MONGABAY.COM
Mongabay.com seeks to raise interest in and appreciation of wild lands and wildlife, while examining the impact of emerging trends in climate, technology, economics, and finance on conservation and development (more)
WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
|
|
Laos
Index
In 1690, however, Lan Xang fell prey to a series of
rival
pretenders to its throne, and, as a result of the ensuing
struggles, split into three kingdoms--Louangphrabang,
Vientiane,
and Champasak. Muang Phuan enjoyed a semi-independent
status as a
result of having been annexed by a Vietnamese army in the
fifteenth
century, an action that set a precedent for a tributary
relationship with the court of Annam at Hué.
Successive Burmese and Siamese interventions involved
Vientiane
and Louangphrabang in internecine struggles. In 1771 the
king of
Louangphrabang attacked Vientiane, determined to punish it
for what
he perceived to be its complicity in a Burmese attack on
his
capital in 1765. The Siamese captured Vientiane for the
first time
in 1778-79, when it became a vassal state to Siam.
Vientiane was
finally destroyed in 1827-28 following an imprudent
attempt by its
ruler, Chao Anou, to retaliate against perceived Siamese
injustices
toward the Lao.
The disappearance of the Vientiane kingdom and the
weakened
condition of Louangphrabang led to a period of direct
Siamese
presence on the left bank of the Mekong and to the virtual
annexation of Xiangkhouang and part of Bolikhamxai by the
Vietnamese. The Siamese also soon became more directly
involved
with the Kingdom of Louangphrabang, whose ruler, Manta
Thourath (r.
1817-36), had sought to preserve neutrality in the
conflict between
Siam and Vientiane. The Siamese intervention was caused by
an
appeal by King Oun Kham (r. 1872-94) for help in clearing
his
northeastern territories of the Hô (Haw), bands of armed
horsemen
who had fled the bloody Manchu campaign to pacify Yunnan.
The last major migration into Laos in the nineteenth
century
was that of the
Hmong (see Glossary).
Accustomed to
growing crops
of dryland rice and maize at the highest elevations in
mountainous
southern China, where they had lived for centuries, the
Hmong
practiced a peaceful coexistence with their neighbors at
lower
elevations. Their major interaction occurred in selling
their chief
cash crop, opium.
Data as of July 1994
|
|