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| ENGLISH 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). page 1  |
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 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 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. 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: Origin of Servitude, by Number of Informants
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The use of state force in slavery becomes even clearer if the ownership of slaves 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 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: Origin of Servitude, Approximation of Actual Numbers,
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 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. Table
3: Breakdown of Slaves by Ethnic or Geographical Origin
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Table
4: Slaves by Ethnic or Geographic Origin
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