There was growing resistance to imperialism, using both weapons and words. Phan Boi Chau, an educated Vietnamese, chose words and formed one of the first important movements against the French in 1904. He wrote a torrent of pamphlets and essays describing the crimes of French occupiers of his homeland and proposing that the Vietnamese would become great and independent once they became more modern. Here is an excerpt from his essay “The New Vietnam” (1907). In 1925, the French condemned him to death for his ideas but ultimately allowed him to spend the rest of his life under police guard.

After a thousand kilometers of railroads have been laid, merchandise to be exchanged would reach its destination in hours; sprawling cities and large villages would promptly communicate with one another, then even if we were to relax in a sculpted house or if we were just to sit on a flowered mat, it would still feel as though we have scaled mountains and crossed rivers. What a wonderful sensation that will be! . . .

Ever since France came to protect us, Frenchmen hold every lever of power; they hold the power of life and death over everyone. The life of thousands of Vietnamese people is not worth that of a French dog; the moral prestige of hundreds of our officials does not prevail over that of a French woman. Look at those men with blue eyes and yellow beards. They are not our fathers, nor are they our brothers. How can they squat here, defecating on our heads? Are the men from Vietnam not ashamed of that situation? As long as our bodies remain able, we should try to flatten the crest of the open ocean; we should be determined to kill the enemy in order to raise the energy of the yellow race of ours.

After modernization we shall determine the domestic as well as foreign affairs of our country. The work of civilization will go on, day after day, and our country’s status in the world will be heightened. We shall have three million infantrymen, as fierce as tigers, looking into the four corners of the universe. . . . All the shame and humiliation we have suffered previously . . . will become potent medicine to help us build up this feat of modernization. . . . The wind of freedom will blow fiercely, refreshing in one single sweep the entire five continents. Such will be the victory of our race.

Source: “The New Vietnam” (1907), quoted in Truong Buu Lam, Colonialism Experienced: Vietnamese Writings on Colonialism 1900–1931 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000), 105–8.

Question to Consider

What are Phan Boi Chau’s charges against the French, and how does he see the future of Vietnam?