Fa Ngum was succeeded by his son Un Heuan, who married princesses from the principal Tai kingdoms (Lanna and Ayutthaya, which had replaced Sukhothai), consolidated the kingdom and developed trade. With his wealth he built temples and beautified his capital.
Following Un Heuan's (throne name Samsenthai) long and stable reign of 42 years, Lan Xang was shaken by succession disputes, a problem faced by all Southeast Asian mandala (circles of power). The throne eventually passed to Samsenthai's youngest son, who took the throne name Xainya Chakkaphat (Universal Ruler). It was an arrogant claim, but he ruled wisely and well.
Tragedy struck at the end of his reign, when Lan Xang suffered its first major invasion. After a bitter battle, the Vietnamese captured and sacked Xiang Dong Xiang Thong. Xainya Chakkaphat fled and the Lao mounted a guerrilla campaign. Eventually the Vietnamese were forced to withdraw, their forces decimated by malaria and starvation. So great were their losses that the Vietnamese vowed never to invade Lan Xang again.
Southeast Asian kingdoms were not states in the modern sense, with fixed frontiers, but varied in extent depending on the power of the centre. Outlying meuang (principalities) might transfer their allegiance elsewhere when the centre was weak. That is why scholars prefer the term mandala, a Sanskrit word meaning 'circle of power' (in Lao monthon).
ALTERNATE ORIGINS
The early Lao text known as the Nithan (story of) Khun Borom recounts the myth of creation of the Lao peoples, their interaction and the establishment of the first Lao kingdom in the vicinity of Luang Prabang. The creation myth tells how two great gourds grew at Meuang Thaeng (Dien Bien Phu, now in Vietnam) from inside which sounds could be heard. Divine rulers, known as khun, pierced one of the gourds with a hot poker, and out of the charred hole poured the dark-skinned Lao Thoeng. The khun used a knife to cut a hole in the other gourd, through which escaped the lighter-skinned Tai-Lao (or Lao Loum, Lowland Lao). The gods then sent Khun Borom to rule over both Lao Loum and Lao Thoeng. He had seven sons, whom he sent out to found seven new kingdoms in the regions where Tai peoples settled (in the Tai highlands of Vietnam, the Xishuangbanna of southern China, Shan state in Burma, and in Thailand and Laos). While the youngest son founded the kingdom of Xieng Khuang on the Plain of Jars, the oldest son, Khun Lo, descended the Nam Ou (Ou River), seized the principality of Meuang Sua from its Lao Thoeng ruler, and named it Xiang Dong Xiang Thong (later renamed Luang Prabang).
Consolidation of the Kingdom
The Lao kingdom recovered under one of its greatest rulers, who came to the throne in 1501. This was King Visoun, who had previously been governor of Viang Chan. There he had been an ardent worshipper of the Pha Bang Buddha image, which he brought with him to Xiang Dong Xiang Thong to become the palladium of the kingdom. For it he built the magnificent temple known as Wat Wisunarat (Wat Visoun), which, though damaged and repaired over the years, still stands in Luang Prabang.
A new power had arisen in mainland Southeast Asia, the kingdom of Burma. It was the threat of Burma that convinced King Setthathirat in 1560 to move his capital to Viang Chan. Before he did so, he built the most beautiful Buddhist temple surviving in Laos, Wat Xieng Thong. He also left behind the Pha Bang, and changed the name of Xiang Dong Xiang Thong to Luang Prabang in its honour. With him he took what he believed to be an even more powerful Buddha image, the Pha Kaew (Emerald Buddha) now in Bangkok.
Setthathirat was the greatest builder in Lao history. Not only did he construct or refurbish several monasteries in Luang Prabang, besides Wat Xieng Thong, but he also did the same in Viang Chan. His most important building projects, apart from a new palace on the banks of the Mekong, were the great That Luang stupa, a temple for the Emerald Buddha (Wat Pha Kaeo) and endowment of a number of royal temples in the vicinity of the palace.
It was more than 60 years before another great Lao king came to the throne, a period of division, succession disputes and intermittent Burmese domination. In 1638 Suriya Vongsa was crowned king. He would rule for 57 years, the longest reign in Lao history and a 'golden age' for the kingdom of Lan Xang. During this time, Lan Xang was a powerful kingdom and Viang Chan was a great centre of Buddhist learning, attracting monks from all over mainland Southeast Asia.
Naga Cities of Mekong (2006), by Martin Stuart-Fox, provides a narrative account of the founding legends and history of Luang Prabang, Vientiane and Champasak, and a guide to their temples.
The Kingdom Divided
King Suriya Vongsa must have been stern and unbending in his old age, because he refused to intervene when his son and heir was found guilty of adultery and condemned to death. As a result, when he died in 1695 another succession dispute wracked the kingdom. This time the result was the division of Lan Xang. First the ruler of Luang Prabang declared independence from Viang Chan, followed a few years later by Champasak in the south.
The once-great kingdom of Lan Xang was thus fatally weakened. In its place were three (four with Xieng Khuang) weak regional kingdoms, none of which was able to withstand the growing power of the Tai-Syam kingdom of Ayutthaya. The Siamese were distracted, however, over the next half century by renewed threats from Burma. In the end Ayutthaya was sacked by a Burmese army. Chiang Mai was already a tributary to Burma, and Luang Prabang also paid tribute.
However, it did not take the Siamese long to recover. The inspiring leadership of a young military commander called Taksin, son of a Chinese father and a Siamese mother, rallied the Siamese and drove the Burmese out. After organising his kingdom and building a new capital, Taksin sought new fields of conquest. The Lao kingdoms were obvious targets. By 1779 all three had surrendered to Siamese armies and accepted the suzerainty of Siam. The Emerald Buddha was carried off by the Siamese and all Lao kings had to present regular tribute to Bangkok.
When Chao Anou succeeded his two older brothers on the throne of Viang Chan, he was determined to assert Lao independence. First he made merit by endowing Buddhist monasteries and building his own temple (Wat Si Saket). Then in 1826 he made his move, sending three armies down the Mekong and across the Khorat plateau. The Siamese were taken by surprise, but quickly rallied. Siamese armies drove the Lao back and seized Viang Chan. Chao Anou fled, but was captured when he tried to retake the city a year later. This time the Siamese were ruthless. Viang Chan was thoroughly sacked and its population resettled east of the Mekong. Only Wat Si Saket was spared. Chao Anou died a caged prisoner in Bangkok.
For the next 60 years the Lao meuang, from Champasak to Luang Prabang, were tributary to Siam. At first these two remaining small kingdoms retained a degree of independence, but increasingly they were brought under closer Siamese supervision. One reason for this was that Siam itself was threatened by a new power in the region and felt it had to consolidate its empire. The new power was France, which had declared a protectorate over most of Cambodia in 1863.
Four years later a French expedition sent to explore and map the Mekong River arrived in Luang Prabang, then the largest settlement upstream from Phnom Penh. In the 1880s the town became caught up in a struggle that pitted Siamese, French and roving bands of Chinese brigands (known as Haw) against each other. In 1887 Luang Prabang was looted and burned by a mixed force of Upland Tai and Haw. Only Wat Xieng Thong was spared. The king escaped downstream. With him was a French explorer named Auguste Pavie, who offered him the protection of France.
FIRST CONTACT
The first European to have left an account of the Lao kingdom arrived in Viang Chan (Vientiane) in 1641. He was a merchant by the name of Gerrit van Wuysthoff, an employee of the Dutch East India Company, who wanted to open a trade route down the Mekong. He and his small party were royally accommodated and entertained during their eight-week stay in the Lao capital. Van Wuysthoff had more to say about the prices of trade goods than about Lao culture or religion, but he was followed a year later by a visitor who can offer us more insight into 17th-century Viang Chan. This was the Jesuit missionary Giovanni-Maria Leria, who stayed in Viang Chan for five years. During that tim
e he had singularly little success in converting anyone to Christianity and eventually gave up in disgust. But he liked the Lao people (if not the monks) and has left a wonderful description of the royal palace and the houses of the nobility.
French Rule
In the end French rule was imposed through gunboat diplomacy. In 1893 a French warship forced its way up the Chao Phraya River to Bangkok and trained its guns on the palace. Under duress, the Siamese agreed to transfer all territory east of the Mekong to France. So Laos became a French colony, with the kingdom of Luang Prabang as a protectorate and the rest of the country directly administered.
In 1900 Viang Chan (Vientiane) was re-established as the administrative capital of Laos, although real power was exercised from Hanoi, the capital of French Indochina. In 1907 a further treaty was signed with Siam adding two territories west of the Mekong to Laos (Sainyabuli Province and part of Champasak). Siem Reap and Battambang provinces were regained by Cambodia as part of the deal.
Over the next few years the French put into place the apparatus of colonial control, but Laos remained a backwater. Despite French plans for economic exploitation, Laos was always a drain on the budget of Indochina. Corvée labour was introduced, particularly to build roads, and taxes were heavy, but the colony never paid its own way. Some timber was floated down the Mekong, and tin was discovered in central Laos, but returns were meagre. Coffee was grown in southern Laos, and opium in the north, most of it smuggled into China.
In the interwar years the French cast around for ways to make Laos economically productive. One plan was to connect the Lao Mekong towns to coastal Vietnam by constructing a railway across the mountains separating the two colonies. The idea was to encourage the migration of industrious Vietnamese peasants into Laos to replace what the French saw as the indolent and easy-going Lao. Eventually Vietnamese would outnumber Lao and produce an economic surplus. The railway was surveyed and construction begun from the Vietnamese side, but the Great Depression intervened, money dried up and the Vietnamisation of Laos never happened.
Paths to Conflagration: Fifty Years of Diplomacy and Warfare in Laos, Thailand and Vietnam, 1778–1828 (1998), by Mayoury Ngaosyvathn and Pheuiphanh Ngaosyvathn, provides the best account of the Lao revolt against Bangkok, from a Lao perspective.
Nationalism & Independence
The independence movement was slow to develop in Laos. The French justified their colonial rule as protection of the Lao from aggressive neighbours, particularly the Siamese. Most of the small Lao elite, aware of their own weakness, found this interpretation convincing, even though they resented the presence of so many Vietnamese. The Indochinese Communist Party (ICP), founded by Ho Chi Minh in 1930, did not espouse separate independence for Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. It only managed to recruit its first two Lao members in 1935.
It took the outbreak of war in Europe to weaken the French position in Indochina. A new aggressively nationalist government in Bangkok took advantage of this French weakness to try to regain territory 'lost' 50 years before. It renamed Siam Thailand, and opened hostilities. A Japanese-brokered peace agreement deprived Laos of its territories west of the Mekong, much to Lao anger.
To counter pan-Tai propaganda from Bangkok, the French encouraged Lao nationalism. Under an agreement between Japan and the Vichy French administration in Indochina, French rule continued, although Japanese forces had freedom of movement. The Japanese were in place, therefore, when in early 1945 they began to suspect the French of shifting their allegiance to the allies. On 9 March the Japanese struck in a lightning coup de force throughout Indochina, interning all French military and civilian personnel. Only in Laos did a few French soldiers manage to slip into the jungle to maintain some resistance, along with their Lao Allies.
The Japanese ruled Laos for just six months before the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki brought WWII to an end. During this time they forced King Sisavang Vong to declare Lao independence, and a nationalist resistance movement took shape, known as the Lao Issara (Free Lao). When the Japanese surrendered on 15 August, the Lao Issara formed an interim government, under the direction of Prince Phetsarat, a cousin of the king. For the first time since the early 18th century, the country was unified. The king, however, thereupon repudiated his declaration of independence in the belief that Laos still needed French protection. The king dismissed Phetsarat as prime minister, so the provisional National Assembly of 45 prominent nationalists passed a motion deposing the king.
Behind these tensions were the French, who were determined to regain their Indochinese empire. In March 1946, while a truce was held in Vietnam between the Viet Minh and the French, French forces struck north to seize control of Laos. The Lao Issara government was forced to flee to exile in Bangkok, leaving the French to sign a modus vivendi with the king reaffirming the unity of Laos and extending the king's rule from Luang Prabang to all of Laos. West Bank territories seized by Thailand in 1940 were returned to Laos.
By 1949 something of a stalemate had developed between the French and the Viet Minh in the main theatre of war in Vietnam. In order to shore up their position in Laos, the French granted the Lao a greater measure of independence. A promise of amnesty for Issara leaders attracted most back to take part in the political process in Laos. Among the returnees was Souvanna Phouma, a younger brother of Phetsarat, who remained in Thailand. Meanwhile, Souphanouvong, a half-brother of the two princes, led his followers to join the Viet Minh and keep up the anticolonial struggle.
The first Frenchman to arrive in Laos was Henri Mouhot, an explorer and naturalist who died of malaria in 1861 near Luang Prabang (where his tomb can still be seen).
Rise of the Pathet Lao
The decisions of the three princes to go their separate ways divided the Lao Issara. Those members who returned to Laos continued to work for complete Lao independence from France, but within the legal framework. Those who joined the Viet Minh did so in pursuit of an altogether different political goal – expulsion of the French and formation of a Marxist regime. Their movement became known as the Pathet Lao (Land of the Lao), after the title of the Resistance Government of Pathet Lao, set up with Viet Minh support in August 1950.
The architect of the Lao Issara–Viet Minh alliance was Prince Souphanouvong. In August 1950 Souphanouvong became the public face of the Resistance Government and president of the Free Laos Front (Naeo Lao Issara), successor to the disbanded Lao Issara. Real power lay, however, with two other men, both of whom were members (as Souphanouvong then was not) of the Indochinese Communist Party (ICP). They were Kaysone Phomvihane, in charge of defence, and Nouhak Phoumsavan, with the portfolio of economy and finance.
By this time the whole complexion of the First Indochina War had changed with the 1949 victory of communism in China. As Chinese weapons flowed to the Viet Minh, the war widened and the French were forced onto the defensive. The siege of Dien Bien Phu, close to the Lao border in Northern Vietnam, emerged as the decisive battle of the First Indochina War. The isolated French garrison was surrounded by Viet Minh forces, which pounded the base with artillery hidden in the hills. Supplied only from the air, the French held out for over two months before surrendering on 7 May. The following day a conference opened in Geneva that eventually brought the curtain down on the French colonial period in Indochina.
THE 'SECRET ARMY' & THE HMONG
After Laos gained independence in 1953, the US trained and supplied the Royal Lao Army as part of its strategy to combat communism in Southeast Asia. In 1961, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agents made contact with the Hmong minority living on and around the Plain of Jars. They spread a simple message – 'Beware of the Vietnamese; they will take your land' – handed out weapons and gave basic training. There were also some vague promises of Hmong autonomy. To protect more vulnerable communities, several thousand Hmong decided to relocate to mountain bases to the south of the plain. Their leader was a young Hmong army officer named Vang Pao.
In October 1961 President John
F Kennedy gave the order to recruit a force of 11,000 Hmong under the command of Vang Pao. They were trained by several hundred US and Thai Special Forces advisors and parachuted arms and food supplies by Air America, all under the supervision of the CIA.
With the neutralisation of Laos and formation of the second coalition government in 1962, US military personnel were officially withdrawn. Even as it signed the 1962 Geneva Agreements, however, the US continued its covert operations, in particular the supply and training of the 'secret army' for guerrilla warfare. The CIA's secret headquarters was at Long Cheng, but the largest Hmong settlement, with a population of several thousand, was at Sam Thong.
Over the next 12 years the Hmong 'secret army' fought a continuous guerrilla campaign against heavily armed North Vietnamese regular army troops occupying the Plain of Jars. They were supported throughout by the US, an operation kept secret from the American public until 1970. So, while American forces fought in Vietnam, a 'Secret War' was also being fought in Laos. The Hmong fought because of their distrust of the communists, and in the hope that the US would support Hmong autonomy.
As the war dragged on, so many Hmong were killed that it became difficult to find recruits. Boys as young as 12 were sent to war. The 'secret army' was bolstered by recruits from other minority groups, including Yao (Mien) and Khamu, and by whole battalions of Thai volunteers. By the early 1970s it had grown to more than 30,000 men, about a third of them Thai.
When a ceasefire was signed in 1973, prior to formation of the third coalition government, the 'secret army' was officially disbanded. Thai volunteers returned home and Hmong units were absorbed into the Royal Lao Army. Hmong casualty figures have been put at 12,000 dead and 30,000 more wounded, but may well have been higher.
Lonely Planet Laos Page 48