Coffee and Colonial Control in French Indochina

Abstract

This study examines the role of the coffee economy as an instrument of colonial power in French Indochina. It argues that the plantation system was not merely an economic venture but a comprehensive project of colonial control that reshaped the region's economy, society, and politics. The article analyzes the primary mechanisms of this control, including the legal expropriation of indigenous land through policies like terres vacantes et sans maître and the mobilization of a coerced workforce through the corvée and indenture systems (Durand 2008). The human cost of this system was immense; official reports from the 1920s reveal that annual mortality rates for indentured laborers on the largest estates ranged from 12% to an astonishing 47% (Panthou 2014). The study concludes that the very brutality of the plantation system ironically transformed it into a powerful symbol of oppression, fueling the anti-colonial movements that would ultimately challenge French rule in Vietnam.