Description:

French Indochina

Vietnamese Viceroy LS to French Colonial Bureaucrat During the Pacification of Tonkin, 1890

1p bilingual French and Vietnamese letter signed by Hoang Cao Khai (1850-1933), the Kinh Luoc or Viceroy of Tonkin, in Vietnamese characters at bottom. Written in Hanoi, Tonkin, French Indochina, on December 27, 1890. Likely written in a secretarial script with a secretarial signature appearing above Khai's signature in Vietnamese. Docketed in ink and blue crayon at upper left. Expected paper folds and minor mounting traces verso. Unfolded the cream sheet measures 8.5" x 12.5".

Hoang Cao Khai addressed this New Year's message to a French official he termed "Monsieur le Résident". This could have been Jean Thomas Raoul Bonnal, the Acting Résident Général of Tonkin between April 1890 and February 1891.

Translated:

"Hanoi, December 27, 1890

 

Monsieur le Résident

 

As the New Year's holiday approaches, I have the honor of addressing to you my wishes and my sincere desires, in wishing you a good year, the best health and prosperity in family matters.

Please accept, Monsieur le Résident, the assurances of my sympathetic sentiments and my sincere salutations.

 

Your very Devoted

Kinh luac

 

Hoang Cao Khai

 

Hoang Cao Khai."

The letter dates from the era of the Pacification of Tonkin (1886-1896), when the French cracked down on insurrection in Indochina (modern day Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos) and cemented the region's protectorate status. Even though the French had officially assumed control of French Indochina after the Sino-French War in 1887, Vietnamese and Chinese guerillas continued to fight for their sovereignty over the next decade. The fighting could be downright gruesome; just 7 years before this letter was written, in 1883, a French official named Commandant Rivière was decapitated and mutilated at the village of Kieu-Mai.

Tonkin was the northernmost region of French Indochina, situated above other partitioned zones Annam and Cochinchina. Emperor Napoleon III designated a kinh luoc (also known as a commissaire impérial) to strengthen the illusion that the Vietnamese participated in their own government. In reality, however, all the municipal power was concentrated in the hands of French bureaucrats led by a Gouverneur Général and delegated to provincial résidents généraux like Bonnal.

As this effusively polite note demonstrates, Viceroy Khai was amenable to the French imperialists; he would certainly show his affability and cooperation in other ways. He collaborated with the ruling regime to suppress the Vietnamese revolutionary Phan Dinh Phung (1847-1896). Phung wanted to install a Vietnamese emperor to rule an independent Vietnam, and had commanded Vietnamese armies since the mid to late 1880s. Viceroy Khai contacted Phung and promised to intercede for him with French authorities, and the pair embarked on a correspondence. Instead, Viceroy Khai showed Phung's anti-French letters to the government. In the summer of 1895, 3,000 French troops mobilized against Phung's armies; the rebel later died of dysentery and his followers were executed.

This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.

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