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

Modern Asian Studies

Volumn 29, Issue 4, 1995, Pages 741-764

  Cooke, Nola ^a  

^a AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY   (Australia)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 84972191968     PISSN: 0026749X     EISSN: 14698099     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0026749X00016164     Document Type: Article

References (41)

1. Nguyen Van Phong, La Société vietnamienne de 1822 à 1902 (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1971), pp. 115–28
2. Tru’ o'ng Bu'u Lam, New Lamps for Old: The Transformation of the Vietnamese Administrative Elite ISEAS Occasional Paper No 66, Singapore: Mazuren Asia, 1982), pp. 7, 17–19
3. Yoshiharu Tsuboi, L'Empire vietnamienne face a la France et a la Chine (Paris: L'Harmattan, 1987), pp. 178-91.
4. Lam, New Lamps, p. 8
5. Lam, New Lamps, p. 24.
6. Alexander Woodside, Vietnam and the Chinese Model (Harvard University Press, 1971 and 1988), p. 75
7. ‘The Traditional Village in Bac Bo: Its Organisational Structure and Problems’ [Vietnamese Studies, no. 61 (1980), p. 43]
8. Nguyen Tu Chi 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 Cao Xuan Due (ed), Quoc Trieu Dang Khoa Luc (Saigon: Trung-tam Hoc-lieu, 1962).
9. Woodside, Model, p. 205.
10. Woodside, Model, p. 195.
11. Nguyen The Anh, ‘Quelques aspects economiques et sociaux du problème du riz au Vietnam dans la première moitie du XIX siècle’, Bulletin de la Société des Etudes Indochinois (ns), XLII, 1 and 2 (1967) p. 16.
12. 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].
13. Woodside, Model, p. 222.
14. In the chapter, ‘Vietnam, 1802—1867’, in David Joel Steinberg (ed.), In Search of Southeast Asia. A Modern History (Sudney: Allen and Unwin, revised edn, 1987), p. 128 (my emphases).
15. This differs from other accounts which seem to rely on Luro. In Le Pays d'Annam (Paris: Leroux, 1897, 2nd edn, p. 99
16. Alfred Schreiner, Les Institutions annamiies en Basse-Cochinchine avant la conquete franqaise, I (Saigon: Claude et Cie, 1900), pp. 272-9
17. 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.
18. Two Vice-Presidents of the Royal Family Administration (ton nho3n phu), whose Presidents headed the first grade.
19. L. Sogny, ‘Ceremonial d'autrefois pour le mariage des princesses d'Annam’. Bulletin des Amis du Vieux Hue, XXI, 3 (1934), pp. 146–7.
20. They were: Bui An Nien, whose lien si father reached tuan phu (2–2) [QTDKL, pp. 157 and 158-59]
21. Nguyen Tu'Gian, whose grandfather had been a Gia-Long district prefect (iri huyen) and whose father reached 4–1 [QTDKL, pp. 85–88 and 179]
22. Hoang Te Mi, where both father and son reached 2–2 [QTDKL, pp. 30 and •55]-
23. The first five had no examination titles, while Tuc was a tu tai. For Vo Xuan Can and Nguyen Dang Tuan see DNNTC, vol. 9 (Saigon, 1961), p. 184.
24. For Ton That Lu'o’ng and Nguyen Khoa Minh, see DNNTC, vol. 1 (Hanoi: NXB Khoa hoc Xa hoi, 1971), pp. 192 and 206–7.
25. For Nguyen Tri Phu'o’ng see Dao-Dang Vy, Nguyen-Tri-Phu3o3ng (Saigon: Nha Van-hoa, 1974), pp. 56–8.
26. For Tran-Dinh Tuc, see DNNTC[SG] (9), pp. 74–5, or VNDNTD, pp. 454-5.
27. For a French translation of Nguyen Khoa Minh's official biography, see G. Riviere, ‘Une lignee de loyaux servi-teurs. Les Nguyen-Khoa’, Bulletin des Amis du Vieux Hue, II, 3 (1915), pp. 298–300.
28. Leopold Cadiere (trans. and ed. Ian W. Mabbett), ‘Religious Beliefs and Practices of the Vietnamese’, Monash Centre of Southeast Asian Studies, Working Paper No. 60, 1989, pp. 19-21
29. the very valuable essay by Nguyen Ngoc Huy, ‘Fate in the Vietnamese Spirit’, in T.D.R. Thomason (ed.), Understanding Vietnam (The DPC Information Service: Bussum, 1983), pp. 279–87.
30. DNNTC[HN] (I) pp. 66–71, lists them all.
31. The eleven were venerated in the pagoda of Faithfulness in 1858. DNNTC[HN] (3)5 pp. 345–8, with pp. 346–7 for Doan Uan. For Hoang Te Mi, see DNNTC[HN] (3), p. 218.
32. Woodside, Model, p. 179.
33. 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.
34. The Tay-so'n brothers are the most famous. La Tana ‘“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.
35. For example, see Woodside, Model, pp. 16–18, 76, or 234.
36. Cooke, ‘Colonial Political Myth’, Chapters Two and Three. These chapters contain the detailed analysis upon which the concluding comments rest.
37. Li, ‘Inner Region’, Chapter Seven.
38. Yang Baoyun, Contribution a l'histoire de la principaute des Nguyen au Vietnam meridional (1600–1775) (Geneva: Olizane/Etudes orientales, 1992), pp. 47–8. After 1740, only one provincial examination was held in Dang-trong.
39. Gia-Long's six year cycle echoed Dang-trong practice, as did the lack of metropolitan examinations. Yang, Principaute des Nguyen, pp. 43–8 for details. Minh-Mang added a ‘subsidiary list’ (pko bang) title in 1829.
40. Ca-Van Thinh, ‘Le Mandarin Doan Uan, “pacificateur de l'ouest’”, Bulletin de la Societe des Etudes indo-chinoises (ns), XVI, 1 (1941), pp. 42–3.
41. Woodside, Model p. 222.