Slavery in nineteenth century northern Thailand:archival anecdotes and village voices.

by Katherine A. Bowie

SLAVERY IN NINETEENTH CENTURY NORTHERN THAILAND:

ARCHIVAL ANECDOTES AND VILLAGE VOICES.1

Katherine A. Bowie

The study of Thai history is still in its infancy. As the quality of contemporary

scholarship improves, the extent to which unsupported assumptions have served as

historical truths becomes more apparent (e.g. Bowie 1992). As David Wyatt, with

penetrating honesty, writes: "Historians' study of Thailand prior to the nineteenth century

remains relatively superficial, based on very scanty sources" (1984:245). This essay is

an exploration into a fundamental historical aspect of Thai society, namely, the

institution of slavery. Many scholars have prefaced their remarks on slavery in

Southeast Asia with comments to the effect that western conceptions of freedom and

slavery are misleading and inappropriate (see Aung Thwin 1984:228; Cruikshank

1975:331; Rabibhadana 1969:109; Reid 1983:1-2; for broader discussion see also

Miers and Kopytoff 1977:12; Kopytoff 1982:221). While few scholars would disagree on

the need to understand slavery within the context of a given society, the argument for

the cultural uniqueness of Thai slavery has encouraged a kind of complacency about

the role of political authority and military force.

This complacency has been reinforced by the assumption that slavery in

Thailand and elsewhere in Southeast Asia was predominantly due to indebtedness

(Aymonier 1900, II:42, quoted in Lasker 1950:57; Bock [1884] 1986:13; Colquhoun

1Research for this article was conducted under a grant from the Social Science Research Council from 1984-1986 and under the auspices of the National Research Council of Thailand. The author would like to acknowledge the editorial assistance of Hugh Wilson and Paul Durrenberger.

bowie (2-15-93)-2 1885:186, 189; Cruikshank 1975:315-16; Graham 1924:237; Ingram 1971:15; Lasker

1950:57, 138, 150-154; O'Kane 1972:131; Pendleton 1962:14; Rabibhadana 1969:106-

7; Reid 1983:xv; Terweil 1983:19). The prominence given to debt-slavery is in part the

result of a focus on the possibility of exit from slavery, rather than on the manner of

entry. Because slaves in central Thailand have generally been divided into two major

categories, redeemable and non-redeemable, attention has focussed on the possibility

of manumission. Since redeemable slaves are thought to have outnumbered non-

redeemable, slavery in Thailand has taken on an even more benign cast.

With the assumption that debt-slavery was the primary form of slavery, the

emphasis has shifted from a consideration of physical force to fiscal pressure, from the

state's use of force to obtain slaves and maintain slavery to economic factors. Despite

the possibility of poverty and economic coercion as a factor explaining entry into debt

slavery, a remarkable number of scholars have asserted that slavery was not an

onerous or oppressive condition. Thus Sir John Bowring writes:

Bishop Pallegoix states that slaves are 'well treated in Siam--as well as servants are in France;' and I, from what I have seen, would be inclined to go even farther, and say, better than servants are treated in England... In small families, the slaves are treated like the children of the masters; they are consulted in all matters, and each man feels that as his master is prosperous, so is he... ([1857] 1969:193-94).

Later scholars rely to a remarkable extent upon the conclusions of Jean Baptiste

Pallegoix and Bowring. Bowring and Pallegoix are clearly the implied European

observers behind Robert Pendleton's comment that "The slaves were, by and large, not

badly off. European observers generally reported that they were better off than freemen

servants in Western society" (1962:15). Citing Pallegoix, Bruno Lasker writes that

bowie (2-15-93)-3 "since they were essential to the support of their owners, they enjoyed a relatively

humane treatment" (1950:58). Also citing Pallegoix, Virginia Thompson writes, "Though

their condition varied...their status was always comparatively easy and generally

humane" (1967[1941]:599). Citing Pallegoix and Bowring, R. B. Cruikshank writes, "In

any event, most observers suggest that slaves in Siam were very well treated"

(1975:320; see also Bacon 1881:296; Bock ([1884] 1986:159; Colquhoun 1885:189,

267; Freeman 1910:100; Garnier 1873:171-72; Graham 1924:237-38; Pallegoix

1854:299; Turpin 1771:87, quoted in Lasker 1950:57; Wales 1965:63; Wilson 1962:96).

Not only have scholars have argued that slaves were well-treated, but many

have argued that the entry into servitude was the voluntary economic decision of the

slave. Bowring cites as evidence "the fact that whenever they are emancipated, they

always sell themselves again" (1969 [1857]:193). Archibald Colquhoun waxes

moralistic, writing of his hope that time may "shame them out of the indolence which

leads so many of the Siamese to prefer living the life of serfs, dependent upon others,

rather than as free men, who must battle with the world and face the consequences"

(1885:178). Although Carl Bock notes that debt-slaves very rarely succeed in working

off their indebtedness, he explains, "on the contrary, the servant generally contrives to

add to the amount of his indebtedness, and lives in a perpetual state of semi-bondage,

with which his indolent nature fully harmonizes. I have seldom seen a slave-debtor

discontented with his lot" ([1884 1986:13). Cruikshank writes, "The sale and purchase

of slaves was, however, a private matter between the one selling (or being sold), the

buyer, and probably, the patron of the one being sold" (1975:319). James Ingram writes

bowie (2-15-93)-4 that "In general, it appears that the lot of the debt slave was not too unpleasant in

comparison with his countrymen, and that many people were probably 'slaves' more or

less through choice" (1971:61). So extreme has this benign portrait of Thai slavery

become that the role of political force is even explicitly denied. Thus Kukrit and Seni

Pramoj write:

...in King Mongkut's time slavery was not a system whereby one or more human being were subjugated by another. It was, strangely enough, the right of free men to sell themselves into bondage which, in most cases, was exercised with the object of extricating these persons from financial difficulties. (In Ingram 1971:61).

Using the case of the Chiang Mai kingdom of northern Thailand, this essay seeks

to challenge the scholarly complacency which I believe has developed around the

subject of Thai slavery. Although most attention has been paid to the division of Thai

slaves into redeemable and non-redeemable, in fact the Thai law codes on slaves make

many more distinctions (see Bowring 1969 [1857]:189-199; Rabibhadana 1969; Smith

1880 for details). I am not using the Thai legal categories since such categories as

hereditary servitude or acquisition as gifts only beg the question of the cause of the

original enslavement. Since this paper focusses on the manner of entry into servitude

rather than the manner of exit, I shall draw upon Lasker's division of five main ways in

which individuals might become enslaved: capture in warfare; condemnation for crimes;

raids, both by pirates and by professional traders; sale of dependents, usually of

children by their parents; and indebtedness (1950:16). However, I should like to reduce

these five major sources of slavery into two broader categories, considering

enslavement through war, kidnapping or as sentences for crimes as manifestations of

bowie (2-15-93)-5 various forms of political power and considering enslavement through indebtedness and

the related sale of family members as manifestations of economic pressure. My

evidence is drawn from two major sources, from interviews I conducted with some 550

villagers, the majority of whom were over the age of 80, and from accounts left by

nineteenth century observers of northern Thailand. Chiang Mai was the largest

kingdom in northern Thailand.

This essay is divided into three sections. In the first section, I shall examine

these combined oral and archival sources for information about the relative percentages

of people enslaved through political power and those enslaved through economic

pressure. I shall establish that war captives far outnumbered debt-slaves. In the

second section, I shall discuss the extent and trauma involved in the major categories of

forced slavery, war captives and kidnappees, noting the manner in which state power is

involved in both categories. In the third section I shall focus on debt-slavery, the

primary basis for the assumptions of other scholars arguing for the benign, voluntary

and even non-political character of Thai slavery in general. I shall briefly suggest how

the state can be understood to have shaped debt-slavery as well. In conclusion, I argue

that the preliminary insights into the extent and nature of slavery in northern Thai

society presented in this paper should encourage a more general and more critical

reexamination of the prevailing assumptions regarding slavery in Thailand, and possibly

elsewhere in mainland Southeast Asia.

PART ONE: On the Number of Slaves:

bowie (2-15-93)-6

Although Pallegoix and Bowring are most frequently cited as nineteenth century

authorities on Thai slavery, other contemporaries have been ignored. Pallegoix's

estimate that one-fourth to one-third of the population of Siam (central Thailand) were

slaves is the most often cited (I:235, II:298;2 see also Lasker 1950:57; Pendleton

1962:14; Thompson [1941] 1967:599). Bowring's citation of Pallegoix is then taken as

support for Pallegoix, even though in a footnote Bowring advances that Pallegoix is

including the Chinese in his figure of one third of the population "for there are distinctly

much more than a third of Siamese who are slaves" ([1857] 1969:191; see also

Colquhoun 1885:189). Hallett, citing Mr. Alabaster, a confidential advisor to the king, is

more specific, noting that "nine-tenths of the non-Chinese inhabitants of Bangkok were

slaves" (1890:447).

If the evidence from central Thailand suggests the possibility that a large

percentage of the population were slaves, the historical evidence from northern

Thailand is more definitive, since it is drawn from different authors writing decades

apart. Several of these authors had considerable experience in Southeast Asia, some

even able to speak the native language, and had personally travelled to many villages in

the region. Furthermore, oral histories confirm the archival sources. The combined

northern Thai sources suggest that a clear majority of slaves were war captives and

kidnapees and that a far smaller percentage were debt slaves.

Dr. Richardson, in his diary of his journeys to Chiang Mai in the 1830s (Ms:143),

noted that three-quarters of the kingdom's population were not only slaves, but war

2I have taken the Pallegoix references from Cruikshank 1975:319n. According to Cruikshank, v. 1, p. 235 says one third; v. 2, p. 298 says one-fourth. However, I have

bowie (2-15-93)-7

captives. General McLeod wrote of his trip to Chiang Mai in 1837 that war captives

from regions north of Chiang Mai and Peguans (Talaings from southern Burma)

"comprise more than two-thirds of the population of the country":

the greater part of the inhabitants of Zimme are people from Kiang Tung, Muang Niong (Yong), Kiang Then (Tsen or Hsen), and many other places to the northward. They were originally subjects of Ava (Burmah). (quoted in Hallett 1890:202).

Hallett indicates that about 60 percent of a single lord's retainers were slaves

descended from war captives. From his discussions with the ruling lord of Chiang Saen

(Kiang Hsen), Hallett took the proportion of 6,000 adult males, of whom 2,500 were

fighting men, to conclude that the remaining 58 percent were slaves:

The Chow Hluang told me that before he left Lapoon to take up the

government of Kiang Hsen, when it was reoccupied in 1881, his retainers

numbered fully 30,000 souls, amongst whom were 2500 fighting men.

Every man from 18-70 year of age, who is not a slave, is reckoned as a

fighting man; and allowing one grown man to every five souls, there must

have been fully 6,000 grown men amongst his dependents. This

proportion between full grown slaves and fighting men shows that there

were about 17,500 slaves amongst his 30,000 retainers. (Hallett

1980:202-203).

John Freeman estimated that about half of the population of Lamphun province were

descendants of war captives (1910:100). Thus there is a remarkable consensus

amongst several independent nineteenth century observers that 1) at least half of the

been unable to verify the one-third figure, although it is commonly cited as such.

bowie (2-15-93)-8 population were war captives, and 2) that the combined total of war captives together

with other kinds of slaves must have comprised more than half of the population.

The vast majority of slaves were owned by the ruling lords of the northern

kingdoms. As Freeman succinctly writes, "The 'chow,' or native princes, are the

principal slave-holders" (1910:101). Other nineteenth century observers provide

supporting evidence. A.H. Hildebrand writes that the second chief had some 600 slaves

living under his roof and another 600 or so slaves living elsewhere (FO69/65/1875),

thus owning a combined total of some 1,200 slaves. D. J. Edwardes records that the

ruling lords had 300 slaves engaged in weaving alone (FO69/62/1875). Colquhoun

provides the most detailed breakdown, showing the Chiang Mai aristocracy owned

thousands of slaves. He records that the first lord or Chaw Luang had 1,500 slaves; the

second lord or Chaw Huanaa had 1,000 slaves; the third lord had 800 slaves, and other

lesser lords had 70-100 each. The lesser ranking rural elite (Phrayars) also had slaves,

averaging 15-20 each (Colquhoun 1885:257). Although population figures are difficult

to obtain (see Ingram 1971:55-58), Hildebrand offers an estimate of some 10-11,000

people living in and immediately around the town of Chiang Mai (FO69/65/1875). Using

Colquhoun's figures, the three ruling lords of Chiang Mai alone owned some 3,300

slaves, or one-third of the population. If the slaves of these three lords are combined

with those of the lesser lords and rural elite, the estimate that about half the population

were slaves is reinforced.

Oral histories confirm both the presence of significant numbers of slaves and the

preponderance of war captives over debt-slaves. Of the approximately 550 people I

bowie (2-15-93)-9 interviewed in villages, 167 interviewees, or some 30 percent, recalled some specific

information about slavery in the past. In this figure, I did not include villagers who

merely confirmed that slavery existed in the past, but rather only those who were able to

provide some specific details about slaves or slavery in their village.

I consider this a high number since several factors would tend to minimize

villagers' recollections of slavery. First of all, it seems that slaves were more likely to

live near the court than in remote villages (e.g. Hildebrand writes that the second chief

had some 600 slaves living under his roof and another 600 or so slaves living elsewhere

(FO69/65/1875). Secondly, the status of slave was stigmatized and so some villagers

would have been reluctant to admit their forbearers were slaves. Thirdly, those who

were war captives from the Chiang Saen region had already been forced to return to

Chiang Saen in 1881 and hence no longer lived in the Chiang Mai area (see Hallett

1890:203-5). Fourthly, poor villagers, such as slaves, were more likely to be orphaned

young or more likely to have had parents who were travelling greater distances in

search of work and food; consequently I found that it was much more difficult to find

knowledgeable village elders in villages with considerable poverty than in better-off

villagers with more stability and better health.

Fifthly, the sheer numbers of war captives may over time have served to allow an

ironic inversion of memory. If the majority of villagers were war captives, then the

accounts of parents would not necessarily have impressed itself on children and

grandchildren as particularly unusual. This ambiguity of status would have been

reinforced if the differentiation in the treatment of serfs and slaves was simply a matter

bowie (2-15-93)-10 of degree. This ambiguity is reflected in village comments such as, "in those days

everyone was a slave" or comments to the effect that in those days "everyone worked

as if they were a slave." The fact that many of the war captives were women,

distributed as wives amongst the soldiers and political dependents as part of their

reward for their efforts, would have served to blend the accounts of fathers and mothers

which were passed on to the next generation.

Sixthly, given a reluctance by many villagers to admit to slave ancestry, it is not

surprising that accounts of the past became more ambiguous over time. Thus many

villagers denied that their forbearers were war captives but recalled that their forbearers

had "fled fighting," "been forced to flee fighting," or even "chased out of the region by

fighting" ("nii syyk", "nii maa," or even "rai maa, mii syyk." The process of changing

accounts was dramatically evident in one interview in which the village headman was

listening in as I talked with one 83-year old villager. The villager elder explained that

villagers had been captured (ngap maa), while the middle-aged village headman

insisted that the old man was mistaken and he was sure the village ancestors had

simply fled fighting. In another example, a 94-year old woman couldn't recall if her

village's ancestors had fled fighting or had been captured. Yet another informant

recalled that his village forbearers were chaleoi (war captives), but denied that this

meant they were slaves! Very often these villagers, although only recalling their village

ancestors as having fled fighting, were of ethnic backgrounds compatible with war

slavery (e.g. Khyyn). Thus it is not hard to understand how over time the issues of war,

captivity and flight become confused in the minds of successive generations.

bowie (2-15-93)-11 Even though several factors have contributed to the gradual erasure of slavery

from villagers' historical memory, oral histories confirm the comments made by

nineteenth century foreign observers. Oral histories support not simply the large-scale

presence of slavery in northern Thailand, but also reveal the extent to which the primary

cause of enslavement was political force rather than economic pressure. Of the 167

villagers who recalled some specific information about slavery, only 53 were able to

recall specific information about the cause of enslavement (this figure is not surprising

given most informants, if born, were only small children at the time slavery officially

ended in Thailand in 1905). Of these 53 informants, 28 (53 percent) gave war slavery

as the cause; 14 (26 percent) cited indebtedness; 9 (or 17 percent) cited kidnapping

and 2 (4 percent) cited punishment for crimes as the reason (see table 1). Another 15

recalled their village forbearers had "fled fighting," but did not recall that their forbearers

were slaves; hence I listed these informants separately and did not include them in the

167 interviews on slavery. Thus oral histories suggest that war slavery was by far the

most common reason given for enslavement. If war slavery is combined with other

categories of enslavement involving the direct use of force (kidnapping and punishment

for crimes), then 74 percent of the informants recalled that northern Thai slaves were

enslaved by political force as compared to only 26 percent for economic indebtedness.

TABLE #1

The use of state force in slavery becomes even clearer if the ownership of slaves

bowie (2-15-93)-12 by lords is differentiated from the ownership of slaves by the rural elite. Out of 30

informants discussing slave ownership by lords, 19 (63 percent) recalled that the slaves

in their area were war captives; 10 (33 percent) gave reasons of indebtedness (see

table #1). If the category of "fled fighting" is included in the total of war captives, then

26 out of 37 informants, or 70 percent, reported that war slavery was the reason for

enslavement. This concentration of slave ownership in the hands of the ruling lords

reveals the extent to which slavery was an important underpinning to political power,

and also the result of that power in warfare.

It might be expected that debt slavery would be the more common of

enslavement for slaves owned by the rural elite, since villagers were more likely to be in

day-to-day contact with them rather than the more remote lords. Remarkably, this

expectation was not borne out. Of a total of 19 informants who recalled the reason for

enslavement for slaves owned by the rural elite, only 4 informants (21 percent) reported

indebtedness was the cause. Another 6 informants (32 percent) recalled the individual

concerned had either captured the slave directly as part of a war effort or had received

a war captive as a reward for services rendered a victorious lord. Another 8 informants

(42 percent) recalled that the slaves owned by a member of the rural elite were

purchased from parties who dealt in kidnapping slaves.

The use of state force in northern Thai slavery is supported by three additional

kinds of information from the oral histories. First, if ruling lords are differentiated from

lesser lords, an even clearer majority of the slaves of the ruling lords were war captives.

Out of 25 informants recalling information about slaves owned by the ruling elite, 17 or

bowie (2-15-93)-13 68 percent recalled war slavery as the cause of enslavement. If the "fled fighting"

category is included, then out of 31 informants, 23 or 74 percent cited war slavery as

the cause. By comparison, amongst the lesser lords, informants citing war slavery as

the cause of enslavement were about equal to those citing indebtedness as the cause

(see table #1).

Secondly, if informant responses are weighted by the number of slaves each

informant was referring to, the evidence shifts even more dramatically in favor of war

slavery (see table #2). Some 25 entire villages are described as having been

comprised of war slaves, in addition to another 54 individuals or families. By

comparison, only 1 village is mentioned as having been comprised of debt-slaves and

another 47 individuals or families. Fully 21 out of the 25 villages described as being

comprised of war captives owned by one of the ruling lords. If an average village is

conservatively estimated as having only 10 households, then some 304 families or 84

percent were war captives, compared to only 57 debt-slave households or 16 percent.

If a larger figure is assigned as the average number of households, then the ratio of war

captives to debt-slaves would increase even further.

TABLE #2

Thirdly, a survey of slaves by ethnic or geographical background is also

revealing. If indebtedness were the reason for enslavement, one would expect the

slaves to be of local backgrounds. However, out of 96 interviews in which villagers

bowie (2-15-93)-14 were able to recall some information about the ethnic or geographical origin of slaves,

75 (78 percent) villagers recalled that the slaves were of backgrounds other than local

northern Thai (phyn muang). Of slaves owned by the ruling lords, this pattern was even

more clear, with 43 out of 51 informants, or 84 percent, reporting a non-local origin for

royal slaves (see tables #3 and #4). Amongst lesser lords and rural elite this pattern

was similar, but less pronounced. If some effort is made to factor in the number of

slaves of various ethnic and geographical backgrounds, this pattern becomes even

more pronounced, with a total of over 41 villages and 132 individual households

described as non-local as compared with only 2 1/2 villages and 73 households

described as local. Using a very conservative figure of 10 households per village, there

would be some 542 non-local slave households (85 percent) compared with only some

98 local slave households. Using a less conservative estimate of the number of

households per village would yield an even higher percentage of non-local slaves. The

fact that slaves were far more likely to come from non-local backgrounds further

reinforces the argument that war captivity predominated as a cause of slavery over

indebtedness.

INSERT TABLE #3

INSERT TABLE #4

bowie (2-15-93)-15

bowie (2-15-93)-16 PART TWO: The Role of State Power in Slavery.

Of the five major causes of slavery in Thailand, three can be categorized as

overtly political, namely war captivity, kidnapping and punishment for crimes.

Punishment appears to have accounted for a very small percentage of those enslaved.

Consequently in this section, I shall focus on the two more important categories, war

captivity and kidnapping, suggesting that the inhumanity of this violence has been

minimized by many of those who have written on Thai slavery. When not omitted from

consideration entirely, the reality of the violence perpetrated is often softened by

phrasing. Thus Colquhoun writes that "even savages who are captured and sold as

slaves are treated so kindly that, to a stranger, if it were not for their physiognomy and

long hair, they would seem part of the family of their masters" (1885:189).3 Graham

writes "The condition of slavery was not hard, provided the slaves were fairly tractable

and did not try to run away" and adds nonchalantly, "They were rarely sold without their

own consent" (1924:237-38). Similarly, Cruikshank writes, "It seems clear, however,

that their fate, once they had arrived through forced marches from the scene of the

battle or raid, was generally good" 1975:317).

War Captives:

In most accounts of central Thai slavery, prisoners of war have received minimal

consideration. Nonetheless, it has frequently been noted that Southeast Asian rulers

3In this passage, Colquhoun claims to be quoting Garnier. I have checked Garnier and Garnier does not say what Colquhoun says he says. Instead Garnier says that the condition of slavery was not comparable to that of the "negroes in European colonies" and he speaks of the "deplorable consequences" and "undeserved violence"

bowie (2-15-93)-17 were more interested in control over people rather than control over territory, to "put

vegetables into baskets and put slaves into kingdoms" (kep phak saj saa, kep khaa saj

muang; Nimmanhaeminda 1965).4 The capture of slaves has a long history in northern

Thailand. One of the earliest mentions of war captives can be found in the famous

Inscription of King Ramakhamhaeng dating from the thirteenth century. Ironically,

although this inscription is cited as evidence of a paternalistic form of rule (see Andaya

1971), the passage providing evidence of Ramakhamhaeng's filial piety reads:

During my father's life I served my father and I served my mother. If I got a bit of meat or a bit of fish, I took it to my father; if I had any sort of fruit, sour or sweet, anything delicious and good to eat, I took it to my father. If I went on an elephant hunt and caught any, I took them to my father. If I went to attack a village or a city and collected some elephants and ivory, men and women, silver and gold, I gave them to my father. (Benda and Larkin, ed. 1967:40-41).

Chronicles record thousands of captives being taken at a time. For example, in

1462, King Tilok of the Lannathai kingdom of Chiang Mai is recorded as conquering

eleven Shan principalities and carrying off 12,328 people who were relocated in three

towns and several frontier posts "where their descendants have lived until our days"

(Notton 1926-32, Vol. 3:135; quoted in Turton 1980:255). Simon de la Loubere gives a

sense of these earlier kingdoms in his description of late seventeenth-century Ayuthaya:

"They busie themselves only in making slaves. If the Peguins (sic), for example, do on

one side invade the lands of Siam, the Siamese will at another place enter the Lands of

Pegu, and both Parties will carry away whole Villages into Captivity" (1969:90).

(1873:172). 4Many scholars have suggested that this emphasis on control over labor rather than land set Southeast Asian states apart from European feudal kingdoms. I believe this distinction is grossly overstated. As Perry Anderson observes of Europe, "Plunder,

bowie (2-15-93)-18 Richardson provides one of the earliest accounts of the importance of war

captives in northern Thailand. Told from the perspective of the war captives

themselves, the account gives some idea of the distances travelled and the numbers

involved:

The thonghee of this village (KAB: Ban Pasang (Basang) in Lamphun) and of Ban San Kanoy and most of the villagers were captured about 29 years ago (KAB: 1805-6) and brought here as slaves from the city of Moung Neaung about 45 days march northerly from this, about one month northeast of Ava and about three long days from the Chinese frontier. The mother of Meng Nyot Boo was a sister of this Thooghee's wife--they say there were about 2,000 people brought away. (Ms:56).

General McLeod gives a broader sense of the social impact of the war captives on the

kingdom of Chiang Mai when he writes in his journal in 1837 "the greater part of the

inhabitants of Zimme are people from Kiang Tung, Muang Niong (Yong), Kiang Then

(Tsen or Hsen), and many other places to the northward. They were originally subjects

of Ava (Burmah)." In another passage he writes, "They, with the Talaings (Peguan

Burmese), comprise more than two-thirds of the population in the country" (quoted in

Hallett 1988[1890]:202). As Hallett continues:

From the time when Kiang Hsen was captured till 1810, Ping Shan armies frequently raided into the Burmese Shan States--proceeding as far west as the Salween and as far north as the border of China--sacked the towns, and carried away the inhabitants into captivity.

Some sense of the magnitude of these population relocations was given by the ruling

lord of Chiang Saen in an interview with Hallett. In describing the territory he ruled, the

lord explained "that many other cities were scattered about the country, but owing to

their having been depopulated during the wars of last and the beginning of this century,

tribute and slaves were the central objects of aggrandisement" (1974:28).

bowie (2-15-93)-19 most of their names had been forgotten" (1988[1890]:199).

The ruling lord of Chiang Saen provided a rare account of the variable fortunes of

his kingdom which give insight into the process of mass enslavement. The original

capital was built, according to the Chaw Luang, in 1699. Between 1779 and 1803,

Chiang Saen was attacked six times. The Lao of Vieng Chang [sic] and Luang Prabang,

together with the Lao of Chiang Mai laid siege to Chiang Saen from 1794 to 1797.

During the siege, Phya Anoo, the chief of Vieng Chang, enraged at the long resistance,

issued a proclamation that every male found in the city would be put to death on its

capture. This proclamation reinforced the resolve of the besieged and although the city

wall was breached at one point, the people of Chiang Saen succeeded in fighting off the

attack. The siege was then called off, but famine was raging in the city.

The city finally fell in 1804 through the deception of the commander of the Ping

Shans (KAB: another term for Chiang Mai, the city being located on the Ping River)

troops. The commander of the Ping troops, which included the joint forces of Chiang

Mai, Lampang, Nan, and Phrae, secretly informed the chief of Chiang Saen that they

merely wished Chiang Saen to throw off the Burmese and become feudatory to Siam.

He promised that, if the inhabitants of Chiang Saen would massacre the Burmese

governor and his troops and open the gates, the Ping Shans would form an alliance with

them. Accordingly the inhabitants of Chiang Saen killed the Burmese governor and the

300 Burmese soldiers within the city walls and opened the gates to the Ping Shans. As

Hallett explains:

They soon found to their cost that they had been treacherously dealt with. The city was destroyed; some of the people escaped across the Salween

bowie (2-15-93)-20

and settle in Mokmai and Monay, and the rest were taken captive to the Ping States, and distributed amongst them. With the Shans treachery is an ordinary occurrence in warfare: the persons deluded are ashamed at having been taken in; the successful party chuckles and crows over his cleverness. (1988[1890:202).

The devastation caused by repeated warring and raiding was considerable. As

Freeman explains:

In raids as these, whole villages were wiped out, entire valleys depopulated, for not only were many killed by the robbers or carried of as slaves, but the survivors fled to the forests and dared not return. There, jungle fever, dysentery and other diseases, due to exposure, carried off children and adults by the score. Often the stock of rice was burned, and, since the cattle were driven off or killed, the survivors could not work their fields. Famine followed in the wake of war. (1910:99).

Richardson includes a brief but moving account of a discussions with war captives from

Muang Neaung. Their accounts give some sense of both the numbers of people being

uprooted and their personal feelings:

The rightfull Tsobwa of Mein Neaung stayed with me a great part of the day. He is a prisoner who was carried off by the present Chow Tcheeweet about 30 years ago, the year after he re-established this town (Laboung). He complained with little reserve of his situation here. He said he ate and drank and slept like other people--his natural part was here, but his spirit was in his own country . . . The sister of my neighbour Chow Ni Non Luang paid me a visit this morning accompanied by a little train of hand-maidens bearing some presents . . . She gave me a most distressing account of their captivity immediately after they were brought here. She was sent down as an addition to the King of Siam's harem. He had however the humanity . . . to send her back again with instructions to Chow Tchiiwiit to give as little additional cause for sorrow and allow the captives to live as much together as possible. As they amounted to 3,000 people, they were afraid to trust them together and they were distributed in small numbers about the different villages in this principality which the Birmans had then only recently left and which was very thinly peopled. They never made any combined attempts to escape and large proportion are now collected in this vicinity under her brother. (Ms:58-59).

bowie (2-15-93)-21 By far the most powerful description of the impact of being captured is recorded

in an account left by a British official, Mr. Gould. This rare first-hand account provides

graphic details of the capture and forced march of some war captives from Laos in

1876. Gould visited two groups of "prisoners," one group numbering 1,005 and the

other group numbering 300, who by that time had reached the border of Thailand. In

his account, Gould explains that the Siamese soldiers had successfully driven the Chin

Haw from Laos. During the fighting, many of the Laotians had fled into the surrounding

mountains. Gould continues:

The Laos fugitives in the hills being aware of what had taken place naturally thought that they time had come when they might return to their homes. They however regarded the stranger Siamese with some distrust and a considerable number determined not yet to leave their asylum in the hills. That these poor people were wise, the event proved, and every person of humanity will when the result is known, wish that none of these Laos had left their shelter at all. However, large numbers did, and returned to their homes in Chieng Kwang and the neighbourhood, and no doubt felt thankful to the power which had driven out their enemies. Whether what followed was due to special orders from Bangkok or whether action was taken independently by the Chiefs of the army I had no means of ascertaining, but however the matter may stand, the Laos who were now settling down again into their homes and endeavouring to repair the damage done by the Chin Haw invasion were called upon to take the oath of allegiance to the King of Siam in the usual form of "kin nam sabot". Various places were appointed, all on the same day, for the taking of the oath, and the unsuspecting people were summoned. As soon as they had thus been called together, they were, after taking the oath, suddenly set upon and made prisoners. The number thus treacherously seized amounted to 5,700. The Siamese military expedition had been converted into a slave hunting operation on a large scale. It only remained to drive the slave gangs to Bangkok. The unfortunate creatures, men, women and children, many of the latter still in arms, were driven off in droves through the jungles from Muang Puen to Pichai, the nearest point on the Menam River.

bowie (2-15-93)-22

This terrible march occupied more than a month and is hardly surpassed in its details of miserable suffering by any story of the slavers of Africa told by Sir Samuel Baker and others. The captives were hurried mercilessly along, many weighted by burdens strapped to their backs, the men who had no wives or children with them and were therefore capable of attempting escape, were tied together by a rope passed through a sort of wooden collar. Those men who had their families with them were allowed the free use of their limbs. Great numbers died from sickness, starvation and exhaustion on the road. The sick when they become too weak to struggle on were left behind. If a house happened to be near, the sick man or woman was left with the people in the house. If no house was at hand which must have been oftener the case in the wild country they were traversing, the sufferer was imply flung down to die miserably in the jungle. Any of his or her companions attempting to stop to assist the poor creatures were driven on with blows. Thus the slave gangs were driven down to Pichai. There they were placed on rafts and brought down the river to the place where I saw them. A good many have not yet completed the journey and are, I was told, scattered about at various places on the upper waters of the river. As to those I saw active ill-treatment by their masters is for the present at an end and indeed there is now some show of humanity towards them. They have been supplied with a staff of Siamese doctors from Bangkok and they are given daily a sufficiency of rice and fish. For all the smaller necessaries which go to make up a native curry they are obliged to depend upon the charity of the country people among whom they go about begging and upon whom their sad story is not without effect. Still their condition even now is in the last degree pitiable. They are nearly all in a state of disease aggravated by being compelled to live upon the low country rice instead of the glutinous rice "kow neeo" to which alone they are accustomed. Some of the middle-aged people only seemed to have retained their health. All the rest were very thin and wretched. Great numbers had every joint swollen up to a great size and numbers more were covered with a foul erruption on the skin often extending over the entire body. The little children of whom there were still a great many were in a condition of terrible emaciation. Fever and dysentery were still at work among them and many more will probably die. Already I was told, more than half of the original 5,700 so treacherously seized are dead. My information as to the present condition of the prisoners was of

course obtained by direct inspection. The particulars of their history I

gained from many conversations with individual captives among whom

bowie (2-15-93)-23

was the son of the Governor of Wieng Kang who shared the fate of his

countrymen and was still possessed of some authority over them. (Gould

1876 FO 69:#64).

If there is considerable evidence of the importance of war captives to the

nineteenth century northern Thai kingdoms, there is also evidence that war captives

played a role in nineteenth century Siam. Wales describes such war expeditions as "the

regular occupation of the dry season (1934:64). Captives included soldiers and

civilians, males and females: "The Siamese equally carry off the peasantry of the open

country of both sexes" (Crawfurd 1915:145; Turton 1980:255). After the Siamese

capture of Vientiane in 1826, some six thousand families were removed to Thailand

(Turton 1980:255). Garnier mentions that after an uprising in Cambodia, the Siamese

"profited by it by making an incursion into Cambodia from whence they took away a

rather big number of Annamite prisoners" (1873:147). Bowring estimated that during

the reign of Rama III (1824-1851), there were 46,000 war slaves; he lists some 5,000

Malays, 10,000 Cochin Chinese, 10,000 Peguans, 1,000 Burmese, in addition to 20,000

Laos (1969 [1857]:190).

The captured slaves became the property of the king, which he either kept or

distributed as rewards to favored underlings (Turton 1980:256; Colquhoun 1885:54;

Hallett 1890:203). The evidence regarding the treatment of war captives is ambiguous.

According to Bowring, war captives belonged primarily to one of the two kings and saw

themselves as superior to other classes of slaves. In contrast Turton suggests that the

treatment of war slaves, "perhaps especially the first-generation slaves may have been

bowie (2-15-93)-24

harsher than other classes of slaves" (1980:256). As Turton writes:

Wales claimed that "no regard was paid to the sufferings of the persons thus transported" (1934:63). Lingat refers to frequent mistreatment and Crawfurd considered that war captives were better treated by the Burmese than the Siamese, despite his judgement that in war the Burmese were "cruel and ferocious to the last degree"; and none were condemned to work in chains as in Siam (Crawfurd 1830, Vol 1:422, Vol 2:134-135).

Crawfurd writes, "At the Siamese capital we daily saw great numbers of these

unfortunate persons [war captives] employed in sowing, ditching, and other severe

labour" (Crawfurd 1915:145).

Given the present state of scholarship, I do not believe it is possible to reach a

definitive conclusion of the conditions and numbers of war captives in other parts of

Thailand, in part because they have been merged into general discussions of debt-

slavery by virtue of the law declaring them as redeemable slaves and also because their

conditions may well have changed over the course of the century.5 Only when more

local histories which include some effort to record the experiences of villagers become

available will it be possible to venture more sensible opinions about the relative

5It seems possible that at least some of these war captives were slowly amalgamated

into other statuses, possibly both redeemable slaves and serfs. Thus, according to

Wales, in 1805, King Rama I gave war captives the right to buy their freedom. Wales

and others suggest that as a result, their lot was improved and they were merged with

other slaves (1965:60; see also Turton 1980:256). Freeman suggests that at least

some of the Laotian war captives of 1826 "were attached as serfs to the royal palace

the temples at Petchaburee," thus merging more with serfs than with slaves (1910:109).

bowie (2-15-93)-25 positions of slaves to serfs, and relative positions of war captives and others captured

by force to those enslaved by indebtedness.

Nevertheless, I believe there is sufficient evidence to suggest the importance of

war captives in the central Thai state, as well as the kingdoms of northern Thailand.

The forced march which Gould so movingly recounted occurred in 1876, during the

reign of King Rama V, the king most famous for his efforts to abolish slavery. In 1881,

this same central Thai king also gave the orders that the kingdom of Chiang Saen be

repopulated by the descendants of the original captives. His order met with

considerable resistance, both from the northern Thai rulers who didn't want to loose

their population and from the descendants themselves. Nonetheless his order was

executed. Some idea of the scale of relocation is given by Hallett, who estimated some

30,000 people from Lamphun province alone were involved (see Hallett

1988[1890]:202-5 for a fascinating discussion). The heartbreak these orders entailed

was movingly recounted in oral histories. Villagers told of the tears shed when villagers

who had originally been captured from the Chiang Saen area at the beginning of the

nineteenth century were given orders to resettle decades later. As villagers explained,

by the time the orders were given, these war captives had intermarried with other

villagers in the Chiang Mai region. The king's orders meant that families were once

again torn apart.

On Kidnapping:

Although the evidence from oral histories suggests that a smaller percentage of

bowie (2-15-93)-26 people were enslaved through individual kidnapping as opposed to capture en masse in

warfare, archival sources nonetheless suggest that kidnapping took place on a

considerable scale. So great was the commerce in kidnapped slaves that Colquhoun

suggests that the reason the territories to the east of the Mekhong seem less populated

than the territories to the west "may be accounted for by the shameful practice of slave-

hunting which exists, the Anamites, Chinese, Cambodians, and Shans making a

hunting-ground of the Mois Hills, which lie between Cambodia and Siam, and Anam"

(1885:13). Colquhoun himself also describes a considerable slave trade in other

regions. Thus he writes "there is little doubt that the sparsity of the hill-tribes in the hills

neighbouring Zimme [Chiang Mai] has been chiefly caused by their having been, in the

olden time, systematically hunted like wild cattle, to supply the slave-market" (1885:257-

58). Of the Karennees, on Siam's western border, Colquhoun writes:

The Karen-nees, like the Kachyens, their neighbours to the northwards,

are renowned for their kidnapping propensities. At least one-third of the

slaves are taken from the Burmese Shan States, and the remainder from

the adjoining hill-tribes. (1885:40).

Few accounts survive from which to regain the perspective of the victims

themselves. One villager recounted a young kidnapped woman who committed suicide

soon after her arrival in his village, giving some sense of her loneliness at being

violently uprooted. Some sense of the human impact of this slave trade can also be

gained from gleaning archival passages. For example, on one of his trips, Richardson

passed an outpost of 10-12 men from Mawkmai, Burma on the lookout for Karen slave

bowie (2-15-93)-27 dealers. He writes:

Though the town contains many inhabitants, they are in perpetual dread of their attack, and are, in fact, carried off daily (during the last month they have been unmolested) . . . They make no secret of their fear and weakness, and told many tales of the Kareans' skill in kidnapping; among others, of the Kareans who came on a party of 6 of their people, and seeing they were the weaker party waited till night, when they made bundles of bamboos, interwoven with thorns, which they threw over them when asleep, and standing over them, with their spears picked them out one by one, tied their hands and marched them off. (Mangrai 1965:179; see also Colquhoun 1885:71).

Similarly, Colquhoun continues:

The slaves who are captured become slaves in the fullest sense of the word; they are carried off, with no hope of deliverance save death or escape. Trapped by ambush, and driven off after capture, like fallow-deer, by the man-hunters, they are from their forests, chained, and taken to the chief places of the Shan country (KAB: Chiang Mai], Siam, and Cambodia, for disposal. (1885:53; see also Garnier 1873:171-72).

Richardson also gives some insight into the callousness of the slave traders. His

diary reads:

Met several slave merchants with 8 or 10 young slaves on their return to Labong and Zimmay from the Kareenee country. One poor little child had been seized and sold by a creditor of his father's for part price of a gong!! I am told that if a Kareen cannot get a good price for any decent looking female slave, he will take her into his house as a concubine and when the markets are better will sell her and any children she may have had to him without the slightest remorse. (Ms:41)

Although it is easy to dismiss kidnapping as the lawless activities of slave-traders

acting independent of the state, in fact kidnapping also must be understood within the

context of state power. At a certain point, the distinction betweeen the acts of small

bands of "lawless" men capturing neighbouring peoples and "legal" war parties returning

home from war with large contingents of enslaved war captives is merely a difference of

bowie (2-15-93)-28 scale. Some sense of this ambiguity is seen in Cushing's description of the principality

of Main Loongyee (Muang Nium in Shan) in 1870. Due to raiding by the Shans and

Karens, Hallett writes, "the Siamese Shans and our foresters had been shut up in the

city for six months, not daring to venture into the district except in large bodies capable

of defending themselves" (Hallett 1890:31). Wales summarizes the parallel more

succinctly when he writes of military expeditions "that were little more than slave raids"

(1934:64).

The state could play a variety of roles in regard to the commerce in kidnapped

slaves. First of all, territories without a strong centralized authority appear to have been

more vulnerable to slave raids. Both the slaves and their immediate captors appear to

have come from such areas. For example, the Karen had a reputation both as

kidnappers and victims. As Colquhoun writes, "no one single individual of them but is

ready on all occasions to avail himself of the opportunity to seize the person of any one

of the Karen and Shan tribes which occupy the country in their vicinity" (1885:69-70; see

also Hallett 1890:30). Slaves from independent hill populations of Cambodia were

"hunted incessantly and carried off as slaves by the Siamese, the Anamites, and the

Cambodians" (Colquhoun 1885:53). Similarly, certain upland chiefs were willing to sell

their own people into slavery (e.g. Garnier 1873:171-72). According to several

contemporary accounts, the threat of kidnapping prompted many independent

populations to submit to the authority of outside rulers. As Colquhoun explains:

...several of the tribes living between the Mekong and the crest of the main Anam range (the boundary between Anam and Siam) had submitted to the King of Siam, and paid him a light tribute. For this they had received substantial advantages, for they need no longer fear the incursion of the

bowie (2-15-93)-29

slave-dealers, who still drive a flourishing trade amongst the independent tribes. (1885:53).

Strong centralized states had the power to regulate the trade in slaves within

their territories, both the sale of indigenous slaves and those imported from elsewhere.

Thus, for example, the central Thai king Rama I set up regulations to control the sale of

slaves within his kingdom. In his edict of March 1784, he complained that there were

unscrupulous and greedy people who were intriguing "with rogues in order to set up

[slave-selling] rackets." The king continued, "They take children, wives, siblings,

grandchildren and servants and, having sold them at one place, they take them to be

sold at one or two other places...Such shameless and fearless rogues are more

numerous now than in the past, and they need to be punished" (Terweil 1983:79). The

king was not opposed to the sale of slaves as such, but sought to regulate the market

by declaring such rackets illegal.

The state was also complicit in the commerce in kidnapped states from other

territories. As Virginia Thompson writes, "The State in those days either condoned or

actually furthered the slave trade" ([1941]1967:599). Thus Colquhoun writes of

kidnapping in the Shan States, "The officers of the King of Burmah, when the Shan

states were ruled by them, did nothing to protect the people, and even accepted

presents from the Red Karens, as a bribe to stop their ears against all complaints"

(1885:40). Similarly Hallett writes (1890:23):

As long as the King of Siam allows the harmless hill tribes to the east of the Meh Kong to be hunted down, and held and sold as slaves by his subjects, so long should he be abhorred and placed in the same category as the ferocious monsters who have been and are the ruling curses of Africa...King be shamed into putting a stop to the proceedings of

bowie (2-15-93)-30

the slave-dealers, who according to the French travellers up the Meh Kong, are fast depopulating the hills.

State complicity in, if not outright sponsorship of, slave-trading is further revealed

in the fact that it was members of the elite themselves who purchased the kidnapped

victims. According to oral histories gathered in northern Thailand, lower ranking

members of the elite were more likely to buy slaves than the higher ranking elite. Ruling

lords appear to have obtained their slaves more through the military power of the state

directly; however archival sources indicate that the ruling lords themselves also

purchased slaves. Thus O'Riley tells the story of a poor woman with two children:

She said that her husband, a Toung-thoo, residing at Nyoung-ywai, had fallen into difficulties, and had induced her to accompany him to Karen-nee, where he had sold herself and children to one of the chiefs, then present, for the sum of L6. (in Colquhoun 1885:70).

Similarly Crawfurd observes:

The Siamese Government has encouraged this nefarious practice. I am told, that of late years, upwards of four hundred young Chinese have been kidnapped by their countrymen, and brought to Siam, and sold as slaves. Notwithstanding the vigilance which prevails on this subject in our own ports, the King of Siam's ship contrived to carry off from Calcutta, and Prince of Wale's Island, five young African negroes. They were presented as curiosities to the Prince Krom-chiat and the Prah-klang, and we had frequent opportunities of seeing several of them. ([1828] 1987:148).

That the elite were the primary market for slaves is not surprising given the cost

of a slave compared to the income of the ordinary villager. In northern Thailand, both

oral histories and archival sources for the latter part of the nineteenth century concur

that slaves were priced between 54-72 rupees (Hallett 1890:130-131; Bock [1884]

1986:159; see also Colquhoun 1885:257).6 Although very few archival statistics on

6The price of slaves appears to have varied over the century and from region to region.

bowie (2-15-93)-31

northern Thai wage labor rates survive, I was able to find figures for better-paying

positions such as porters, oxen caravan owners, and elephant mahouts. According to

the British Trade Report of 1894, porters were paid 12-15 rupees/month for carrying

loads weighing some 50-75 lbs (RGWB:28 June 1895). According to Hallett, Khamu

and other teak workers "are brought by their masters from their homes in the

neighbourhood of Luang Prabang and hired to our foresters at from 60-100 rupees a

year" (1890:21), or approximately 5-8.3 rupees/month. Caravan men with eight to ten

oxen were paid 30 rupees (food not included; 20 rupees with food provided) for the

month-long roundtrip between Chiang Mai and Maulmain (Hallett 1890:66). The wages

of porters, oxen caravan owners and forest workers were hardly typical of ordinary

village wages. Porters were not ordinary villagers, but rather were amongst the

strongest and fittest of poorer village men. J. Stewart Black, a British consular official,

commented that the wages paid to forest workers were considered a "small fortune"

(1899). Oxen caravan owners were amongst the wealthiest of villagers, evidenced in

the number of oxen they owned. Furthermore, both portering and oxen caravan trading

were seasonal activities, most such villagers rarely making more than a few trips each

dry season. According to oral histories, normal agricultural wages were much lower.

Describing wages at the turn of the twentieth century, many villagers gave rates of 1

In 1830, the price of slaves in northern Thailand varied from 17.5-25 rupees (Colquhoun 1885:40, citing Richardson). Furthermore, in northern Thailand, female slaves were valued more highly than male slaves. However, in the central plains area, men were more highly priced; as Colquhoun writes of Siam, "the value of a man is from L10 to L20, a woman from L7 1/2 to L 12 1/2, and children from twelve to sixteen years of age from L 5 to L 7 1/2" (1885:178-79; for prices in Cambodia, see Colquhoun 1885:54, 178; Garnier 1873:172). This variation in price from region to region suggests possible differences in the usage of slave labor.

bowie (2-15-93)-32 win/day for agricultural labor. Since a win equals 12 satang, agricultural wages were

about 4.24 rupees/month.7

Given the usual figure of the cost of slaves in northern Thailand, it would take an

oxen caravan owner, already an extremely wealthy villager, 1.8 months to earn the cost

of a male slave and 2.4 months to earn that of a female slave, assuming no other

expenses. A porter, assuming full-time employment, would need 3.6 to 4.5 months to

earn the price of a man and 4.8 to 6 months to earn the price of a woman. A forest

worker would need 6.5 to 10.8 months to earn the price of a man and 8.7 and 14.4

months to earn the price of a woman. An ordinary villager working as an agricultural

laborer, itself a seasonal form of employment, would need 12.7 months of solid work to

earn the equivalent cost of a man and 17 months for a woman. These figures help to

put the cost of a single slave in broader perspective and give some idea of the

economic position of those able to afford to buy a slave.

The high cost of a slave relative to the wages of ordinary villagers also helps to

understand why kidnapping slaves was such a flourishing form of commerce in

nineteenth century Thailand. The traffic in kidnapped slaves was clearly lucrative. As

Garnier explained, a slave who cost 100 or 150 francs at Attopeu will resell at about 500

francs in Pnom Penh (1873:276). Some of these slaves apparently were exported

internationally. Alfred R. Wallace notes slaves from Siam being sold at the flourishing

slave market in the Sulu Islands (Peoples of Malaysia (Lasker 1950:39). Captives from

7The exchange rate between the Siamese tical/baht and Burmese rupee varied, but it was about 80-90 satang = 1 rupee. From interviews and British Trade Report RGWB:28 June 1895. For these calculations, I am using an average of 85 satang/rupee. See Bowie 1992 for a more detailed discussion of wages.

bowie (2-15-93)-33 upper Burma are mentioned in Tibet (Lasker 1950:44).8

Kidnapped slaves were clearly an important commodity of nineteenth century

trade, in both northern and central Thailand, as well as the surrounding regions where

the slaves originated. Chiang Mai was one of the nodes on the slave trade network and

Siam was one of the principal destinations for kidnapped slaves. Richardson, writing in

the 1830s, notes that the Chiefs of Chiang Mai bought and sold an average of 300

slaves each year, buying them from the Red Karennis in Burma and selling them to

buyers in central Thailand (Ms:121). O'Riley, writing in 1865, estimated "about 1,200

souls are annually captured" and sold to the Chiang Mai buyers (Mangrai 1965:180-

181). Similarly, Colquhoun writes that various of the tribal populations to the northwest

of Chiang Mai "all doomed to a hopeless state of slavery, in which, priced like beasts of

burden, they are sold to the Zimme Shans, by whom they are re-sold to the Siamese"

(1885:70). Crawfurd writes that "a good number" of slaves kidnapped from Laos and

Cambodia are to be found in Bangkok, adding "The Siamese make no scruple in

kidnapping them whenever they can find an opportunity" ([1828] 1987:177). Given the

magnitude of the slave trade, it is remarkable that so little attention has hitherto been

paid to it and the hardships suffered by its victims.

PART THREE: On the State and Debt Slavery:

Arguments regarding the benign character of Thai slavery have rested on the

8Slaves were also imported from overseas. Crawfurd mentions meeting a party of 13 people who had been kidnapped in Java and sold as slaves in Siam. He also mentions that two of the Bangkok princes had slaves from Africa ([1828] 1987:148). Such importation of slaves raises the possibility that foreign slaves were sought after in elite

bowie (2-15-93)-34

assumption that debt-slavery was the predominant form of slavery, a condition into

which villager entered apparently voluntarily and exited easily. Although scholars have

recognized that the obvious overt cause of debt slavery is the need for money, they

have minimized the significance of debt by suggesting the amount was minimal and

easily repaid--if not by the slaves themselves then by others. As Bowring writes:

Masters cannot ill-treat their slaves, for they have always the remedy of

paying the money they represent; and he must be a very worthless

character who cannot get somebody to advance the sum. If they are

treated harshly, you may make certain that generally it is the man's own

fault. (Bowring 1969[1857]:193; see also Colquhoun 1885:186; Graham

1924:237-38).

Colquhoun writes, "You hear of people selling themselves for as small a debt as twenty

rupees, or about thirty-six shillings" (1885:257); nonetheless twenty rupees was

equivalent to four months of steady work for an agricultural wage laborer.

As I have shown in the first section of this essay, my research in northern

Thailand has shown that debt-slavery was not the predominant form of slavery in this

region. However, to the extent that debt was a factor in enslaving villagers, debt slavery

was not a state which villagers entered freely and without coercion. With a better

understanding of the economic condition of the peasantry, particularly the extent of

poverty and the interest rates, it is possible to shed light on the broader context of debt

slavery in Thailand. Economic conditions illuminate both the reasons why villagers may

have been forced to enslave themselves or members of their families and why, once

households as status items.

bowie (2-15-93)-35 enslaved, it was difficult for them to regain their freedom. Furthermore, these economic

factors cannot be understood without an understanding of the role of the state in

creating and maintaining social inequality.

Due to the prevailing characterization of the traditional peasant economy as self-

sufficient or subsistence-oriented (see Bowie 1992 for critique), the extent of poverty

and class stratification in nineteenth century Thailand has been minimized. I have

documented the extent of class stratification and poverty in another paper (see Bowie

n.d.), however inequality in land holdings was one of the primary factors contributing to

the significant degree of poverty. Lords and members of the rural elite owned much of

the best land. Consequently the elite had large surpluses of rice, while most ordinary

villagers fell short (see Bowie 1988).

Natural vicissitudes exaggerated this social disparity. Just how devastating

natural disasters could be is dramatically related in a moving account of the effects of a

drought in 1892 by Hugh Taylor, a missionary in the northern Thai kingdom of

Lampang. The preconditions for the drought in Lampang were established as early as

1890, with the destruction of irrigation dams by foreign teak logging companies (the

decision to award teak logging concessions was the result of decisions made by the

ruling lords). That year was followed by a shortage of rain in 1891, which resulted in

"the worst of three rice failures in succession" (Taylor Ms:110-1). By 1892, famine had

hit the region.

The shortage of food was so severe that villagers were even begging for coconut

husks to chop up and mix with whatever rice they had in order to fill their stomachs.

bowie (2-15-93)-36 Taylor, who had organized some relief work, said "We had to post a guard to keep the

people from crowding in on us too hard...sifting the starving from the merely hungry

(Taylor Ms:113)." As Taylor continues:

Yes, they were starving. More than three score starved to death in the next village down the river from us . . . The Elders and Evangelists who were sent out to follow up those who had received help reported finding dead bodies in deserted houses. They set fire to the houses and cremated the bodies. They found village wells filled with starved bodies that the neighbors were too weak to bury. (Taylor Ms:114).9

While famines of this severity were not the norm, evidence for the more general

extent of agrarian poverty is provided by oral histories. In the course of my interviews in

1984-86, I routinely asked elderly villagers throughout the Chiang Mai Valley if people in

their villages fell short of rice in the past (generally defined as during their childhood or

earlier), and if so, for how many months out of the year. The data are dramatic. Of a

total of 273 villages about which I have information, only nine villages or 3.3 per cent

claimed to be "self-sufficient." The remaining 96.7 percent of villages had at least some

households who fell short of rice for at least two or three months each year. In nearly

half (48.7 per cent) of the villages, the majority of households fell short of rice at least

two or three months each year.

Given inequality in landholdings and pervasive rural poverty, it is not surprising

that so many villagers had to borrow rice or money with which to buy rice to see their

households through to the next harvest. Bowring informs us that the master is under

obligation to "furnish rice and salt fish, but not clothes" (1969 [1857]:192). Indeed this

9See also McGilvary 1912:351 for another account of this famine. Satow, who travelled to the north in 1885-86, writes of a earlier serious drought in the area in 1885, which affected thousands of villagers (PRO 30/33 (20/1):200).

bowie (2-15-93)-37 obligation of the master to his slaves suggests one way in which being a slave may

have been better than being a freeholder--at least during times of famine. Taylor,

during the famine of 1892 made it a point of separating slaves from freeholders in his

dispersal of food aid to the starving (Ms:110-116). Nonetheless, this benefit

notwithstanding, elitist attitudes are revealed rather crudely as Bowring goes on to

explain, "The principal hardship that slaves suffer is an insufficiency of food; and as

their food is so simple, they require plenty of it--and they certainly do consume an

enormous quantity" (1969 [1857]:194).

The second aspect of the rural economy which is relevant for an understanding

of debt slavery is the interest rate. Several nineteenth century observers, even while

suggesting that debt servitude was "voluntary," characterize the interest rate as

exorbitant (e.g. Colquhoun 1885:69, 185). Bowring himself notes that interest rates

were extremely high, the average rate being 3-6 percent per month (1969 [1857]:188);

he comments, "The legal rate of interest being thirty per cent, it may well be conceived

how rapidly ruin will overtake an unfortunate debtor" (Bacon 1881:296). Bock, like

Bowring, notes the high interest rates of 36 percent per year, adding that "it is not

surprising that a good many debtors are unable to pay so dear for the accommodation,

and much less to repay the capital" [1884] 1986:159). Colquhoun calculated that a

Siamese between 18 and 70 years of age would pay a headtax of 10 shillings, a land

tax of 266 pounds of rice, worth about 6 shillings, and a fee for relief from corvee labor

of L2, a total of L2.16.0. He added, "If indebtedness due to heavy taxation continues in

Siam, soon all the subjects will be slaves." Moreover, he noted the unrestrained graft of

bowie (2-15-93)-38 the officials who collected these taxes (Colquhoun 1885:189,191). When one considers

the devastating impact of incurring debt upon an already struggling average village

household, given the poverty, both the likelihood for large numbers of villagers to run

into debt and the unlikelihood of their ever being able to escape from debt, once in debt,

become much clearer. One need simply recall the earlier discussion of village wage

rates to help put these figures in perspective. A debt load of 20-30 rupees represents

some 4-6 months earnings, even for the best paid of northern Thai laborers.

Not only was the state involved in the creation and maintenance of economic

inequality, the state was also involved in the enforcement of debt. As Hallett writes of

Chiang Mai:

In cases of debt, a man can either pay the debt, the interest of the debt, or serve his creditor in lieu of the interest. It is optional for a man to serve or pay the interest, unless a special agreement has been made. If a man owes more than he, his family, and possessions are worth, or having sufficient, will not pay, the creditor informs the court, which enforces the claim by putting the debtor in chains until the debt and court fees are paid. Men often linger out their existence in slave-bondage. (Hallett 1890:131).

Furthermore, the moneylenders were generally members of the court themselves:

The princes and high officials are the money-lenders, the usurers, in Lao. Indeed it does not pay for any one but an official or a prince to make any profession of wealth, for if a farmer or trader has saved a little money, and injudiciously makes the fact known, he is sure to receive a visit from one of the "ruling class," who are adepts in the art of squeezing, by fair means or by foul, the uttermost farthing out of the common people. (Bock 1884:1986:157).

Freeman makes the consequences of this identity between debt-owner, slave-

owner, and court absolutely clear when he explicitly states that which common sense,

given an understanding of the political economy of the northern Thai kingdoms, can

bowie (2-15-93)-39 infer, namely that once enslaved, few were ever freed from debt. As he writes, "Debt

slaves have always been able to redeem themselves, though the process was made so

difficult that few succeeded in doing so..."(1910:100). As he points out, since the lords

are the principal slaveholders, "and, naturally, since they are the judges, every obstacle

has been placed in the way of emancipation" (1910:101).

Ironically, the very man who is most frequently quoted as evidence for the benign

treatment of slaves, Sir John Bowring, also provides evidence for the opposite

argument. In a comment laden with chains and coercion, with police and state power,

Bowring writes:

But on the other hand, there were often to be met in the streets of Bangkok, sorrowful-looking persons in chains, "men and women in larger or smaller groups, attended by an officer of police bearing a large staff or stick, as the emblem of authority. The weight of the chains is apportioned to the magnitude of the offence for which the bearer is suffering. I understood," says Bowring, "a large portion of these prisoners to be debtors." (Bacon 1881:296).

Thus there is reason to wonder if debt-slaves were so well treated after all.

Conclusion:

In this essay, I have drawn upon archival sources and oral histories to examine

the reasons people were enslaved in nineteenth century northern Thailand. The

evidence strongly suggests war captives far outnumbered debt-slaves in the northern

Thai kingdom of Chiang Mai, and that therefore far more people were enslaved through

physical force than economic pressure. Far from being voluntary, benign and non-

political as others have asserted, state power and political coercion underwrote the

northern Thai system of slavery. The victims of the kidnapping, be they captured

bowie (2-15-93)-40 individually by slave traders or en masse in warfare, experienced considerable

dislocation and trauma. Although debt-slavery was not the primary form of slavery in

northern Thailand, I have suggested it is a mistake to assume that debt-slavery was

simply the voluntary choice of individual villagers. Rather I have shown how the state

can be understood to have shaped debt-slavery as well. Because state power and

state policy was integrally involved in the maintenance of human servitude, Thai slavery

should not be understood merely at the level of individual decision-making. Thus, in this

essay, I have argued against the view of slavery as the "voluntary" fiscal choice of a

large segment of the Thai peasantry, but rather the physical imposition of the state.

By establishing the role of the coercive power of the state in the maintenance of

slavery in nineteenth century northern Thailand, I have also raised doubts about the

integrity of assertions made regarding Thai slavery in general. Evidence from Bowring

and Hallett suggests that more Siamese were enslaved that the figure of one-fourth to

one-third so frequently cited. The presence of war captives in central Thailand suggests

that greater efforts are needed to distinguish war captives from debt-slaves in our

analyses of archival sources since it appears both were included in the category of

redeemable slaves. The presence of kidnappees in central Thailand also needs to be

taken into account. Far more research remains to be done before the many outstanding

questions regarding the character of Thai slavery are resolved. To date, too much of

the description of the character of slavery have rested on the unchallenged assertions

of the slave-owners themselves. I hope that the insights gained by interworking archival

sources with oral histories presented in this essay will prompt other scholars of Thailand

bowie (2-15-93)-41 and elsewhere in mainland Southeast Asia to search for more carefully reasoned

assessments of the character of slavery in each of the kingdoms. Every effort should

be made to hear the voices of the slaves, be they heard through oral histories or

archival anecdotes.

bowie (2-15-93)-42

LIST OF REFERENCES Archival Sources: Archer, Vice Consul 1894 Trade Report of Chiang Mai. In Rangoon Gazette Weekly Budget. 28 June 1895. Black, J. Stewart 1899. Trade Report of Chiang Mai. In Rangoon Gazette Weekly Budget. 22 October 1900. RGWB: Rangoon Gazette Weekly Budget. Available on microfilm. Cornell University Library. FO69: Foreign Office Series #69. Public Records Office, London, England. Gould, Mr. 1876 FO 69. Volume 64. McLeod Mss: Journal of Captain McLeod. Manuscript Division, British Museum, London, England, 1836. Richardson Mss: Journal of Dr. Richardson. Manuscript Division, British Museum, London, England, 1830-1836. Satow Mss: Journal of Sir Ernest Satow. PRO30/33(21/1). Public Records Office, London, England, 1885-1886. Stringer, Acting Vice-Consul 1890 Trade Report of Chiang Mai. In Rangoon Gazette Weekly Budget. 16 May 1891. 1891 Trade Report of Chiang Mai. In Rangoon Gazette Weekly Budget. 24 June 1892. Taylor Mss. Autobiography of Hugh Taylor. Manuscript, Phayab College Library, Chiang Mai, Thailand, 1888-1930. Published Sources: Andaya, Barbara Watson 1971 "Statecraft in the Reign of Lu Tai of Sukhodaya. Cornell Journal of Social Relations. 6 (Spring):61-83. Anderson, Perry. 1974 Passages from Antiquity to Feudalism. London: New Left Books. Aung Thwin, Michael 1984 "Hierarchy and Order in Pre-Colonial Burma." In Journal of South East Asian Studies. 15:224-232. Aymonier, Etienne 1900 Le Cambodge. Two volumes. Paris.

bowie (2-15-93)-43 Bacon, George B. 1881 Siam, the Land of the White Elephant, as it was and is. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. Benda, Harry J. and John A. Larkin, eds. 1967 The World of Southeast Asia, Selected Historical Readings. With Sydney L. Mayer, Jr. New York: Harper and Row. Bock, Carl 1986 [1884] Temples and Elephants: Travels in Siam in 1881-1882. Singapore: Oxford University Press. Bowie, Katherine A. 1988 Peasant Perspectives on the Political Economy of the Northern Thai Kingdom of Chiang Mai in the Nineteenth Century: Implications for the Understanding of Peasant Political Expression. Ph.D. Dissertation, Anthropology, University of Chicago. 1992. "Unraveling the Myth of the Subsistence Economy: The Case of Textile Production in Nineteenth Century Northern Thailand." Journal of Asian Studies. 51:4 (November). n.d. "Of Beggars and Buddhism: Poverty and the Political Economy of Merit-Making in Nineteenth Century Thailand." Bowring, Sir John 1969[1857] The Kingdom and People of Siam. Introduction by David Wyatt. Two volumes. Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press. Colquhoun, Archibald Ross. 1885 Amongst the Shans. London: Field and Tuer. Crawfurd, John 1987 [1828] Journal of an Embassy to the Courts of Siam and Cochin China. Introduction by David K. Wyatt. Singapore: Oxford University Press. Cruikshank, R. B. 1975 "Slavery in Nineteenth Century Siam." In Journal of the Siam Society 63(Part 2):315-333. Freeman, John H. 1910 An Oriental Land of the Free. Philadelphia: Westminster Press. Garnier, Francis 1873 Voyage d'exploration en Indo-chine effectue pendant les annees 1866, 1867 et 1868. Two volumes. Paris: Librairie Hachette et cie.

bowie (2-15-93)-44 Graham, W. A. 1924 Siam. London: Alexander Moring Ltd., the De La More Press. Hallett, Holt 1890 A Thousand Miles on Elephant in the Shan States. Edinburgh. Ingram, James C. 1971 Economic Change in Thailand, 1850-1970. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Kopytoff, Igor 1982 "Slavery." In Annual Reviews of Anthropology. 11:207-30. Lasker, Bruno 1950 Human Bondage in Southeast Asia. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Lingat, Robert 1931 L'esclavage prive dans le vieux droit siamois (Avec une traduction des anciennes lois siamoises sur l'esclavage). Paris: Les editions domat-montchrestien, F. Loviton & Cie. Mangrai, Sao Saimong 1965 The Shan States and the British Annexation. Southeast Asia Data Paper #57. Ithaca: Cornell University Southeast Asia Series. McGilvary, Daniel 1912 A Half Century Among the Siamese and the Lao. New York: Fleming H. Revel Co. Miers, Suzanne and Igor Kopytoff 1977 Slavery in Africa: Historical and Anthropological Perspectives. Madison: University of Wisconsin. Nimmanahaeminda, Kraisri 1965 "Put Vegetables into Baskets, People into Towns. In Ethnographic Notes on Northern Thailand. L.M. Hanks, J.R. Hanks, and Lauriston Sharp, eds. Pp. 6-10. Southeast Asia Data Paper #58. Ithaca: Cornell University Southeast Asia Series. Pallegoix, Mgr. Jean Baptiste 1854 Description du Royaume Thai ou Siam. Two volumes. Paris: au profit de la mission de Siam. Pendleton, Robert

bowie (2-15-93)-45 1962 Thailand: Aspects of Landscape and Life. With Robert C. Kingsbury and others. New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce. Rabibhadana, Akin 1969 The Organization of Thai Society in the Early Bangkok Period: 1782-1873. Ithaca: Cornell University Southeast Asia Data Paper No. 74. Reid, Anthony, ed. 1983 Slavery, Bondage and Dependency in Southeast Asia. With the assistance of Jennifer Brewster. New York: St. Martin's Press. Smith, J. Smith 1880 Siamese Domestic Institutions: Old and New Laws of Slavery. Bangkok: S.J. Smith Office. Terweil, B. 1983 "Bondage and Slavery in Early Nienteenth Century Siam." In Slavery, Bondage and Dependency in Southeast Asia. Edited by Anthony Reid, with the assistance of Jennifer Brewster. New York: St. Martin's Press. Thompson, Virginia 1967 [1941] Thailand: The New Siam. Second edition. New York: Paragon Book Reprint Corporation. Turton, Andrew 1980 Thai Institutions of Slavery. In Asian and African Systems of Slavery. Edited by James L. Watson. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Vella, Walter F. 1957 Siam Under Rama III: 1824-1851. New York: J.J. Augustin, Inc. Wales, H.G. Quaritch 1934. Ancient Siamese Government and Administration. London: Bernard Quaritch, Ltd. Watson, James L., ed. 1980 Asian and African Systems of Slavery. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Wilson, David A. 1962 Politics in Thailand. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Wyatt, David K. 1984 "Laws and Social Order in Early Thailand" In Journal of South East Asian Studies. 15:245-252.

bowie (2-15-93)-46

bowie (2-15-93)-47

Table 4: Slaves by Ethnic or Geographic Origin Weighted by Estimated Number of Slaves

Chan Lesser

Phrayar

Than Saen Commoner

Unknown

Totals

Karen 2v+6 5 10+ 3 2 7 2v+33

Mon 3 1/3v+16

3v+10+

6 1/3v+26

Khyyn 7v+7+ 2v 1v+2++

10v+9

Chiang Saen

4 1/2v+ 1 ? 4 1/2v+1

Yong 2 1/3v 1v 1v 4 1/3v

Khamu 10+ 11+ ? 5? 26

Muang 3v 3v

Ngio Shan

2v 34 2v+34

Sipsong Panna

1v+1 ? 1v+1

Lawa 2 1/3v 2 1/3v

Burma ? ?

Lyy 3v 3v

Chiang Tung

1v 1v

Laos 1v 1v

Chan Pa

1v 1v

Central Thai

1 1 2

bowie (2-15-93)-48

Total non-Phyn Muang

32 1/2v+ 40

3v+51 10+ 4 2 7 6v+18 41 1/2v+13

Phyn Muang

2 1/2v+ 24+

29+ 17+ 2 1 2 1/2 + 73

Total 35v + 64+

3v+80 27 6 2 7 6v+19 44v+20

bowie (2-15-93)-49

Table 3: Breakdown of Slaves by Ethnic or Geographical Origin Listed by Number of Informants

Chan Lesser

Phrayar

Than Saen Commoner

Unknown

Totals

Karen 5 1 5 2 2 2 17

Mon 8 2 10

5 2 4 11

Chiang Saen

7 1 1 9

Yong 3 1 1 5

Khamu 2 1 1 4

Muang 3 3

Ngio Shan

2 1 3

Sipsong Panna

2 1 3

Lawa 3 3

Burma 1 1

Lyy 1 1

Chiang Tung

1 1

Laos 1 1

Chan Pa

1 1

Central Thai

1 1 2

Total non-Phyn Muang

43 6 6 3 2 2 13 75

Phyn Muang

8

7 4 1 1 21

Total 51

13 10 4 2 2 14 96

bowie (2-15-93)-50

Table 1: Origin of Servitude, by Number of Informants

War captive

Dept Bought/ Kidnapped

Punish- ment

"Fled Fighting"

Total

Chaw 17 7 1 6 31

Lesser Chaw

2 3 1 6

Phrayar 3 2 3 1 9

Than 1 1 3 5

Saen 1 1 2

Commoner

1 1 1 3

Owne Unclear

3 1 8 12

28 14 9 2 15 68

bowie (2-15-93)-51

Table 2: Origin of Servitude, Approximation of Actual Numbers, Based upon Oral Histories

War Captive

Debt Bought/ Kidnapped

Punishment "Fled Fighting"

Totals

Claw 21 1/2v + 3 1v = 14+ 1 4v ++ 26 1/2v = 18

Lesser Claw

1v + 34 11 1v 2v + 45

Phrayar 12+ 15+ 9 10+ 46

Thao 1 3 5 9

Saen 1 1 2

Commoner 2 4 5 11

Owner Unclear

3v +1 5? 2v ++ 5v + 6+

Total 25 1/2v + 54

1v + 47 25 11+ 7v ++ 33 1/2v + 137

v = village

bowie (2-15-93)-52 NOTE: SLAVERY.DUS is a revision of SLAVERY.DUR according to what Paul Durrenberger want me to do. The major changes are the deletion of many footnotes and the deletion of several pages of text. I include the deleted pages here: Various arguments for the benign character of slavery have been made. Some rely upon comparisons which beg the question; comparisons with the condition of French domestic servants (Pallegoix 1854:299); with English domestic servants (Bowring 1969 [1857]); with the treatment of slaves in the Spanish and Dutch colonies (Colquhoun 1885:267); or negroes in the European colonies more generally (Garnier 1873:171) are hardly conclusive. Yet while Pallegoix and Bowring are both cited as evidence of the humane treatment of slaves in Thailand, both authors suggest cases of ill-treatment; thus Pallegoix complains of the cruel treatment of Christian slaves, and Bowring writes that "no slaves are so ill treated as those of the Christians" (1969 [1857]:194). Several writers argue that slavery was mild because it was a better condition than that of freemen; here the reasoning is less based upon the actual condition of slavery than the oppressiveness of corvee (Vella 1957:21, cited in Cruikshank 1975:330; Rabibhadana 1969:88, 118; Wales 1965:63).10 Other scholars rely on unsubstantiated generalizations. Colquhoun suggests that the ruling lords "are naturally clement in their dispositions" and suggests that public opinion carries weight, that otherwise "the whole country would flare up in rebellion" (1885:267). Cruikshank cites the belief in Buddhism as another reason (1975:321). Yet others scholars emphasize the shortage of manpower as an argument why slaves would be well-treated, arguing that "they were essential to the support of their owners" (Lasker 1950:58; see also Cruikshank 1975:321). Each of these arguments can be challenged. Bowring himself describes Thailand as a country "where might is right" (1969 [1857]:195). One need only reflect on the number of countries in which public opinion is unable to overcome authoritarian governments and rebellion is too dangerous. Religion, Buddhism or any other, has had at best mixed success in mitigating atrocities. Lastly, slaves were very important to plantation owners in the Americas, however their value did not stop the abuses to which they were subjected. By far the most supporting evidence for the easy character of Thai slavery is drawn from the legal codes governing slavery. While it is indeed noteworthy that Siam was concerned about regulating slavery to the extent of drawing up legal codes (the impetus for which would be fascinating to understand better), there is an obvious question about the degree of their enforcement. Thus Bowring himself notes with regard to the law suggesting that a slave could not be sold without his own consent that "this was not absolutely correct" (1969 [1857]:191).11 Some scholars have cited the laws stating that the punishment for slaves was to be limited to that "necessary" to ensure obedience, "but what was 'necessary' had to stop short of permanent injury" (Rabibhadana 1969:108; Cruikshank 1975:320); nonetheless despite the laws forbidding the use of excessive force with slaves, the laws also contain provisions for compensation for the wrongful death of a slave, again suggesting that such cases occurred as well (Wales 1965:192). Cruikshank and others suggest that slavery was light because "no source mentions any significant attempts to escape (1975:317); yet the legal codes contain considerable provisions for the return of escaped slaves (see Wales 1965:125; Akin 1969:87) and according to Bowring himself, "more than four-fifths" of the irredeemable slaves fled when they could (Bowring 1969 [1857]:191). Perhaps one of the most telling contradictions of these legal codes

10While most authors use the issue of oppressive corvee exactions as evidence of a strong state, Wales refers to the inability of the central state to protect villages:

The joint result of the exactions of government officials and the inability of the central power to protect the poorer freemen, especially in the provinces, was their readiness to sell themselves to those who could protect them, even when they were not harassed by creditors. (1965:63).

11I have evidence from oral histories of northern Thai families being sold individually to different masters.

bowie (2-15-93)-53 regarding slaves in summarized in the unwitting remark of Wales when he writes: "[Slaves] had considerable rights, among which were the possession of and the right to inherit property, the right to found a family, and the right to sue in court through the medium of their masters" (1965:60 [underlining mine]; see also Rabibhadana 1969:120, 105; Cruikshank 1975:320; Freeman 1919:100). My point in this section is not to determine the character of slavery in Siam. Rather I wish to suggest that the arguments made thus far with regard to the character of slavery are far from conclusive. Furthermore I wish to assert that any arguments regarding slavery which focus on the apparently voluntary nature of slavery are not considering the full picture. There is some ambiguity regarding the status of these hill populations who pay tribute in return for protection from slave-raiding and the like. According to some accounts, in paying tribute these groups become slaves, albeit with more autonomy than if they were actually kidnapped. Thus Hallett describes the Khas living east of the Meh Kong river as being treated like slaves and having to pay tribute to his Laos or Siamese master (1890:22). The acquisition of vassal-slaves has further political consequences. As Colquhoun explains: In the provinces, not only are one third of the population said to be slaves, but whole clans are dependent...upon the chaos, or chiefs. When the taxes are collected, should the vassal be unable to pay them, he is frequently helped by the chief, who, on failure of the vassal to repay the principal with interest, can sell him as a slave. Many of the chaos, instead of taking extreme action, are satisfied with tribute from the vassal in the shape of presents and extra services to themselves and families. It is self-evident that the growth of such feudal power must be very dangerous to a State like Siam, which has had so frequently to put down rebellions on the part of its tributary States. (1885:191).