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Founding
Founding of French Protectorate of Cambodia
French protectorate
- 1863
- Phnom Penh
- Southeast Asia
Founding
French protectorate
Fetching the article from Wikipedia…
The French protectorate of Cambodia was the period of French colonial rule in Cambodia within French Indochina, a collection of Southeast Asian protectorates within the French colonial empire. The protectorate was established in 1863 when the Cambodian King Norodom requested the establishment of a French protectorate over his country, meanwhile Siam (modern Thailand) renounced suzerainty over Cambodia and officially recognised the French protectorate on Cambodia.
Cambodia was integrated into the French Indochina union in 1887 along with the French colonies and protectorates in Laos and Vietnam (Cochinchina, Annam, and Tonkin). In 1947, Cambodia was granted self-rule within the French Union, and in 1949 its status was elevated to that of an associated state. Cambodia later gained full independence under the leadership of King Sihanouk on 9 November 1953, a date celebrated as Independence Day.
During the 19th century, the kingdom of Cambodia had been reduced to a vassal state of the Kingdom of Siam (Rattanakosin rule) which had annexed its western provinces, including Angkor while growing influence from the Vietnamese Nguyễn dynasty threatened the eastern portion of the country. After the French establishment of a colony in Cochinchina (present-day southern Vietnam) in 1862, King Norodom of Cambodia requested a French protectorate over his kingdom. At the time, Pierre-Paul de La Grandière, colonial governor of Cochinchina, was carrying out plans to expand French rule over the whole of Vietnam and viewed Cambodia as a buffer between Siam and French possessions in Vietnam.
On 11 August 1863, Norodom signed a treaty acknowledging a French protectorate over his kingdom. Under the treaty, the Cambodian monarchy was allowed to remain, but power was largely vested in a resident general to be housed in Phnom Penh. France was also to be in charge of Cambodia's foreign and trade relations as well as provide military protection. Siam later recognised the protectorate after France ceded the Cambodian province of Battambang and recognised Thai control of Angkor.
The seat of the Governor-General for the whole of French Indochina was based in Saigon until the capital moved to Hanoi in 1902. Cambodia, being a constituent protectorate of French Indochina, was governed by the Résident Supérieur (Resident-General) for Cambodia, who was directly appointed by the Ministry of Marine and Colonies in Paris. The Resident-General was in turn assisted by Residents, or local governors, who were posted in all the provincial centres, such as, Battambang, Pursat, Oudong, and Siem Reap. Phnom Penh, the capital, was under the direct administration of the Resident-General.
The first decades of French rule in Cambodia included numerous reforms into Cambodian politics, such as the reduction of the monarch's power and abolition of slavery. In 1884, the governor of Cochinchina, Charles Antoine François Thomson, attempted to overthrow the monarch and establish full French control over Cambodia by sending a small force to the royal palace in Phnom Penh. The movement was only slightly successful as the governor-general of French Indochina prevented full colonisation due to possible conflicts with Cambodians and the monarch's power was reduced to that of a figurehead.
In 1885, Si Votha, half brother of Norodom and contender for the throne, led a rebellion to dispose of the French-backed Norodom after coming back from exile in Siam. Gathering support from opposers of Norodom and the French, Si Votha led a rebellion that was primarily concentrated in the jungles of Cambodia and the city of Kampot where Oknha Kralahom "Kong" led the resistance. French forces later aided Norodom to defeat Si Votha under agreements that the Cambodian population be disarmed and acknowledge the resident-general as the highest power in the protectorate. Oknha Kralahom "Kong" was called back to Phnom Penh to discuss peace with King Norodom and the French officials, but was taken captive by the French army and subsequently killed, officially putting an end to the rebellion.
In 1896, France and the British Empire signed an accord recognizing each other's sphere of influence over Indochina, especially over Siam. Under this accord, Siam had to cede the province of Battambang back to the now French-controlled Cambodia. The accord acknowledged French control over Vietnam (including the colony of Cochinchina and the protectorates of Annam and Tonkin), Cambodia, and Laos, which was added in 1893 following French victory in the Franco-Siamese crisis and French influence over eastern Siam. The French government also later placed new administrative posts in the colony and began to develop it economically while introducing French culture and language to locals as part of an assimilation program.
In 1897, the ruling Resident-General complained to Paris that the current king of Cambodia, King Norodom was no longer fit to rule and asked for permission to assume the king's powers to collect taxes, issue decrees, and even appoint royal officials and choose crown princes. From that time, Norodom and the future kings of Cambodia were figureheads and merely were patrons of the Buddhist religion in Cambodia, though they were still viewed as god-kings by the peasant population. All other power was in the hands of the Resident-General and the colonial bureaucracy. This bureaucracy was formed mostly of French officials, and the only Asians freely permitted to participate in government were ethnic Vietnamese, who were viewed as the dominant Asians in the Indochinese Union.
In 1904, King Norodom died and rather than pass the throne on to Norodom's sons, the French passed the succession to Norodom's brother Sisowath, whose branch of the royal family was nationalistic but more cooperative with the French than Norodom's. Likewise, Norodom was viewed as responsible for the constant Cambodian revolts against French rule. Another reason was that Norodom's favourite son, whom he wanted to succeed him as king, Prince Yukanthor, had, on one of his trips to Europe, stirred up public opinion about French colonial brutalities in occupied Cambodia.
France later tightened its control over Cambodia while expanding the protectorate's territory in 1902 and 1904 through treaties with Siam, which added Preah Vihear Province and Champasak Province to Cambodia and gave France full control over the Bassac River respectively. Prior to Cambodia's historical claim over Stung Treng Province, in 1904 an exchange occurred wherein Cambodia ceded Champasak and obtained Stung Treng from French Laos. Later territorial disputes between France and Siam over Battambang and Siem Reap Provinces led to the accidental French annexation of Trat Province in 1904.
Both France and Siam agreed to do a territorial exchange based on the Franco-Siamese treaty of 1907. From this, the French gained the provinces of Battambang and Siem Reap, originally Cambodian territory until the latter part of the 18th century. The acquirement of these provinces would be the last phase of French territorial expansion in Indochina as Siam would later co-operate with the British in the region, who feared uncontrolled French expansion and control of Siam would upset the balance of powers in Indochina.
Originally serving as a buffer territory for France between its more important Vietnamese colonies and Siam, Cambodia was not initially seen as an economically important area. The colonial government's budget originally relied largely on tax collections in Cambodia as its main source of revenue, and Cambodians paid the highest taxes per capita among the French colonies in Indochina. Poor and sometimes unstable administration in the early years of French rule in Cambodia meant infrastructure and urbanisation grew at a much lesser rate than in Vietnam and traditional social structures in villages still remained.
However, as French rule consolidated after the Franco-Siamese crisis, development slowly increased in Cambodia, where rice and pepper crops allowed for the economy to grow. To foster exports, modern agricultural methods were introduced, particularly by colonial entrepreneurs who had been granted land concessions in the Battambang province (West).
As the French automobile industry grew, rubber plantations like the ones already in Cochinchina and Annam were built and run by French investors. Economic diversification continued throughout the 1920s, when corn and cotton crops were also grown. Despite economic expansion and investment, Cambodians still continued to pay high taxes and in 1916, protests broke out demanding for tax cuts.
Infrastructure and public works were also developed under French rule, and roads and railroads were constructed in Cambodian territory. Most notably, a railway connected Phnom Penh with Battambang on the Thai border.
Industry was later developed but was primarily designed to process raw materials for local use or for export. As in nearby British Burma and British Malaya, foreigners dominated the work force of the economy due to French discrimination against the Cambodians from holding important economic positions. Many Vietnamese were recruited to work on rubber plantations and later immigrants played key roles in the colonial economy as fisherman and businessmen. Chinese Cambodians continued to be largely involved in commerce but higher positions were given to the French.
Unlike in Vietnam, Cambodian nationalism remained relatively quiet during much of French rule mostly due to lesser education influence, which caused literacy rates to remain low and prevented nationalist movements like those taking place in Vietnam. However, among the French-educated Cambodian elite, the Western ideas of democracy and self-rule as well as French restoration of monuments such as Angkor Wat created a sense of pride and awareness of Cambodia's once powerful status in the past.
In education, there was also growing resentment among Cambodian students of the minority Vietnamese holding a more favoured status. In 1936, Son Ngoc Thanh and Pach Choeun began publishing Nagaravatta (Notre cité) as a French language anti-colonial and at times, anti-Vietnamese newspaper. Minor independence movements, especially the Khmer Issarak, began to develop in 1940 among Cambodians in Thailand, who feared that their actions would have led to punishment if they had operated in their homeland.
After the Fall of France in 1940, Cambodia and the rest of French Indochina were ruled by the Axis-puppet Vichy France government and despite an invasion of French Indochina, Japan allowed French colonial officials to remain in their colonies under Japanese supervision. In December 1940, the French-Thai War erupted and despite French resistance against the Japanese backed Thai forces, Japan compelled French authorities to cede Battambang, Sisophon, Siem Reap (excluding Siem Reap town) and Preah Vihear provinces to Thailand.
Japanese calls of "Asia for the Asiatics" found a receptive audience among Cambodian nationalists, although Tokyo's policy in Indochina was to leave the colonial government nominally in charge. When a prominent, politically active Buddhist monk, Hem Chieu, was arrested and unceremoniously defrocked by the French authorities in July 1942, the editors of Nagaravatta led a demonstration demanding his release. They, as well as other nationalists, apparently overestimated the Japanese willingness to back them, for the Vichy authorities quickly arrested the demonstrators and gave Pach Choeun, one of the Nagaravatta editors, a life sentence. The other editor, Son Ngoc Thanh, escaped from Phnom Penh to Tokyo.
The subject of European colonies in Asia was among those discussed during the war by the Allied leaders of the Big Three, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill at the three summit meetings – Cairo Conference, Tehran Conference and Yalta Conference. With regard to the largest colony of India, Roosevelt pressed very strongly for a declaration of grant of independence by war's end, a pressure doggedly resisted by Churchill.
In regards to non-British colonies in Asia, Roosevelt and Stalin had decided in Tehran that the French and the Dutch would not return to Asia after the war. Roosevelt's untimely death before the war's end, was followed by developments very different from what Roosevelt had envisaged. The British backed the return of French and Dutch rule in Asia and organised dispatches of Indian soldiers under British command for this purpose.
Text from the Wikipedia article “French protectorate of Cambodia”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.