History of Vietnam From B.C.E. to 1000A.D.

"The Vietnamese are a freedom-loving people who have often
had to fight to obtain and maintain their liberty."(Sardesai,43) On the map, Vietnam is locateddirectly below China. It can be seen as an elongated, one thousand mile-long "S". It is in the northern loop that contains the Red River delta and in the southern loop that contains the Kekong River delta. "Vietnam is often described metaphorically as two baskets of rice separated by a bamboo pole. In the north lies the crowded triangle of the Red River delta, the ancestral homeland of the Vietnamese people; in the
south, the flat, waterlogged delta of the Mekong River, one of the great
river systems of the world. These two rich alluvial plains, separated from
each other by several hundred miles, provide the major source of food for
the population." (Duiker,1) It was before the Christian era that Vietnam held this shape and its expansion from the northern delta to the Mekonk region was very slow and painful for reasons of war and the Chinese domination.

Vietnam was originally established by Zhao Tuo in 208 BC. Zhao Tuo was a Qin military official. Vietnam was originally called Nam Viet, and it consisted of Southern China and the Red River Delta. It has been through most of the history of Vietnam that it has been ruled by a great deal of Chinese dynasties. It was in the year of 100 B.C. that the Han, China's most powerful dynasty, conquered the Viet regions and combined much of their territory into the Chinese empire as provinces. When this occurred, many of the Vietnamese people were mixed into the Chinese society. This society is what we know present-day as the provinces of Yunnan, Fujian (Fukien), Guangdong (Kwangtung), and Guangxi (Kwangsi).
The only group of Vietnamese people that were able to preserve their language and other areas of independence were the southern group from the Red River delta. With this independence came the strength of women's economic and social position. Many Vietnamese from the mainland had to learn to deal with the Chinese and its administrations. There were at times rebels, and declarations of independent Vietnamese governments, but in the end these rebellions were no match for the much stronger Chinese dynasties that dominated them. Many of the Vietnamese people learned how to grow accustomed to the Chinese rulers and their ways. Many of them learned how to improve their agriculture and water control, adapt to the system of education, and even learn the Chinese written language while still retaining their native Vietnamese.

Though the Vietnamese suffered most of their history from attacks by the Chinese, it was in the tenth century that the fall of the once very powerful Tang dynasty occurred. It was then after this that the Vietnamese declared the establishment of an independent kingdom. It was by the time of 939 A.D. and the opposition of the French colonial rule in the nineteenth century, that Vietnam's independence came to an end after it had had the opportunity of a one thousand year independence.

Duiker, J. William. Vietnam Revolution in Translation. Boulder: Westview Press, 1995.

Sardesai, D.R. Vietnam:The Struggle for National Identity. Boulder,Colorado: Westview Press, 1992.