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The Composition of the Nineteenth-Century Political Elite of Pre-Colonial Nguyen Vietnam (1802–1883)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Nola Cooke
Nola Cooke
Affiliation:
The Australian National University
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Extract

Until 1971, when Alexander Woodside published his ground- breaking study, Vietnam and the Chinese Model, western scholarship on late traditional Vietnam was still locked within the narrow confines of French colonial understanding. Woodside's work, which drew extensively on Vietnamese historical sources, became an instant classic. So thoroughly did it dominate the field that two decades later it remains today the sole detailed discussion in English of the first half of the nineteenth century. Such is its stature that no-one has ever seriously questioned its findings, or challenged the author's vision of early nineteenth-century Vietnam. However, such a critique is long overdue. Despite the breadth of Woodside's scholarship, his conceptual framework assumes a continuity in Vietnamese history, culture, and politics from the Le to the early Nguyen that distorts the historical dynamic of the nineteenth cen tury, as well as contradicting some of his own evidence. His image of the nineteenth-century political elite provides a case in point. Like every scholar before or since, Woodside's conclusions about elite composition are extrapolated from the Sinic structures of its mandarinal organization, buttressed by anecdotal evidence and generalized impressions. But these are poor substitutes for quantification when enough readily-available biographical data exist to profile elite composition statistically. This article presents such an analysis. Its results contradict venerable French colonial views and Woodside's ideas alike; and do so in a way that suggests our present historical understanding of the late pre-colonial Vietnam needs serious revision.

Type
Articles
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 29 , Issue 4 , October 1995 , pp. 741 - 764
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

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References

1 For a summary of colonial views, see Phong, Nguyen Van, La Société vietnamienne de 1822 à 1902 (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1971), pp. 115–28.Google ScholarOr see Lam, Tru'o'ng Bu'u, New Lamps for Old: The Transformation of the Vietnamese Administrative Elite (ISEAS Occasional Paper No 66, Singapore: Mazuren Asia, 1982), pp. 7, 17–19 and 23–4;Google Scholaror Tsuboi, Yoshiharu, L'Empire vietnamienne face à la France et à la Chine (Paris: L'Harmattan, 1987), pp. 178–91, both of whom mainly refer to French sources.Google Scholar

2 Lam, , New Lamps, p. 8Google Scholar

3 Lam, , New Lamps, p. 24. The claim is puzzling, however. DNNTC does not routinely give family details, for the North especially; and while QTDKL records top regional graduate (cu' nhan) and higher titles for family members of laureates, it ignores lesser regional titles (tu tai) and is mute on whether academically-qualified relatives pursued bureaucratic careers (not all graduates did). It is thus impossible to say from these courses what proportion of degree holders came from mandarinal families, even for metropolitan graduates (tien si and pho bang).Google Scholar

4 Woodside, Alexander, Vietnam and the Chinese Model (Harvard University Press, 1971 and 1988), p. 75CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 Ibid., p. 218.

6 Ibid., p. 200.

7 Ibid., p. 199 for both quotes.

8 In his valuable essay, ‘The Traditional Village in Bac Bo: Its Organisational Structure and Problems’ [Vietnamese Studies, no. 61 (1980), p. 43]Google ScholarChi, Nguyen Tu defined them as families whose members won high academic honours over several successive generations. But they must have been rare in the nineteenth century, as my analysis of the graduates listed in Due, Cao Xuan (ed), Quoc Trieu Dang Khoa Luc (Saigon: Trung-tam Hoc-lieu, 1962) revealed only about 100 families produced multiple graduates that included laureates of the metropolitan examinations between 1822 and 1884. Only nine of them counted three generations of metropolitan laureates, or fewer than 3%.Google Scholar

9 Woodside, , Model, p. 205.Google Scholar

10 My calculations from QTDKL. All calculations and tables from this source are my own.Google Scholar

11 Woodside, , Model, p. 195 for both quotes.Google Scholar

12 Ibid., p. 222. This must include lesser regional graduates (tu tai), as a table on p. 220 shows 16 cu nhan from Hanoi and 9 from Hue in 1813.

13 Ibid., p. 214. However, the protest may not have failed entirely. In 1862 metropolitan laureates from the North outnumber those from the Centre for only the third time since 1835. It is also held for two examinations in a row, something not seen since the early 1830s.

14 Ibid., p. 194.

15 Or a 40/60 ratio. They were the only Bac-ky provinces to produce metropolitan graduates in 100 years. There can be no dispute about the Vinh site either, for the registers held 165,901 taxpayers in Nghe-Tinh in 1847. Figures from Nguyen The Anh, ‘Quelques aspects économiques et sociaux du probléme du riz au Vietnam dans la premiére moitié du XIX siècle’, Bulletin de la Société des Etudes Indochinois (ns), XLII, 1 and 2 (1967), p. 16.Google Scholar

16 Woodside says sons of officials who had helped Gia Long found the dynasty could opt for any site but most chose Hue. [Model, p.223] As few northerners qualified, I have assumed a southern provenance. Many such officials lived into the Minh-Mang reign, so there must have been a steady supply of eligible men until around the mid-century.Google Scholar

17 The Hue total equalled that of Hanoi and Nam-dinh combined. Woodside, Model, p. 222.Google Scholar

18 In the chapter, ‘Vietnam, 1802–1867’, in Steinberg, David Joel (ed.), In Search of Southeast Asia. A Modern History (Sudney: Allen and Unwin, revised edn, 1987), p. 128 (my emphases).Google Scholar

19 Thus in the preface to the 1938 paperback edition of Vietnam and the Chinese Model, Woodside remarked that we still did not know very much ‘about Vietnam’ as the mature Confucian kingdom of the eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries, as if these two very different eras (and different kingdoms) formed one long historical continuity which we could adequately characterise as ‘Confucian’.Google Scholar

20 This differs from other accounts which seem to rely on Luro. In Le Pays d'Annam (Paris: Leroux, 1897, 2nd edn, p. 99), Luro outlined a tripartite schema in which the first three mandarinal grades formed the political elite, as indicated by the title, ong lo'n (‘your eminence’). Men in the 4th to 7th grades comprised an elite of office, as shown by their title ong quan (‘respected official’). Clerical underlings at the 8th and 9th level fell into the last group. The structure may have worked for the Gia-Long era, when provincial protectors (tran thu) ranked in the third grade; but it seems inadequate after the Minh-Mang reforms, when all provincial governors placed in the second grade.Google ScholarThe same schema appears in Schreiner, Alfred, Les Institutions annamites en Basse-Cochinchine avant la conquête française, I (Saigon: Claude et Cie, 1900), pp. 272–9; and in Ralph Smith, ‘Politics and Society in Viet-Nam During the Early Nguyen Period (1802–1862), Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1974, pp. 162–3, where it is sourced to a 1962 University of Saigon Ph.D. thesis by Nguyen Si Hai (which I have not seen).Google Scholar

21 Two Vice-Presidents of the Royal Family Administration (ton nho'n phu), whose Presidents headed the first grade.Google Scholar

22 Thus, for example, the outspoken Vu Pham Khai held a 4–1 post as thi doc hoc si, collecting and collating documents in the imperial Grand Secretariat (Noi cac), when his criticism of high officials stung Phan Thanh Gian into requesting Tu'-Du'c dismiss Khai from his court post. Van Tan, ‘Vu Pham Khai. Mot van than yeu nu'o'c du'ng dau phai chu chien du' oi' trieu Tu'-Du'c' [Vu Pham Khai. A patriotic literati leader of the war faction at Tu'-Du'c's court], Nghien Cu'u Lich Su’, 141 (11–Dec 1971), pp. 7–8.Google Scholar

23 Sogny, L., ‘Cerémonial d'autrefois pour le mariage des princesses d'Annam’. Bulletin des Amis du Vieux Hué, XXI, 3 (1934), pp. 146–7.Google Scholar

24 Such relationships could begin by working together in a central organ like the Noi Cac as, for example, with the Bac-ninh tien si, Nguyen Tu' Gian who in 1875 became the first northern Board president (thu'o'ng tho') for a generation. Tu'Du'c admired Gian's personality and literary talent and made him a royal confidant during his years in the Noi Cac. QTDKL, pp. 85–8;Google Scholarand Anh, Nguyen Huyen, Viet Nam Danh Nhan Tu'Dien [Dictionary of Famous Vietnamese] (Saigon, 1960), pp. 295–97 [Hereafter VNDNTD].Google Scholar

25 I would like to thank Dr Li Tana and Mr-Do M. Thien for providing some of these materials.Google Scholar

26 In 1832, Minh-Mang replaced the military divisions (dinh) that had formally organized the country for more than two hundred years with a network of provinces (tinh) but he appointed either senior military or civil officials as their governors, a practice continued by his successor, Thieu-Tri.Google Scholar

27 They were: Bui An Nien, whose tien si father reached tuan phu (2–2) [QTDKL, pp. 157 and 158–59]; Nguyen Tu' Gian, whose grandfather had been a Gia-Long district prefect (tri huyen) and whose father reached 4–1 [QTDKL, pp. 85–8 and 179]; and Hoang Te Mi, where both father and son reached 2–2 ]QTDKL, pp. 30 and 155]Google Scholar

28 The first five had no examination titles, while Tuc was a tu tai. For Can, Vo Xuan and Tuan, Nguyen Dang see DNNTC, vol. 9 (Saigon, 1961), p. 184.Google ScholarFor Lu'o'ng, Ton That and Minh, Nguyen Khoa, see DNNTC, vol. 1 (Hanoi: NXB Khoa hoc Xa hoi, 1971), pp. 192 and 206–7.Google ScholarFor Phu'o'ng, Nguyen Tri see Dao-Dang Vy, Nguyen-Tri-Phu'o'ng (Saigon: Nha Van-hoa, 1974), pp. 56–8.Google ScholarFor Tuc, Tran-Dinh, see DNNTC [SG] (9), pp. 74–5, or VNDNTD, pp. 454–5.Google ScholarFor a French translation of Nguyen Khoa Minh's official biography, see G. Rivière, ‘Une lignée de loyaux serviteurs. 'Les Nguyen-Khoa’, Bulletin des Amis du Vieux Hue, II, 3 (1915), pp. 298–300.Google Scholar

29 In the Nguyen dynastic era, two were noted in Buddhist terms: Nguyen Van Nhi, a Gia Long/Minh-Mang provincial governor from Quang-binh was revered as ‘a living Buddha’ (Phat song) [DNNTC [sg] (9), p. 182] and Nguyen Huy Dy, a Thanh-hoa tong doc of 1881 became a Buddhist recluse in the early colonial period [DNNTC [SG] (15), p. 145]. Nguyen Van Tuyen of Quang-binh, a Gia-Long provincial protector (tran thu), even became a supernatural genie with healing powers after death [DNNTC [SG[ (9), p. 181].Google Scholar

30 Cadière, Léopold (trans, and ed. Mabbett, Ian W.), ‘Religious Beliefs and Practices of the Vietnamese’, Monash Centre of Southeast Asian Studies, Working Paper No. 60, 1989, pp. 19–21;Google Scholarand the very valuable essay by Huy, Nguyen Ngoc, ‘Fate in the Vietnamese Spirit’, in Thomason, T.D.R. (ed.), Understanding Vietnam (The DPC Information Service: Bussum, 1983), pp. 279–87.Google Scholar

31 DNNTC [HN] (1), pp. 66–71, lists them all.Google Scholar

32 The eleven were venerated in the pagoda of Faithfulness in 1858. DNNTC[HN] (3), pp. 345–8, with pp. 346–7 for Doan Uan. For Hoang Te Mi, see DNNTC [HN](3), p. 218.Google Scholar

33 Nine appear for earlier dynasties [DNNTC] [HN] (1), pp. 298–301 ]. For the Nguyen there was at least one good candidate: Bui Ngoc Qui, a 1829 tien si who reached tong doc, went on an embassy to China, and wrote two books. QTDKL, p. 42.Google Scholar

34 Compare this to the 6 Nam-ky provinces: almost 60% of entries (43 from 75) were pre-1802 (including numbers who died in the anti-Tay-so'n struggle); but of the 32 dynastic entries, 14 were top civil officials (1–1 to 2–2), none of whom died fighting, while only 1 of the 18 soldiers mentioned had been killed in battle.Google Scholar

35 Woodside, , Model, p. 179.Google Scholar

36 The 1862 examination was also the last in which a southern scholar graduated. The raw data can be found in Nola Cooke, ‘Colonial Political Myth and the Problem of the Other: French and Vietnamese in the Protectorate of Annam’, Ph.D. dissertation, Australian National University, 1991, Annex Two.Google Scholar

37 The distribution was: Bac-ninh—3, Nam-dinh—2 and 1 each from Hai-du'o'ng, Hanoi, Hu'ng-yen, and So'n-tay for the North; Ha-tinh-7, Thu'a-thien—6, Quangngai—2, and 1 each from Quang-binh and Quang-nam for the Centre; and 1 each from Vinh-long and Gia-dinh for the South.Google Scholar

38 The sample represents 63% of the 259 graduates: 56 from Hanoi/Nam-dinh; 50 from Nghe-Tinh; and 56 from Binh-Tri-Thien (including 25 from Thu'a-thien). The selected areas produced comparable graduate cohorts between 1822 and 1884 of 81, 77, and 82 respectively.Google Scholar

39 Binh-Tri-Thien had twice as many in the top grades as in teaching or the districts.Google Scholar

40 Only those for whom QTDKL provides sufficient data re-included. If the text merely notes the man ‘committed an error’, he was omitted.Google Scholar

41 Alternatively, of course, northerners might have quit the mandarinate early in statistically significant numbers; but this would also need to be adequately explained. And such a pattern may well have developed by the 1850s, with discouraged northerners seeking early retirement in the expectation that their careers would not flourish anyway. We would need far more sensitive measurements, however, to reveal if such a self-sustaining cycle developed.Google Scholar

42 A proper test would require an analysis of regional graduates' careers. An appropriate source exists in a companion listing of regional graduates also edited by Cao Xuan Due. For the first three reigns alone (1807–1847) it yields a generous sample of 1,584 laureates, according to figures cited in Lu'o'c truyen ca tac gial Viet Nam [Abridged listing of Vietnamese writers], I (Hanoi, 1971, 2nd edn), p. 95. Unfortunately, I did not have access to this source while carrying out this research.Google Scholar

43 The Tay-so'n brothers are the most famous. Tana, La, ‘“The Inner Region”: A Social and Economic History of Nguyen Vietnam in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries’. Ph.D. dissertation, Australian National University, 1992, Chapter One, esp. p. 13.Google Scholar

44 For example, see Woodside, , Model, pp. 16–18, 76, or 234.Google Scholar

45 Cooke, , ‘Colonial Political Myth’, Chapters Two and Three. These chapters contain the detailed analysis upon which the concluding comments rest.Google Scholar

46 Li, , ‘Inner Region’, Chapter Seven.Google Scholar

47 Baoyun, Yang, Contribution à I'histoire de la principauté des Nguyen an Vietnam meridional (1600–1775) (Geneva: Olizane/Etudes orientales, 1992), pp. 47–8. After 1740, only one provincial examination was held in Dang-trong.Google Scholar

48 Gia-Long's six year cycle echoed Dang-trong practice, as did the lack of metropolitan examinations. Yang, Principauté des Nguyen, pp. 43–8 for details. Minh-Mang added a ‘subsidiary list’ (pho bang) title in 1829.Google Scholar

49 Between 1822 and 1832, 34 men from former Dang-ngoai graduated tien si, 29 (or 85%) of whom achieved court appointments from 4–1 to 2–2. However, only 16 (or 45%) of the 35 comparable tien si of the next decade (1935 to 1844) reached similar positions under Tu'-Du'c.Google Scholar

50 An 1828 cu' nhan, he reached 3–1 in 8 years and 2–2 in 11. Thinh, Ca-Van, ‘Le Mandarin Doan Uan, “pacificateur de l'ouest”’, Bulletin de la Société des Etudes indochinoises (ns), XVI, 1 (1941), pp. 423.Google Scholar

51 Woodside, , Model, p. 222.Google Scholar

52 Ibid., p. 220.