Unhealthy air of the mountains: Kinh and ethnic minority rule on the Sino–Vietnamese frontier from the fi fteenth to the twentieth century

In this chapter, I explore Vietnamese and French rule on the border with China, covering the period from the fi fteenth to the twentieth century. What comes across clearly from the sources is that whether it is the Vietnamese court or the French colonial authorities, both struggled to fi nd enough Vietnamese (kinh) offi cials to work on the border and consequently relied heavily on a number of local hereditary chiefs (tho ty) for the border’s defence and administration. The evidence represents a healthy corrective to the usual argument of assimilation of ethnic minority people by the kinh, suggesting that in fact the opposite process may have occurred. In the chapter, I present material on three ethnic Tay lineages, the Nong, the Ma Doan, and the Vi, showing how their infl uence on the border persisted despite an assault on their power during the reign of Nguyen Emperor Minh Mang (1820-40) and, some years later, the onset of French colonial rule.1