Monthly Archives: June 2025

by | 14 June 2025 · 3:42 pm

Ryukyu Exports to Ming China

From Maritime Ryukyu, 1050–1650, by Gregory Smits (University of Hawaii Press, 2018), Kindle pp. 115, 122-124:

By the late fourteenth century gunpowder weapons had become crucial in warfare. The Hóngwǔ emperor, “the gunpowder emperor” according to Tonio Andrade, embraced this powerful technology. “The extraordinary success of the Ming dynasty,” argues Andrade, “was based on the effective use of guns.” Sulfur was a key ingredient in gunpowder. Japan produced it in abundance, especially in and around Kyushu. China possessed abundant potassium nitrate (saltpeter) but lacked sulfur in a form that was readily usable. Therefore, sulfur had great profit potential as a trade item.

…

The frequency of tribute trade increased dramatically after 1383. Total Ryukyuan tribute trade, including the number of embassies per year, number of ships, and quantity of goods, reached a peak during the 1420s and 1430s. Subsequently, it began a gradual decline, followed by a sharp decline during the 1520s.

No single metric captures the entire picture of official trade. The number of tribute missions per year is one possible measure, but each mission might consist of variable numbers and sizes of ships with different mixes of cargo. It is more useful to measure the quantity of sulfur, an item shipped with each tribute voyage. Ryukyu had access to a steady supply of sulfur from the island of Iōtorishima [Sulfur Bird Island]. Here, I follow Ikuta Shigeru’s analysis, with quantities derived from Rekidai hōan documents. Ikuta divides Ryukyuan tribute trade into seven periods, each based on significant changes in circumstances affecting the trade.

Period two was the approximate peak of Ryukyu’s tribute trade. The average annual shipment of sulfur to China on Ryukyuan tribute vessels during this time was 38,013 jīn. Using this quantity as 100 percent, table 1 shows the decline in Ryukyuan sulfur shipments to China relative to each immediate previous period and to period two, the peak of trade. Period three marks the start of Ming-imposed restrictions on Ryukyu’s tribute trade, the most important of which was limiting tribute missions to one per year. By 1440, once per year was already the typical frequency, so the practical impact on trade volume was small.

…

Sulfur and horses help illuminate the maritime network in which Ryukyu was embedded and the role of wakō. Ryukyu’s tribute cargo of sulfur was not simply a token. Elemental sulfur was scarce in China, requiring that it be manufactured from pyrite, an iron sulfide. During the Ming dynasty “the number of areas producing pyrite-derived sulfur greatly increased. Ming dynasty documents (1564) mention that the emperor allowed the central and four local governments to buy about 10,000 jin of sulfur per year to replenish their supplies for gunpowder manufacture.”

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by | 13 June 2025 · 4:31 am

When Ryukyu Became a State

From Maritime Ryukyu, 1050–1650, by Gregory Smits (University of Hawaii Press, 2018), Kindle pp. 130-133:

Ryukyu became a formal state in the East Asian international order because of Ming policy to tame the region’s wakō and the related Maritime Prohibitions. When Yáng Zài traveled to Naha in 1372, Okinawa was an island governed by dozens of local lords. Although many or all of them engaged in private trade, none of them would have been capable of conducting formal tribute trade on their own. The lord of Urasoe became “king” for tribute purposes. Satto, the kings who followed him, and the kings associated with the northern and southern principalities, profited from the situation. Ryukyuan ships began sailing to Southeast Asia, typically via Fuzhou, but they did so in Chinese-made ships with Chinese captains guided by Chinese pilots and supported by Chinese interpreters. Similarly, as we have seen, Ryukyuan ships sailing to Korea were typically Japanese vessels commanded and piloted by Japanese or by mariners of mixed Korean and Japanese origins. Ships sailed to destinations in China, Southeast Asia, and Korea under the auspices of a Ryukyuan king, and Naha served as an international port. Ryukyuans were actively involved in this maritime activity, but the common image of Ryukyuan mariners independently sailing to a variety of far-flung kingdoms requires some modification. In many respects, during the late fourteenth century and well into the fifteenth, “Ryukyu” functioned much like a shipping company. Its two largest clients were the Ming court supported by Chinese living in Naha and the Ashikaga shoguns aided by Sakai [Osaka] merchants.

…

Citing research by Akamine Seiki demonstrating that Ryukyu did not conduct independent trade with Southeast Asia, a hypothesis by Ōta Ryōhaku that Chinese merchants in Naha constituted a shadow government that held the real power in early Ryukyu, and the relatively inferior quality of native Ryukyuan ships, Irei Takashi lamented that the image of Ryukyu’s “golden age” as a prosperous, independent maritime kingdom appears to be an illusion. In light of Ryukyu’s early modern and modern history of having been controlled by outside powers, Irei concludes, “That the ‘golden age’ was a falsehood is indeed a gloomy matter, but thinking about the storms of outside pressure that have scoured this cluster of islands, it is something we must accept.” Irei’s essay addresses the emotive impact for many contemporary people of the idealized image of early Ryukyu.

Early Ryukyu was not an illusion, but its history was more complex than … the official histories, or many modern accounts acknowledge. One point to underscore is that although early Ryukyu was never formally part of any other country, it was not a de facto country itself until well into the reign of Shō Shin. Early Ryukyu was a frontier region within the East China Sea network generally and Japan in particular. Until the sixteenth century, there was no Okinawa-wide or Ryukyu-wide government, little or no literary culture outside of a few Buddhist temples, and there was a high level of internecine violence. Ryukyu did eventually become a centralized state and a far-flung empire. Moreover, from roughly 1510 to 1550, this Ryukyu empire enjoyed significant power and wealth. We could reasonably call this period a “golden” age, although it was fairly short and was more golden for some Ryukyuans than for others.

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by | 12 June 2025 · 5:13 am

Heyday of Piracy in Japan & Korea

From Maritime Ryukyu, 1050–1650, by Gregory Smits (University of Hawaii Press, 2018), Kindle pp. 84-88:

A crucial context for the development of Ryukyu was the warfare between Japan’s Northern and Southern Courts, especially in Kyushu. Wakō attacks on the Korean coast intensified in 1350 and continued for decades. Attacks occurred on a large scale, sometimes involving hundreds of ships and thousands of combatants. The most intense period of wakō marauding was from 1375 to 1388. Some scholars point to lack of agricultural productivity in the classic wakō havens as a major reason for these depredations. Paddy land, for example, comprised only 3 percent of Tsushima. Similarly, poverty was also a severe problem in Kyushu at this time. Given the massive scale of wakō attacks, however, another impetus was the need for grain to supply Southern Court armies. Prince Kaneyoshi, the court’s leader in Kyushu, actively collaborated with wakō toward this end. In other words, wakō based near the coast of Higo [Kumamoto area] and at Tsushima, Iki, and Matsuura supported Prince Kaneyoshi and his Southern Court by providing needed supplies, plundered from Korea. In return, Kaneyoshi provided protection for the wakō. In contrast, Kyūshū tandai Imagawa Ryōshun, head of the Northern Court in Kyushu, sought to suppress wakō piracy.

Envoys from Korea traveled to Japan in an effort to stem the tide of piracy, the first of whom arrived at Kyoto in 1366. The Muromachi bakufu sought good relations with Korea, but its control over Kyushu was limited at the time. The piracy problem prompted the bakufu to pursue military pacification of Kyushu. It eventually succeeded, but the Southern Court wakō became even more active during the 1370s, prompting the following 1375 message from the bakufu to the Korean court via the Tenryūji priest Tokusō Shūsa: “Kyushu is broken apart by rebelling subjects and does not pay tribute; the stubborn subjects of the Western seacoast have become pirates. But these are not the doing of the bakufu. We are planning to dispatch a general to Kyushu to pacify the area and can promise to suppress the pirates.” Success in carrying out this promise required more than fifteen years. Southern Court wakō also attacked China, albeit less frequently. While the Korean court had obvious reasons to be gravely concerned with putting a stop to the wakō attacks, the reasons for the similarly intense concern by the Hóngwǔ emperor require further explanation. …

It is possible that the Korean court misunderstood the contours of political power in Japan at the time, especially the Seiseifu–wakō connection. By contrast, the Ming court dealt directly with Prince Kaneyoshi, attempting to make him into king of Japan. Some scholars have taken this move as a sign that Ming officials did not understand Japan’s internal conditions. However, it is more likely that the Ming court knew exactly who controlled the wakō and thus initially focused on Kaneyoshi.

The basic timeline of the rise and fall of the Southern Court in Kyushu begins in 1348 with a castle on the Higo coast near Yatsushiro that had two names, Hanaoka castle or Sashiki castle. It was in the territory of the Nawa family, who provided naval forces for the Southern Court. Seiseifu [征西府 ‘subjugation of the west’] headquarters moved around Kyushu with the changing tides of war. Seiseifu occupied the same space as the old Dazaifu between 1360 and 1372, the peak of Southern Court power. It relocated to Kikuchi in the mountains of Higo until 1381. … The Southern Court reunited with the Northern Court in 1392 ….

The defeat of the Southern Court in Kyushu caused migrations of wakō into the Ryukyu islands. … The collapse of Seiseifu power during the 1380s and 1390s put pressure on the Southern Court wakō in Kyushu to migrate. Moreover, developments in Korea also pressured wakō bands to change their tactics. Analysis of the number and size of wakō attacks compared with what they obtained and the losses they incurred reveals that even during the period 1364–1374, they had begun to experience diminishing returns to scale. The trend continued. The number and size of attacks increased during the 1370s and 1380s, but Korean resistance and evasion resulted in fewer per capita gains. For the most part, the effectiveness of wakō marauding in Korea tracked the rise and decline of Seiseifu. One result of decreasing wakō gains in Korea was an increase in raids on the Chinese coast. An element in this complex mix was increasingly effective Korean defenses, including costal fortifications, coordinated signal beacons using fire, more and better ships, better commanders, and more soldiers along the coast. The founding of the Joseon (Yi) dynasty in 1392 accelerated this process.

By the 1390s Southern Court wakō lost their state sponsors and many of their bases. They could still operate from islands such as Tsushima, but a hostile Muromachi bakufu, improved Korean defenses, and lower demand for the possible spoils of their attacks on Korea had the effect of pushing wakō bands southward. By this time, the busiest harbor in the Ryukyu islands was Naha.

…

The port of Naha served as a major intersection within the East China Sea network through which “pirates, captives, fishermen, divers, envoys, monks, traders, and other people traveled” during the fourteenth through sixteenth centuries. Merchants or wakō in Japan would have found sailing to Naha for trade more practical or more profitable than journeying directly to the coast of China or farther afield. The result was the creation of “a strange relationship of dependency” between Ryukyuan and Japanese merchants.

The first appearance of Ryukyu as a state in Korean records begins with a 1389 statement that an embassy from Ryukyu returned Koreans who had been captured by pirates. The repatriation of captured Koreans recurred frequently thereafter as a reason for Ryukyu-sponsored voyages to Korea. Although the Korean court granted favorable treatment to these embassies, it did not actively encourage trade with Ryukyu. In this context, Korean people were valuable commodities, whose repatriation permitted potentially lucrative trade embassies. Repatriation was not necessarily an act of benevolence. It constituted “one variety of the slave trade.”

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by | 11 June 2025 · 1:31 am

Origins of Ryukyu People & Culture

From Maritime Ryukyu, 1050–1650, by Gregory Smits (University of Hawaii Press, 2018), Kindle pp. 58-61:

The flow of people, culture, and technology into Okinawa, Kumejima, and Sakishima was mainly from north to south. Some of this flow came from Michinoshima, some from Korea, and most of it from Japan, especially western Kyushu and nearby islands. Tanigawa Ken’ichi has metaphorically called it an “attack of northern culture.” Subsequent sections and chapters explore this topic further. Here I mention several physical manifestations of the north-to-south flow.

The climate in Okinawa is not suited to preserving skeletal remains, but there has been sufficient excavation and testing to warrant several conclusions. One is a significant break between the physical structure of prehistoric residents of Okinawa and those of later eras. Okinawan skeletal remains from about the eleventh or twelfth centuries onward begin closely to resemble their counterparts in Japan during the Kamakura and Muromachi periods. As Thomas Pellard points out, “The bearers of Gusuku [castle walls] culture expanded within the whole Ryukyu Archipelago, and preexisting foragers, who were few, simply died out or were assimilated without leaving a significant trace.” Omoro descriptions of the clothing and other aspects of the appearance of local rulers suggest that at least some were direct arrivals from Kamakura-era Japan. Furthermore, excavations of Okinawan weapons and armor reveal that they were the same as those used in Japan during the era of the Northern and Southern Courts (ca. 1335–1392) and the Muromachi period. In general, most military items excavated in Okinawa were made in Japan.

DNA evidence from recent studies is consonant with this situation. Studies of both modern and ancient DNA “tend to show that Ryukyuans form a group closely related to Mainland Japanese.” Moreover, despite geographical proximity, “Southern Ryukyuans do not show any particular affinity with the Austronesian populations of Taiwan, and they form a clear subgroup with Northern Ryukyuans.” Genetic diversity in the Ryukyu islands is relatively low, which indicates a lack of long-term isolation. In other words, the Ryukyu islands were part of a larger network, and the migration from regions to the north that populated the Ryukyu islands and brought Gusuku culture, “agriculture, ceramics, and the Proto-Ryukyuan language,” took place between approximately the tenth and twelfth centuries. Most likely the [turbo] shell trade was the major economic driving force behind much of this migration.

…

Early Okinawa’s ties with China are well known and frequently discussed, whereas ties with northern areas typically receive less attention in survey histories. China played a vital role in early Ryukyuan history as a conduit of material wealth. Nevertheless, prior to the seventeenth century, Chinese high culture had little impact on Ryukyu. Early Ryukyu’s technology (metallurgy, agriculture, weapons), literary and aesthetic culture (including oral traditions), religious culture (including Buddhism), the various Ryukyuan languages, and the vast majority of Ryukyu’s people came from the north. Much of the region’s economic activity also took place north of Okinawa. One additional indication of the interconnectedness of the northern routes was the fact that distinctive Ryukyuan place-names found in the Omoro [ancient poems] were known to Hakata merchants and to Koreans and appeared on their maps.

The Takase-Fujian route mentioned above became popular around the 1340s, diverting maritime traffic from the previous route, a line from Hakata to Níngbō. The new route greatly increased traffic through the southern Ryukyu islands, but smaller-scale private trade, piracy, and smuggling based at locations in Okinawa and points to the southwest had been occurring since the twelfth century and probably earlier.

During the thirteenth century, Chinese ceramics began to appear at major gusuku sites in Okinawa and the southern Ryukyu islands. Fragrant wine and other products from as far away as Thailand and Vietnam also began to make their way into the Ryukyu islands at this time. For example, a four-eared jar from the Khwae Noi River in Thailand was excavated at Nakijin. After the start of formal tribute relations with Ming China in 1372, the material wealth of several major gusuku sites such as Kumejima, Katsuren, Shuri, and Nakijin increased dramatically. Celadon (green ware) ceramic dolls, Buddhist statues, candleholders, and other specialized products have been excavated at these sites, as well as a wide variety of metal goods. China was a source of great wealth, both directly and indirectly. To understand Ming China’s role in the development of Ryukyu, it is necessary to undertake a close study of wakō, the topic of the next chapter.

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by | 10 June 2025 · 6:31 am

Early Ryukyu Burial Customs

From Maritime Ryukyu, 1050–1650, by Gregory Smits (University of Hawaii Press, 2018), Kindle pp. 50-51:

The practice of placing corpses in baskets or cages and leaving them at the top of trees or poles to decompose was characteristic of the Northern Tier Cultural Zone and regions farther north. Within the Ryukyu islands, the practice has been documented in Amami-Ōshima and in parts of central and northern Okinawa. Nagoya Sagenta was a Satsuma retainer. After residing in Amami-Ōshima between 1850 and 1855, he wrote a detailed description of the local culture, Nantō zatsuwa (Tales from the southern islands). It explains that, after the death of a priestess, “her corpse is placed in a large box, which is suspended from atop a tree for three years. Then the bones are washed and placed in a jar.”

Similar practices have been documented in places along the coastline of the Japan Sea in Akita, Yamagata, and Ishikawa Prefectures. In those places the remains are hoisted aloft after cremation. In Korea, hoisting (non-cremated) bodies into trees was done in the case of deaths from smallpox and other diseases. The practice was both a de facto sanitary measure and was thought to mollify the angry deity who had caused the disease by offering up the body. A broad range of northern Asian peoples, from the Koryaks in Kamchatka west to Mongolia, traditionally disposed of corpses or bones by placing them on platforms or in trees. Bones of humans or hunted animals thus offered up toward the heavens were believed to be reborn.

There is only one known example from Fukuoka, but folklore from the region such as the legend of the “bone-hanging tree” attests to the former existence of the practice. Kashiigū, a shrine in Fukuoka City with ties to Korea, derives its name from the legend that Emperor Chūai’s coffin was hung in a shii [as in shiitake] tree (Castanopsis cuspidata, Japanese chinquapin).

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by | 9 June 2025 · 8:32 am

Ryukyu Currents, Gaps, & Winds

From Maritime Ryukyu, 1050–1650, by Gregory Smits (University of Hawaii Press, 2018), Kindle pp. 34-35:

Stressing the interconnectedness of exchange networks within the East Asian region during approximately the fourteenth century, historian Angela Schottenhammer points out: “The centers of this exchange doubtlessly lay in China, Japan, and Korea. But also smaller countries and regions in the north and south of the China Sea, such as the Ryūkyūs or even traders from an island as small as Tsushima, participated and were integrated into this supra-regional system. Its initiators were often private organizations and merchants who sought to maintain and cherish their contacts even under politically unfavorable conditions.” Maritime routes connected the nodes within the network. Several factors influenced movement around the East China Sea, including currents, winds, and landforms.

The Kuroshio is a strong current flowing northward between Taiwan and Yonaguni and continuing northward to the west of the Ryukyu islands. Northwest of Amami-Ōshima, the Kuroshio turns eastward and flows through the sea between the Tokara islands and Amami-Ōshima, an area known as the Shichitō-nada [‘seven-island rough-sea’]. In other words, the Kuroshio forms a natural barrier between the Tokara and the northern Ryukyu islands. Its flow created dangerous conditions for shipping, and it defines a biological barrier with substantially different flora and fauna on either side of it. The Shichitō-nada also marks a cultural boundary, albeit a permeable one that people could and did cross. This boundary divides Ryukyuan languages and the Kyushu dialects of Japanese. In 1893, when Sasamori Gisuke sailed from Kagoshima to visit the Ryukyu islands, he was struck by the terrifying power of the current in the Shichitō-nada. A sailor explained to Sasamori that if a typical Japanese-style sailing vessel encountered the current, it might be swept far off course into the Pacific. The Kuroshio surging through the seas around the southern Tokara islands is one reason mariners from that area became especially prized as pilots throughout the network. Likewise, the Kuroshio serves as a marine barrier between Yonaguni and both Taiwan and the southeast coast of China.

Between Okinawa and Miyako, the expanse of sea known as the Kerama gap functioned as a barrier to travel because crossing it required navigation without reference to visible landforms. Despite the significance of these natural obstacles, properly equipped and piloted vessels regularly overcame them. Sailing from Kikai to the port of Naha in Okinawa could be done entirely within sight of land on clear days. Therefore, relatively small ships could travel this route without advanced navigational skills. To sail from Amami-Ōshima to Tokara, or from Okinawa to Sakishima, or to the China coast, on the other hand, required superior ships, knowledge, and skill. The wind was the main driving force for vessels plying routes around the East China Sea. Storms, of course, could be disruptive, but generally wind patterns were predictable. The winds in the region changed during approximately the third and ninth lunar months.

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by | 8 June 2025 · 9:23 am

Ryukyu Historiography Sources

From Maritime Ryukyu, 1050–1650, by Gregory Smits (University of Hawaii Press, 2018), Kindle pp. 13-15:

This book is an interdisciplinary, revisionist history of the Ryukyu islands between approximately 1050 and 1650 with occasional excursions into later years. The year 1050 marks the approximate beginning of the “Gusuku [castle walls] Period” in the Ryukyu islands, a time when power centers emerged. In 1650, Shō Shōken (1617–1675) published Reflections on Chūzan (Chūzan seikan), Ryukyu’s first official history. For reasons that will become clear, this event is a fitting end point for this study….

During most of the period covered in this book, Ryukyuans produced few domestic written documents. Chinese residing near the port of Naha handled the documentation connected with tribute trade, and Buddhist priests from Japan were available to assist with diplomatic correspondence. However, there is no evidence of the use of written documents to conduct government administration before the sixteenth century. Even as late as 1606, Xià Zǐyáng, a Chinese investiture envoy residing in Ryukyu, concluded that “literary culture is not widespread” even among the priests of the royal temple of Enkakuji, who were deeply respected as Ryukyu’s learned elite. Shō Shōken was among the first generation of Ryukyuan officials who could engage Chinese or Japanese literate society in a sophisticated manner.

What, therefore, were the sources Shō Shōken and later writers of official histories used? According to the introduction in Reflections, he interviewed elderly officials. Chinese records and written accounts by Japanese or Korean visitors provided some information, but for the most part, the details of early Ryukyu in the official histories are based on lore of unverifiable provenance. To some extent for sixteenth-century material, and more so from the seventeenth century onward, it is possible to corroborate accounts in the official histories using other sources. For material before the sixteenth century, however, such corroboration is rarely possible.

Ryukyu’s official histories share an ideological perspective. Steeped in Confucian historiography, they assume that a morally attuned universe guides the trajectory of human societies. Morally upright rulers bring tranquility, prosperity, dynastic longevity, and other desirable social characteristics. Strife, disorder, succession disputes, and dynastic turnover, by contrast, are evidence of rulers’ moral shortcomings. Founders of a ruling line were always virtuous. Conversely, the last ruler of a line could only have been morally deficient, not a victim of forces beyond his control. In addition, the official histories functioned to project an image of Ryukyu for outside consumption. In this context, they exaggerated the antiquity of a unified Okinawan state, positing its origins around 1200, approximately three centuries too early.

The official histories have created the dominant framework for early Ryukyuan history to this day. This book is an attempt to write a history of early Ryukyu from outside that framework. Instead of assuming that the official histories are probably accurate unless proven otherwise, I took the working hypothesis that material in the official histories before the sixteenth century is likely to be unreliable unless corroborated by other sources or evidence. Implicit in distancing myself from the official histories is the argument that it is possible to write a more nuanced and accurate history of early Ryukyu by looking elsewhere.

One important alternative source is Omoro sōshi, a collection of songs composed between approximately the twelfth and early seventeenth centuries. Other than diplomatic and trade documents and a few monument inscriptions, it contains the only native Ryukyuan source material predating the sixteenth century. Using Omoro sōshi as a historical source is not new. Iha Fuyū (1876–1947) did so, and in 1987 Mitsugu Sakihara published A Brief History of Early Okinawa Based on the Omoro Sōshi. Sakihara sought to combine “the traditional official records and histories” with the Omoro songs to create “a more accurate and vivid reconstruction.” In 2006 Yoshinari Naoki and Fuku Hiromi published a revisionist history of early Ryukyu based on a close reading of Omoro sōshi songs. They have expanded this initial effort in subsequent single- and dual-authored books.

To use Omoro sōshi effectively it is necessary to map the cultural geography reflected in its songs. While later chapters of this book rely on a mix of sources more typical of historical research, the early chapters are interdisciplinary. In them, I rely on published research in the fields of cultural anthropology and archaeology and supplement this material with conventional historical sources such as official Chinese and Korean records. Throughout the analysis, I engage Ryukyu’s official histories when appropriate, but I rarely rely on them. Moreover, I often arrive at different conclusions.

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by | 7 June 2025 · 4:51 pm

French Troops Leave Vietnam, 1956

From Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America’s Vietnam, by Fredrik Logevall (Random House, 2012), Kindle pp. 819-821:

THE IMPORT OF THE MOMENT WAS NOT LOST ON LEADERS IN HANOI. They understood only too well that with his victory over the sects in early May 1955, Ngo Dinh Diem had achieved his long-sought objective: the consolidation of power in Saigon as well as staunch American backing for his government. French military and political influence in South Vietnam, meanwhile, had suffered a blow from which it would almost certainly never recover.

For Ho Chi Minh and his colleagues in the north, it was a stinging setback. Once again they had miscalculated, wrongly assuming that France would maintain a strong presence in the south through the elections for reunification scheduled for July 1956—elections that virtually all informed observers thought Ho would win—and thereby keep the United States from becoming more heavily entrenched. “It was with you, the French, that we signed the Geneva agreements, and it is up to you to see that they are respected,” Pham Van Dong, soon to be named DRV premier, had told a visiting French official on New Year’s Day 1955. On the first day of the year, it was still possible for Pham Van Dong to believe that France would follow through in that way; now, four months later, the hope seemed forever dashed. As they had done in 1946, during the negotiations that preceded the outbreak of major fighting, DRV leaders had overestimated the power of what they liked to call “democratic elements” in Paris to tilt French policy in Hanoi’s direction, or at least to ensure compliance among all concerned with the elections provision of the accords. In reality, few in French officialdom were so committed. With events in North Africa increasingly clamoring for attention, Indochina receded from view, and moreover there was the ever-present need to maintain smooth relations with Washington. Try though local French commanders might to assist the sects in their battle with Diem, they never had the full backing of authorities in the metropole.

And so, seemingly overnight, French political and military influence in South Vietnam withered. On May 20, 1955, French forces withdrew from the Saigon area and assembled in a coastal enclave. From there, their numbers steadily dwindled, until on April 28, 1956, the last French soldier departed Vietnam—signifying the symbolic end, some said, of France’s century in the Far East. Earlier in the month, on April 10, there occurred the last parade of French troops in Saigon. Foreign legionnaires in sparkling white kepis, paratroopers in camouflage uniforms and dark red berets, and bearded Moroccans with tan turbans marched by, their flags rippling in the breeze. In the crowd were Vietnamese who wore medals they had won in the service of France. Some could be seen wiping away tears as the troops disappeared out of view, bound for their waiting ships.

…

That month Paris also shut down the Ministry for the Associated States and moved its functions to the Foreign Ministry. And to fully sever the old colonial connection, France withdrew her high commissioner from Vietnam (to be replaced by an ambassador, who was not appointed for more than a year).

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by | 5 June 2025 · 12:36 pm

Diem Survives in 1955

From Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America’s Vietnam, by Fredrik Logevall (Random House, 2012), Kindle pp. 813-815:

Then, in late April, with [“Lightning Joe”] Collins back in Washington for consultations, Eisenhower and Dulles went further, in effect conceding the ambassador’s point, made during lunch with the president on April 22, that “the net of it is … this fellow is impossible.” They took the plunge. At 6:10 and 6:11 P.M. on April 27, 1955, top-secret cables went out from the State Department to the embassies in Saigon and Paris initiating a process designed to remove Diem and replace him with a leader selected by Generals Collins and Ely (while every effort was to be made to make the new government appear to be chosen by the Vietnamese). Diem was to be told that “as a result of his inability to create a broadly based coalition government, and because of Vietnamese resistance to him,” the United States and France “are no longer in a position to prevent his removal from office.”

Then, near midnight the same day, came word from Saigon: Fighting had erupted in the streets of the city between the Binh Xuyen and the VNA. Almost certainly Diem had been tipped off about the ouster orders, perhaps by [CIA agent] Lansdale, who was by his side almost continuously throughout the crisis. With nothing to lose and much to gain, he then in all likelihood initiated the battle. Diem always denied being the instigator, and it’s not outside the realm of possibility that the Binh Xuyen fired first; conclusive evidence remains elusive. Whatever the case, the violence worked immediately to Diem’s advantage: At 11:56 P.M., Dulles canceled the earlier directives calling for Diem’s removal, less than six hours after they had been issued. In the days thereafter, fierce gunfights continued, leaving five hundred dead and two thousand wounded, and government troops gradually got the upper hand. Leading sect figures surrendered. Trinh Minh Thé was killed by a shot to the back of the head while he watched his troops engaging Binh Xuyen forces, the identity and allegiance of his assassin forever a mystery. Soon the crime syndicate was routed, and Bay Vien, the vice kingpin of Saigon-Cholon, fled to a cushy retirement in Paris. The religious sects retreated slowly into the Mekong Delta background, never again to threaten Diem’s rule.

No less portentous for the future, Diem’s actions in the “Battle of Saigon” made him a heroic figure to many in the U.S. Congress and press. In the Senate, California Republican William Knowland offered a lengthy paean to Diem’s fortitude and courage, and Minnesota Democrat Hubert Humphrey proclaimed that “Premier Diem is an honest, wholesome, and honorable man. He is the kind of man we ought to be supporting, rather than conspirators, gangsters, and hoodlums … who are diabolical, sinister, and corrupt.” Mansfield chimed in too, extolling Diem as the leader of a “decent and honest government.” Members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee registered their opposition to the administration’s withdrawing support from Diem. Democratic congressman Thomas Dodd of Connecticut demanded that Collins be fired in favor of “someone who measures up to the needs of the hour.”

Publisher Henry Luce, in his weekly editorial in Life, could barely restrain himself: “Every son, daughter or even distant admirer of the American Revolution should be overjoyed and learn to shout, if not pronounce, ‘Hurrah for Ngo Dinh Diem!’ ” Diem’s decision to confront the “Binh Xuyen gangsters,” Luce went on, “immensely simplifies the task of U.S. diplomacy in Saigon. That task is, or should be, simply to back Diem to the hilt.” U. S. News & World Report made the same argument in more restrained language, as did The New York Times. The latter added a prediction: “If Premier Ngo Dinh Diem should be overthrown by the combination of gangsters, cultists, and French colonials who have been gunning for him, the communists will have won a significant victory.”

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by | 4 June 2025 · 5:33 am

Catholic Exodus to South Vietnam

From Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America’s Vietnam, by Fredrik Logevall (Random House, 2012), Kindle pp. 804-805:

Lansdale also helped facilitate the mass movement of refugees from north to south—though almost certainly his role has been exaggerated in some accounts. Beginning in a serious way in the summer of 1954, waves of refugees, most of them Catholic, went to the south under the provisions of the Geneva Accords permitting civilian regroupment. (Article 14d: “Any civilians residing in a district controlled by one party who wish to go and live in the zone assigned to the other party shall be permitted and helped to do so.”) As hundreds of thousands of refugees descended upon Haiphong in August and awaited evacuation, the French Air Force and Navy, realizing they were unprepared for the onslaught, asked Washington for assistance. The Pentagon ordered the U.S. Navy to mobilize a task force to assist in the evacuation, and in short order, ships were steaming from Subic Bay in the Philippines, bound for Haiphong.

All told, French and U.S. ships would make some five hundred trips in three hundred days, ferrying almost nine hundred thousand people southward, in perhaps the largest civilian evacuation—and largest sea migration—in history to that point. Entire northern Catholic communities abandoned most of their worldly possessions and set off en masse, their priests in the lead, in what the U.S. Navy dubbed Operation Passage to Freedom. The result was a major reordering of the religious balance of Vietnam. Before the exodus, most Vietnamese Catholics lived north of the seventeenth parallel; afterward the majority lived south of it. By 1956, the diocese of Saigon had more Catholics than Paris or Rome. By then, more than a million of Vietnam’s Catholics lived in the south, 55 percent of them refugees from the north.

The United States and the State of Vietnam reaped significant propaganda benefits from the mass exodus to the south in 1954–55. It seemed a perfect example of refugees “voting with their feet,” a damning indictment of the Viet Minh regime, and it was especially notable for the fact that comparatively few people went in the other direction, from south to north. The evacuation received wide play in the American press, with readers learning that the travelers, once they completed the journey, were given “welcome kits” of soap, towel, and toothpaste, and tins of milk labeled “From the people of America to the people of Viet Nam—a gift.” Left out of the accounts was that the exodus was not altogether spontaneous. Though many Catholics needed no incentive to leave the north, Lansdale and his CIA team initiated a campaign to convince the skeptics. In Catholic areas in the north, they broadcast the messages that “Christ has gone to the south” and “The Virgin Mary has departed the north” in order to be with Diem, a devout Catholic. They promised “five acres and a water buffalo” to every relocated refugee. In another gambit, Lansdale arranged for leaflets to be dropped over the same areas showing a map of North Vietnam with a series of concentric circles emanating from Hanoi. The none-too-subtle suggestion: that Hanoi was a likely target for a U.S. atomic bomb.

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Filed under France, migration, military, nationalism, religion, U.S., Vietnam