Overview
French conquest ran from the attack on Da Nang in 1858 to the protectorate treaties of 1883–84. The Indochinese Union of 1887 joined Cochinchina, Annam, Tonkin and Cambodia, with Laos added in 1893.
Key developments
The colonial economy rested on rice and rubber plantations, mines, monopolies and heavy taxes; harsh corvée labor conditions are well documented. The romanized quoc ngu script spread through schooling and the press, displacing Chinese characters. Anti-colonial currents grew from Phan Boi Chau’s generation to the Yen Bai mutiny and the founding of the Indochinese Communist Party, both in 1930.
End and transition
In World War II Japan occupied Indochina alongside the Vichy French administration (1940–45), seizing full control in March 1945. The Tonkin famine of 1944–45 killed, by common estimates, from several hundred thousand up to two million people. The August Revolution of 1945 ended the colonial era.