Warfare and Depopulation of the Trans-Mekong BasinBangkok (1782–1851) periods. Furthermore, none of them approaches
the issue in terms of inter-state competition and economic perceptions
of Siamese rulers towards the trans-Mekong region. The conflicts be-
tween Siam and its surrounding states that resulted in the appropriation
of wealth into Siam have generally been explained as only being oriented
towards political security rather than economic interests.
There is a remarkable work by Volker Grabowsky on the forced re-
settlements in the historical region of Lan Na, a present day Thailand’s
upper north, in the early nineteenth century. Chiang Mai led the depop-
ulation campaigns with encouragement from its overlord in Bangkok.
Grabowsky points out that the control of manpower was the crucial
factor for establishing, consolidating and strengthening state political
and economic power. Forced resettlement of the populace of the weaker
states into the realm of the victors was the crucial part of the warfare.
His work, however, focuses on the geographical and ethnic background
of the war captives as the forced settlements significantly affected the
ethnic composition and the regional distribution of the population in
the upper Northern Thailand. While Grabowsky sees forced resettle-
ment as a characteristic of warfare in the pre-colonial Southeast Asia,^5
this chapter examines Siamese rulers’ war campaigns against Laos and
Cambodia in the early eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in the
larger context of Siamese state building after the Burmese destruction of
Ayudhya, the Siamese capital since 1350, in 1767. It discusses the links
between warfare, manpower and the reconstruction of the post-Ayudhya
Siam. Siamese rulers’ relentless manoeuvres to acquire manpower to as-
sist the economic and political recovery of the devastated kingdom led
Siam into a series of warfare with its neighbours along the trans-Mekong
Basin in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The effective
mobilization of manpower in the trans-Mekong Basin enabled Siam to
rebuild itself after the fall of Ayudhya and return to its former position
as one of the most powerful states in the region in the early nineteenth
century. This success must be attributed to Siam’s successive warfare
between the reigns of King Taksin (r. 1767–1782) of the Thonburi
Dynasty and King Rama III (r. 1824–1851) of the Chakri Dynasty.
- Volker Grabowsky, “Forced Resettlement Campaigns in Northern Thailand dur-
ing the Early Bangkok Period”, Journal of the Siam Society 87.1 & 2 (1999): 45–86.