| Summary: | This thesis provides a different interpretation and new insights on Vietnam's social and economic history through a study of Indochina's rubber planters and migrant contract labour up to 1939. A different reading of available material and use of new sources, such as Michelin Archives, Archives of the Colonial Union, the Comité de l'Indochine, Nam Dinh and Hanoi's local Archives, supplemented by interviews with former rubber plantation workers, have been used to clarify obscure points and advance grasp of a subject that is yet to be fully and objectively studied. Apart from arguing that the role of the colonial state over labour was more than just a response to planter demands for assistance, I also postulate that labour supplying areas were neither overpopulated, invariably poor nor were recruits hapless. Rich agricultural lands, mineral resources, modem industry in parts of Tonkin, numerous craft industries, together with the all supportive Vietnamese Commune, provided Tonkin's peasants with varied means of subsistence. At the same time, I have argued that forced recruitment of labour was not practical or rational, especially in Northern Indochina, where the French colonial administration was superimposed on an existing, through somewhat reformed, traditional administrative structure. Recruits generally knew their recruiters and were aware of what they signed for. In many instances when their rights were violated, they complained. In short, what this work does is to question, on the basis of old and new material, some of the assumptions held on rubber planters and contract migrant labour and provides a more specific discussion of issues such as, the fractious nature of Indochina's rubber planters, the role of government officials in labour supplying areas, the age of recruits, their areas of origin, the proportion of female labour recruits and patterns of outward migration, aspects that have so far only been considered in general terms or simply ignored. 1
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