Abstract
This paper discusses the relationship between the peasant drain and the pattern of landownership in the Red River Delta during the later Lê and the early Nguyễn dynasties.
1. Các Trấn Tổng Danh Bị Lãm, a geographical report compiled in the 19th century, was analyzed to determine the distribution of abandoned villages, which were found to be concentrated in the central areas and northeast highlands of Northern Vietnam. This suggests that the major cause of the frequent peasant emigrations in the 18th century was severe draught which damaged fifth-month ricefields in the swamp areas and tenth-month ricefields in the highland areas. Clearly the occurrence and intensity of the peasant drain was geographically variable, depending on local environmental conditions.
2. Through regulations intended to counter the peasant drain in the Lê period, the central government tried to encourage the peasants remaining in the villages to bring abandoned agricultural lands back under cultivation. In this way, the government hoped to prevent the loss of land revenue. The land rolls compiled in the early 19th century for some of the villages in Nam Định province, situated in typical backswamp areas, on small natural levees and on sand banks, shows that most of the fifth-month ricefields were taken over by peasants who settled on the natural levees.
It is concluded that the local variation in environmental conditions and the Lê government policy resulted in the transfer of landownership to outsiders in the traditionally closed villages, especially to relatively well-to-do peasants living in better environments, who accumulated the poor-quality rice-fields abandoned through the peasant drain.
