Colonialism and the French Protectorate of Laos (1893-1953)
French colonial interests in Laos began with the exploratory missions of Doudart de Lagree and Francis Garnier during the 1860s 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 1886 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 and French auxiliaries arrived in Luang Prabang in 1887, in time to witness an attack on Luang Prabang by Chinese and Tai bandits, hoping to liberate the brothers of their leader Đèo Văn Trị, who were being held prisoner by the Siamese. 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 1892 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 1893 had increasingly involved military posturing and gunboat diplomacy. France and Siam would position troops to deny each other’s interests, resulting in a Siamese siege of Khong Island in the south and a series of attacks on French garrisons in the north. The result was the Paknam Incident, the Franco-Siamese War and the ultimate recognition of French territorial claims in Laos.
The French were aware that the east-bank territories of the Mekong were “a depopulated, devastated country,” the Siamese forced population transfers following the Anouvong Rebellion left only a fifth of the original population on the east-bank, the majority of Lao Loum and Phuan peoples had been resettled to the areas around the Khorat Plateau. Territorial gains in 1893 were only a springboard to secure French control of the Mekong, deny Siam as much territorial control as possible by acquiring the Mekong’s west bank territories including the Khorat Plateau, and negotiating stable borders with British Burma along the former territories which paid tribute to the Kingdom of Luang Prabang. France settled a treaty with China in 1895, 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 1896 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 1896 and 1904 a new political party took power which viewed Britain as much more of an ally than a colonial rival. In 1904 the Entente Cordiale was signed as part of the alliance against Germany and Austria-Hungary that fought the First World War. The agreement established respective spheres of influence in Southeast Asia, although French territorial claims would continue until 1907 in Cambodia.
The French Protectorate of Laos established two and at times three administrative regions governed from Vietnam in 1893. It was not until 1899 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. 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.
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 first serious resistance to the French colonial presence began in southern Laos, as the Holy Man’s Rebellion led by Ong Keo, and would last until 1910. The rebellion began in 1901 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 1914 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 1914-1917. By 1915 most of northeast Laos was controlled by Chinese and Lao Theung rebels. The French dispatched the largest military presence yet to Laos which included 160 French officers and 2500 Vietnamese troops divided in two columns. The French drove the Chinese led rebels across the Chinese border and placed Phongsali under direct colonial control. Yet northeastern Laos was still not entirely pacified and a Hmong shaman named Pa Chay Vue attempted to establish a Hmong homeland through a rebellion (pejoratively termed the Madman’s War) which lasted from 1919-1921.
By 1920 the majority of French Laos was at peace and colonial order had been established. In 1928 the first school for the training of Lao civil servants was established, and allowed for the upward mobility of Lao to fill positions occupied by the Vietnamese. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s France attempted to implement Western, particularly French, education, modern healthcare and medicine, and public works with mixed success. The budget for colonial Laos was secondary to Hanoi, and the worldwide Great Depression further restricted funds. It was also in the 1920s and 1930s that the first stirings of Lao nationalist identity emerged due to the work of Prince Phetsarath Rattanavongsa and the French Ecole Francaise d’Extreme Orient to restore ancient monuments, temples, and conduct general research into Lao history, literature, art and architecture. French interest in indigenous history served a dual purpose in Laos it reinforced the image of the colonial mission as protection against Siamese domination, and was also a legitimate route for scholarship.
World War II
Developing Lao national identity gained importance in 1938 with the rise of the ultranationalist prime minister Phibunsongkhram in Bangkok. Phibunsongkhram renamed Siam to Thailand, a name change which was part of a larger political movement to unify all Tai peoples under the central Thai of Bangkok. The French viewed these developments with alarm, but the Vichy Government was diverted by events in Europe and World War II. Despite a non-aggression treaty signed in June 1940, Thailand took advantage of the French position and initiated the Franco-Thai War. The war concluded unfavorably for Lao interests with the Treaty of Tokyo, and the loss of trans-Mekong territories of Xainyaburi and part of Champasak. The result was Lao distrust of the French and the first overtly national cultural movement in Laos, which was in the odd position of having limited French support. Charles Rochet the French Director of Public Education in Vientiane, and Lao intellectuals led by Nyuy Aphai and Katay Don Sasorith began the Movement for National Renovation.
Yet the wider impact of World War II had little effect on Laos until February 1945, when a detachment from the Japanese Imperial Army moved into Xieng Khouang. The Japanese preempted that the Vichy administration of French Indochina under Admiral Decoux would be replaced by a representative of the Free French loyal to Charles DeGaulle and initiated Operation Meigo Sakusan. The Japanese succeeded in the internment of the French living in Vietnam and Cambodia, but in the remote areas of Laos the French were able with the help of the Lao and Garde Indigene to establish jungle bases which were supplied by British airdrops from Burma. However, French control in Laos had been sidelined.
Lao Issara and Independence
1945 was a watershed year in the history of Laos, under Japanese pressure King Sisavangvong declared independence in April. The move allowed the various independence movements in Laos including the Lao Seri and Lao Pen Lao to coalesce into the Lao Issara or “Free Lao” movement which was led by Prince Phetsarath and opposed the return of Laos to the French. The Japanese surrender on 15 August 1945 emboldened pro-French factions and Prince Phetsarath was dismissed by King Sisavangvong. Undeterred Prince Phetsarath staged a coup in September and placed the royal family in Luang Prabang under house arrest. On 12 October 1945 the Lao Issara government was declared under the civil administration of Prince Phetsarath. In the next six months the French rallied against the Lao Issara and were able to reassert control over Indochina in April 1946. The Lao Issara government fled to Thailand, where they maintained opposition to the French until 1949, when the group split over questions regarding relations with the Vietminh and the communist Pathet Lao was formed. With the Lao Issara in exile, in August 1946 France instituted a constitutional monarchy in Laos headed by King Sisavangvong, and Thailand agreed to return territories seized during the Franco-Thai War in exchange for a representation at the United Nations. The Franco-Lao General Convention of 1949 provided most members of the Lao Issara with a negotiated amnesty and sought appeasement by establishing the Kingdom of Laos a quasi-independent constitutional monarchy within the French Union. In 1950 additional powers were granted to the Royal Lao Government including training and assistance for a national army. On October 22, 1953, the Franco–Lao Treaty of Amity and Association transferred remaining French powers to the independent Royal Lao Government. By 1954 the defeat at Dien Bien Phu brought eight years of fighting with the Vietminh, during the First Indochinese War, to an end and France abandoned all claims to the colonies of Indochina.
