Vietnamisation of Southern Vietnam during the First Half of the Nineteenth Century

From the third decade of the nineteenth century, the central court of the Nguyen dynasty in Vietnam implemented an ambitious ethnic programme in southern Vietnam, where diverse ethnic groups had co-existed. Under this policy, Khmer, Chinese and other ethnic groups of southern Vietnam were forced to assimilate into the Vietnamese. They had to learn Vietnamese language, dress in Vietnamese style, and follow Vietnamese ways of life. Non-Vietnamese cults such as those symbolised in pagodas, shrines, and statues were also targets of the assimilation policies. Chinese settlers in this region experienced severe discrimination from the central court, forcing them to be reborn as Vietnamese. Vietnamese southerners, who had once been against the central court, willingly joined the vanguard of Vietnamising other ethnic groups. Southern Vietnam, which had previously been ethnically heterogeneous with about 30-35 per cent of non-Vietnamese areas and probably a similar proportion of non-Vietnamese people to the total southern population, began to be actively Vietnamised from this period. This policy, in fact, resulted in ethnic segregation and intense clashes between the two groups: Vietnamese and Non-Vietnamese. On the other hand, this process was an important motivation for Vietnamese southerners to strengthen their affiliation to the king in Hue.