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Seminar: History of the An Khê Plateau in the Nineteenth Century: Geographical Possibilities, Historical Transformations

Friday - 10/07/2020 03:21
Seminar: History of the An Khê Plateau in the Nineteenth Century: Geographical Possibilities, Historical Transformations
Seminar: History of the An Khê Plateau in the Nineteenth Century: Geographical Possibilities, Historical Transformations
Seminar: History of the An Khê Plateau in the Nineteenth Century: Geographical Possibilities, Historical Transformations Attract:  In Central Vietnam, the geography of An Khê is unique, owing to its location at 450m above the Binh Dinh plains and 450m below the plateaus of Gia Lai. This position between two environments made it a hub of many routes of travel, and these routes turned it into a centre of upstream-downstream commerce. The upstream market (chợ đầu nguồn) at An Khê attracted Bahnar, Chinese and Kinh traders. Soldiers of the court protected this trade, and officials collected tax. The market’s wealth also attracted highlander raiders and lowlander bandits. In this lecture, Andrew Hardy deploys nineteenth-century sources (collected in archives and fieldwork) to present a geographically focused study of the regional economic system that took shape here. This helps us understand the possibilities that An Khê’s geography created for its history, which underwent transformations through four periods. 1) In the eighteenth century, Nguyễn Nhạc used An Khê’s geographical position to build a base (Tây Sơn highland district) in the preparation of the Tây Sơn Rebellion. 2) Until the mid-nineteenth century, An Khê’s governance through the upstream market (nguồn). 3) From the 1860s, for fear of French attack, the court fortified the plateau and appointed a kinh lý mandarin as governor, responsible for organising migration of lowlanders. 4) After the Cần Vương movement, governance of the plateau from the newly created district Bình Khê in the plains.     

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