced with the task of practical government. A member of the southern Nguyen clan, Nguyen Anh, raised forces and by 1802 managed to subdue the rebel forces. He became the emperor Gia Long, first of Vietnam’s Nguyen emperors and the first ruler to preside over a united Vietnam for more than two centuries.

Gia Long, emperor from 1802 to 1820, recognized what an administrative and defence nightmare Vietnam’s geography had become by the early 19th century two fertile deltas 1,000 kilometers apart, connected by a narrow coastal corridor. He established his capital in the centre of the country at Hu where he built a palace complex that was a scaled down replica of Peking’s Forbidden City. The symbolism was appropriate Gia Long and his son Minh Mang (emperor 1820 1841) would attempt to establish in Vietnam the most thorough copy yet seen of Chinese administrative concepts and methods. The attempt would prove a disaster.

From the 1830s onwards rebellion flared frequently in protest at the level of bureaucratic intervention in daily life, the rigidities and absurdities of Mandarin decrees and, above all, at the level of taxation demanded by the system. The renewed concern with Confucian models also diminished the ability of the Nguyen imperial government to deal realistically with the growing challenges from the West. Some members of the Vietnamese scholar class recognized the need to study the West, but they were in the minority.

Adran Street, Saigon, with Horse Cab

French Catholic missionaries, who had been active in Vietnam since the mid-17th century, helped Gia Long defeat the Tay Son rebels and establish his imperial dynasty, assisting him with men and resources. By the mid-19th century there were an estimated 450,000 Catholic converts in Vietnam. In successive campaigns of repression, thousands of Christians and their priests were killed and Christian villages were levelled. The persecutions shocked Catholics in France, and unwittingly provided a pretext for French intervention in Vietnam.

In 1859 a French naval expedition seized Saigon, following an unsuccessful attempt on the then more significant port of Da Nang, which was close to Hu . Emperor Tu Duc faced rebellion in the north and in 1862 conceded to the French, who gained by treaty, Saigon and its three surrounding provinces. In 1869 the French seized three further adjoining provinces, thus completing the territory of the colony they would call Cochin China.

Saigon: Scene on the Chinese Arroyo near the Saigon Confluence

May 15, 1876, London and China Telegraph, London, United Kingdom

COCHIN CHINA.
SAIGON.

The Independent de Saigon supplies the following particulars of the piratical seizure of the steamer Pelican when on her voyage between Mytho and Vinh-Long:

The Pelican is a regular trader between Cholon and Pnumpenh, and belongs to a rich Chinese firm in Cholon. On the morning of the 24th March she left Cholon for Pnumpenh with a crew of ten men, and twenty passengers, all Chinese. All went well till the middle of the first night, when four of the passengers, armed with hatchets and knives, attacked the man at the helm and threw him overboard; they then rushed into the cabin, where the master and a wealthy Chinese merchant of Sadee were sleeping, and killed them. It is said that one of the firemen was in collusion with the four assassins, and that he despatched the first fireman, who was in charge of the engine.

Saigon: Right Bank of the Chosen River

This is the more likely, because without his assistance the four pirates could not have managed the engine. The passengers were next attacked as they lay asleep on deck, and ten of them, several of whom were wounded, were thrown overboard, but succeeded in gaining land. The rest of the crew and passengers are missing, except two bodies, which have been found in the river. One of the corpses was headless and unrecognisable, the other was that of the Sadec merchant. The pirates then plundered the vessel and scuttled her at the mouth of the river Mytho. The Pelicanhad a good deal of cargo on board, and $20,000 to $25,000 worth of Chinese silver and gold leaf. Immediately on receipt of the news in Saigon the Government despatched two gunboats to the scene of the tragedy, and there are some hopes entertained of the capture of the pirates and the recovery of their booty. The owners of the Pelican have offered a reward of $500 for any information that may lead to their discovery.

May 22, 1876, London and China Telegraph, London, United Kingdom

COCHIN CHINA.
SAIGON

Three of the thirteen Chinese who were missing after the piratical attack on the steamer Pelican have been found, thus reducing the number to ten; but it is feared that the whole of the remainder have been either killed or drowned. It is thought that the pirates must have hidden themselves in the swamps and brushwood near the place where the Pelican was scuttled, and that some of them may probably be captured. The German steamer Madagascar, which arrived at Saigon on the 20th March, in a damaged state, appears to have narrowly escaped being totally lost. The Madagascar left Bangkok, with a full cargo of rice, for Hong Kong, and was driven out of her course by currents and thrown on the Britto Banks, about fifty miles from Cape St. James, on the 19th March. The position of the steamer becoming critical, the captain was obliged, in order to lighten the ship, to throw overboard 10,000 piculs of rice, this operation occupying about eighteen hours, and then the ship floated off from the bank. The captain steered for the Cape, the ship making much water, and it was deemed necessary to run her ashore inside the bay to prevent her going down. The leak was then stopped, and the Madagascar was steered for Saigon, the pumps working constantly. Fortunately the dock was "ready to receive her when she arrived there, for in a few moments more she would infallibly have sunk. The bank on which the Madagascar stranded is the same one where a similar accident happened to the Portuguese corvette Duque de Pamella in 1873.

The French conquered the remainder of Vietnam between 1883 and 1885, in the course of a complicated conflict in the country’s north. The north had collapsed in chaos fomented by both Vietnamese and expatriate Chinese rebels. The Vietnamese imperial government had lost all capacity to control events. Both China and France regarded Vietnam as their "sphere of influence" and sent forces; the French eventually repelling the Chinese.

July 9, 1877, The London and China Telegraph, London, United Kingdom

COCHIN CHINA.

The French Colony of Cochin China was very little known to Europeans until the French conquered that country in the years 1859 to 1868. Since then all nations have had access to its ports, which are few, Saigon having all the foreign commerce, the other towns having only coasting trade with prows from the northern coast of Cochin China junks from the Tonkin Siam. The Malays also trade to Hatien, from Singapore, and exchange produce of their countries. I have seen, in the mouth of the river, some of these coasting vessels loaded with all kinds of produce, and^crowded with poultry cocks and hens, ducks, turkeys, pigeons, &c., in numerous baskets hung round the vessel's sides and all available out-of-the-way places, and swarming with bronze figures, half-naked, in all kind of postures, some holding by the mast, topes, sails, rigging, or sitting a la Turk, and jabbering a language which appeared,to me a continued noisy sound, without intermission. 1 have heard half-a-dozen fish and market women speaking all at once, causing a babel of sounds, of which I could not understand a word Of what they said: so how much less could I distinguish words of foreign gibberish, with scores of tongues jabberingall at once ? But it could be easily imagined that they were occupied discussing what each thought of us and our craft, which being a steamer must have been an object of wonder to them, as we approached them very quick, although it was (calm and a strong tide against us some of the green-horns must have ( stared in amazement at our steamer approaching them like an infernal machine, smoking and puffing, our propeller splashing the water about under our sterns, the ends of the blades being between wind and water, causing quite a confusion of swells, assisted by the hull of the steamer going through the water, pushing a wave forward and raising the water in a swell before the bows of the vessel, our stem splitting it in two, and sending two jets up in a graceful curve, in imitation of fountains in ornamental waters. As we steamed abreast of this open coaster, we saluted them with our shrill whistles, of which we had two, and started them with different sounds, which came upon them so unexpectedly quite startled them. Our crew were quite amused at the confusion it caused among the crew and passengers of the coaster: almost every one screamed, and the younger ones run crying, and hid themselves; one of them lost* his balance and fell overboard in the water, but they being so accustomed to the water soon secured a rope and managed to creep aboard, again.

Annamese Boats in the Harbour of Saigon

In the autumn of 18721 was engaged, under contract by a London financial firm, to take out a river steamer for Saigon, to trade in the interior of Cochin China, in the navigation of the Meikong, with its numerous branches; the two principal ones, which are called by the French Flute intoner et Flute exterior, very fine rivers: navigable for vessels of twelve feet draught for two or three hundreds of miles up, from its mouth; they branch off in almost every direction, and cut the country into thousands of small and large islands; and, in a manner of speaking, Lower Cochin China is a country cut up in all manner of ways, by water-roads, travelled by the natives by twenty boats of all shapes, canoes, sampans of every description and size, from a small log canoe of two metres long, "capable only of carrying a boy, to above a hundred feet long, having more than hundreds of rowers, or rather paddlers, not more than one metre wide, easily upset.

I have seen some of the mandarin's boats, with more than one hundred paddles, racing, and going at such a force and speed through the water that they have fairly been sent under water, filled and swamped, the whole crew in a moment swimming and bailing their boat, and in a very short time renew the race, the rowers not the least affected by their bath.

The boats of the country people are more clumsily constructed, full of lumber and furniture, if their family and household utensils can be called furniture, as one-half of the population live in boats entirely, like the Chinese in the Canton water: whole floating villages of these are to be seen. The commercial villages, or, more properly, market towns, are situated about twenty to thirty miles apart on the banks of the numerous rivers which form the highways, that is a tide's work, resting each tide at some well-known place of rendezvous, the principal and centres of commerce being Saigon and Colons (Cho lens), almost entirely a Chinese market town, or central depot, where all the Chinese counting-houses are, and keep their stores for the storage of the produce of the country, where they collect all kinds of merchandise: and when goods are ready for exportation they are shipped in large cargo boats of the capacity of about 1,000 pickles, when they are rowed down the Chosen River to Saigon, and transhipped in the foreign vessels lying at anchor in the roadstead.

The limits of the commercial port are from little below the Fort du Said to abreast of the Harbour master's office, which is near the wharves of the Messageries Maritimes French mail boats, extending nearly two kilometres, and joining Le Port de Guerre, opposite the town of Saigon, the town dividing the two roadsteads, the commercial one occupying three-fourths the whole breadth of the river, leaving the left bank for a passage up and down the men-of-war roadstead, occupying the whole breadth of the river above Saigon, where moorings are placed at swing distance from each other for large vessels of war, the smaller Government vessels and hulks being moored on all fours and in tiers along each bank of the river, of which there are above half a hundred of the different classes and sizes; the old line-of-battle ship Flurus, now a sheer hulk and flagship, being moored along the Esplanade, its guns commanding the whole Kue de 1'Opital, and, we may say, the town of Saigon and saluting ship. Above the naval roadstead, and opposite the dockyard arsenal, is a very fine and large useful and commodious iron floating dock; it was finished a few years ago, and the last rivet clinched by one of the most celebrated young ladies resident at Saigon, a brass plate describing the ovation being fixed on the upper end entrance, the exact description of which I have lost in my travels. Often two vessels are docked at one time, and the largest mail boats could be repaired, and some of them are nearly 150 metres long.

The whole banks of the river roadstead are still in their primitive state; debris of a few old wooden wharves mark where there have been some kind of accommodation for landing or shipping cargo. At the time when only sailing ships came up the river as many as 150 to 200 have been busy on the Saigon river: but at this present date trade is carried on in a very different manner. Many say the steamers have been the ruin of Saigon (comme un port de commerce); I suppose these means in compradores, stevedores, carpenters, caulkers, &c., and amongst the most common the sailors' grog-shops, the necessary evil to a large congregation of sailors. All these wooden and sailing vessels loading rice, and giving employment to so many trades following the necessities of commercial vessels, like the appendant followers of an army, it must have given employment to many. How different it is at the date of which I write; scarcely any sailing vessels ride in the roadsteads: they have made way for the more speedy and more modern carriers, in the form of iron steamers that now frequent the port, some of them taking as much as eight to ten sailing ships' cargoes. I have seen there the SS Hankow take about 70,000 piculs of rice, and that in a very few days, and off again very different from the slow way ten sailing vessels would have been expedited.

The difference tells in many ways; this large steamer had only its complement of officers, so had the other ships: but there were ten of them, each different characters, some frolicking, &c., others quiet and of a gentlemanly behaviour, as my friend the commander of the SS Hankow was, with his officers following in his steps, only leaving what money to the tradespeople of Saigon was required to pay for their "requirements. I speak of this steamer because she was the largest coming under my notice: there were others smaller and trading regularly to Saigon and Hong Kong, being chartered by Chinese merchants and speculators by the month for a lump sum and underlet to others, and being on time charter it was to the advantage of the charterer to make the most of his bargain; so dispatch was his hobby; the more voyages his chartered steamer made during the time, which was about a six months' charter, the greater was his profits.

Small Chinese brokers were known to make good bargains and become rich in no time, being able to make handsome presents to the officers of the steamers, to give them a stimulation and lose no time. Many a blight gem I have seen on a captain's finger or in shirt studs, &c., presents from their charterers, a compliment which injured nobody; as the charters were effected by the owners' agents there could not be any connives, but more attention paid by the officers, and, may be, little more wear and tear of the ship and apparel, and in the case of a steamer of the engines. I said more attention, which might be artificial, for I look upon any ships' officers, if they are honest men, it will not matter how their ships maybe employed; good officers will always exert themselves to the most of their abilities.

Cao Dai Temple, Tay Ninh, North of Ho Chi Minh City South Vietnam, Southeast Asia

Robert Harding

In 1902, when the newly appointed Governor-General, Paul Beau, who was from Charentes, arrived in Indochina, his fellow countrymen from that region tried to create an association. They claimed that there were 300 of them in Tonkin alone, and three years later the association's festival dinner was attended by 100 people. Apparently less successful, the festival dinner of the Alpine Association, Le Gratin Dauphinois, was attended by only 35 people in Saigon, but it is known that many people who originated from this region lived in Cochinchina.

Henri Lamagat wrote about a small village (400 inhabitants) close to Voiron (Is re), Colombe, from which a dozen people went to the province of Cantho (southern Vietnam). Two sons of this French village had to settle on a rice estate, and, after making a success of it, they called on others to join them. Their case is not unlike that of the Borel brothers, as Saint-Julien-en-Beauch he was roughly the same size as Colombe.

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1899. World's Fleet. Boston Daily Globe

Lloyds Register of Shipping gives the entire fleet of the world as 28,180 steamers and sailing vessels, with a total tonnage of 27,673,628, of which 39 perent are British.

Great Britain	10,990 vessels, total tonnage of 10,792,714
United States	3,010 vessels, total tonnage of 2,405,887
Norway	2,528 vessels, tonnage of 1,604,230
Germany	1,676 vessels, with a tonnage of 2,453,334, in which are included her particularly large ships.
Sweden	1,408 vessels with a tonnage of 643, 527
Italy	1,150 vessels
France	1,182 vessels

For Historical Comparison
Top 10 Maritime Nations Ranked by Value (2017)

	Country	# of Vessels	Gross Tonnage (m)	Total Value (USDbn)
1	Greece	4,453	206.47	$88.0
2	Japan	4,317	150.26	$79.8
3	China	4,938	159.71	$71.7
4	USA	2,399	55.92	$46.5
5	Singapore	2,662	64.03	$41.7
6	Norway	1,668	39.68	$41.1
7	Germany	2,923	81.17	$30.3
8	UK	883	28.78	$24.3
9	Denmark	1,040	36.17	$23.4
10	South Korea	1,484	49.88	$20.1
Total		26,767	87.21	$466.9