History of Laos
Encyclopedia
Earliest known history and the founding of Lan Xang
The earliest Laos legal document (and the earliest sociological evidence about the existence of the Lao people) is known as "the laws of Khun BoromKhun Borom
Khun Borom Rachathirath is the legendary progenitor of the Tai-speaking peoples, considered by the Lao and others to be the father of their race....
" (also spelled "Khun Bulom"), still preserved in manuscript form.
This set of memoriter laws is written in a type of indigenous blank verse
Blank verse
Blank verse is poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter. It has been described as "probably the most common and influential form that English poetry has taken since the sixteenth century" and Paul Fussell has claimed that "about three-quarters of all English poetry is in blank verse."The first...
, and reflects the state of proto-Lao society as early as the 9th century, possibly prior to their adoption of Theravada
Theravada
Theravada ; literally, "the Teaching of the Elders" or "the Ancient Teaching", is the oldest surviving Buddhist school. It was founded in India...
Buddhism, and prior to (or coeval with) their southward migration into the territory now comprising modern Laos (from North-Western Vietnam).
While some Lao people regard Borom/Bulom as a subject of myth only, Western scholars regard him as an historical figure, albeit there is very little factually known about him aside from the fact of his bare existence and the description of a very primitive kingdom in his laws.
In general terms, these ancient laws describe an agrarian society in which life revolves around subsistence agriculture
Subsistence agriculture
Subsistence agriculture is self-sufficiency farming in which the farmers focus on growing enough food to feed their families. The typical subsistence farm has a range of crops and animals needed by the family to eat and clothe themselves during the year. Planting decisions are made with an eye...
with domesticated water-buffaloes (the gayal
Gayal
Gayal or mithun is the domestic gaur, probably a gaur-cattle hybrid breed.-Taxonomy:In his first description of 1804, Aylmer Bourke Lambert applied the binomial Bos frontalis to a domestic specimen probably from Chittagong....
). The strict punishments set down for stealing or killing a neighbor's elephant reflect that these were (evidently) an expensive and important possession of the time.
The official History of Laos as introduced in government textbooks, is conventionally traced to the establishment of the kingdom of Lan Xang
Lan Xang
The Lao kingdom of Lan Xang Hom Kao was established in 1354 by Fa Ngum.Exiled as an infant to Cambodia, Prince Fa Ngum of Xieng Dong Xieng Thong married a daughter of the Khmer king. In 1349 he set out from Angkor at the head of a 10,000-man army to establish his own country...
by Fa Ngum
Fa Ngum
Somdetch Brhat-Anya Fa Ladhuraniya Sri Sadhana Kanayudha Maharaja Brhat Rajadharana Sri Chudhana Negara better known as Fa Ngum established the Lao kingdom of Lan Xang in 1354....
in 1353. This is a relatively conservative date to begin the history of the nation, providing a contrast to the course taken by Thai
Thailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
historiography (which reaches back implausibly far into proto-history). By the 14th century, when this "official history" begins, the speakers of early Lao-related languages
Tai languages
The Tai or Zhuang–Tai languages are a branch of the Tai–Kadai language family. The Tai languages include the most widely spoken of the Tai–Kadai languages, including standard Thai or Siamese, the national language of Thailand; Lao or Laotian, the national language of Laos; Burma's Shan language;...
had probably developed a reasonable base of population among the prior inhabitants of (what is now) Laos over the prior century or two.
The earlier inhabitation of the land by peoples such as the Mon
Mon people
The Mon are an ethnic group from Burma , living mostly in Mon State, Bago Division, the Irrawaddy Delta, and along the southern Thai–Burmese border. One of the earliest peoples to reside in Southeast Asia, the Mon were responsible for the spread of Theravada Buddhism in Burma and Thailand...
kingdom of Dvaravati
Dvaravati
The Dvaravati period lasted from the 6th to the 13th centuries. Dvaravati refers to both a culture and a disparate conglomerate of principalities.- History :...
and Proto-Khmer peoples was given a great deal of emphasis in the histories of Laos written during the French colonial period. However, post-colonial historiography has instead sought to represent all peoples of Laos as equally "indigenous", relating the early history in terms of a complex interaction with the (admittedly more ancient) Cambodia
Cambodia
Cambodia , officially known as the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia...
n kingdoms to the south, and praising the Proto-Khmer as Lao nationalists for their heroism and modern struggles against the French and Americans (see, e.g., the Ong Keo Rebellion starting circa 1902).
Both French colonial history and post-colonial (Communist) history sought to reverse the obvious racism
Racism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
of earlier, popular accounts that when the Lao migrated into the country, they simply conquered and enslaved the native inhabitants (viz., primarily Proto-Khmer people, described in such a context with the derogatory term "Kha-That"). This traditional view has almost no factual basis, but remains a commonly heard pseudo-history, and a special concern for teachers to address (or redress) in the classroom. Vatthana Pholsena provides a survey of the historiography on this point in Post-War Laos, 2006, Silkworm Books.
It is generally assumed that, as late as the 16th century, King Photisarath helped establish Theravada
Theravada
Theravada ; literally, "the Teaching of the Elders" or "the Ancient Teaching", is the oldest surviving Buddhist school. It was founded in India...
Buddhism as the predominant religion of the country. However, this aspect of official history may now have to change given recent archaeological discoveries in Cambodia and Vietnam, showing intact Pali
Páli
- External links :* *...
inscriptions as early as the 9th century. (See: JPTS
JPTS
JPTS stands for Jet Propellant Thermally Stable , and was created specifically for the Lockheed U-2 reconnaissance aircraft....
, Vol. XXIII, 1997: Peter Skilling, "New Paali Inscriptions from Southeast Asia")
While there can be no doubt that animism
Animism
Animism refers to the belief that non-human entities are spiritual beings, or at least embody some kind of life-principle....
and fragments of Shiva
Shiva
Shiva is a major Hindu deity, and is the destroyer god or transformer among the Trimurti, the Hindu Trinity of the primary aspects of the divine. God Shiva is a yogi who has notice of everything that happens in the world and is the main aspect of life. Yet one with great power lives a life of a...
-worship were popular in ancient Laos, evidence increasingly indicates a long, gradual process leading to the ascendancy of Buddhism (rather than a single king converting the country). The reverse also did occur, as with the historical layers of statuary and inscriptions at Wat Phu Champassak; the oldest are in Sanskrit
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
, and worship Shiva, while the later evidence is Buddhist, subsequently reverting to animism (with the most recent statues simply depicting giant elephants and lizards, with no references to the organized religions of India, and neither Sanskrit nor Pali
Páli
- External links :* *...
text).
It is significant to note that all of these official histories exclude the (possible and actual) influence of Chinese religion
Chinese religion
Chinese religion may refer to:*Religion in China*Religion in Republic of China*Chinese folk religion*East Asian religions...
in the region. In fact, the ancient Lao calendar and Thai calendar
Thai lunar calendar
The Thai lunar calendar , or Dai calendar , Tai calendar, is Thailand's version of the lunisolar Buddhist calendar used in the southeast Asian countries of Cambodia, Laos and Burma, for calculating lunar-regulated holy days...
are both of Chinese origin (adapted from the "Heavenly Stem Branch Calendar"), and do not reflect Indian cosmology. These calendars were both part of the royal religion (preserved in epigraphy
Epigraphy
Epigraphy Epigraphy Epigraphy (from the , literally "on-writing", is the study of inscriptions or epigraphs as writing; that is, the science of identifying the graphemes and of classifying their use as to cultural context and date, elucidating their meaning and assessing what conclusions can be...
) and, apparently, part of popular religion (fortune telling) for centuries.
Before full independence in 1954
Following its occupation of VietnamVietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
absorbed Laos
Laos
Laos Lao: ສາທາລະນະລັດ ປະຊາທິປະໄຕ ປະຊາຊົນລາວ Sathalanalat Paxathipatai Paxaxon Lao, officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic, is a landlocked country in Southeast Asia, bordered by Burma and China to the northwest, Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the south and Thailand to the west...
into French Indochina
French Indochina
French Indochina was part of the French colonial empire in southeast Asia. A federation of the three Vietnamese regions, Tonkin , Annam , and Cochinchina , as well as Cambodia, was formed in 1887....
via treaties with Siam in 1893 and 1904.
During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, the Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
ese occupied French Indochina. When Japan surrendered, Lao nationalists declared Laos independent, but by early 1946, French troops had reoccupied the country and conferred limited autonomy on Laos. During the First Indochina War, the Indochinese Communist Party
Indochinese Communist Party
The Indochinese Communist Party was a political party which was transformed from old Vietnamese Communist Party in October 1930...
formed the Pathet Lao
Pathet Lao
The Pathet Lao was a communist political movement and organization in Laos, formed in the mid-20th century. The group was ultimately successful in assuming political power after the Laotian Civil War. The Pathet Lao were always closely associated with Vietnamese communists...
resistance organization committed to Lao independence. Laos gained full independence following the French defeat by the Vietnamese communists and the subsequent Geneva peace conference
Geneva Conference (1954)
The Geneva Conference was a conference which took place in Geneva, Switzerland, whose purpose was to attempt to find a way to unify Korea and discuss the possibility of restoring peace in Indochina...
in 1954.
The period of the Kingdom of Laos
Elections were held in 1955, and the first coalition government, led by Prince Souvanna PhoumaSouvanna Phouma
Prince Souvanna Phouma was the leader of the neutralist faction and prime minister of the Kingdom of Laos several times, from 1951–1952, 1956–1958, 1960 and 1962-1975.-Early life:...
, was formed in 1957. The coalition government collapsed in 1958 under pressure from the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. In 1960 Captain Kong Le
Kong Le
Kong Le is a former paratrooper captain in the Royal Lao Army known for overthrowing the government of Laos in a 1960 coup d'état. He obtained his training from the Armed Forces of the Philippines in 1957 and joined the Royal Lao Army in 1960.-Coup of 1960:...
staged a coup when the cabinet was away at the royal capital of Luang Prabang and demanded reformation of a neutralist government. The second coalition government, once again led by Souvanna Phouma, was not successful in holding power. Rightist forces under General Phoumi Nosavan
Phoumi Nosavan
Phoumi Nosavan was a Lao military and political figure of the Vietnam War . Nosavan was of Chinese descent....
drove out the neutralist government from power later that same year.
A second Geneva conference, held in 1961-62, provided for the independence and neutrality of Laos
International Agreement on the Neutrality of Laos
The International Agreement on the Neutrality of Laos is an international agreement signed in Geneva on July 23, 1962 between 14 states and Laos...
, but the agreement was subverted by both the United States and North Vietnam and the war soon resumed. The government and army of Laos were generally neutral during the conflict. The United States and North Vietnam subverted the agreement by forming private proxy armies. Growing American and North Vietnamese military presence in the country increasingly drew Laos into the Second Indochina War (1954-1975). For nearly a decade, eastern Laos was subjected to the heaviest bombing in the history of warfare http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2003-12-11-laos-bombs_x.htm, as the U.S. sought to destroy the Ho Chi Minh Trail
Ho Chi Minh trail
The Ho Chi Minh trail was a logistical system that ran from the Democratic Republic of Vietnam to the Republic of Vietnam through the neighboring kingdoms of Laos and Cambodia...
that passed through Laos. The country was also repeatedly invaded by Vietnam.
Shortly after the Paris Peace Accords
Paris Peace Accords
The Paris Peace Accords of 1973 intended to establish peace in Vietnam and an end to the Vietnam War, ended direct U.S. military involvement, and temporarily stopped the fighting between North and South Vietnam...
led to the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Vietnam, a ceasefire between the Pathet Lao and the government led to a new coalition government. However, North Vietnam never really withdrew from Laos and the Pathet Lao remained little more than a proxy army for Vietnamese interests. After the fall of South Vietnam to communist forces in April 1975, the Pathet Lao with the backing of North Vietnam were able to take total power with little resistance. On December 2, 1975, the king was forced to abdicate his throne and the Lao People's Democratic Republic was established.
The period of the Communist government/contemporary period
The new communist government led by Kaysone PhomvihaneKaysone Phomvihane
Kaysone Phomvihane was the leader of the Lao People's Revolutionary Party from 1955, though Souphanouvong served in a figurehead role...
imposed centralized economic decision-making and incarcerated many members of the previous government and military in "re-education camps" which also included the Hmongs. While nominally independent, the communist government was for many years effectively little more than a puppet regime run from Vietnam. The government's policies prompted about 10 percent of the Lao population to leave the country. Laos depended heavily on Soviet aid channeled through Vietnam up until the Soviet collapse in 1991. In the 1990s the communist party gave up centralised management of the economy but still has a monopoly of political power.
See also
- Dai peopleDai peopleThe Dai peoples is one of several ethnic groups living in the Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture and the Dehong Dai and Jingpo Autonomous Prefecture , but by extension can apply to groups in Laos, Vietnam, Thailand, and Burma when Dai is used to mean specifically Tai Lue, Chinese Shan or even...
- Dong Son cultureDong Son cultureThe Đông Sơn culture was a prehistoric Bronze Age age in Vietnam centered at the Red River Valley of northern Vietnam. At this time the first Vietnamese kingdoms of Văn Lang and Âu Lạc appeared...
- History of AsiaHistory of AsiaThe history of Asia can be seen as the collective history of several distinct peripheral coastal regions such as, East Asia, South Asia, and the Middle East linked by the interior mass of the Eurasian steppe....
- History of CambodiaHistory of Cambodia- Prehistory and early history :Carbon 14 dating of a cave at Laang Spean in northwest Cambodia reveals people who made pots were living in Cambodia as early as 4200 BCE . Further archaeological evidence indicates that other parts of the region now called Cambodia were inhabited from around...
- History of IsanHistory of IsanThe history of Isan has been determined by its geography, situated as it is on the Korat Plateau between Cambodia, Laos and Thailand.The term "Isan" originally meant "invisible power", and is derived from Isanapura, the ancient capital of the northern Chenla Kingdom, established in 613 AD near...
- History of Southeast AsiaHistory of Southeast AsiaThe history of Southeast Asia has been characterized as interaction between regional players and foreign powers. Each country is intertwined with all the others. For instance, the Malay empires of Srivijaya and Malacca covered modern day Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore while the Burmese, Thai,...
- History of Laos to 1945History of Laos to 1945The Lao state dates only from 1945. The idea of a separate Lao nationality was formed during the 19th century, when western ideas of national identity reached South-East Asia, and when the Lao-speaking peoples were being squeezed between two expansionist powers, Siam and Annam . The current...
- History of Laos since 1945History of Laos since 1945For Laotian history before 1945, see History of Laos to 1945.Note: this article follows the system for transliterating Lao names used in Martin Stuart-Fox's History of Laos...
- History of VietnamHistory of VietnamThe history of Vietnam covers a period of more than 2,700 years. By far Vietnam's most important historical international relationship has been with China. Vietnam's prehistory includes a legend about a kingdom known as Van Lang that included what is now China's Guangxi Autonomous Region and...
- Lao People's Revolutionary PartyLao People's Revolutionary PartyThe Lao People's Revolutionary Party is a communist political party that has governed Laos since 1975. The policy-making organs are the politburo and the central committee. A party congress, which elects members to the politburo and central committee, is held every five years...
- List of Presidents of Laos
- List of monarchs of Laos
- North Vietnamese invasion of LaosNorth Vietnamese invasion of LaosThe North Vietnamese invaded Laos between 1958–1959.Souvanna Phouma announced that with the holding of elections the Royal Lao Government had fulfilled the political obligations it had assumed at Geneva, and the International Control Commission adjourned sine die...
- Peopling of LaosPeopling of LaosThe Peopling of Laos refers to the process by which the ethnic groups that comprise the population of present-day Laos came to inhabit the region...
- Politics of LaosPolitics of LaosThe politics of Laos takes place in the framework of a single-party socialist republic. The only legal political party is the Lao People's Revolutionary Party . The head of state is President Choummaly Sayasone, who also is secretary-general of the LPRP. The head of government is Prime Minister...
- Prime Minister of LaosPrime Minister of LaosThe Prime Minister of Laos is the head of government of the People's Democratic Republic of Laos.-Prime Ministers:-Trivia:Between December 1959 to December 1960, Laos had 6 different Prime Ministers, after being ousted by 6 different political coups....