Within the Palace, Norodom governed in what the French considered to be an arbitrary ,authoritarian way, the French, however, offered him no alternative style, and throughout his Reign, Norodom was drawn less by the idea of a sound administration than by the imperatives of personal survival, revolts against his rule ( and implicitly against his acquiescence to the French) broke out in 1866 and 1870s, both attracted considerable support, able both were put down with difficulty by the French, unwilling to blame themselves for this state of affairs, the French blamed Norodom and were increasingly drawn to support his half-brother, Sisowath, who had led troops alongside the French in both rebellions.
Under French pressure, while another half-brother, Sivotha, was in revolt against him, Norodom agreed in 1870 to promulgate a series of reforms, although these were never carried out, they are worth noting as precursors of more extensive French control and as indications of areas of french concern, the reforms sought to dismantle royal involvement in land ownership, to reduce the numbers of Oknha, to rationalize tax collection, and to abolish slavery, had they been enacted, they would have worn away the power bases of the Cambodan elite, what the French disliked, as Minh Mang had in the 1830s, was the Cambodian way of doing things, which interfered with their ideas of rational, centralized control, institutions like slavery and absolute monarchy, moreover, went down poorly with officials of the third Republic, less charmed by the romantic operetta aspects of Cambodia than
Napoleon III and his entourage had been.
In the early 1880s, as the French tightened their grip on Vietnam, it was only a matter of time before they solved Cambodia's problems, and imposed their will on the Cambodian court, the comedy in Phnompenh had gone on too long and had cost too much, the Cambodians had not seen the importance of paying for French protection, the French became impatient and assumed for this reason that time was running out, the "riches" of Cambodian remained untapped, what had seemed exotic and quaint in Cambodian Society in the 1860s, and 1870s was now seen by a new generation of officials as oppressive, it was time for protection to became control.
In 1884, the French succeeded in getting Norodom to agree to siphon off customs duties, especially on exports, to pay for French administrative costs, Norodom sent a cable to the President of French protesting against French pressure and was chided for doing so by the governor-general of Cochin China,
Charles Thomson, who had been negotiating secretly with Sisowath to arrange a transfer of power should Norodom prove resistant to the reform.
The blow fell a few months later when Thomson sailed from Saigon to Phnompenh and confronted Norodom with a wide- ranking set of reforms encased in treaty that went much further than previous documents to establish de jure French control. Thomson arrived at the Palace with the treaty, traveling aboard a gunboat that was anchored within sight, as Norodom reviewed the document, Thomson's armed body guards stood nearby ,aided by a complaisant interpreter, Son Diep,
who rose to bureaucratic heights after Norodom's death, the King signed it because he saw that doing so we the only way to stay on the throne, he undoubtedly knew of Sisowath's machinations, perhaps he thought that the document's provisions would dissolve, when the French encountered opposition to them among the Cambodian elite, this is, in fact, what happened almost at once. but Article 2 of the treaty nevertheless marked a substantial intensification of French control' His majesty the Kingdom of Cambodia ( It read) accepts all the administrative, judicial, financial and commercial reforms which the French government shall judge, in future, useful to make their protectorate successful.
It was not this provision,however that enraged the Cambodian elite,who by this time probably saw Norodom as a French puppet in any case, the features that they saw as revolutionary ( and that the French saw as crucial to their program of reforms) were those that placed French residents in provincial cities, abolished, slavery,and institutionalized the ownership of land. these provisions, of course, struck at the heart of traditional Cambodian politics, which were built up out of entourages, exploitation ការគេងប្រវ័ញ្ច of labor,and the Taxation of harvests (rather than land) for benefit of the elite, who were now to become paid servants of the French administering rather than " consuming" the people under their control.
Although few French officials had troubled themselves with studying the nuance ភាពលាំគ្នា of slavery in Cambodia, and although their motives for abolishing it may have included a cynical attempt to disarm political opposition in France to their other reforms,it is clear that the institutionalization of servitude was more crucial reform, in Cambodian terms, than the placement of few French officials in the countryside to oversee the Cambodian elite, without this reform, the French could not claim to be acting on behalf of ordinary people, and more important, they could nothing to curb the power of elite, which sprang from control over personal , without abolishing slavery, moreover, the French could not proceed with their vision- however misguided it may have been-of a liberated Cambodian yeomanry ពួកម្ចាស់ដីធ្លី responding rationally to market pressures.
By cutting the ties that bound master and servants- or more precisely, by saying that this was what they hoped to do- the French were able to justify their interference at every level of Cambodia life, their proposal effectively cut the King off from his entourage and this entourage, in turn, from its followers, what the French wanted to administer in Cambodia was ,in fact, an extension of Vietnam. with communal officials responding directly to the French, even though government of this sort and at this level was foreign to Cambodia, where no commercial traditions -had they ever existed- had survived into the nineteenth century.
In the short run, the Cambodian reaction to the treaty was intense and costly to the French, in early 1885. a nationwide rebellion, under several leaders, broke out at various points, it last a year and a half, tying down some four thousand French and Vietnamese troops at a time when French resource were stretched thin in Indochina, unwilling to work through Norodom, who they suspected of supporting the rebellion, the French relied increasingly on Sisowath, allowing him a free hand in pointing pro- French officials in the Srok and thereby further undermining Norodom's authority. it seems likely that Sisowath expected to be rewarded with the throne while the Norodom was still a live, but as revolt wore on, the French found that they had to turn back to Norodom to pacify the rebels, in June 1886, the King proclaimed that if the rebels laid down their arms, the French would continue to respect Cambodian customs and laws- in other words, the mixture as before, the rebellion taught the French to be cautious, but their goals remained the same, namely, the rationalization of Cambodian government and control over the economy of the Kingdom, it was at this stage that the French began to surround Norodom with Cambodian advisers who were loyal to them rather than to the throne, these were drawn, in large part, from the small corps of interpreters trained under the French in the 1870s, the most notable of them, a
Seno- Khmer named Tionn.
was to play an important role in Cambodian politics for more than fifty years.
The issue at stake in the rebellion, as Norodom's chronicle points out, was that the "Cambodian people (were) fond of their own leaders" especially because alternatives to them were so uncertain. a French writer in the 1930s blamed the French for their hastiness in trying to impose" equality,property,and(an) electorate" for Cambodians were supposed to choose their own village leaders under an article of the treaty, he added that is fact, the masters wanted to keep their slaves and the slaves their masters" people clung to the status quo.
Faced with the possibility of drawn out war, the French stepped back from their proposed reforms, and although the treaty was ratified 1886, most of its provision did not come into effect for nearly twenty years after Norodom dead.
At the same time, it would be wrong to exaggerate និយាយបំផ្លើស the Cambodian seen " Victory " or to agree with some recent Cambodian writers who have seen the rebellion as a watershed of Cambodian nationalism. with Norodom cast as a courageous patriot cleverly opposing French control,the evidence for these assertions is ambiguous.Norodom, after all accepted French protection in general way out but attacked it when he thought his own interests-especially financial ones-were at stake, there is a little evidence that he viewed his people as anything other than objects to consume, and certainly the French distrusted him more after 188, they spend the rest of his Reign reducing his privileges and independence, but it would be incorrect to endow Norodom or the rebellious Oknha with systematic ideas about the Cambodian nation ( as opposed to particular, personal relationship).
With hindsight, we can perceive two important lesson of the rebellion one was that the regional elite, despite French intervention in Cambodia, was still able to organize sizable and efficient guerrilla force, as it had done against the Thai 1834 and the Vietnamese 1841 it was to do again in the more peaceable"1916 affaira' discussed in the period the second lesson was that guerrilla troops, especially when supported by much of population, could hold a colonial army at bay.
![Doumer, Paul [Credit: H. Roger-Viollet]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_tv2XMXfU1Bpe8D2YnFF8xczcXjnRCM_O-8Wu7L8-gKEK8QTdPQhNqZYwhXxUkJV65TIJjtwAq-hKRHfQGOlTzWgGpl4LDSm3WGs2uu39ffyaBApBMOUkGq7PxQNsJcs9J-YEU2_AY=s0-d)
The next ten years of Norodom's Reign saw an inexorable increase in French control, with policies changing from(ones) of sentiment,,to a more egotistic, more personal policy of colonial expansion, all that stood in the way of French was the fact that Norodom still made the laws, appointed the officials, and controlled the national economy by farming out sources of revenue( such as the opium monopoly ឯកាធិជន and gambling concession,) by demanding gifts from his officials and by refusing to pay his bills, by 1892, however, the collection of direct taxes had come under French control, two years latter, there were ten French residence in the Srok, the 1890s, saw increasing French consolidation throughout Indochina, culminating in the Governor- Generalship of
Paul Doumer (1897-1902).
In Cambodia, this consolidation involved tinkering with fiscal procedures and favoring Sisowat rather than any of Norodom's children as the successor to the throne, French officials were eager for Norodom relinquish control but were frightened by the independent- mindedness of many of his sons
one of whom was exiled to Algeria in 1893 for anti colonial agitation King's health was poor in any case and was made worse by his addition to opium, which the French provided him,in ornamental boxes, free of charge, as french officials grew more impatient with Norodom and as he weakened, they became abusive, after all, there were fortunes to be made by colonist inn Cambodia, or so the thought, and Norodom barred the way , the climax came in1897, when the resident Superior, Huynh De Vernevile, cable Paris that the King was incapable of ruling the country De vernevile asked to be granted executive authority instead, Paris concurred, the resident was now free to issue royal decrees appoint officials , and collect indirect taxes, as Milton Osborn has pointed out, high-ranking Cambodian officials ,previously dependent on Norodom's approval. were quick to sense a shift in the balance of power by the end of the year, the King's advice-even though he had now regained his seal and de Vernville had been dismissed- was heeded only as a matter of form, the new resident Superior was in command, answerable to authorities in Saigon, Paris, and Hanoi.
In the mean time, long-postponed royal decrees- such as on allowing French citizens to purchase land had product ed a real estate boom in Phnompenh, the effect of the reforms in the Srok, as far as we can tell, was less far-reaching, throughout the 1890s, French residents complained officially about torpor, corruption, and timidity among local officials , although one of them.sensing the tune he was now expected to play. reported to hid French superiors that ' the population of all the villages in my province is happy, ( the people) have not even the slightest complaint about the measures that have been taken" the Cambodian countryside, however, as many French officials complained, what the thought, or who held tiles to land, although slavery had been abolished, millenarian leaders occasionally gathered credulous followers and led them into revolt, gangs of bandits roamed were handy secure than they had ever been.
And yet high- ranking French officials still saw their role in the country in terms of a " civilizing mission " and of rationalizing their relationship with the court, in the countryside, ironically, Sisowath was more popular than Norodom, partly because the people had seen him more often,on ceremonial occasions, and partly because Norodom's rule had been so rapacious and unjust, Sisowath, in fact, looked on approvingly at developments in the 1890s, and by 1897 or so he had been formally promised the throne by French officials.
Norodom took seven more years to die, the last years of his Reign were marked by scandal involving his favorite son, Prince Yukanthor, who sought to publicize French injustice in Cambodia when he was in France by hiring a French journalist to press his case with French officials paid slight attention
except to take offense,Yukantor's accusations were largely true, if perhaps too zealous and wide ranking, as when he declared to the people of France " you have created property ( in Cambodia) and thus you have created the poor.
Officials in Paris persuaded Norodom by cable to demand an apology from his son ,it never came, for Yukanthor preferred to remain in exile, he died in Bangkok in 1934 and until then was viewed by French colonial officials with slight, but unjustified,apprehension.
The two last prerogatives that Norodom surrendered to be French were the authority to select his close advisers and the right to farm out gambling concessions to Chinese businessmen in Phnompenh, little by little, the French encroached on his freedom of action. Osborne has recorded the battles that Norodom lost, but the last pages of the royal chronicle (compiled during the Reign of Sisowath's son, King Monivong in the 1930s) say almost nothing about the confrontation, leaving the impression that the Reign was moving peacefully toward its close.
End of the Tightening of French Control Cambodia
![Doumer, Paul [Credit: H. Roger-Viollet]](http://media-1.web.britannica.com/eb-media/60/12260-003-06827A5E.jpg)