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Answer

Who colonized Vietnam?

Southeast Asia — the powers that ruled Vietnam, the dates, and what independence did and did not change.

In short

Who colonized Vietnam?

France. French Indochina absorbed Vietnam between 1858 and 1885; after Japanese occupation and the war of 1946–54, French rule ended at Dien Bien Phu and the Geneva Accords in 1954.

French Indochina was financed in part by a state monopoly on opium, alcohol and salt — a revenue model that taxed addiction and necessity in equal measure.

Historical image associated with the battle of Dien Bien Phu
Dien Bien Phu, 1954: the French defeat was a turning point in the First Indochina War. The end of French rule did not mean the end of conflict in Vietnam.Source — Wikimedia Commons

How rule changed in Vietnam

These periods describe different governing arrangements. The presence of a trading company, a military occupation and direct colonial government are not interchangeable; the notes preserve those distinctions where the record identifies them.

Political chronology

Rulers, periods and governing arrangements

PeriodRuler or administrationContext
1802–1885Nguyễn dynastySee the chronology and context below.
1858/1885–1954French IndochinaSee the chronology and context below.
1940–1945Japanese occupationSee the chronology and context below.
1954–1975Divided north and southSee the chronology and context below.

Periods may overlap where control differed by territory. A national independence date does not imply that every enclave or dependency changed status on that day.

At a glance

Key facts

Colonising powers
France, Japan (1940–45 occupation)
Independence
Declared 2 September 1945; French rule ended 1954
Extraction
Rubber, rice and coal; the state opium monopoly funded the colony
1945 famine
One to two million dead under Japanese occupation and French administration
End of French rule
Military defeat, not negotiated withdrawal

Chronology

Key dates

  1. 1858

    French and Spanish forces attack Đà Nẵng.

  2. 1885

    Treaty of Tientsin; Vietnam becomes a French protectorate in full.

  3. 1945

    Famine in the north kills an estimated one to two million; independence declared.

  4. 1946–54

    First Indochina War.

  5. 1954

    Dien Bien Phu; the Geneva Accords partition the country.

  6. 1975

    Reunification.

Context

What the record shows

Vietnam is one of the few colonies whose independence was won on the battlefield against the coloniser's main force, at Dien Bien Phu in May 1954.

Questions

Frequently asked

Who colonised Vietnam?
France, from the 1858 attack on Đà Nẵng and the 1885 protectorate treaties until 1954.
How long did France rule Vietnam?
Between 69 and 96 years depending on whether you count from full protectorate status in 1885 or the first conquests in 1858.
When did Vietnam become independent?
Independence was declared on 2 September 1945; French rule ended in 1954 and the country was reunified in 1975.

Read on

Related in the archive

References

Sources — colonial Vietnam

  1. [1]Bartolomé de las Casas, Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias (Seville, 1552).
  2. [2]Noble David Cook, Born to Die: Disease and New World Conquest, 1492–1650 (Cambridge University Press, 1998).
  3. [3]Eduardo Galeano, Open Veins of Latin America (Monthly Review Press, 1971; English 1973).
  4. [4]Adam Hochschild, King Leopold's Ghost (Houghton Mifflin, 1998).
  5. [5]Thomas Pakenham, The Scramble for Africa (Random House, 1991).
  6. [6]Shashi Tharoor, Inglorious Empire: What the British Did to India (Hurst, 2017).
  7. [7]Caroline Elkins, Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya (Henry Holt, 2005).
  8. [8]Alfred W. McCoy, Policing America's Empire: The United States, the Philippines, and the Rise of the Surveillance State (Wisconsin, 2009).
  9. [9]Daniel Immerwahr, How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019).
  10. [10]Jürgen Zimmerer, "The birth of the Ostland out of the spirit of colonialism", Patterns of Prejudice 39:2 (2005), on the German South-West Africa → Holocaust lineage.
  11. [11]Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (Bogle-L'Ouverture, 1972).
  12. [12]Karl Marx, Capital, Volume I (1867), Chapter 31 ("Genesis of the Industrial Capitalist").

All works cited in good faith for documentary, educational and critical use. Errors and omissions: contact the archive.