Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jkksz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-16T20:32:25.989Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Interests, Institutions, and Identity: Strategic Adaptation and the Ethno-evolution of Minh Hương (Central Vietnam), 16th–19th Centuries

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 July 2015

Charles Wheeler
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Minh Hương—often translated as ‘Ming Refugees’, became a powerful interest group in Vietnamese commerce, colonization, and politics between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. Curiously, they remain understudied and misunderstood by both Vietnamese and Overseas Chinese specialists. This results from confusion about Minh Hương identity and origins, which this article addresses by analyzing the evolution of the group’s identity and the interests and institutions that shaped it. Far from static, Minh Hương identity formed, metamorphosed, and all but disappeared due to the interplay between changing circumstances and adaptive responses that continually reshaped the content of Minh Hương identity whenever “outside” circumstances challenged them. In this way, the Minh Hương evolved from its merchant diaspora origins into a powerful merchant-bureaucratic class that exploited the institutions that Vietnamese matrilineage and Chinese patrilineage afforded them in order to advance its commercial and political interests. When their status eroded in the nineteenth century, the Minh Hương redefined their group as a minority ethnicity in defense of diminishing rights. Far from the powerless refugee minority image their name implies, their behaviour so reminiscent of merchant cultures from the Sogdians to the Swahili, the Minh Hương deserves greater consideration in the literature on merchant cultures in world history.

Keywords

VietnamMinh HuongChineseethnicitymerchants
Type
Articles
Information
Itinerario , Volume 39 , Issue 1 , April 2015 , pp. 141 - 166
Copyright
© 2015 Research Institute for History, Leiden University 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aubaret, G.Histoire et description de la Basse Cochinchine. Paris: Imprimerie impérial, 1863.Google Scholar
Amer, R.The Ethnic Chinese in Vietnam and Sino-Vietnamese Relations. Kuala Lumpur: Forum, 1991.Google Scholar
Antony, R. J.Like Froth Floating on the Sea: the World of Pirates and Seafarers in Late Imperial South China. Berkeley, CA: Institute of East Asian Studies, 2003.Google Scholar
Boudet, P. “La Conquête de la Cochinchine par les Nguyen et le rôle des émigrés Chinois.” Bulletin de l'Ecole française d'Extrême-Orient 42 (1942): 115–131.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bowyear, T. “Voyage to Cochinchina” (ca. 1695). In Oriental Repository compiled by W. Dalrymple, 1(1808): 65–94.Google Scholar
Cai Tinglan. Hainan zazhu [Miscellanea about the seas to the south]. 1835. Reprint Taibei: Bank of Taiwan, 1959.Google Scholar
Carioti, P. “The Zheng’s Maritime Power in the International Context of the Seventeenth Century Far Eastern Seas: The Rise of a ‘Centralized Piratical Organization’ and Its Gradual Development into an Informal State.” Ming Qing Yanjiu (1996): 29–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chan, Yuk Wah. “Hybrid Diaspora and Identity-laundering: a Study of the Return Overseas Chinese Vietnamese in Vietnam.” Asian Ethnicity 14:4 (2013): 525–541.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Châu, Hải. Các nhóm cộng đồng người Hoa ở Việt nam [Community groups of the overseas Chinese in Vietnam]. Hà Nội: Nxb. Khoa học xã hội, 1992.Google Scholar
Ch’en Ching-ho. “Qingchu huabo zhi Changqi maoyi ji Rinan hangyun [Nagasaki trade and Japanese transport in early Qing times].” Nanyang xuebao 13:1 (1957): 1–51.Google Scholar
Ch’en Ching-ho. “Shiqi, shiba shiji zhi Hui’an Tangrenjie ji qi shanye [Hội An’s Chinese Street and its commerce in the 17th and 18th centuries].” Xinya xuebao 3 (1957): 273–333.Google Scholar
Ch’en Ching-ho. “Qingchu Zheng Chenggong zhibu zhi yizhi [The migration of the Zheng partisans to the southern borders (of Vietnam)].” Xinya xuebao 5:1 (1960): 433–459; 8:2 (1968): 413–86.Google Scholar
Ch’en Ching-ho (Trần Kinh Hòa). “Mấy điều nhận xét về Minh-hương-xã và các cổ-tích tại Hội-an [‘Some observations about the village of Minh-huong and the monuments at Faifo, Central Vietnam’].” Khảo-cổ tạp-san 1 (1962–1963): 1–33.Google Scholar
Ch’en Ching-ho, ed. Zhengtian Mingxiangshe Chen shi zheng pu [“A Brief Study of the Family Register of the Trans, A Ming Refugee Family in Minh-Huong ha, Thua-thien (Central Vietnam)”]. Hong Kong: Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1964.Google Scholar
Ch’en Ching-ho, comp. “Zhu Shunshui ‘Annan gongyi jishi’ jianzhu [Annotation of Zhu Shunshui’s ‘A record of service in Annam’].” Zhongguo wenhua yanjiusuo jikan 1 (1968): 208–247.Google Scholar
Ch’en Ching-ho. Historical Notes on Hoi-an (Faifo). Carbondale, IL: Center for Vietnamese Studies Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, 1974.Google Scholar
Choi Byung Wook. Southern Vietnam under the Reign of Minh Mạng (1820–1841): Central Policies and Local Response. Ithaca, NY: Southeast Asia Program Publications, 2004.Google Scholar
Chùa Ông inscription, Hội An, 1783. Partially reprinted in Chen. Notes, 81–82; 130–131.Google Scholar
Clammer, J. R. “French Studies on the Chinese in Indochina: A Bibliographical Survey.” Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 12:1 (1981): 15–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cooke, N., and Tana, Li, eds. Water Frontier: Commerce and the Chinese in the Lower Mekong Region, 1750–1880. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004.Google Scholar
Cooke, N., et al., eds. The Tongking Gulf through History. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cordier, H., ed. “Journal d’un voyage à la Cochinchine depuis le 29 aoust 1749, jour de notre arrivés, jusqu’au 11 février 1750.” Revue de l’Extrême-Orient 3 (1887): 81–121; 364–510.Google Scholar
Cornell, S. “The Variable Ties that Bind: Content and Circumstance in Ethnic Process.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 19:2 (1996): 265–289.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Đại Nam liệt truyền [Eminent biographies of Dai Nam]. Nineteenth century. Quốc ngữ translation, Hà Nội: Nxb. Thuận Hoá, 1997.Google Scholar
Đại Nam nhất thông chí [Unified gazetteer of Great South], comp. Cao Xuân Dục. 1909, Quốc ngữ translation, Hà Nội: Nxb. Thuận Hoá, 1997.Google Scholar
Đại Nam thực lục chính biên, đệ nhị kỷ [Primary compilation of the Veritable Records of the second reign of Imperial Vietnam]. Hanoi: Nxb. Giáo dục, 2007.Google Scholar
Đại Nam thực lục tiền biên [Veritable record of Đại Nam, ancestral compilation], comp. Trương Đăng Quê, 1821–44. Quốc ngữ translation, Hà Nội: Viện sử học, 1962–78.Google Scholar
Dai, Yifenget al. Jindai lu Ri huaqiau yu Dongya yanhai diqu jiaoyituan: Changqi huashang “taiyihao” wenshu yanjiu [Chinese sojourners in modern Japan and the trading syndicates that followed Southeast Asian sea routes: research on the Nagasaki merchants’s “Taiyi hao” documents]. Xiamen: Xiamen daxue chubanshe, 1994.Google Scholar
Đào Duy Anh. “Pho-lo, première colonie chinois de Thua Thien.” Bulletin des Amis du Vieux Huế 3 (1943): 249–265.Google Scholar
Đỗ Bang. Phố cảng Thuận-Quảng thế kỷ 17 và 18 [The ports of Thuận-Quảng in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries]. Huế: Nxb. Thuận Hoá, 1996.Google Scholar
Dubreuil, R.De la condition des Chinois et de leur rôle économique en Indo-Chine. Bar-sur-Seine: Saillard, 1910.Google Scholar
“Dương thương Hội quán quy lệ” [The covenant and regulations of the Ocean Merchants Guild Hall (Hội An)]. Inscription rubbing, Han-Nom Institute, no. M.180. Partially reprinted in Ch’en, Notes, 148–56.Google Scholar
Finlayson, G.The Mission to Siam and Hue. London: J. Murray, 1826.Google Scholar
Foccardi, G.The Last Warrior: the Life of Cheng Ch‘eng-kung, the Lord of the “Terrace Bay”: a Study on the T‘ai-wan wai-chih by Chiang Jih-sheng (1704). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1986.Google Scholar
Fu, Lo-Shu. A Documentary Chronicle of Sino-Western Relations, 1644–1820. Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press, 1966.Google Scholar
Fu, Yiling. Ming Qing shidai shangren ji shangye ziben [Merchants and mercantilism in the Ming-Qing era]. Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1956.Google Scholar
Fujiwara, Riichiro. “Vietnamese dynasties’ policies towards Chinese immigrants.” Acta Asiatica 16 (1969): 43–69.Google Scholar
Gallant, T.“Brigandage, Piracy, Capitalism, and State-Formation: Transnational Crime from a Historical World-Systems Perspective.” In States and Illegal Practices, edited by Josiah McC. Heyman, 25–61. Oxford: Berg, 1999.Google Scholar
Gudai Zhong-Yue guanxishi ziliao xuanbian [Selected materials on ancient Sino-Vietnamese relations]. Zhongguo shehuikexueyuan lishi yanjiusuo. Beijing: Zhongguo shehuikexue chubanshe, 1982.Google Scholar
Guo, Tingyi. Zhong-Yue wenhua lunji [Collected essays on Sino-Vietnamese culture]. Taibei: Zhonghua wenhua chuban shiye weiyuanhui, 1956.Google Scholar
Hall, J. “Notes on the Early Ch’ing Copper Trade with Japan.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 12:3/4 (1949): 444–461.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Han, Zhenhua. “Zai lun Zheng Chenggong yü haiwai maoyi di guanxi [Another discussion about the relationship between Zheng Chenggong and sea trade].” In Zheng Chenggong yanjiu taolun wenxian xuji, 206–220. Fuzhou: Fujian renmin chubanshe, 1984.Google Scholar
Hayashi, RazanKa i hentai [The transformation from civilized (Chinese) to barbarian (Manchu)] (17th century), edited by Ura Ren-ichi. Tokyo: Tōyō Bunko, 1958–59.Google Scholar
He, Taoli. “Zheng Chenggong Zhengshi jituan di haiwai maoyi.” In Zheng Chenggong yanjiu edited by Fang Youyi, et al., 317–328. Xiamen: Xiamen daxue chubanshe, 1994.Google Scholar
Ho, Dahpon. “Sealords Live in Vain: Fujian and the Making of a Maritime Frontier in Seventeenth-century China.” PhD dissertation, University of California, San Diego, (2011).Google Scholar
Huaqiao zhi: Yuenan. [Record of Overseas Chinese: Vietnam]. Edited by Huaqiao zhi bianzuan weiyuanhui. Taibei: Huaqiao zhi bianzuan weiyuanhui, 1958.Google Scholar
Iioka, Naoko. “Literati Entrepreneur: Wei Zhiyan in the Tonkin-Nagasaki Silk Trade.” PhD thesis, National University of Singapore, 2009.Google Scholar
Iioka, Naoko. “The Trading Environment and the Failure of Tongking’s Mid-Seventeenth-Century Commercial Resurgence.” In The Tongking Gulf through History, edited by N. Cooke, et al., 117–132. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011.Google Scholar
Innes, R. L. “Trade between Japan and Central Vietnam in the Seventeenth Century: The Domestic Impact.” Unpublished mss. 1988, Courtesy of author.Google Scholar
Iwao, Seiichi. “Li Tan, Chief of the Chinese Residents at Hirado.” Memoirs of the Research Department of the Toyo Bunko 17 (1958): 27–83.Google Scholar
Iwao, Seiichi. “Japanese Foreign Trade in the 16th and 17th Century.” Acta Asiatica 30 (1976): 1–18.Google Scholar
Jiang, Weitan. “Qingdai shang huiguan yu Tianhou gong [The commercial guilds and the Tianhou temple].” Haijiao shi yanjiu (Quanzhou) 27:1 (1995): 45–63.Google Scholar
Jiao, Xun. “Shenfeng dang kou ji [A record of the destruction of pirates by divine wind].” In Diaogu ji wenlu, juan 1672, reprinted in Guochao wenlu xubian, edited by Li Zutao, 116–117. Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1995.Google Scholar
Khẩm định Đại Nam hội điển sự lệ [Royally confirmed statute compendium of Đại Nam]. Compiled by Viện sử học, Huế, 19th century. Quốc ngữ trans., Huế: Nxb. Thuận Hóa, 1992.Google Scholar
KXSL. Veritable Records, Kangxi reign. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1985.Google Scholar
Laborde, A. “La province de Phu Yen.” Bulletin des Amies du Vieux Huế 16:4 (1929): 199–254.Google Scholar
Lê, Quý Đôn. Kiến Văn Tiểu Lục [Jottings on what I’ve seen and heard]. ca. 1777. Quốc ngữ translation. Hà Nội: Nxb. Khoa học xã hội, 1977.Google Scholar
Lê, Thanh Khoi. Histoire du Viêt Nam, des origines à 1858. 1971, 2nd ed. Paris: Sudestasie, 1987.Google Scholar
Li, Qingxin. “Maoyi, yizhi yü wenhua jiaoliu: 15–17 shiji Guangdong ren yü Yuenan [Cross-currents of trade, migration, and culture: 15th–17th century Cantonese in Vietnam].” Unpublished mss, 2010.Google Scholar
Li, Tana. Nguyễn Cochinchina: Southern Vietnam in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. Ithaca, NY: Southeast Asia Program Publications, 1998.Google Scholar
Li, Tana. “The Late-Eighteenth- and Early-Nineteenth-Century Mekong Delta in the Regional Trade System.” In Water Frontier: Commerce and the Chinese in the Lower Mekong Region, 1750–1880, edited by N. Cooke and Li Tana, 71–84. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004.Google Scholar
Lieberman, V. B.Strange Parallels: Southeast Asia in Global Context, c. 800–1830, vol. 1: Integration on the Mainland. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lin, Renchuan. Mingmo Qingchu siren haishang maoyi [Private maritime trade in the late Ming and early Qing]. Shanghai, Huadong shifan daxue chubanshe, 1987.Google Scholar
Lin, Renchuan. “Fukien’s Private Sea Trade in the 16th and 17th Centuries.” In Development and Decline of Fukien Province in the 17th and 18th centuries, edited by E. B. Vermeer, 163–215. Leiden: Brill, 1990.Google Scholar
Manguin, P. Y.Nguyên Anh, Macau et le Portugal: Aspects politiques et commerciaux d’une relation privilégiée, 1773–1802. Paris: Publications de l’EFEO, 1984.Google Scholar
Marsot, A.The Chinese Community in Vietnam under the French. San Franscisco: EM Text, 1993.Google Scholar
Minh Mạnh chính yêu [Important rulings of Minh Mạnh], bilingual Hán-Quốc ngữ edition. Compiled by Quốc sư quán triều Nguyễn. Saigon: Bộ Văn hóa Giao dục và Thanh niên, 1972–74.Google Scholar
Murray, D. H.Pirates of the South China Coast, 1790–1810. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1987.Google Scholar
Ng, Chin-keong. “Gentry-Merchants and Peasant-Peddlers: The Responses of the South Fukienese to offshore trading opportunities, 1522–1566.” The Nanyang University Journal 7 (1973): 161–175.Google Scholar
Nguyễn Hiện Đức. Phật giáo Đàng Trong [Cochinchinese Buddhism]. Nxb. Thuận Hoá, 1996.Google Scholar
Nguyen, Hoi Chan. “Some Aspects of the Chinese Community in Vietnam, 1650–1850.” Papers on China 24 (1971): 104–124.Google Scholar
Nguyễn Khoa Chiêm. Việt Nam khai quốc chí truyện [The story of a Vietnamese kingdom’s rise], also entitled Nam Triều công nghiệp diễn chí, reprint of original Hán text (1659–1736). Taibei: Taiwan xuesheng shuju, 1987.Google Scholar
Nguyen, Quoc Dinh. Les Congregations Chinoises en Indochine Française. Paris: Librarie de Recueil Sirey, 1941.Google Scholar
Nguyễn Thiều Lâu. “La formation et évolution du village de Minh Huong (Faifóo).” Bulletin des amis du Vieux Hué 28 (1941): 359–367.Google Scholar
Phan, Khoang.Việt sử xứ Đàng Trong, 1558–1777 [The territory of Đàng Trong in Vietnamese history, 1558–1777]. Saigon: Nhà Sách Khai Trí, 1970.Google Scholar
Phan, Thanh Gian. Letter on His Surrender. In Patterns of Response to Foreign Intervention, edited by Truong Buu Lam, 87–88. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967.Google Scholar
“Phổ Đà Sơn Linh Trung Phật [Putuo Mountain channels the Buddha].” Inscription. Han-Nom Institute, Hanoi, no. 12623.Google Scholar
Pho Hien. Pho Hien, the Centre of International Commerce in the XVIIth–XVIIIth Centuries, compiled by the Association of Vietnamese Historians and People’s Administrative Committee of Hai Hung Province. Hanoi: The Gioi Publishers, 1994.Google Scholar
Purcell, V.The Chinese in Southeast Asia, 2nd ed. London: Oxford University Press, 1965.Google Scholar
Reid, A.Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce, vol. 2: Expansion and Crisis. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993.Google Scholar
Sallet, A. “Le montagnes de marbre.” Bulletin des Amis du Vieux Hué, 11:1 (1924).Google Scholar
Salmon, C. “Réfugiés Ming dans les Mers du sud vus à travers diverse inscriptions (ca. 1650–ca. 1750).” Bulletin de l'Ecole française d'Extrême-Orient 90–91 (2003–2004), 197–227.Google Scholar
Schafer, J. C. “The Trịnh Công Sơn Phenomenon.” The Journal of Asian Studies 66:3 (2007): 597–643.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schreiner, A.Les institutions annamites en Basse-Cochinchine avant la conquête française. Saigon: Claude & Cie, 1900–1902.Google Scholar
Shilian, Dashan. Haiwai jishi [Diary overseas]. Guangzhou, 1699, reprint Taibei: Guangwen shuju, 1969.Google Scholar
Skinner, G. Wm. “Creolized Chinese Societies in Southeast Asia.” In Sojourners and Settlers: Histories of Southeast Asia and the Chinese, edited by A. Reid, 51–93. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2001.Google Scholar
Staunton, G.An Authentic Account of an Embassy from the King of Great Britain to the Emperor of China. London, 1799.Google Scholar
Sun, Weiguo. Da Ming qihao yu xiao Zhonghua yishi: Chaoxian wangchao zunzhou si Ming wenti yanjiu, 1637–1800. Beijing: Shangwu yinshuguan, 2007.Google Scholar
Thich Thien An. Zen Buddhism in Vietnam. Rutland: Charles E. Tuttle, 1971.Google Scholar
Toby, R.State and Diplomạcy in Early Modern Japan: Asia in the Development of the Tokugawa Bakufu. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Trần Bá Chí. “Phố cổ Phù Thạch [The ancient port of Phù Thạch].” Những phát hiện mới về Khảo cổ học [Recent discoveries in archaeology]. Ha Noi: Nxb. Nxb. Khoa học xã hội, 1992.Google Scholar
Trịnh Hoài Đức, 19th c. Cấn Trai thi tập [Collected poems of Can Trai], reprinted Hong Kong: New Asia Institute, 1962.Google Scholar
Trịnh Hoài Đức, 19th c. Gia Định thành thông chí [Unified gazetteer of Gia Định Citadel]. ca. 1818. Hán original with quốc ngữ translation, Hanoi: Nxb. Giáo dục 1998.Google Scholar
Tsai, Maw-kuey.Les Chinois au Sud-Vietnam. Paris: Bibliothèque nationale, 1968.Google Scholar
Wang, Gungwu. China and the Chinese Overseas. New York, NY: Cavendish Square Publishing, 2003.Google Scholar
Wang, Wen Yuan. 1937 Les relations entre l'Indochine Française et la Chine: étude de géographie économique. Paris: Editions Pierre Bossuet, 1937.Google Scholar
Wheeler, C. “One Region, Two Histories: Cham Precedents in the History of the Hội An Region.” In Việt Nam: Borderless Histories, edited by N. Tran and A. Reid, 163–193. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2006.Google Scholar
Wheeler, C.. “Buddhism in the Re-ordering of an Early Modern World: Chinese Missions to Cochinchina in the Seventeenth Century.” Journal of Global History 3 (2007): 303–324.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whitmore, John K. “Vietnam and the Monetary Flow of Eastern Asia.” In Precious Metal Flows in the Late Medieval and Early Modern Worlds, edited by J. Richard, 363–393, Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 1983.Google Scholar
Wickberg, E. “The Chinese Mestizo in Philippine History.” Journal of Southeast Asian History 5:1 (1964): 62–100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wu, Jiang. “Orthodoxy, Controversy and the Transformation of Chan Buddhism in Seventeenth-Century China.” PhD. thesis, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 2002.Google Scholar
Xứ, Quảng. “Châu Thượng Văn (1856–1908).” Tuổi Trẻ Quảng Nam [Youth of Quảng Nam ]. Accessed July 1, 2014. http://tuoitrequangnam.com.vn/home/danh-nhan-lich-su/chau-thuong-van-1856-1908.htm.Google Scholar
Yang, Baoyun. Contribution à l'histoire de la principauté des Nguyên au Vietnam méridional, 1600–1775. Genève: Editions Olizane, c1992.Google Scholar
Yang, Yanzhe. “1650 zhi 1662 nian Zheng Chenggong haiwai maoyi di maoyi e he rune gaosuan” In Zheng Chenggong yanjiu taolun wenxian xuji, 222–231. Fuzhou: Fujian renmin chubanshe, 1984.Google Scholar
Yu, Jin. “Shuguo xiaoshun shu [Memorial on a vassal state’s effective obedience] (1669).” In Daguan tang wen ji (1699), juan 2: 37. Reprint Beijing: Beijing Ai ru sheng shuzi hua jishu yanjiu zhongxin, 2009.Google Scholar
Zheng, Guangnan. Zhongguo haidao shi [History of pirates in China]. Shanghai: Huadong ligong daxue chubanshe, 1998.Google Scholar
Zheng, Ruimin. Qingdai Yuenan di huaqiao [Overseas Chinese in Qing-era Vietnam]. Taibei shi, 1976.Google Scholar
Zhu, Shunshui (Zhu Zhiyu). “Da Wei Jiushi [Reply to Wei Jiushi].” In Shunshui xiansheng wenji [Collected works of Mr. Shunshui]. 28 juan. Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1995.Google Scholar