Warring Societies of Pre-colonial Southeast Asiarevenue, since the number of taxpayers decreased, local trade was
disrupted, and the deserted area was not attractive to traders. The
capacity to build up military power for defending the country against
the invasions of the more powerful neighbours was diminished. In the
nineteenth century, Cambodian kings were unable to withstand inter-
ventions and invasions by their powerful neighbours.
For Siam, the large scale of the forced resettlement campaigns along
the trans-Mekong basin did not only enable the Siamese to populate
their kingdom, deserted by the Burmese War; they also provided Siam
with a basis for building up its economy that had been devastated since
- The massive influx of labour enabled the Siamese elite to develop
its production in response to the changing global demand and to create
a level of prosperity. The resettlements were carried out in the economi-
cally well-planned manner, which in turn enabled the consolidation
of state power over a widening territory in mainland Southeast Asia.
Therefore, the continuous and massive scale of forced resettlement
Table 1.1: Classification of population of the provinces of Phnom Penh and
Battambang in 1907
Ethnicities Phnom Penh Battambang
Khmer 21,903 154,000
Vietnamese 9,489 6,000
Chinese 12,533 30,000
Half caste (métis) 320 –
Indian 419 –
Cham–Malay – 2,000
Laotian 128 3,000
Siamese – 1,000
“Uplanders” – –
Japanese 27 3
Total 44,819 200,000Sources: AOM, (Indochine) A. F. Carton 111 dossier G 01(6), “Statistique population
du Cambodge année 1907”; AOM, (Indochine) Résidences Supérieures du Cambodge
254 , “Rapport de Monsieur Breucq, sur Battambang, 15 février 1907.” Note that the
number of Chinese for Battamabang presented in this table also includes those referred
to as “half-caste”.