The Kingdoms of Laos

List of monarchs of Laos

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Anouvong is a symbolic and controversial figure even today, his short lived rebellion against Siam from — ultimately proved futile and led to the total annihilation of Vientiane as a kingdom and a city, yet among the Lao he remains a potent symbol of unyielding defiance and national identity. Thai and Vietnamese histories record that Anouvong rebelled as the result of personal insult suffered at the funeral of Rama II in Bangkok.

Yet, the Anouvong Rebellion lasted three years and engulfed the whole of the Khorat Plateau for more complex reasons. The history of forced population transfers, corvee labor projects, loss of national symbols and prestige most notably the Emerald Buddha formed the backdrop to specific actions taken by Rama III to directly annex the Isan region. In Siam and Vietnam were at odds over the succession of the Cambodian king, the Vietnamese gained the upper hand with their chosen successor and Siam compensated itself by annexing territory on the Dangrek Mountains and along the Mekong River in Stung Treng.

As a result, Lao international trade along the Mekong was effectively blockaded, and heavy duties were imposed on Lao merchants who were viewed suspiciously by Siam for their trade with both the Cambodians and Vietnamese. In a rebellion in Champasak provided Anouvong with opportunity, and he dispatched an army under his son Nyo who managed to suppress the conflict. In exchange Anouvong successfully made the case that his son be crowned as king in Champasak , which was confirmed by Bangkok.

Anouvong had successfully expanded his influence throughout Vientiane , Isan , Xieng Khouang and now Champasak. Anouvong dispatched a number of diplomatic missions to Luang Prabang , which were viewed suspiciously in light of his growing regional influence. When Anouvong arrived for the funerary services, he made several requests of the king Rama III which were dismissed including the return of his sister who had been captured in , and Lao families which had been relocated to Saraburi near Bangkok. The aim of the policy was to more tightly administer Lao territories from Bangkok and was facilitated by the nobility Siam had installed in the newly created cities throughout the region.

Popular resentment against the forced tattooing and increased taxes became casus belli for rebellion. Toward the end of Anouvong was making military preparations for armed rebellion. From Champasak forces rushed to take Ubon and Suvannaphum, while pursuing a scorched-earth policy ensuring the Lao time to retreat. Anouvong also severely underestimated the Siamese arms stockpile, which under the terms of Burney Treaty had provided Siam with weaponry from the Napoleonic Wars in Europe.

A Lao defense was staged at Nong Bua Lamphu the traditional Lao stronghold in the Isan , but the Siamese emerged victorious and leveled the city. The Siamese pushed north to take Vientiane and Anouvong fled southeast to the border with Vietnam. By Anouvong had been captured, tortured and sent to Bangkok with his family to die in a cage. Rama III ordered Chao Bodin to return and level the city of Vientiane , and forcibly move the entire population of the former Lao capital to the Isan region.

Following the Anouvong Rebellion Siam and Vietnam were increasingly at odds over control of the Indochinese Peninsula. Also in and again in King Mantha Tourath sent a tributary mission to the Vietnamese , which were quietly ignored so as not to antagonize the Siamese further. In these tributary missions from Luang Prabang were used by the French as part of a legal argument for all the territories on the east bank of the Mekong.

In the aftermath of Vientiane 's destruction the Siamese divided the Lao lands into three administrative regions. The southern regions were controlled from Champasak and extended to areas bordering Cochin China and Cambodia. From the s through the s small rebellions took place across Lao lands and the Khorat Plateau , but they lacked both the scale and coordination of the Anouvong Rebellion.

Importantly, at the end of each rebellion Siamese troops would return to their administrative centers, and no Lao region was allowed to have a buildup of force which could have been used in rebellion. Population transfers of ethnic Lao to Siam began in with Siamese suzerainty. Artisans and members of the court were forcibly moved to Saraburi near Bangkok , and several thousand farmers and peasant who were transported throughout Siam to Phetchaburi , Ratchaburi , and Nakhon Chaisi in the southwest and to Prachinburi and Chanthaburi in the southeast.

However, massive deportations estimated between ,—, people began following the defeat of King Anouvong in , and would continue until the s. From — over 66, people were forcibly relocated from Vientiane. In the first of several relocations of the Phuan areas of Xieng Khouang began, transferring more than 6, people. The result changed the demographics and cultural traditions of Thailand and Laos and continues today with a five-fold disparity between the ethnic Lao living on the West Bank of the Mekong and those left in the East in what is today Laos.

Although slavery existed in Lao areas before the rebellion in , the defeat and subsequent removal of most ethnic Lao left a depopulated and vulnerable position for the remaining people of the East Bank of the Mekong. Larger tribes of Lao Theung , such as the Brao , would conduct slave raids against weaker tribes. The raids continued throughout the remainder of the nineteenth century, a Siamese military campaign in Laos in was described by a British observer as having been "transformed into slave-hunting raids on a large scale.

The population transfers and slave raids ameliorated toward the end of the nineteenth century when European observers and anti-slavery groups made their presence increasingly difficult for the Bangkok elite. In both slave raiding and trading became illegal, although debt slavery would persist until by decree of King Chulalongkorn. The French would use the existence of slavery in Siam as one of the major professed motivations for establishing a Protectorate of Laos during the s and s. In the s sporadic rebellions, slave raids, and movement of refugees throughout the areas that would become modern Laos left whole regions politically and militarily weak.

In China the Qing Dynasty was pushing south to incorporate hill peoples into the central administration, at first floods of refugees and later bands of rebels from the Taiping Rebellion pushed into Lao lands.

The bandit groups rampaged throughout the countryside, with little response from Siam. During the early and mid-nineteenth century the first Lao Sung including the Hmong , Mien , Yao and other Sino-Tibetan groups began settling in the higher elevations of Phongsali province and northeast Laos.

The influx of immigration was facilitated by the same political weakness which had given shelter to the Haw bandits and left large depopulated areas throughout Laos. By the s the first French explorers were pushing north charting the path of the Mekong River , with hope of a navigable waterway to southern China.

Among the early French explorers was an expedition led by Francis Garnier , who was killed during an expedition by Haw rebels in northern Laos. The French would increasingly conduct military campaigns against the Haw in both Laos and Vietnam Tonkin until the s. French colonial interests in Laos began with the exploratory missions of Doudart de Lagree and Francis Garnier during the s in the hopes of utilizing the Mekong River as a passage to southern China. Although the Mekong is unnavigable due to a number of rapids, the hope was that the river might be tamed with the help of French engineering and a combination of railways.

In Britain secured the right to appoint a representative in Chiang Mai , in northern Siam. To counter British control in Burma and growing influence in Siam , that same year France sought to establish representation in Luang Prabang , and dispatched Auguste Pavie to secure French interests. Pavie prevented the capture of the ailing King Oun Kham by ferrying him away from the burning city to safety.

The incident won the gratitude of the king, provided an opportunity for France to gain control of the Sipsong Chu Thai as part of Tonkin in French Indochina , and demonstrated the weakness of the Siamese in Laos. In Pavie became Resident Minister in Bangkok , where he encouraged a French policy which first sought to deny or ignore Siamese sovereignty over Lao territories on the east bank of the Mekong , and secondly to suppress the slavery of upland Lao Theung and population transfers of Lao Loum by the Siamese as a prelude to establishing a protectorate in Laos.

Siam reacted by denying French trading interests, which by had increasingly involved military posturing and gunboat diplomacy. France settled a treaty with China in , gaining control of Luang Namtha and Phongsali. British control of the Shan States and French control of the upper Mekong increased tensions between the colonial rivals. A joint commission completed its work in and the city of Muang Sing was gained by France , in exchange France recognized Siamese sovereignty over the areas of the Chaophraya River basin.

However, the issue of Siamese control over the Khorat Plateau , which was ethnically and historically Lao , was left open for the French as was Siamese control over the Malay Peninsula which favored British interests. Political events in Europe would shape French Indochinese policy however, and between and a new political party took power which viewed Britain as much more of an ally than a colonial rival. The agreement established respective spheres of influence in Southeast Asia , although French territorial claims would continue until in Cambodia.

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The French Protectorate of Laos established two and at times three administrative regions governed from Vietnam in It was not until that Laos became centrally administered by a single Resident Superieur based in Savannakhet , and later in Vientiane. The French chose to establish Vientiane as the colonial capital for two reasons, firstly it was more centrally located between the central provinces and Luang Prabang , and secondly the French were aware of the symbolic importance of rebuilding the former capital of the Lan Xang Kingdom which the Siamese had destroyed.

As part of French Indochina both Laos and Cambodia were seen as a source of raw materials and labor for the more important holdings in Vietnam. French colonial presence in Laos was light; the Resident Superieur was responsible for all colonial administration from taxation to justice and public works.

The French maintained a military presence in the colonial capital under the Garde Indigene made up of Vietnamese soldiers under a French commander. In important provincial cities like Luang Prabang , Savannakhet , and Pakse there would be an assistant resident , police, paymaster, postmaster, schoolteacher and a doctor.

Kingdom of Laos

Vietnamese filled most upper level and mid-level positions within the bureaucracy, with Lao being employed as junior clerks, translators, kitchen staff and general laborers. Villages remained under the traditional authority of the local headmen or chao muang. Throughout the colonial administration in Laos the French presence never amounted to more than a few thousand Europeans.

The French concentrated on the development of infrastructure, the abolition of slavery and indentured servitude although corvee labor was still in effect , trade including opium production, and most importantly the collection of taxes. Under the French rule, the Vietnamese were encouraged to migrate to Laos, which was seen by the French colonists as a rational solution to a practical problem within the confines of an Indochina-wide colonial space. The Lao response to French colonialism was mixed, although the French were viewed as preferable to the Siamese by the nobility, the majority of Lao Loum , Lao Theung , and Lao Sung were burdened by regressive taxes and demands for corvee labor to establish colonial outposts.

The rebellion began in when a French commissioner in Salavan was attempting to pacify Lao Theung tribes for taxation and corvee labor , Ong Keo provoked anti-French sentiment and in response the French burned a local temple. The commissioner and his troops were massacred and a general uprising began throughout the Bolaven Plateau. Ong Keo would be killed by French forces, but for several years his harassment and protests gained popularity in the southern Laos.

It was not until the movement spread to the Khorat Plateau and threatened to become an international incident involving Siam that several French columns of the Garde Indigene converged to put down the rebellion. In the north Tai Lu groups from the areas around Phongsali and Muang Sing also began to rebel against French attempts at taxation and corvee labor.

In the Tai Lu king had fled to the Chinese portions of the Sipsong Panna , where he began a two-year guerilla campaign against the French in northern Laos , which required three military expeditions to suppress and resulted in direct French control of Muang Sing. In northeast Laos , Chinese and Lao Theung rebelled against French attempts to tax the opium trade which resulted in another rebellion from — By most of northeast Laos was controlled by Chinese and Lao Theung rebels. The French dispatched the largest military presence yet to Laos which included French officers and Vietnamese troops divided in two columns.

The French drove the Chinese led rebels across the Chinese border and placed Phongsali under direct colonial control. By the majority of French Laos was at peace and colonial order had been established. Lan Xang dispatched reinforcements to support their allies in Lanna. In response, Chairacha set out at the head of a second army in to take Chiang Mai where he was again defeated and forced into full retreat to Ayutthaya, where he died almost immediately upon his return. The succession disputes in Lanna continued, but the position of Lanna between the aggressive states of Burma and Ayutthaya necessitated that the kingdom be brought back to order.

In recognition for his assistance against Ayutthaya, and his strong familial ties to Lanna, King Photisarath was offered the throne of Lanna for his son Prince Setthathirath , who in was crowned King in Chiang Mai. In the elaborate court ceremony recorded in the Chiang Mai Chronicles , Setthathirath took possession of the Emerald Buddha as his personal palladium which would later become the palladium of Vientiane and was given the princesses Nang Thip and Nang Tonkham as queens.

The peace would not last long. In , the Burmese invaded Ayutthaya but failed to take the capital; that same year Photisarath was approached by Burma with offers of an alliance. Photisarath neither accepted the alliance, nor did he support Ayutthaya which had unsuccessfully tried to invade Lan Xang only eight years earlier. In Photisarath returned to Luang Prabang, but was killed in an accident while riding an elephant in front of the fifteen international delegations which were seeking an audience.

Chiang Mai still had powerful factions at court, and the threats from Burma and Ayutthaya were growing. Following the untimely death of his father, King Setthathirath left Lanna leaving his wife as regent. The departure emboldened the rival factions at court, who in crowned Chao Mekuti as king of Lanna.

In King Setthathirath sent an army to retake Lanna but was defeated. For his success, Sen Soulintha was given the title Luxai Victorious and offered one of his daughters to King Setthathirath.

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In Burma, under King Bayinnaung invaded Lanna. King Mekuti of Lanna surrendered Chiang Mai without a fight, but was reinstated as a Burmese vassal under military occupation. In , King Setthathirath formally moved the capital of Lan Xang from Luang Prabang to Vientiane, which would remain the capital over the next two hundred and fifty years. In , a treaty was signed between Lan Xang and Ayutthaya, which was sealed by the betrothal of Princess Thepkasattri whose mother was Queen Suriyothai of Ayutthaya.

It was only then in that King Chakkraphat sent Princess Thepkasattri to Lan Xang along with a massive dowry in an attempt to buy back the broken alliance. While the procession was en route, Maha Thammaracha ambushed the princess and sent her to his overlords in Burma; she committed suicide shortly thereafter or en route. Facing the threat of a superior Burmese force, King Chakkraphat had lost a potential alliance with Lan Xang, the northern territories of Ayutthaya and his daughter.

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To prevent further incursions, King Chakkraphat became a vassal of Burma and had to deliver both himself and his son Prince Ramesuan as hostages to King Bayinnaung leaving another son Prince Mahinthrathirat as a vassal in Ayutthaya. The Burmese then turned north to depose King Mekuti of Lanna, who had failed to support the Burmese invasion of Ayutthaya in King Setthathirath, realizing that Vientiane could not be held against a prolonged siege, ordered the city to be evacuated and stripped of supplies. When the Burmese took Vientiane they were forced into the countryside for supplies, where King Setthathirath had organized guerrilla attacks and small raids to harass the Burmese troops.

Facing disease, malnutrition and demoralizing guerrilla warfare, King Bayinnaung was forced to retreat in leaving Lan Xang the only remaining independent Tai kingdom. In , King Mahinthrathirat approached King Setthathirath with covert plans for Ayutthaya to rebel against Burma by launching a counterattack against Mahathammarachathirat in Phitsanulok. The plan would involve an overland invasion from Lan Xang with assistance from the royal navy in Ayutthaya passing up the Nan River.

Mahathammarachathirat was in Burma at the time, and Maha Chakkraphat had been allowed to return to Ayutthaya as Burma was facing small rebellions in the Shan areas. The plan was discovered and reinforcements were sent to Phitsanulok. Realizing Phitsanulok was too fortified, King Setthathirath withdrew his attack, but set up a devastating counter ambush on his retreat to Vientiane in which five pursuing Burmese generals were killed. Seizing on the weakness, King Chakkraphat ordered a second attack on Phitsanulok in which he successfully took the city, but could only briefly hold it having suffered repeated heavy losses.

King Bayinnaung sent a massive invasion in in response to the uprising. In early , the city of Ayutthaya was directly under threat and Vientiane sent reinforcements. The Burmese had planned on the reinforcements however and King Setthathirath fell into a trap. The Burmese rallied and were able to destroy the divided forces, and King Setthathirath had to retreat toward Vientiane.

The Burmese then focused their attack on Ayutthaya and took the city. King Setthathirath upon reaching Vientiane ordered an immediate evacuation. The Burmese took several weeks to regroup and rest having taken Ayutthaya, which allowed Setthathirath to rally his forces and plan for prolonged guerrilla warfare.

The Burmese arrived in Vientiane and were able to take the lightly defended city.

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Just as in , Setthathirath began a guerrilla campaign from his base near the Nam Ngum , northeast of Vientiane. In Bayinnaung retreated, Setthathirath counterattacked and more than 30, were taken prisoner, along with elephants, and 2, pieces of ivory from the retreating Burmese. Defeating the Khmer would have greatly strengthened Lan Xang, giving it vital sea access, trade opportunities, and most importantly, European firearms which had been growing use since the early s.

The Khmer Chronicles record that armies from Lan Xang invaded in and , during the second invasion King Barom Reacha I was slain in an elephant duel. The Burmese and Lao Chronicles record only the presumption that he died in battle. Setthathirath's general Sen Soulintha returned to Vientiane with the remnants of the Lan Xang expedition. He fell under immediate suspicion, and a civil war raged in Vientiane as a succession dispute took place.

In , he emerged as king regent but lacked support. Upon hearing reports of the unrest, Bayinnaung dispatched emissaries demanding the immediate surrender of Lan Xang. Sen Soulintha had the emissaries killed. Bayinnaung invaded Vientiane in , Sen Soulintha ordered the city to be evacuated but he lacked the support of the people and the army. Vientiane fell to the Burmese. The First Taungoo Empire —99 was established but faced internal rebellions.

From to a civil war took place in Lan Xang. Prince Nokeo Koumane had been held in the Taungoo court for sixteen years, and by was about twenty years old.

In he was crowned in Vientiane , gathered an army and marched to Luang Prabang where he reunited the cities, declared Lan Xang independence and cast off any allegiance to the Toungoo Empire. King Nokeo Koumane then marched toward Muang Phuan and then to the central provinces reuniting all the former territories of Lan Xang.

Tharrawaddy Min sought assistance from Burma , but rebellions throughout the empire prevented any support. In desperation a request was sent to the Burmese vassal in Ayutthaya King Naresuan. King Naresuan dispatched a large army and turned on Tharrawaddy Min , forcing the Burmese to accept Ayutthaya as independent and Lanna as a vassal kingdom. King Nokeo Koumane realized he was outnumbered by the combined strength of Ayutthaya and Lanna and called off the attack. In , King Nokeo Koumane died suddenly and without an heir. Although he had united Lan Xang, and restored the kingdom to a point that it could repel an outside invasion, a succession dispute took place and a series of weak kings followed until Under the reign of King Sourigna Vongsa — Lan Xang experienced a fifty seven-year period of peace and restoration.

Literature, art, music, court dance experienced a revival. King Sourigna Vongsa revised many of the laws of Lan Xang and established judicial courts. He also concluded a series of treaties which established both trade agreements and boundaries between the surrounding kingdoms. Van Wuysthoff left detailed European accounts of trade goods, and established Company relations with Lan Xang via Longvek and the Mekong. After five years, he had very little success with conversions in the heavily Buddhist country and returned to Macao , via Vietnam in He left an eye witness description of the royal palace in Vientiane during the height of power in Lan Xang.

The royal palace, of which the structure and symmetry are admirable, can be seen from afar. Truly it is of prodigious size, so large one would take it for a city, both with respect to its situation and the infinite number of people who live there. The apartments of the king are adorned with a magnificent portal and include a number of beautiful rooms along with a great salon, all made from incorruptible timber teak and adorned outside and inside with excellent bas-reliefs, so delicately gilded that they seem to be plated with gold rather than covered with gold leaf.

From the king's apartments, on entering the very spacious courtyards, one sees first a great series of houses, all of brick and covered with tiles, where usually live the secondary wives of the king; and beyond them a line of more houses, built in the same symmetrical form for the officials of the court. I could write a whole volume if I tried to describe exactly all the other parts of the palace, its riches, apartments, gardens, and all the other similar things. The palace and the entire city of Vientiane were completely destroyed by the Thai during the Lao-Siamese War of — The legal reforms which King Sourigna Vongsa put in place applied to the nobility and peasantry equally, and when the crown prince committed adultery with a palace attendant the king ordered his death.

When Sourigna Vongsa died in , he left two young grandsons Prince Kingkitsarat and Prince Inthasom and two daughters Princess Kumar and Princess Sumangala with claims to the throne. In the Kingdom of Champasak emerged after a rebellion against Vientiane. The Lao kingdoms remained independent until when they then would become vassals to Thailand. However, the kingdoms maintained their monarchical roots and a degree of autonomy. The river provided the means for the people, commerce and armies of Lan Xang to move between regional power centers, but also formed important geographic and defensive barriers.

Major rapids formed the boundaries between the areas and subsequent kingdoms of Luang Prabang , Vientiane and Champasak. These major cities were known as "muang" or "vieng" and were classified based on substantial fortifications and city walls, the Lao chronicles record five supporting cities, and ninety-seven border "muang.

Supporting cities were found along the Khorat Plateau , and were based on trade or military importance. Say Fong was a Khmer trading post which became famous as a Lao cultural center for writing and arts. This latter point is curious given the continued and widespread availability of M. Jumsai Manich's work on Laos. Unfortunately, this book is at least in part a victim of very poor timing.

Interest in Lao history especially for the pre-twentieth century has grown dramatically over the last few years and more substantial analyses have already covered much of the same ground that the present volume deals with. These analyses include Mayoury and Pheuiphanh Ngaosyvathn's somewhat impassioned and nationalistic, but well-documented and erudite, Paths to Conflagration: Rise and Decline Bangkok: Cambridge University Press, , provides a far more complete and reliable picture of Lao history than does the volume under review here. This is unfortunate, because both works would have impressed upon the present authors the necessity of focusing upon broad developments rather than losing track in an outline built upon reign-dates and only interested in political history.

The narrative, for example, is heavily dynastic-driven, running from king to king without sufficient consideration of broader, and often non- court-centred, social, cultural, religious, or technological developments. This book has several key drawbacks for academics. First, there is no discussion of the indigenous source materials for Lao history to offset the over-privileging of western-language source materials in the bibliography mostly French.

What are the indigenous chronicle traditions of Laos, which should be the chief source for the periods under examination in the present volume? Who wrote these chronicles and why? Do the chronicle traditions disagree and for what events? These are essential questions that must be asked before such a dramatic journey through precolonial Lao history begins.

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