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Tonkin, Cochinchina, the Uplands, and Lao Polities in Seventeenth-and-Eighteenth Century Vietnam

Sat, March 18, 3:00 to 5:00pm, Sheraton Centre Toronto Hotel, Floor: 2nd Floor, Dufferin

Abstract

Though the general outline of Nguyễn Vietnamese competition with Siam over the lands of modern-day Cambodia and Laos are well established, neither the specific early modern polities over which these battles were being fought nor the specific historical events involved in these competitions are clear prior to the late eighteenth century. This paper intends to establish what these events were, but also to present an account of how the Nguyễn and Trịnh understood their encounters with Lao polities. In this way, this presentation will serve as a complement to that of Ryan Wolfson-Ford, who will examine the impression that Lao polities have of these Vietnamese. The presentation will focus on episodes of contact between Lao and Vietnamese polities in 1622 and 1697, on sorting out the relations between the mysterious Triều Phúc (also known as Sai Ong Hue and sometimes identified Setthathirath II, d. ca. 1735) and the Nguyễn. It will discuss the relationship between the Nguyễn and this Lao polity, and attempt to understand why the Nguyễn sent troops and diplomats to aid Triều Phúc in a war against Lakhon (1709-1715). Finally, this paper will try to sort out the larger implications for trade and diplomacy of Triều Phúc’s connection with the Nguyễn, and whether these relations have ties to the Mạc clan of Hà Tiên or to the Lê Duy Mật rebellion of the 1760s.

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