Born Then
1858–1887

Life during the French conquest of Vietnam

Be born in a place it hit, a few years before it began, and see what it did to five ordinary lives.

What it meant for ordinary people

France seized southern Vietnam in 1858–62 and the north and centre by 1885, then built French Indochina. Colonial taxes, monopolies on salt, alcohol and opium, and land grants to settlers fell on peasants.

How hard it hits each person in the game (risk of death, of being conscripted, of leaving) comes from our model, estimated from the sources.

Around the same time