Vietnam History

Vietnam’s history is largely one of foreign domination interspersed with brief periods of national independence. The nation’s 54 ethnic groups speak to the complexity of Vietnam’s cultural makeup and reflect the long-standing ambiguity of what it means to be “Vietnamese.” The earliest history of the country remains contested, but the ethnic Vietnamese (Kinh) people generally refer to the legend of DLåc Long Quñn (“Dragon King of Lac”) to explain the beginnings of their nation.

According to the legend, about 5000 years ago Låc Long Quñn and his immortal fairy wife, Âu Cò, gave birth to 100 sons, who all hatched from eggs. It wasn’t until after the army of little Long Quñns came to be, of course, that the Dragon King declared natural incompatibility with Âu Cò and filed for Vietnam’s very first divorce. After they separated, Låc Long Quñn moved to the seaside with 50 sons, and Âu Cò returned in to her home in the mountains with the other half of the crew. In 2879 BC Âu Cò’s eldest son, Hùng V™£ng, became the first king of Âu Låc—the country that would centuries later become Vietnam. The Hùng Dynasty that followed ruled the nation until 258 BC. The mythical lovers’ split is said to be the reason for the variety of the Vietnamese people that is still apparent today.

In 258 BC the Hùng were supplanted by Thc Ph=n; he, in turn, was overthrown in 207 BC by Tri_u à. This former Chinese general then established the kingdom of Nam Vi_t. The Chinese Han Dynasty conquered the new nation in 111 BC, and Vietnam entered recorded history for the first time, in the annals of Chinese history books. It then spent a millennium rebelling against foreign Chinese rule.

Foreign Rule Becomes Tradition

During the first few centuries of Chinese rule, Vietnam (called Giao Chi at the time) remained a fairly independent protectorate, though they were forced to accept Chinese culture. Despite the efforts of the Chinese to quell their subjects’ independent streak, however, the Vietnamese retained more than a sense of autonomy. Ideological differences between the two groups—specifically, the Vietnamese aversion to adopting a strict patriarchal society—ended in bloodshed when two sisters instigated the first rebellion against the Chinese in AD 40. That year Tr™ng Tr c and Tr™ng Nh¢, along with their army of women-warriors, successfully overthrew the Chinese, but enjoyed independence from them for only three years. Nearly two centuries later, in 248, the Chinese again faced feminine wrath in the form of Lady Tri_u (Tri_u Thi Tr¢nh), who led an insurrection and temporarily established an independent state, which collapsed with her premature death only a few years later. After this point, the Chinese tightened their grip over the rebellious state.

The Vietnamese quietly accepted Chinese rule for a few centuries, but in the sixth century, a new wave of resistance began, effectively continuing until Vietnam’s final independence from China in 1418. During those years, the Vietnamese played a centuries-long game of tug-of-war with the Hán for control of their land; they learned as they went along how to unite their ethnically diverse people into one nation against foreign imperialists. The Chinese were their last foreign invaders—if you ignore two Mongol invasions, a skirmish with the Ming Chinese, friendly visits from the Portuguese, Dutch, and several other European countries, a century or so of French colonization, and a short but productive “conflict” with the Americans in the 1960s. But perhaps we are getting ahead of ourselves.

In 1009, L• Thái T% ascended to the throne and established the L• Dynasty (1009-1225), the first long-lasting, non-mythological Vietnamese dynasty. Meanwhile, the aristocracy managed to master relevant political lessons from their Chinese rulers without losing touch with the lower classes—a vital skill that came to characterize successful Vietnamese rulers. Thus, the L• Dynasty began doing some conquering of its own, turning its gaze southward to the Hindu-Islamic kingdom of Champa, which extended into the Mekong Delta.

As the nation of Vietnam grew geographically, the aristocracy integrated Buddhism into the country’s political structure, established a national educational system, and promoted Vietnamese nationalism. Ultimately, the L• Dynasty tumbled into oblivion in a complex scandal, ending with an eight-year-old girl giving up her rule to the first king of what became the Tr<n Dynasty (1225-1400). Under this family’s leadership, the Vietnamese resolutely (and somewhat miraculously) prevented Kublai Khan and the Mongols from overtaking them. In 1407, the country fell once again into the hands of the Chinese, but just 11 years later—in the vaunted national tradition of bucking foreign rule—the nobleman Lˆ Li led another rebellion, culminating in the establishment of a third dynasty, the Lˆ. This one lasted.

Family Affairs

The most famous of the Lˆ rulers, Lˆ Thánh T®n, who ruled from 1460-1497, had a prolific influence on the national culture. He ordered the writing of a national history and introduced a new legal code, the H·ng uc Code, which was (as usual) based on the Chinese legal code. Lˆ’s version, however, was more amenable to women’s rights, granting equal inheritance rights to daughters and sons. The Later Lˆ Dynasty managed to bring Champa under its control during the 16th century, and by 1757, Vietnam as we know it—geographically—officially existed.

But the geographical unity of Vietnam masked a great deal of animosity between the north and south. In 1545, the Lˆ rulers were forced to partition the nation into three areas, ceding the north to the Måc family, the central area to the Tr¢nh family, and the south to the Nguy[n family. The Tr¢nh defeated the Måc family soon after coming to power, thus bringing the northern third of the territory into their realm. Meanwhile, the Nguy[n family aggressively continued their policy of expansion into the south, expelling large portions of the Khmer population. Both the Nguy[n and Tr¢nh rulers faced a series of peasant rebellions. During this relatively unstable time, the Europeans conveniently appeared on the scene, although they went relatively unnoticed during their first two centuries in the region.

The Europeans, Inevitably, Arrive

The first Europeans to establish prolonged contact with Vietnam were the Portuguese, who set up a port in present-day Hÿi An. Though most of the trading posts set up by the Europeans had disappeared by 1700, due to clashes with the Vietnamese locals and government, some ever-passionate missionaries persisted. European missionaries began their religious conquest in the mid-17th century. One notable French Jesuit missionary by the name of Alexandre de Rhodes managed to leave quite a mark by inventing qu#c ng (“national language”), the Latin-alphabet script that came to supplant Chinese characters in written Vietnamese. It was originally utilized only by missionaries, but the Vietnamese eventually adopted it, and they continue to use it today. Aside from de Rhodes, the Europeans didn’t exercise much influence over the existing nation until the end of the 18th century, when political unrest erupted into a civil war, beginning with the Tñy S£n Rebellion.

Rebel Rulers

In 1772, Vietnam—like most dynastic and once-feudal hierarchical societies—experienced a massive peasant revolt. Everything came tumbling down when three brothers from the tiny village of Tñy S£n, somewhat piqued by economic disaster and complete social immobility, decided to wreak a bit of havoc. The brothers, who lived by the Robin Hood-style motto “seize the property of the rich and distribute it to the poor,” first gained control of Saigon then moved north to conquer Hà Nÿi. Adept as they were at battle, effective rule wasn’t particularly their specialty. Consequently, the kingdom became vulnerable to attacks from Nguy[n Anh—the one member of the previous ruling dynasty who had escaped the mass murder of his family at the hands of the Tñy brothers—and his Chinese and French supporters. Nguy[n Anh turned to the French missionary Pigneau de Behaine and his buddy Louis XVI, who promised to send troops and supplies in exchange for control of the trading post at Tourane (present-day à N{ng). Shockingly, the troops and supplies never came. Nevertheless, Nguy[n Anh ascended the throne in 1882 and adopted the Chinese name Gia Long, along with Confucianism and the Chinese practice of isolationism. Around the same time, the Chinese formally changed the country’s name to Vi_t Nam. Gia Long’s new but retrogressive national policies set the country up for (another) imperialist disaster: after establishing relations with the French, he found it difficult to terminate them.

Colonialism (Sigh)

In typical colonial manner, the French took little time to assert their influence in Vietnam once they realized its potential. In 1847, the French blew up five Vietnamese ships under the pretense of reclaiming a hostage missionary, who had in fact already been released. But it wasn’t until 10 years later, when Napoleon III invaded the country, that the French conquest of Vietnam became a reality. By 1862, the French had officially eliminated the name Vi_t Nam and signed the Treaty of Saigon with Emperor T¸ Dc, giving them control of three provinces around the city of Gia ¢nh—renamed Saigon by the French. The ease with which the French gained control of the south was remarkable given the nation’s history; it is most often attributed to the lack of national cohesion that dated back to the Later Lˆ Dynasty. By 1874, under the military leadership of Francis Garnier, the French had added Hà Nÿi to their aegis, bringing the whole country (and parts of Cambodia) under their power. Vietnam’s independence formally ended in 1883, when the Treaty of Protectorate integrated the country with Cambodia and Laos into the French protectorate Indochine. In the direct aftermath of the transfer of power, the ex-emperor Hàm Nghi instigated the Cñn V™£ng Rebellion (“Loyalty to the King”), but the uprising was quickly repressed, and the fragmented Vietnamese people quietly—and uncharacteristically—began to cooperate with their foreign rulers.

After securing control, the French began their mission civilatrice, or “civilizing mission.” Shockingly, the noble and well-intentioned colonists seemed to do more harm than good to the Vietnamese people. A restructured social hierarchy left half of the Vietnamese landless by WWII and a new elitist education system lowered the literacy rate to 20%. Slowly, periodic peasant uprisings grew fiercer, more frequent, and increasingly difficult to ignore.

The Rise Of Nationalism And World War I

Around the turn of the 20th century, a new generation of ambitious Vietnamese began bucking colonial oppression once more. The first person to do so was Phan Bÿi Chñu, who traveled to Japan in 1905 to rally Vietnamese expatriates and to enlist the aid of China and Japan. Chñu championed Western intellectual and scientific practices in addition to the complete expulsion of the French, but he was unsuccessful in Japan, and he never managed to produce a widespread revolt. He did, however, plant rebellious ideas in the minds of Vietnamese intellectuals, who later spread the notion of independence to a wider audience.

A lack of focused leadership and a disconnect between the nationalist leaders and the peasants robbed the Vietnamese of the opportunity to stage a full-scale rebellion during WWI, when the French were otherwise distracted. The one planned revolt spearheaded by King Duy Tñn was betrayed before it grabbed the attention of the masses. The city of Thái Nguyˆn was momentarily liberated in 1917, but the momentum didn’t last. A variety of underground societies were founded, including one led by Phan Xích Long, which featured primitive weapons and small-scale, old-fashioned tactics of warfare. The tricky French colonists, however, caught on quickly and ended up transplanting Vietnamese guerillas to fight on the front lines in Europe. Upwards of 50,000 Vietnamese soldiers and an equal number of workers were sent to the battlefields to aid the French war effort.

H· Chí Minh, Communism, And The “Democratic Republic”

Things really started to change after WWI, as Vietnamese scholars and revolutionaries reacted strongly to tightening post-war French rule. In the 1920s, a young Vietnamese man named Nguy[n Tat Thánh, alias Nguy[n Ái Qu#c, but most fondly remembered as  H· Chí Minh (“Uncle Ho”), entered the scene. After witnessing persecution around the world and reading Marx, he joined the French Communist Party in Paris and traveled to Russia and China to study communism. Upon his return to Vietnam in 1924, he organized a series of pretty unsuccessful uprisings in central Vietnam, and then founded the formidable Indochinese Communist Party.

Unlike the Europeans, Vietnam actually learned a lesson or two from “the war to end all wars” and took advantage of France’s relative disinterest in its Asian colonies during WWII. Their efforts were soon thwarted, however, by (surprise!) foreign invaders—this time by fascist Japan. In 1940, the Japanese gained control of the country and wreaked havoc, causing widespread famine.Only a year later, the Indochinese Communist Party founded the Revolutionary League for the Independence of Vietnam, better known as the Vi_t Minh, led politically by H· Chí Minh and militarily by mastermind General Võ Nguy[n Giáp. Interestingly, both the Soviets and the US supported the Vi_t Minh’s guerrilla campaign against the Japanese.

On August 16, 1945, immediately after Japan’s surrender to the US, the Vi_t Minh seized control of the country in the August Revolution. Three days later, they conquered Hà Nÿi; by the end of August they had taken control of the entire country. On Sept. 2, 1945, H· Chí Minh celebrated the creation of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) in a famous speech, ironically recalling the American Declaration of Independence and applying the lovable notions of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to the newly founded Vietnamese state. And for the next 30 years the Vietnamese fought once more to hold onto their dream of actual autonomy.

The Long Haultoward Independence

H· Chí Minh’s first obstacle to de facto sovereignty was the French, who refused to recognize the independent state of Vietnam. Fighting ensued. The First Indochina War, or the War of Resistance, as the Vietnamese called it, lasted for nine years, beginning in December 1945. With some help from Britain, France was able to regain control of most of the country, but when Mao Zedong took control of China in 1949 and began aiding the Vietnamese, a full-fledged modern war broke out. Though General Giap knew the Vietnamese could not compete with France’s advanced war technology, he relied on the country’s nationalist fervor and guerrilla warfare. In the end, a homefield advantage and the country’s dense jungle terrain helped Giap’s unremitting men to surround the crucial northern town of i_n Biˆn Ph©, which they attacked on March 13, 1954. Fifty-six days and 7000 casualties later, the demoralized French surrendered, announcing their intention to withdraw from the country. One month later, France, the Soviet Union, the UK, and the US found themselves in Geneva, dictating the fate of Vietnam, which had little say in the matter. As a result of the Geneva Convention, Vietnam found itself divided along the 17th parallel for two years; it was intended that the period would end in elections and unified independence in 1956. In the interim H· Chí Minh and the Vietnam Workers’ Party were granted control of the northern area of Vietnam known as the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, or North Vietnam, and the capital of that region, Hà Nÿi. In the south, the anti-Communist, pro-Western Ng® ình Di_m was placed in power in the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam). French troops withdrew from all of Vietnam, and the Vi_t Minh pulled out of the south.

Problems soon developed in the south under Di_m, who ended up enjoying power much more than the Western leaders had anticipated. Di_m refused to allow the elections outlined at the Geneva Convention and supported flagrant human rights violations during his rule. In 1959 alone, he murdered in excess of 1000 of his own government officials to secure his power, claiming that his victims were Communists. Buddhist monks turned to self-immolation as a means of protest, and security forces, responding to the growing crowds they inspired, opened fire into a crowd of Buddhist protestors on the 2527th birthday of the Buddha.

A Disaster Called“The American War”

The unrest in the south did not go unnoticed. The US, who had been supplying aid to the southern regime in an effort to counter the growing strength of northern forces, helped organize a coup in 1963. The Kennedy administration allegedly intended only to have Di_m exiled, but one way or another, the Vietnamese president was murdered by his generals. His successor was General Nguy[n Vn Thi_u. Meanwhile, the northern forces of H· Chí Minh’s party were mobilizing. Angered by the violent and excessive actions of Di_m, H· Chí Minh agreed in 1960 to support a newly founded guerrilla force, the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (NLF), or Vi_t Cÿng. The NLF was organized into small groups that worked to rally the support of peasants while carrying out small-scale attacks in strongholds throughout southern Vietnam. In just a few years, the NLF gained notoriety throughout the south as a powerful and cunning force. It soon became apparent that the happenings in Vietnam were of major importance on the American political scene, and the early 1960s witnessed an escalation of US and Vietnamese naval activity in the Gulf of Tonkin. On August 2, 1964, H· Chí Minh’s government launched a supposedly unprovoked attack on the USS Maddox and then the USS Turner Joy in retaliation for the aid the US was giving the south; it was later discovered that the Maddox had been involved in coastal reconnaissance and that the reported attack on the second ship never actually occurred. Nonetheless, the US government found the incident sufficient reason to draw the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, essentially a carte blanche for aggressive American military generals to begin bombing in North Vietnam.

After the US Congress passed President Lyndon B. Johnson’s resolution almost unanimously, the Americans launched Operation Rolling Thunder. Disguised as an eight-week plan to cut off North Vietnam’s economic support and destroy aid to the NLF, this operation entailed a great deal of guesswork and, yes, bombing. One of the greatest difficulties for the US military was targeting the H· Chí Minh Trail, which cut through dense jungles to connect North Vietnam with their Vi_t Cÿng supporters in the south. Because the forest cover made the trail invisible from the air, the US sprayed large areas of the country with harmful exfoliants, including the infamous Agent Orange and napalm, designed to expose the hidden NLF forces. Unfortunately for the Vietnamese civilians, the toxic chemicals did much more than just destroy forests; they killed crops, too, and caused appallingly high rates of cancer and birth defects. The US government is still battling a number of lawsuits from the victims of these chemical attacks.

The first American combat troops entered Vietnam in 1965 and began a campaign of Search and Destroy operations, intended to obliterate Vi_t Cÿng forces (and any civilian men, women, and children who happened to inhabit the surrounding villages). In early 1968, hoping to demoralize the Americans, the NLF launched the T\t Offensive, attacking more than 100 cities in the south over the course of the Vietnamese New Year in February. The NLF even managed to penetrate Saigon briefly and occupy the US Embassy. The psychological effect on the south is difficult to exaggerate; the NLF had made it clear that nowhere in Vietnam was safe and that they were willing to sustain mind-numbing numbers of casualties to inflict harm on their adversaries. The offensive marked a major turning point in US public opinion about the war; a few months later details and photographs of the infamous MÅ Lai massacre, one of the most tragic and devastating of the Search and Destroy missions, found their way into newspapers across the globe. US President Johnson decided not to run for re-election, and the newly elected President Richard Nixon pursued secret peace talks with the northern forces.

In 1969, H· Chí Minh died, but the Communists didn’t let the loss of their ideological leader weaken their spirits. Indeed, the drive toward independence only intensified. The US continued fighting, but to little avail and to the growing anger of the American population. To appease his own country’s malaise, US President Nixon pursued a policy he dubbed “Vietnamization,” stepping up aerial bombings and gradually putting the ground war completely in the hands of the South Vietnamese—essentially a retreat in disguise. In the fall of 1972, US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and two representatives of the northern republic, Xuan Thuy and Lˆ c, met to discuss an initial peace treaty. The southern forces refused to agree. American aggression culminated in the Christmas Bombing of 1972, an attempt to force the peace negotiations along.

Finally, in January 1973, both Vietnamese governments and the US signed the Paris Peace Accords, which called for a ceasefire and allowed for the withdrawal of US troops. By the end of 1973, the last of the US combat troops had left Vietnam; only a few soldiers remained in Saigon. With the US forces out of the picture, the North Vietnamese managed to rebuild their forces and began a concerted effort to penetrate the south, despite the ceasefire. The US failed to react to this violation of the peace accord, instead remaining on the sidelines as the NLF began capturing cities in the south. During March of 1975, the northern forces launched a full-scale attack on the Central Highlands and larger coastal cities like à N{ng and Hu\, causing thousands of civilians and members of the southern army to flee toward Saigon, many dying en route either at the hands of the northern forces or from starvation. By early April, the southern forces (Army of the Republic of Vietnam, or ARVN) had lost nearly a third of its forces; over eight million people in 12 provinces were under northern control. The US again decided to take action, organizing two airlift evacuations: Operation Babylift and Operation Frequent Wind. The last 1000 US troops and over 7000 Vietnamese were evacuated during this 11th-hour undertaking in the face of certain defeat at the hands of North Vietnam.

On April 30, 1975, the northern forces stormed into Saigon, crashing through the walls of the Imperial Palace, overthrowing the southern government, and renaming Saigon H· Chí Minh City. Vietnam was reunited. Just under one year later, on April 25, 1976, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam was renamed the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, and elections for the National Assembly were held as part of an initial effort to promote unity. In 1977, the country joined the United Nations.

Reunification And Rebuilding

Following reunification, the newly independent nation found itself faced with the devastation of nearly a century of exploitation and several decades of warfare. Close to three million soldiers and civilians had died. Many southerners lived in terror of governmental reprisal for opposition to the NLF. Regional conflicts over the following decades continued to take their toll on Vietnam: an invasion of Cambodia, motivated by the systematic killing of Vietnamese living in Cambodia by the communist Khmer Rouge, led to an influx of refugees, and both China and several western nations reacted strongly against the Vietnamese government. The brief but bloody Third Indochina War with China remained unresolved until recently; the trade embargo Western Europe and the US placed on the country in reaction to the invasion caused economic problems and mass starvation. The Soviet Union was essentially the only substantial power providing aid to the country, which of course only increased tension with Western Europe and the US.

Beyond international woes, the Southern Vietnamese were subject to the paranoia and vengeance of the socialist government. The US agreed to evacuate over 150,000 Vietnamese who had supported the southern government upon withdrawing from Vietnam, but never acted on their word. Out of fear of government retaliation, over a million Vietnamese fled the country illegally, often on fishing boats, earning themselves the nickname “boat people.” Over the two and a half decades following the war, thousands of Vietnamese refugees died attempting to escape the country, either at the hands of the new government or at sea from natural catastrophes or pirate attacks. They landed all over Southeast Asia and were placed in sprawling refugee camps, subject to disease and abuse; the lucky ones made it to Canada and the US, where they started new lives at the very bottom of the social ladder. The Vietnamese who achieved refuge in other countries, known as Vi_t Ki]u, (“overseas Vietnamese”), often remained closely connected to their relatives and sometimes provided vital economic support.

By 1986, the inflation rate in Vietnam had reached an astonishing 774%. The same year, the country had to import 1.5 million tons of rice to alleviate mass famine caused by government-organized collectivization of agriculture in the south. Fortunately, that was also the year that the Sixth National Congress of Vietnam voted to abolish the Marxist market planning and instead begin the implementation of Œ%i møi (“renovation”), a complete restructuring of the economy that involved shifting from collectivization to free markets. %i møi did not promote radical economic change; instead, it prescribed a gradual shift that allowed for the maintenance of political stability. Among other things, the new policy permitted foreign direct investment, the transferal of large portions of state-owned land to the population, fewer restrictions on private enterprise, self-determined finance, and anti-inflationary measures including the devaluation of the Œ·ng. The nation faced higher taxes in exchange for increased economic freedom, but the changes have helped the economy. By 1990, the inflation rate had decreased to 67%, and it was below 10% by the end of the decade. Throughout most of the 90s, the country experienced relatively high economic growth rates, reaching 8% in 1996.

Despite the shift away from a centralized government, Vietnam has been slow to move fully to a free-market economy. By the end of the 20th century, Vietnam had become the largest rice exporter in the world, the second-largest cashew nut exporter, and the third-largest coffee exporter. But this did not prevent a downturn in growth. Never considered one of the “Asian Tigers,” Vietnam was nonetheless affected by the economic crisis that hit Southeast Asia in 1997, suffering from a recession that wasn’t particularly helped by widespread government corruption.

The 1990s witnessed political changes as well. In 1992, Vietnam voted in a new constitution more devoted to the full transition to socialism than the previous drafts. Vietnam and the US agreed in 1991 to the establishment of an office in Hà Nÿi to help determine the fate of American soldiers missing in action. At this point, trade relations began to change with the US, and by 1994 the economic embargo was officially lifted. In 1995, the country joined the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), an organization devoted to economic, cultural, and political stability throughout the region. And in 2000, President Clinton traveled to Vietnam, making it the first trip by an American president to the country since Nixon’s trip in 1969. Relations with the US were fully normalized in the following year with the signing of a trade agreement. The trend of historic reunions continues: in 2003, Russian President Vladimir Putin visited, making it the first meeting between leaders of the two countries since the collapse of the Soviet Union.