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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"furnish rice and salt fish, but not clothes" (1969 [1857]:192). Indeed this 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 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 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 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 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 stories or archival anecdotes.