On the Letter of Delegate Nguyen to Governor General of Indochina, 20 February 1909

Abstract

It is said that the first work by President Ho Chi Minh was "The Request of the Vietnamese Nation" addressed to the Peace Conference in Versailles, France, in 1919 in which he used the name of Nguyen Ai Quoc. It is possible that the 1919 Request was not the first work by Ho Chi Minh. It is a well-known fact that during his schools years in Hue and Quy Nhon between 1906 and 1910, he witnessed and sympathized with the wretchedness which the Vietnamese were suffering at that time, especially during his teaching at Duc Thanh school in Phan Thiet. According to our research, his first work has been written during these years as we recently discovered an interesting letter entitled "Letter from Delegate Nguyen of Great Vietnam to the Governor General Mi-xia-bing lia-xian of the French Government", dated 1 February 1909. It is nevertheless, still unclear whether this letter was written by him or hisfather, Nguyen Sinh Sac. We therefore would like to introduce this letter as well as a number of relevant documents to historians and scholars for further considerations.