French conquest For a series of complex reasons, the
Second French Empire of
Napoleon III, with the help of
Spanish troops arriving from the
Spanish East Indies, attacked
Đà Nẵng (Tourane) of
Nguyen Dynasty Vietnam in September 1858. Unable to occupy Đà Nẵng, the alliance moved to
Lower Cochinchina in the South. On 17 February 1859, they
captured Saigon. Later on, the French defeated the Nguyễn army at the
Battle of Ky Hoa in 1861. The
Vietnamese government was forced to cede the three southern Vietnamese provinces of
Biên Hòa,
Gia Định and
Định Tường to France in the June 1862
Treaty of Saigon. In 1867, French Admiral Pierre de la Grandière forced the Vietnamese to surrender three additional provinces,
Châu Đốc,
Hà Tiên and
Vĩnh Long. With these three additions all of southern Vietnam and the Mekong Delta fell under French control.
French colony In 1871 all the territories ceded to the French in southern Vietnam were incorporated as colony of Cochinchina, with Admiral
Dupré as its first governor. As a result, the name "Cochinchina" came to refer exclusively to the southern third of Vietnam. (In Catholic ecclesiastical contexts Cochinchina still related to the older meaning of
Đàng Trong until 1924 when the three
Apostolic Vicariates of Northern, Eastern, and Western Cochinchina were renamed to Apostolic Vicariates of
Huế,
Qui Nhơn, and
Saïgon). In 1887, the colony became a confederal member of the
Union of French Indochina. Unlike the protectorates of
Annam (central Vietnam) and
Tonkin (northern Vietnam), Cochinchina was ruled directly by the French, both
de jure and
de facto, and was represented by a deputy in the
National Assembly in Paris. Within Indochina, Cochinchina was the territory with the greatest European presence. At its height, in 1940, it was estimated at 16,550 people, the vast majority living in Saigon. The French authorities dispossessed Vietnamese landowners and peasants to ensure European control of the expansion of rice and rubber production. As they expanded in response to the increased rubber demand after the
First World War, the European plantations recruited, as indentured labour, workers from "the overcrowded villages of the
Red River Delta in
Tonkin and the coastal lowlands of
Annam". These migrants brought south the influence of the
Communist Party of Nguyen Ai Quoc (
Ho Chi Minh), and of other underground nationalist parties (the
Tan Viet and
Việt Nam Quốc Dân Đảng – VNQDD). At the same time, the local peasantry were driven into debt servitude, and into plantation labour, by land and
poll taxes. Such conditions contributed to the
1916 Cochinchina uprising, and to widespread agrarian and labor unrest in 1930-32. In 1936 the formation in France of the
Popular Front government led by
Leon Blum was accompanied by promises of colonial reform. Failure to deliver, helped generate further unrest culminating in the summer of 1937 in general dock and transport strikes. The left anti-colonial forces split between the Moscow-oriented
Communist Party and their
Trotskyist left opposition and, following the French declaration of war against Germany in September 1939 was suppressed. Under the slogan "Land to the Tillers, Freedom for the workers and independence for Vietnam", in November 1940 the Communist Party in Cochinchina instigated a widespread
insurrection. Fighting in the Mekong Delta continued until the end of the year. ==Southern Resistance War and incorporation into South Vietnam, 1945–1955 ==