Economic History of Vietnam - Pre-Colonial Vietnam

Pre-Colonial Vietnam

See also: Vietnamese cash, Cochinchina Piastre, and French Indochinese piastre

North, South, and Central Vietnam historically were divided by ethnolinguistic differences, but until the midnineteenth century and the beginning of the French colonial period, they were all agrarian, subsistence, and village-oriented societies.

In pre-colonial Vietnam, agriculture was always the foundation of the country. Wet rice culture began in the Red River delta with the development of dikes. Vietnam became the cradle of forest products, either as a commodity or tribute, for China during her occupation until the tenth century. The dynasties of its independent age from the tenth to nineteenth centuries, due to the Confucian ideology, supported agriculture as the foundation of the society. The farmers, officials and royal relatives were allotted lands. The private right of the land was also guaranteed by laws. Lands could be transferred, sold or mortgaged. Products from lands would be taxed and gathered in public granaries for the time of famine, war or natural disaster.

Domestic and international exchange was undeniably significant in traditional Vietnam. Trade and markets operated freely under the laws and became the source of tax. Cash or coins circulated were both Chinese and Vietnamese. Banknotes or paper money did exist in the fifteenth century and during the Lê Dynasty (1428-1788). Chinese merchants were the major traders prioritised in Vietnam. In the seventeenth century, European merchants came. The Dutch East Indies Company, VOC, became active in trade with the southern kingdom under the Nguyễn Lords while in the northern kingdom where the Trịnh Lords ruled on behalf of the Le dynasty, the foreign trade allowed was only with China. Due to the war between the northern and southern kingdoms, western weapons in exchange of local products were the highlights of economic activity in the seventeenth century.

However Vietnam's economic situation was always under pressure from wars and natural calamities. Famine happened from times to times. Due to the southward expansion, Vietnamese migrants and soldiers were sent to open new lands occupied from the central plain to the Mekong Delta. Taxes were settled and collected when the state was in need, yet the tax exemption was generally declared in the times of calamity. This unavoidably caused the state's finance unstable and finally, the poverty of the people in general.