Vĩnh Tế Canal

The Vĩnh Tế Canal (Vietnamese: Kênh Vĩnh Tế / 涇永濟,^[1] Khmer: ព្រែកជីក or ព្រែកយួន) is an 87-kilometre-long (54 mi) canal in southern Vietnam, designed to give the territory of Châu Đốc a direct access to the Hà Tiên sea gate, Gulf of Siam.^[2][3]

Vĩnh Tế Canal
A portion of Vĩnh Tế Canal in Châu Đốc, An Giang Province
Country	Vietnam
Specifications
Length	87 km (54 miles)
Geography
Direction	Southwest
Start point	Châu Đốc
End point	near Hà Tiên
Beginning coordinates	10°43′08″N 105°06′50″E
Ending coordinates	10°31′55″N 104°35′56″E

Background

Construction of the Vĩnh Tế Canal began in 1819, during the Nguyễn dynasty, a period that saw significant expansion and consolidation of the Vietnamese state during Trịnh and Nguyễn lords era.^[4] In particular, the Khmer regions of Siem Reap, Battambang, the Cardamom Mountains, the southern coast, and Hà Tiên were sites of contestation for both Siamese and Vietnamese rule.^[5]

After the construction of Thoại Hà Canal, Emperor Gia Long of Nguyễn dynasty ordered the mandarin Nguyễn Văn Thoại to dig a new canal along the today Cambodian–Vietnamese border.^[2][3] The emperor's edict said: "this canal-digging project is tough, but its role in [our] national security and national defense is not small, we should accept the hardship so that our descendants would have the benefit".^[3][6]

Alongside other canals constructed in the early nineteenth century, the Vĩnh Tế Canal facilitated the advancement of the Vietnamese state into the Kampuchea Krom region of the Khmer world through both infrastructural and defense support.^[7]

Construction

The construction of the canal was started in the end of 1819.^[3] The project used about 80,000 local Vietnamese and Khmer workers.^[3] After the death of Emperor Gia Long, the succeeding Emperor Minh Mạng continued the project.

Working Conditions

The workers, especially the Khmers, were heavily exploited by being forced to do hard work, resulting in thousands of deaths from fatigue and consequent disease during the canal's construction.^[8] Further, Cambodian nationalists relate that Khmer workers who disobeyed orders were reportedly buried to their necks, with their heads used by the Vietnamese as cooking tripods for boiling tea.^[9] Consequently, the Vinh Te Canal became a symbol of Vietnamese mistreatment of the Khmer and was used later by the Khmer Rouge in anti-Vietnamese propaganda.^[10]

Rebellions

Khmer sources documented the abusive working conditions to have sparked numerous Khmer-led rebellions, including one where several thousand Khmer workers led by a Theravada Buddhist monk ambushed an ethnically mixed Vietnamese military regiment.^[11] While the Khmer soldiers in the unit "refused to fire on the workers", the rebellion was eventually crushed by reinforcements sent by the Nguyễn viceroy in Sài Gòn.^[11]

When the construction was completed in 1824, Emperor Minh Mạng named the canal after Châu Vĩnh Tế, the wife of its builder Nguyen Van Thoai.^[3] Historian David Biggs suggests that the naming of the canal sought to honor her for "[arranging] aid for and [consoling] loved ones of workers killed by disease and fighting" resulting from its construction.^[11]

Biggs further suggests that the rebellions initiated by Khmer workers against the construction of these canals were not solely a product of poor working conditions, but were driven by a broader political consciousness. Given Khmer workers' awareness that projects like the Vĩnh Tế canal facilitated Vietnamese control over the Cambodia frontier, Biggs argues that the uprisings were a form of resistance against further Vietnamese expansion into Khmer territory.^[12]

References

1. 《國朝正編撮要·卷之二》：浚朱篤江道，通于河仙，賜名永濟河。
2. Writing staff (2006). "Kênh Vĩnh Tế". Encyclopedic Dictionary of Vietnam. Retrieved 2009-02-17.
3. Bảo Trị & Thành Trinh (2009). "Từ kênh Võ Văn Kiệt nhớ kênh Vĩnh Tế" (in Vietnamese). An Giang Newspaper. Archived from the original on 2011-09-05. Retrieved 2009-02-17.
4. Liêm, Vũ Đức (2016). "Vietnam at the Khmer Frontier: Boundary Politics, 1802–1847". Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review. 5 (2): 535. doi:10.1353/ach.2016.0018. ISSN 2158-9674.
5. Liêm, Vũ Đức (2016). "Vietnam at the Khmer Frontier: Boundary Politics, 1802–1847". Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review. 5 (2): 542. doi:10.1353/ach.2016.0018. ISSN 2158-9674.
6. 《國朝正編撮要·卷之二》：帝嘉悅，詔諭永清民曰：「此河開鑿，工役至艱。國計邊籌，所開□細。爾等雖有今日之勞，而寔有萬世之利。其各胥相報告，毋憚勞焉。」
7. Liêm, Vũ Đức (2016). "Vietnam at the Khmer Frontier: Boundary Politics, 1802–1847". Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review. 5 (2): 543. doi:10.1353/ach.2016.0018. ISSN 2158-9674.
8. Thi Dieu Nguyen (1999). The Mekong River and the struggle for Indochina: water, war, and peace. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 19. ISBN 0-275-96137-0.
9. Taylor, Philip. The Khmer lands of Vietnam : environment, cosmology, and sovereignty. p. 183. OCLC 1002061468.
10. Nayan Chanda (1986). Brother Enemy: the war after the war. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. p. 52. ISBN 0-15-114420-6.
11. Biggs, David. Quagmire: Nation-Building and Nature in the Mekong Delta. University of Washington Press. pp. 67–8.
12. Biggs, David. Quagmire: Nation-Building and Nature in the Mekong Delta. p. 51.