ENGLISH
THAI
INDONESIAN
JAPANESE
FILIPINO

by Katherine A. Bowie

"Slavery in Nineteenth-Century Northern Thailand: Archival Anecdotes and Village Voices," which appeared in Monograph 44 of the Yale Southeast Asia Studies series. This monograph is entitled "State Power and Culture in Thailand" and was edited by E. Paul Durrenberger (1996).

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Slavery in Nineteenth Century Northern Thailand: Archival Anecdotes and Village Voices

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 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 "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 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 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:

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; 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 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 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.

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