¹ Harry, Benda J. ‘Peasant Movements in Colonial Southeast Asia’, Asian Studies, III, 3 (December 1965): 420–34.Google Scholar

² In completing this article I have benefited from commentary and suggestions offered by Dr Ruth McVey, and by Dr David P. Chandler. To both I offer my sincere thanks while emphasizing my own responsibility for the article's form and content.

³ Official and semi-official published French commentary on the events of 1916 may be found in Baudoin, F., Situation générale du Protectorat du Cambodge de Novembre 1914 Janvier 1920 (Phnom Penh, Imprimerie du Protectorat, 1920), p. 11,Google Scholar and in the same author's Le Cambodge pendant et apràs la grande guerre (Phnom Penh, Société d'éditions Khmers, 1927), p. 10.Google Scholar The most interesting non-official account of developments is Pannetier, A.Notes cambodgiennes: Au coeur du pays Khmer (Paris, Payot, 1921), pp. 30, 35–6, 46–7.Google Scholar

Until the release of fresh materials in Paris in the early 1970s, the most important available documentation of events in Cambodia during 1916 was located in the dossier Indochine Nouveaux Fonds (henceforth INF) 570, Archives Nationales de France, Section Outre-Mer (henceforth AOM). The material in INF 570, AOM has now been significantly supplemented by the release of dossier INF 28, AOM, which I consulted for the first time in 1973. I gladly record my continuing gratitude to the staff of Archives Nationales de France, Section Outre-Mer, for their unstinted kindness and assistance. So far as material in this essay depends upon research carried out in the French Archives in 1973, I offer my thanks to The American University, Washington, D.C., for a grant of funds that supported my stay in Paris. Materials consulted in the Cambodian National Archives, Phnom Penh, during 1966 have also been used in the preparation of this article.

⁴ The basic documentary account for developments in Cambodia during early 1916 is the despatch from the Governor-General of Indochina, Roume, to the Minister of the Colonies, Hanoi, 31 March 1916, No. 285, contained in INF 570, AOM. This despatch consists of fifty-one typed pages. Unless otherwise indicated, information on events in 1915 and 1916 comes from this source.

Roume's account does not always match the details provided by the senior French official in Cambodia, Résident Supérieur Baudoin. For instance, where Roume writes of sixty protesters coming from Khsach Kandal in 1915, Baudoin notes the number as two hundred. See his report to Roume, Phnom Penh, 29 January 1916, No. 140, INF 28(3), AOM.

⁵ Appeal to the king was a recognized traditional procedure, but by the period under discussion it had become a notably rare and drastic step. For the situation during an earlier period, see Bernard-Philippe, GroslierAngkor et le Cambodge au XVIe siècle (Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1958), p. 155.Google Scholar See also Adhémard, Leclère, Recherches sur le droit public des Cambodgiens (Paris, Challamel, 1894), p. 37.Google Scholar

⁶ The greatest detail is provided in Roume's despatch of 31 March 1916. See, in addition, Résident Supérieur Baudoin to Governor-General Roume, Phnom Penh, 18 February 1916, No. 226 bis, INF 28(3), AOM.

⁷ The quotation is from Roume's despatch of 31 March 1916.

⁸ Report by Commissaire Central de Police, Dupuis, to Résident Supérieur Baudoin, Phnom Penh, 9 January 1916, No. 75-c, INF 28(3), AOM.

⁹ Résident Supérieur Baudoin to Governor-General Roume, Phnom Penh, 29 January 1916, No. 140, INF 28(3), AOM.

¹⁰ There was some disagreement among French observers on the question of weapons. Roume's report, INF 570, AOM, speaks of peasants concealing knives and hatchets beneath their clothing. These ‘weapons’ were, in any event, carried quite normally by rural Cambodians.

¹¹ Estimates of the numbers who passed through Phnom Penh varied. Résident Supérieur Baudoin argued for a figure between 20,000 and 25,000. See his despatch to Governor-General Roume, Phnom Penh, 29 January 1916, No. 140, INF 28(3), AOM. Commissaire Central Dupuis, in charge of the Phnom Penh police, estimated the influx at 40,000. This figure is recorded in Baudoin's despatch just cited. Roume settled for a median 30,000 in his summary of the affair. See INF 570, AOM.

¹² Details in Baudoin's despatch to Governor-General Roume, Phnom Penh, 29 January 1916, No. 140, INF 28(3), AOM. Unfortunately, Baudoin does not provide a direct quotation of Sisowath's words.

¹³ The quote is from Baudoin's despatch of 29 January 1916.

¹⁴ Telegram from the Résident of Kompong Cham to Résident Supérieur Baudoin, Kompong Cham 27 January 1916, Extremely Urgent, No. 79, INF 28(3), AOM.

¹⁵Telegram from the Résident of Kompong Cham to Résident Supérieur Baudoin, Kompong, Cham 28 January 1916, Very Urgent, No. 11, INF 28(3), AOM. As the one reported instance of such a threat, this report should probably be treated with some reserve.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Résident Supérieur Baudoin's despatch to Governor-General Roume, Phnom Penh, 6 February 1916, No. 161, INF 28(3), AOM. This confirmation of the involvement of peasants from Stung Treng is of particular interest since Roume in his own later report of 31 March 1916 specifically denied that there was any participation by population from the Stung Treng region in the 1916 Affair.

¹⁷ Baudoin's report of 6 February 1916, INF 28(3), AOM, adds necessary detail to Roume's later general account of developments.

¹⁸ Although no specific evidence exists, it is a reasonable presumption, given the pattern of plantation ownership at this period and the other evidence of attacks on Chinese property, that the plantation was Chinese-owned. The attack against Vietnamese noted here, and other instances of such attacks recorded in this essay, reflect the persistent readiness of the Cambodian population to turn against Vietnamese residents in their country at times of social or political instability. In part, by the early twentieth century, this was linked to an undoubted measure of genuine racial antipathy having long historical roots: most particularly the memory of the Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia in the 1830s. In part, too, Khmer–Vietnamese relations, at the sub-national level, had become more strained as the result of substantial immigration of Vietnamese into Cambodia in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. (See Jean-Pierre Beauchatard, ‘La Minorité vietnamienne au Cambodge’, unpublished Mémoire de stage, Ecole Nationale de la France d'Outre-Mer, Paris, 1951–1952.) Nonetheless, despite the record of persistent peasant racism, one should not presume that all relations between Khmers and Vietnamese involved antipathy (see n. 47 below).

¹⁹ Almost all French statistics from the colonial period in Indochina must be treated with care. It is of interest, therefore, that Résident Supérieur Baudoin should have noted twenty-one ‘leaders or criminals’ killed during the 1916 Affair (Baudoin's despatch to Governor-General Roume, Phnom Penh, 19 February 1916, No. 228, INF 28(3), AOM), whereas Roume's own extended report of 31 March 1916 provides information on only seventeen persons killed during the period of protest.

²⁰ See my The French Presence in Cochinchina and Cambodia: Rule and Response (1859–1905) (Ithaca, N.Y., Cornell University Press, 1969), pp. 186–7; p. 332, nn. 32 and 33.Google Scholar Pu Kombo's followers were drawn, in particular, from the southeastern regions of the kingdom. Although the provincial areas involved in his rebellion, in Si Votha's rebellion of 1876–77, and in the Rising of 1885–86 are roughly congruent with the areas that later participated in the 1916 Action, it seems unwise to make too much of this fact. Cambodia's geography, defined largely by the Mekong and associated rivers, has acted to circumscribe rebellion and agitation within rather clear-cut regions over the centuries.

²¹ Francis, Garnier, Voyage d'exploration en Indo-Chine (Paris, Hachette, 1873), I, 156.Google Scholar

²² Osborne, The French Presence, pp. 196–8.Google Scholar For further details see Moura, J.Le Royaume du Cambodge (Paris, Ernest Leroux, 1883), II, 182–3, and materials contained in dossier Indochine A-30(26), AOM.Google Scholar

²³ The French Presence, Ch. 10. The most important archival source for this period is the report prepared by A. Klobukowski, ‘Enquête sur les événements du Cambodge’, Saigon, 23 July 1885, Indochine A-30(74), AOM.

²⁴ For discussion of the existence and nature of rural violence and banditry in Cambodia see Charles, MeyerDerrière le sourire khmer, (Paris, Plon, 1971), pp. 33–43;Google ScholarAndrè, Souyris-Rolland ‘Les pirates au Cambodge’, Bulletin de la Société des Etudes Indochinoises, n.s., XXV, 4 (1950), 427–37.Google Scholar

²⁵ Pannetier, Notes cambodgiennes, p. 19.Google Scholar

²⁶ Ibid., n.1.

²⁷ Observation made in the course of an unrecorded lecture at Monash University, Octoberp 1968.

²⁸ Substantial administrative change came only after King Norodom's death and the accession of Sisowath in 1904.For brief discussion of some of the implications see Osborne, The French Presence, ch. 12 and p. 349, n. 85; p. 350, n.4.Google Scholar A useful summary of developments in the early twentieth century is Paul, CollardCambodge et Cambodgiens: Métamorphose du Royaume khmer par une méthode française de protectorat (Paris, Société d'éditions géographiques, maritimes et coloniales, 1925).Google Scholar

²⁹ Situation générale, p. 11.Google Scholar

³⁰ Le Cambodge, p. 10.Google Scholar

³¹ Notes cambodgiennes, pp. 30, 35–6, 46–7,Google Scholar for discussion of the 1916 Affair. The general estimation contained in the quotation is from p. 63.

³² Résident Supérieur Baudoin to Governor-General Roume, Phnom Penh, 29 January 1916, No. 140, INF 28(3), AOM.

³³ For Roume's initial position see his telegram to the Minister of the Colonies, Hanoi, 23 March 1916, No. 143, INF 28(2), AOM. His more moderate position is to be found in his long report of 31 March 1916.

³⁴ Report from Résident Rousseau, Kampot, 5 July 1919, E.O. 4, No. 7, 811, Cambodian National Archives.

³⁵ For details on Yukanthor, and the so-called Yukanthor affair of 1900–01, see The French Presence pp. 243–6.Google Scholar

³⁶ Among a large number of documents on this question, see Résident Supérieur Baudoin to Governor-General Roume, Phnom Penh, 16 February 1916, No. 63, Secret, INF 28(3), AOM; Governor-General Roume to the Minister of the Colonies, Hanoi, 31 March 1916, No. 285, INF 570, AOM; Chargé d'affaires Topenot of the French Legation, Bangkok, to Governor-General Roume, 22 March 1916, No. 27, Secret, INF 570, AOM. Both Roume and Topenot argued for German association with Cuong De as well as Yukanthor.

³⁷ Roume's report of 31 March 1916 discusses these issues.

³⁸ Despatch to Governor-General Roume, Phnom Penh, 18 February, No. 226 bis, INF 28(3), AOM. The sixteen aspects of the administrative system that had aroused Cambodian peasant resentment were, in Baudoin's judgement, the following: (1) Prestations. (2) Réquisitions. (3) Paddy Tax. (4) Fisheries regulations. (5) Tax on boats. (6) Registration of land. (7) Military service. (8) The opearation of the French judicial system. (9) The ‘farming’ of markets. (10) The operation of the Etat Civil, (registration for births, deaths and marriages). (11) The venality of Cambodian judicial officials. (12) The census of animals. (13) Watch services and charges imposed by village officials. (14) The tobacco tax. (15) Forestry taxes and regulations. (16) The stamp tax.

³⁹ Roume's despatch of 31 March 1916. Dr David Chandler has drawn my attention to a published commentary on this despatch in Louis, VignonUn Programme de politique coloniale: Les Questions indigènes (Paris, Plon-Nourrit, 1919), p. 309, n. vignon gives emphasis to Roume's belief that the impact of the French résidents in the Cambodian provinces was not widely recognized by the Khmer rural population. This seems correct. The French impact was, vitally important, however, despite this lack of recognition. But the nature of the administrative system led to the Khmer rural population laying the blame for the impact at the feet of their own, Khmer, officials.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Roume's despatch of 31 March 1916, and Baudoin's reports of 29 January and 16 February 1916.

⁴¹ Roume's despatch of 31 March 1916.

⁴² Situation générale, pp. 1–4.Google Scholar Baudoin clearly believed that the continuing readiness of Cambodians to enlist represented an argument against the proposition that the population as a whole was ‘disloyal’. At the same time, he seems to hint that the withdrawal of many European troops from Indochina had been noted with some interest by the Cambodian population. Because of a lack of evidence, the best judgement may be that the Cambodian rural population, through their awareness of the scaling down of the French military presence, had yet one more reason, conscious or otherwise, for engaging in widespread protest once the movement was sparked in January 1916.

⁴³ With the exception of some brief individual statistical information provided for Khsach Kandal, the French statistics on corvée apply to Cambodia as a whole. Given the strong possibility that these country-wide figures are far from accurate, analysis based on statistics must be hesitant at best.

⁴⁴ In past commentary on the Nghe-Tinh ‘soviets’ there has been a tendency to suggest that the French were never a target. For more recent analysis of the period see, William, J. Duiker ‘The Red Soviets of Nghe-Tinh: An Early Communist Rebellion in Vietnam’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, IV, 2 (09 1973), 186–98,Google Scholar and my own ‘Continuity and Motivation in the Vietnamese Revolution: New Light from the 1930's’, Pacific Affairs, 47, 1 (Spring 1974), 37–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁴⁵ For my argument that in coming to the throne in 1904, Sisowath benefited greatly from an increase in the symbolic significance of the Cambodian monarchy, see The French Presence, pp. 257–8Google Scholar. I do not judge that the protesters of 1916 saw Sisowath merely as a surrogate for the French. Pannetier's commentary on this matter is interesting and largely convincing. He noted that the protesters ‘had only one word on their lips, Luong, “the King”. It was the king alone they wished to see, the king alone in whom they placed their supreme confidence…We did not count’. Notes cambodgiennes, p. 46.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Résident Supérieur Baudoin to the Governor of Indochina, Phnom Penh, 29 January 1916, No. 140, INF 28(3), AOM.

⁴⁷ Situation générale, p. 9.Google Scholar This is only one instance of cooperation between Cambodians and Vietnamese, which offers a qualification to any suggestion that relations between these two ethnic groups was always marked by antipathy (see n. 18). Extensive analysis would be necessary to examine this question in a fully satisfactory fashion. Some hints of those features that led to cooperation, rather than to antipathy and even physical violence of one community against the other, may be suggested. When cooperation took place it was frequently at a time of crisis or instability. Additionally, cooperation seems also to have involved the presence of millenarian elements. This was true in the instance noted here and, to some extent, was the case for Vietnamese association with the Khmer rebel Pu Kombo in the 1860s. See Paulin, VialLes premières années de la Cochinchine française, (Paris, Challamel AÎné, 1874), II, chs XI, XII and XIII passim.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ I am indebted to Dr David Chandler for the information on the role of nak sel (holy men) in the revolt of 1820–1821 and in Pu Kombo's rebellion.

⁴⁹ Résident Supérieur Baudoin to the Governor-General of Indochina, Phnom Penh, 8 March 1922, No. 72-c, Correspondance au Départ 1922–1923, Cambodian National Archives; Baudoin, Le Cambodge pendant et après la grande guerre, pp. 14–15.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ For comments on this suggestive manifestation in the Prey Veng region see the records of the residential council for the first decade of the twentieth century contained in E.3, No. 8,868, Cambodian National Archives.

⁵¹ A report by Résident Fourestier of Takeo provides a clear example of the still limited nature of the French involvement at the end of the nineteenth century. Fourestier to the Résident Supérieur of Cambodia, Takeo, 23 February 1898, No. 131, Confidential, Provisionally catalogued archives, E.O. 67, Cambodian National Archives.

⁵² According to figures provided in his report of 31 March 1916, INF 570, AOM, the percentage of labour performed as the result of prestation on public works throughout Cambodia had fallen from fifty per cent in 1909 to six per cent in 1915.

⁵³ Imbert, J.Historie des institutions khmères, Tome II of the Annals of the Faculté de Droit de Phnom Penh (Phnom Penh, 1961), p. 159.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ A hint of some understanding of this problem does occur in Résident Supérieur Baudoin's despatch of 18 February 1916, INF 28(3), AOM.

⁵⁵ My own tendency, in the past, has been to stress this point without sufficient emphasis on the other issues involved: seeThe French Presence, pp. 283–4.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ On Bardez's death, see L'Opinion (Saigon), 25 April, 7 and 22 December 1925. See also the account provided in Walter, Langlois G.André Malraux: The Indochina Adventure (London, Pall Mall, 1966), pp. 189–91Google Scholar. Discussion of Cambodian association with the Cao-Dai movement in 1927 may be found in Governement-Général de l'Indochine, Direction des Affaires Politiques et de la Sûreté Générale. Contribution à l'histoire des mouvements politiques de l'Indochine Française, VII, Le Caodaisme (Hanoi, 1933), pp. 27. 35 and 38.Google Scholar I have attempted to place these events in a political perspective in my Politics and Power in Cambodia: The Sihanouk Years, (Melbourne, Longman, 1973), ch. 3.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ This observation is made with an awareness of the dangers of too readily linking the nationalist politics of the capital with developments in the peasants' world of the countryside. See Benda, ‘Peasant Movements’, and John A. Larkin, ‘The Causes of an Involuted Society: A Theoretical Approach to Rural Southeast Asian History’, Journal of Asian Studies, XXX, 4 (08 1971), 783 n. 3.Google Scholar