Quagmire: Nation-Building and Nature in the Mekong Delta

1. Water’s Edge

23 F rench colonial rule in Indochina began in 1859 after a series of violent engagements on the water. After their show of gunboat diplomacy near the Vietnamese capital in Ðà Nẵng Bay unraveled into a near defeat, the French fleet retreated from the heavily protected central Vietnamese coast. On February 17, 1859, the French fleet recorded its first victory over the Vietnamese at their southern fortress Gia Ðịnh (Sài Gòn) (map 5). Two frigates, three steam-powered gunboats, three transport ships, and one steamer began the assault at dawn with round after round of cannon fire. French and Spanish forces, together with a locally recruited band of mercenaries, launched an attack on the citadel walls that by midafternoon ended with the capture of the fortress and the raising of the tricolor.2 Despite this relatively quick, shock-and-awe victory on the shoreline, fighting continued for two more years just kilometers inland from the riverbank with no major French advances. Nguyễn Tri I followed the call to arms as a young boy, Drawing sharpened sword to confront the hardships of these times. A hero meets adversity not looking at the ground, For an enemy’s scorching hatred can never burn the sky. —Nguyễn Trung Trực, October 27, 18681 1 Water’s Edge 24 wat e r ’s ed ge Phương, southern commander of Vietnam’s royal army, blocked access to upstream areas beyond the French docks at Sài Gòn and Chợ Lớn. While French entrepreneurs and military units built a modern wharf in the city, the Vietnamese camps outside Sài Gòn grew to twenty-one thousand troops forming a line of forts with a new headquarters at Chí Hoà (near present-day Hồ Chí Minh City Airport). As fighting across the blockade lines increased, French commanders finally organized a major ground offensive on February 24, 1861, with three thousand troops plus reinforcements coming from French and Spanish ships anchored in the river. Over three hundred European soldiers died in two days of fighting, along with an estimated one thousand Vietnamese. Two years after the initial battle at Gia Ðịnh, France had won its first military victory against the Vietnamese on terra firma.3 The victory, however, did not signal a turning point in the conquest nor an abandonment of the protection afforded by the waters. Paulin Vial, a frigate captain who served during the conquest and wrote a history of it in fig. 2. Waterfront along Bảo Ðịnh Canal (Arroyo de la Poste), Mỹ Tho, 1898. The view looks south to where the canal empties into the upper branch of the Mekong River, or Tiền Giang. Source: J. C. Baurac, La Cochinchine et ses habitants: Provinces de l’est (Saigon: Imprimerie commerciale Rey, 1899), 16. 25 1874, reported that after the victory at Chí Hoà Admiral Bonard withdrew officers from forts built on the Mekong River to consolidate control of the Sài Gòn waterfront. Vietnamese military commanders fleeing Sài Gòn thus took the opportunity to seize the French forts and camps on the Mekong, especially the property of colonial collaborators.4 For another year and a half, the French focused on building the port and city around Sài Gòn while Vietnamese commanders such as Trương Công Ðịnh built new camps in such Mekong towns as Gò Công and at the Nguyễn-era barracks (dinh) at Vĩnh Long (map 5). A peace treaty unexpectedly proffered by King Tự Ðức in June 1862 suddenly halted this new reorganization of authority and splintered the Vietnamese resistance. Phan Thanh Giản, the highestmap 5. Major Battles during the French Conquest of the Delta. The anticolonial resistance followed a general trend westward from the first battles in Gia Ðịnh in 1859 and around Soai Rạp Inlet and Gò Công in 1863 to Ðồng Tháp in 1866 and the Long Xuyên Quadrangle from 1866 to 1874. Source: Author. 26 wat e r ’s ed ge ranking Nguyễn official in the delta, left for France to continue negotiations on the treaty for the king, but Nguyễn military commanders such as Trương Công Ðịnh rejected it outright and organized guerrilla attacks on French outposts on Sài Gòn’s southern frontier at Tân An and Mỹ Tho. The next five years...