20世紀初頭のメコン・デルタにおける国有地払下げと水田開発

Abstract

This paper considers the development of rice cultivation at the beginning of the twentieth century in French Cochinchina, with special reference to land concession in the Mekong Delta. The growth of rice production, particularly for export, was capitalistic, being integrated into the French colonial system. By analysis of about 600 cases of land alienation from 1899 to 1907, amounting to 300, 000 hectares, it is shown that (1) the largest concessions during the entire colonial period were granted in large numbers mainly in the provinces of Rachgia, Cantho, Longxuyen, Soctrang and Tanan, where the construction of main canals in the 1890s had made vast lands cultivable. (2) While nearly 100 French concessionaries gained half of the concession lands in large tracts more than 300 hectares, a few Vietnamese also gained large plots, mainly in Rachgia Province. (3) According to an official report, 65% of the concession lands were cultivated by 1910, but only one-third of the concession lands given to Europeans were turned into rice fields, due to a shortage of labor. (4) Laborers and tenants who had migrated from east of the Bassac River cultivated concession lands for Vietnamese landlords. They were always in debt to the landlords or to Chinese merchants. The distribution of virgin soil by the colonial administration in plots too large for most peasants to cultivate by themselves prepared the way for large landownership in western Cochinchina.