Early nineteenth-century Vietnamese catholics and others in the pages of the Annales de la Propagation de la Foi

Journal of Southeast Asian Studies

Volumn 35, Issue 2, 2004, Pages 261-285

  Cooke, Nola ^a  

^a AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY   (Australia)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

CATHOLICISM; HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE; NINETEENTH CENTURY; PERCEPTION; POLITICAL CONFLICT;

ASIA; EURASIA; EUROPE; FRANCE; SOUTHEAST ASIA; VIET NAM; WESTERN EUROPE;

EID: 33846067308     PISSN: 00224634     EISSN: 14740680     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0022463404000141     Document Type: Article

References (151)

1. Alain Forest, Missionnaires français au Tonkin et au Siam, XVII-XVIII siécles (Paris: L'Harmattan, 1998), vols. II and III.
2. See E. Vo Duc Hanh, La place du catholicisme dans les relations entre la France et le Viet-Nam de 1851 à 1870 (Leiden: Brill, 1969);
3. Nicole-Dominique Lê, Les Missions-Étrangères et la pénétration française au Viêt-Nam (Paris: Mouton, 1975);
4. and Patrick J. Tuck, French Catholic missionaries and the politics of imperialism, 1857-1914 (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1987).
5. The most recent Vietnamese account reportedly rehearses the standard criticisms, but I have not yet seen it: Nguyễn Vǎn Kiêm, Su du nhâp cúa dao Thiên Chúa Gíao vào Viêt Nam tìe thế ký XVII dến thê ký XIX [The spread of Catholicism in Vietnam from the 17th to the 19th centuries] (Ho Chi Minh City: Viên Nghiên cúu Tôn giáo, 2001).
6. Lê, Missions-Étrangères, eh. 3
7. and Tuck, French Catholic missionaries, Introduction.
8. The MEP is also in the process of microfiching archival documents for sale to the public.
9. R. B. Smith, 'Politics and society in Viet-Nam during the early Nguyen period (1802-62)', Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 2 (1974): 164.
10. Jean Gennou, Missions-Étrangères de Paris (Paris: Le Sarment Fayard, 1986), pp. 237-40;
11. Gérard Cholvy and Yves-Marie Hilaire, Histoire religieuse de la France, 1800-1880 (Toulouse: Éditions Privat, 2000), pp. 54-5.
12. Annales de la Propagation de la Foi [hereafter APF], 1 (1822-5): 31.
13. The early financial figures are from ibid., pp. 100-1 and the 1827 receipts from APF, 3 (1828): 89;
14. the indulgences also applied to souls in purgatory. The accounts are in Langlois, 2 (1826): 31-4.
15. Taberd, 2 June 1830, APF, 5 (1831-2): 392-400.
16. This 7-year-average (1863-9) is calculated from accounts published in the APF between 1864-70.
17. APF, 7 (1834-5): 520.
18. Full biographical and bibliographical details for all MEP missionaries to Asia can be found at the recherche link on the archives' website: http://archives.mepasie.org. The martyrdom of a Vietnamese priest, Pierre Tuy, preceded that of Gagelin; for details, see pp. 420-8 in the same volume.
19. The quotation is from 'Note historique sur M. Gagelin', ibid., p. 583. So unexpected was his fame that the journal could not locate a picture of him and had to make do with a sketch.
20. Gennou, Missions-Étrangères, p. 241.
21. Cuenot, undated letter (1836?), APF, 11 (1838): 213.
22. See, for example, the undated letter from the missionaries of the West Tonkin vicariate to the Propagation's Councils and 'subscribers to their Work', APF, 9 (1836-7): 497-8;
23. and the February 1836 letter of thanks from the priest André Linh on behalf of the faithful of the vicariate (pp. 499-505).
24. APF, 7 (1834-5): 580-1. In this context, 'confessors' are Catholics who profess the faith in the face of threats or torture during times of persecution. They are the next level down from 'martyrs', who actually die for the faith.
25. Cholvy and Hilaire, Histoire religieuse, pp. 93-108.
26. APF, 15 (1843): 178-9.
27. APF, 7 (1834-5): 518;
28. other examples are in Jaccard to Gagelin, 12 Oct. 1833, p. 515
29. and Marette, 7 June 1830, APF, 6 (1833-4): 369.
30. Not every MEP missionary agreed in private. As Pierre Clémenceau in Siam wrote on 28 Jan. 1839, 'Divine Providence called me to the Siam mission, doubtless in consideration of my weakness which might not have enabled me to hold up if I had been called to share the labour of these glorious confreres'; Archives of the MEP [hereafter AMEP], vol. 893, p. 391.
31. Neron and Bonnard acted on a prophecy made about them as seminarians, while Venard was inspired as a child by the martyrdom of Cornay in the mid-1830s; APF, 33 (1861): 370-2
32. and 36 (1864): 137.
33. Mathevon, 24 Dec. 1862, APF, 35 (1863): 318.
34. For Retord see his song commemorating Schoeffler's martyrdom, 12 May 1853, 26 (1854): 50-1 ;
35. another example is Dourisbour, 13 Jan. 1864, 36 (1864): 476-9.
36. Woodside's argument is in Alexander Woodside, 'History, structure, and revolution in Vietnam", International Political Science Review, 10, 2 (1989): 143-57.
37. For discussions of the complexity of Nguyễn Vietnam, see Philippe Langlet, L'ancienne historiographie d'ètat an Viêtnam (Paris: EFEO, 1990), vol. I;
38. Nola Cooke, 'Nineteenth-century Vietnamese Confucianisation in historical perspective: Evidence from the palace examination (1463-1883)', Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 25, 2 (1994): 299-312;
39. and Cooke, 'The myth of the restoration: cross D sign àng-Trong influences in the spiritual life of the early Nguyễn dynasty (1802-47)', in The last stand of Asian autonomies, ed. Anthony Reid (London: Macmillan, 1997), pp. 269-95.
40. Thomas A. Kselman, Miracles and prophecies in nineteenth-century France (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1983), pp. 66-7.
41. Thus the editors' introduction to their letter to the Vietnamese Church never mentioned the French state and only solicited aid from God; APF, 7 (1834-5): 574-8.
42. James P. Daughton, 'The civilizing mission: Missionaries, colonialists, and French identity, 1885-1914" (Ph.D. diss., University of California/Berkeley, 2002), ch. 1-2.
43. All quotes are from APF, 12 (1840): 215.
44. See also 13(1841): 178-9
45. and 14(1842): 158-9.
46. This was a continuous theme; for examples see APF, 13 (1841): 178;
47. (1842): 158-9;
48. (1843): 179;
49. (1846): 200-1;
50. and 19 (1847): 172-3.
51. APF, 27 (1855): 162.
52. For information on the associés see 12 (1840): 215,
53. (1847): 169
54. and 36 (1864): 163-4.
55. APF, 11 (1839): 284
56. and 12 (1840): 215; the 500,000 reported in 1838 jumped to 700,000 in 1840, but no full membership figures appeared thereafter.
57. This calculation is based on a population figure of 37.4 million for 1860 in Theodore Zeldin, France 1848-1945, vol. II (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), p. 950.
58. The total Annales print run in 1859 was 209,500, rising to 234,000 in 1868. The French share averaged 63-65 per cent throughout the decade; APF, 32(1860): 156
59. and 41 (1869): 162.
60. The APF repeatedly urged members to return their copy after five or six days to the collecteur de dizaine for circulation to other members; for instance, see 12 (1840): 210.
61. Some candid letters were published before the 1830s persecution, however. An example is Masson's assessment from Nghê An in 1828: 'I would very much wish that our Christians were as fervent as you have the charity to suppose. In general, there are no great sins, but neither could one say that they had any great virtues, although to date we have had several martyrs and there are several still living who confessed the faith under torture in the last persecution [by the Tây Son]';
62. Masson, 30 June 1828, APF, 4 (1830-1): 317-18.
63. This is a continuous theme in archival documents from the seventeenth century on. Elaborated by an MEP synod in 1664 in Siam, the Manita ad missionaries (Instructions to missionaries) remained in force thereafter; for more detail,
64. see Adrien Launay, Histoire générale de la Société des Missions Étrangères, vol. I (Paris: Tequi, 1894), pp. 98-108.
65. Catholicism had always attracted soldiers, so some were probably also from military families. Sohier reported 134 Christian soldiers uncovered in the Hue area refused to apostasise in 1860, adding that superior officers protected many more, especially in the navy;
66. Sohier, 15 Dec. 1860, APF, 34 (1862): 22.
67. In 1858, 14 Catholics had been found in the Queen Mother's Guard; Sohier, 15 Dec. 1857, 30 (1858): 391-2.
68. One example is François Régereau's letter of 1 Mar. 1834 from Phnom Penh that provided important details about Catholics in the revolt (AMEP, 748, pp. 257-84). Several crucial pages are missing from the published version, without any indication of editorial intervention;
69. APF, 7 (1834-5): 600-8.
70. Robin Lane Fox, Pagans and Christians (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1989), p. 419; for a general discussion, see ch. 9. The main differences were the relative lack of volunteers and well-born female martyrs, both characteristic of early Christian persecutions.
71. Charles Cornay, for instance, consciously imitated the ancient martyrs by writing 'a Martyr's letter of indulgence' before his death asking the apostolic vicar to help one of his catechists; Marette, 'Relation du martyre de M. J.-C. Cornay-Mayaud', APF, 11 (1838): 250.
72. For the 'cult of manliness' see Peter Gay, The bourgeois experience: Victoria to Freud. The cultivation of hatred (London: Fontana Press, 1993), pp. 95-116 and ch. 6.
73. Jean-Claude Miche was an outstanding exponent of this genre in the missionary context; for examples, see his letters from Hue prison dated 28 Sept. and 12 Nov. 1842 in APF, 15 (1843): 506-33
74. and extracts from those dated 29 and 23 May 1842 in 16 (1844): 66-8 and 96-101.
75. Gennou, Missions-Étrangères, pp. 161-74 and 220-30.
76. Also see Nola Cooke, '"Sad disagreements": Internecine mission hostility and the 1690 prohibition of Christianity in Nguyễn Cochinchina', manuscript. The other groups included Spanish Dominicans and Franciscans from the Philippines, mainly Portuguese Jesuits under the jurisdiction of the Macao house and, in the eighteenth century, even some missionaries sent directly by the Roman Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith itself. The MEP missionaries were 'secular' priests, i.e. out in the world, as opposed to 'regulars', who were originally in closed orders.
77. Rome specifically banned the MEP from such activities (Launay, Histoire générale, p. 50). As MEP priests watched vigilantly for the sins of their confreres, contraventions would surely have been reported, but I have seen none for Cochinchina in the archives.
78. APF, 8 (1829): 102-3.
79. For example, see the letters of thanks from the Spanish Dominicans Barcelo (10 July 1842) and Marti (28 Jan. 1844), APF, 17 (1845): 347-52.
80. In 1845 in West Tonkin, the MEP baptised 1,328 adults and 2,202 in 1854 in the same territory, by then split into three parts. Adding 1,548 from East Tonkin, the 1854 total was 4,031, perhaps 1-2 per cent of the Catholic population of Tonkin; APF, 19 (1847): 358,
81. and 27 (1855): 251-2.
82. Earlier MEP adult baptism figures (1673-1792) are in Forest, Missionnaires françfrais, vol. III, p. 159.
83. Calculating based on an exchange rate of 1 fr 20 per qnan, given by Retord, 7 Oct. 1858, APF, 31 (1859): 121.
84. Marette, Sept. 1830, APF, 6 (1832-3): 63;
85. Charles-Emile Bouillevaux, Voyage dans l'Indochine, 1848-1856 (Paris: Victor Palmé, 1858), p. 45.
86. On the persecution see Sohier, 28 Sept. 1862, APF, 36 (1864): 7.
87. By 1860, the vicariate was also 40,000 francs in debt; Jeantet, 2 Aug. 1860, 33 (1861): 253.
88. In June-July of 1858 alone two village blockades had cost 2,500 and 1,250 fr.; 7 Oct. 1858,31 (1859): 119-21. For bribery and other issues in Cochinchina, see Jacob Ramsay, 'Extortion and exploitation in the Nguyễn campaign against Catholicism in 1830s-1840s Vietnam' in this issue of JSEAS.
89. Projecting from the losses in Ké Vinh parish of 300 from 4,000 people (or 7.5 per cent), Retord assumed about 10,000 deaths among the 128,000 West Tonkin Catholics. About 7-8 per cent of catechists, student catechists and nuns died, but a devastating 18 per cent of Vietnamese priests and other clerics. In all, this mission lost 124 of its personnel in 18 months; APF, 23 (1851): 269-70, 287-9.
90. Also see François Pellerin's letter of 16 Dec. 1848, 22 (1850): 389-95
91. and Galy, 15 Jan. 1852, 25 (1853): 25-9.
92. Bùi Quang Tung, 'La succession de Thiêu Tri', Bulletin de la Société des Etudes Indochinoises (ns), XLII, 1-2 (1967): 23-175 covers political developments during this period in detail.
93. APF, 27 (1855): 177;
94. Retord, 2 May 1850, 23 (1851): 272-3 mentions rewards and indulgences.
95. See, for example, ibid., pp. 271-5.
96. Léopold Cadière, 'Philosophie populaire: Cosmologie', in Cadière, Croyances et pratiques religieuses des Viêtnamiens (Paris: EFEO, 1992 reprint), vol. III, p. 68.
97. This outline follows Nola Cooke, 'Missionary praxis and Christianity as a healing religion in seventeenth-century Nguyễn Cochinchina', unpublished manuscript, pp. 5-18;
98. for similar findings from the North, see Forest, Missionaires français, vol. III, chs. 33 and 35.
99. Cadière, 'Philosophie populaire', pp. 60-6 discusses these supernatural beings.
100. Guèrard, 22 Nov. 1820, APF, 1 (1822-5): 8.
101. As still happened to a large numbers of Nghê An Christians in the 1820s; Masson, APF, 4 (1830-1): 317-18.
102. Masson, 2 July 1828, ibid., pp. 331-3.
103. Marette's account is dated July 1831, quoting a letter from Journoud dated 14 Mar. 1831; APF, 6 (1833-4): 378-9.
104. A report from Cochinchina also suggests this conflict. A woman and her daughter had studied the religion for a week and already knew some prayers when the Devil appeared to the mother and threatened both their lives if they continued, causing them to flee in terror (Régéreau, 8 Mar. 1831, pp. 448-50 of the same volume).
105. Marette, Sept. 1833, APF, 7 (1834-5): 442-3 (emphasis added).
106. Havard, 9 Dec. 1833, ibid., 456-7;
107. for similar examples see Retord, n.d., APF, 9 (1836-7): 487-8.
108. In several localities in bandit-ridden Tonkin, for instance, it was reported that brigands actually protected churches and individual missionaries; see, for example, Journoud, 17 July 1830, APF, 5 (1831-2): 342.
109. Jacques Eyot reported that local people claimed the turning point in the previously successful Phan Bá Vành revolt in Nam cross D sign inh and Son Nam in 1827 came when its leader took the crown from a statue of the Virgin and put it on his own head. 'The pagans themselves attributed the cause of his misfortunes to this profanation of objects belonging to the Christian religion";
110. Eyot, 24 Apr. 1827, 3 (1828-9): 451-2. The theme of divine vengeance is a continuous one running through the Annales from the mid-1830s onwards.
111. Retord, 22 July 1853, APF, 27 (1855): 9-10.
112. Masson, 28 Dec. 1839, APF, 15 (1843): 278.
113. Jeantet, 13 Apr. 1840, APF, 14 (1842): 409-25 (quotation from p. 414). Other reports of similar behaviour are too numerous to cite.
114. Delamotte, 13 Jan. 1834, APF, 8 (1835-6): 358;
115. Cornay's execution is in Marette, 'Relation de martyre', 11 (1838): 259.
116. The 1645 reference is in 'Persécutions diverses et martyres en Cochinchine (1639-1665)', in Voyages et travaux des missionnaires de la Compagnie de Jesus. Mission de la Cochinchine et du Tonkin, ed. F. de Montézon and Ed. Estève (Paris: Douniol, 1858), p. 207.
117. On Bonnard's execution sec Retord, 5 May 1852, APF, 25 (1853): 74;
118. Schoefflcr's death is in Retord, 28 May 1851, 24 (1852): 26-9.
119. For the execution of Lac and Thi see Jeantet, 13 April 1840, 14 (1842): 425;
120. also see Retord, n.d., 11 (1838): 278 on the 1837 martyrdom of Xavier Can.
121. Forest, Missionnaires français, vol. III, pp. 293-4;
122. Cooke, 'Missionary praxis', pp. 9-10;
123. and Cooke, '"Sad disagreements'", p. 19.
124. Forest, Missionnaires français, vol. III, pp. 300-4 (quotation from p. 304).
125. A similar list of commonalities is in Retord, Oct. 1854, APF, 28 (1856): 103.
126. For a description of Catholic life in Tonkin, see Forest, pp. 147-99.
127. Retord, n.d., APF, 9 (1836-7): 484.
128. Retord, Oct. 1854, APF, 28 (1856): 107-9.
129. He also freed a Vietnamese priest arrested in the Spanish vicariate and protected the belongings of a Catholic religious community against a neighbouring village; Galy, 1 May 1856, APF, 30 (1858): 80-1.
130. An 1822 regional graduate, Tan had many years' experience in the north; his career details are in cross D sign ai Nam chính biên liêt truyên [Arranged tales of the Great South, primary compilation] [henceforth LT], tr. Nguyễn Manh Duân et al. (Huế: Thuân Hóa, 1993), vol. III, pp. 482-6. Thanks to Jacob Ramsay for identifying him.
131. He freed a Vietnamese priest condemned to perpetual military service, allowed a Catholic hamlet to become an independent commune (xã), and sent a priest with soldiers to arrest a pagan village head holding a catechist to ransom; Retord, 22 Apr. 1853, APF, 27 (1855): 26-8.
132. Giai's refusal is mentioned in Retord, 28 mai 1851, 24 (1852): 30-1.
133. His father was Nguyễn cross D sigň ang Tuân, one of Thiêu Tri's most senior officials (LT, vol. III, pp. 233-6);
134. for Giai's career details, see pp. 237-50.
135. Retord, Apr. 1852, APF, 25 (1853): 94-5.
136. Giai proposed to let Catholics of long standing practise their religion if they all revealed themselves, including officials and solders, and lived separate from the population at large. Afterwards, any hidden Christians would be exiled on discovery, all conversion be forbidden, and European priests totally banned (pp. 96-7).
137. He may have died of a chest complaint for which Retord arranged to have him sent some medicine, which Giai initially dared not take for fear that it was a 'magic philtre to force him to become a Christian against his will', Retord, APF, 27 (1855): 28.
138. Havard, 31 July 1832, APF, 6 (1833-4): 421-2.
139. Masson, 2 July 1828, APF, 4 (1830-1): 324.
140. The women's comments are in Jeantet, 12 Apr. 1840, 14 (1842): 416.
141. The moral instruction Catholic women received helped account for their attractiveness as wives, one of the earliest and most persistent reasons for conversion. See also the 1864 response of some Catholic notables when asked about what missionaries did: 'They give alms, they exhort the observance of God's law, and they teach us to live well';
142. Munoz, 30 Sept. 1864, 37 (1865): 473.
143. See, for instance, the statement of a senior Tonkinese catechist cited in Retord, 20 Apr. 1836, APF, 11 (1838): 263.
144. Jaccard's account is in Jaccard, 5 Dec. 1829, APF, 5 (1831-2): 388.
145. When quizzed about his own possible conversion, the mandarin explained that he had to follow the same religion as the Emperor. This sort of disclaimer was commonly reported in provinces that formed part of the pre-dynastic Nguyễn heartland (from Quáng Bình south). In Huế prison, Miche recorded that there was even a proverb to justify it: ǎn co m vua thì phái làm viĉc vua (if you eat the Emperor's rice, you should do the Emperor's work); Miche, 28 Sept. 1842, 15 (1843): 511.
146. For comments from other mandarins see, for instance, Retord, 20 Apr. 1836, 11 (1838): 263. Certainly Havard claimed that Minh Mang had imitated the Christian model, asserting that he believed the Decalogue was 'the main rule of [Christian] conduct [and] that pagans themselves often cited it with praise';
147. Havard, 1 Apr. 1835, 9 (1836-7): 363.
148. An overview of this period is in Masaya Shiraishi, 'State, village and vagabonds: Vietnamese rural society and the Phan Bá Vành Rebellion', in History and peasant consciousness in South East Asia, ed. Andrew Turton and Shigeharu Tanabe (Osaka: National Museum of Ethnology, 1984), pp. 345-400.
149. On land issues see Nguyễn cross D sign úc Nghinh, "L'évolution de la propriété foncière au Vietnam sous les Tây So'n. Étude comparative des cadastres de 1789-90 et 1805', in Propriété privée et propriété collective dans l'ancien Vietnam, ed. Ngô Kim Chung and Nguyễn cross D sign úc Nghinh, tr. Georges Boudarel et al. (Paris: L'Harmattan, 1987), pp. 111-209.
150. Nghê An is the focus of Ninh Viết Giao, 'Vài nét vế công cross d sign iến công thố ó Nghê An truóc và trong thòi gian 1930-31" [Communal land and fields in Nghê An before and during the period 1930-31] in Nông thôn Viêt Nam trong lich sú [The Vietnamese village in history], vol. I (Hanoi: Khoa hoc Xã hôi, 1977), p. 168.
151. Munoz, 30 Sept. 1864, APF, 37 (1865): 473, quoting some Catholic notables.