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The Great Hanoi Rat Massacre (Vietnamese: Đại thảm sát chuột ở Hà Nội; chữ Nôm: 大慘殺𤝞於河內; French: Massacre des rats de Hanoï) occurred in 1902, in Hanoi, Tonkin, French Indochina (present day Hanoi, Vietnam), when the French government authorities attempted to control the rat population of the city by hunting them down.

As they felt that they were making insufficient progress, and due to labour strikes, they created a bounty programme that paid a reward of 1¢ for each rat killed. To collect the bounty, people would need to provide the severed tail of a rat. Colonial officials, however, began noticing rats in Hanoi with no tails. The Vietnamese rat catchers would capture rats, sever their tails, then release them back into the sewers so that they could produce more rats. The Great Hanoi Rat Massacre happened in the middle of a global plague pandemic only a few years after Swiss-French physician and bacteriologist Alexandre Yersin linked the spread of the pandemic to rodents. Vann argues that the cobra example from the British Raj cannot be proven, but that the rats in the Vietnam case can be proven, so the term should be changed to the Rat Effect.

Prior to the establishment of the French protectorate of Tonkin, the city of Hanoi was a collection of 36 streets, each of these streets was devoted to a specific craft as well as several temples and pagodas spread around the settlement. When Paul Doumer arrived in Hanoi, he launched several major infrastructure projects, such as the Paul Doumer Bridge (now called the Long Biên Bridge), which spanned the 1,700-meter (5,600 ft) width of the Red River, and the Grand Palais d’Expositions which built for the Hanoi Exhibition in 1903.

In 1898 Paul-Louis Simond was in the city of Karachi, Sind, India where, despite limited resources, he was able to demonstrate that fleas transmit the bacterium Yersinia pestis, the agent causing bubonic plague, from rat to rat, and from rat to human. The third plague pandemic happened at the same time as the French renovation of Hanoi. The global situation became serious for Hanoi when French residents reported an infestation of rats in the French Quarter.

Despite the high number of rats killed being reported, the French realised that the professional pest control services weren't making a dent in the rat population as the rats could quickly reproduce, so they sought alternative measures to try and reduce the rat population in the city.

Former governor-general Paul Doumer wanted to organise the Hanoi Exhibition (an international colonial exposition) as an occasion to flaunt the city of Hanoi as a civilised and sanitary area, presenting it as a victory of the French government.

Of Rats, Rice, and Race: The Great Hanoi Rat Massacre, an Episode in French Colonial History Vann went to Vietnam to do archival research on the rat massacre for more information on the topic. After the interview he learned that his article on the Great Hanoi Rat Massacre was being cited by a substantial number of economists and business journalists. The Great Hanoi Rat Hunt: Empire, Disease, and Modernity in French Colonial Vietnam Vann and comic book artist Liz Clarke published the book The Great Hanoi Rat Hunt: Empire, Disease, and Modernity in French Colonial Vietnam (Vietnamese: Cuộc đại thảm sát chuột tại Hà Nội: Đế chế, Dịch bệnh và Sự Hiện đại ở VN thời Pháp thuộc) through the Oxford University Press. Vann describes his choice to make half the book in comic book format as way to reach a larger audience as he noted "that Oxford had this series that takes unusual and quirky historical research and puts it into comic form" and he found the Great Hanoi Rat Massacre to also be a "quirky story".

Quick Facts

• The Great Hanoi Rat Massacre happened in the middle of a global plague pandemic only a few years after Swiss-French physician and bacteriologist Alexandre Yersin linked the spread of the pandemic to rodents.
• Of Rats, Rice, and Race: The Great Hanoi Rat Massacre, an Episode in French Colonial History
• The Great Hanoi Rat Hunt: Empire, Disease, and Modernity in French Colonial Vietnam
• Colonial officials, however, began noticing rats in Hanoi with no tails.
• Vann argues that the cobra example from the British Raj cannot be proven, but that the rats in the Vietnam case can be proven, so the term should be changed to the Rat Effect.

Source material: Wikipedia - "Great Hanoi Rat Massacre". Adapted and summarized for DiscoverScroll. Original contributors are credited through the linked Wikipedia article. Read original on Wikipedia. CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes were made from the original.