After a fair amount of work transcribing and trying to find old placenames (thank you, US Army gazetteers!), I announce the second update to the list of conflicts, places, and events of the 1930-31 Nghe-Tinh Soviets. As I note on the Conflcits and Events page, I haven’t even begun to include local conflicts from local histories. This is just at the macro level! We’re just getting started! Note that I tried to cross-verify events between sources, which is a project unto itself. To try to avoid inflation of the number of people killed, I tend to choose the lower number of deaths and injuries from a particular incident. Enjoy!
Leave a CommentMonth: July 2020
Last week, one set of important additions to the list of pre-1932 Catholic Churches were the following four sites in Tương Dương District, Nghệ An:
• Nà Hỳ: Catholic Village
• Khe Kiền: Catholic Village
• Canh Trap: Catholic Church
• Khe Hỳ: Catholic Village
These sites are noted on the 1920 Carte des missions catholiques, with spellings consistent for the time: Na Hi, Ke Kien, Canh Trap, and Ke Hi. I have learned when searching for these sites on modern maps to add an “h” after the initial “k” to produce the modern Vietnamese “khe” or “ravine”. It took me a long time of searching to find out anything about these communities during the colonial era, until I stumbled across a reference at the Institut de Recherche France-Asie (https://www.irfa.paris/fr), archives affiliated with the Missions étrangères de Paris, the organization that managed the Catholic Church in colonial Indochina south of Thanh Hoa.
Apparently, a missionary decided to evangelize among and serve the small number of Catholic families (ethnic Vietnamese? Hmong? Thô?) in far western Tương Dương district. I quote,
En 1890, [Pierre Marie Théodore GUIGNARD Pierre (1864 – 1930)] réunit quelques familles et en 1892, laissant Van Loc à un autre, il va s’installer à Canh-Trap, au confluent du Song Ca et d’un torrent, à 185 kms. de Vinh. Il y construit maison et oratoire, groupe des catéchumènes et les instruit. Entre temps, il achète des terrains à Khe-Kien, puis à Khe-Hy ; il y jette les bases de nouvelles stations, ainsi qu’à Na-Hy, et cela malgré les oppositions d’un mandarin, et plus tard d’un colon français qui mit tout en oeuvre pour entraver l’évangélisation des montagnards. Ainsi, de 1892 à 1895, il réussit à grouper 650 fidèles dans ces quatre postes. En 1904, son évêque venait bénir une belle église à Canh-Trap. Lorsqu’il quitta ce poste en 1906, il y avait quatre paroisses avec quatre prêtres résidents. Depuis longtemps, en effet, il était miné par la fièvre ; il redescendit dans le bas Ngan-Ca, à Van Loc, comme curé de la paroisse et chef du district.
[In 1890, [Pierre Marie Théodore GUIGNARD Pierre (1864 – 1930)] reunited a few families and in 1892, leaving Van Loc to another [priest], he moved to Canh-Trap, at the confluence of Song Ca and a torrent, 185 kms away from Vinh. There he built a house and an oratory, [brought together] a group of catechumens and instructed them. In the meantime, he bought land in Khe-Kien, then in Khe-Hy; he laid the foundations for new stations there, as well as at Na-Hy, despite the opposition of a Mandarin, and later of a French settler who did everything to hinder the evangelization of mountain people. Thus, from 1892 to 1895, he managed to group 650 faithful in these four posts. In 1904, his bishop came to bless a beautiful church in Canh-Trap. When he left this post in 1906, there were four parishes with four resident priests. For a long time, in fact, he had been plagued by fever; he went back down below Ngan-Ca, to Van Loc, as parish priest and district chief.]
I wonder if the French settler is “Dulcé”, whose concession appears in Con Cuông? The only references to a Dulcé I have found so far is for an Albert Dulcé who cooperated on a coal mine in Tonkin before World War I (See http://entreprises-coloniales.fr/inde-indochine/Charbonnages_de_Dei-Dhan.pdf) and a vague reference to a phosphate mine in Nghe An in 1931, along with several other settlers such as Lejeune, Frossard, and Bui Huy Tin (see http://www.entreprises-coloniales.fr/inde-indochine/Chrome_et_nickel_IC.pdf). Dulcé is cited as giving testimony to the 1931 Commission d’Enquête on page 71 of Antlöv, Hans, and Stein Tønnesson. Imperial Policy and Southeast Asian Nationalism, 1930-1957. 1995. and on page 129 of James C. Scott’s Moral Economy of the Peasant (New Haven: Yale UP, 1976).
Why would Dulcé try to chase Father Guignard from Cahn Trap? How did this influence events in Tương Dương in 1930 and 1931?
I better re-read my Bảo tàng Xô viết Nghệ Tĩnh,. Nhân dân các dân tộc ở Môn Sơn, Con Cuông trong cao trào Xô Viết Nghệ Tĩnh: kỷ yếu tọa đàm khoa học kỷ niệm 75 năm ngày thành lập chi bộ Đảng Môn Sơn, huyện Con Cuông-Nghệ An (2007).
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