Abstract
The Cambodia kingdom experienced the intertwined forces of political, social, and religious elites transforming the very nature of its longstanding rural economy from the fifteenth into the sixteenth century. In doing so, they took advantage of new commercial opportunities for raw materials and finished goods. Multiple international commercial and maritime diasporic communities were initially drawn from China and subsequently attracted interest from diverse global seas, such as the Japanese, Middle Eastern, and early European merchant explorers. The financial boon that resulted placed sixteenth-century Cambodia in a favourable position relative to its neighbours. An increasingly competitive commercial marketplace for moderate to luxury and high value goods grew regionally. However, by the eighteenth century Cambodia was less engaged in international commerce than in the prior two centuries with negative consequence.
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Notes
- 1.
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Ibid., 93.
- 6.
David Chandler , A History of Cambodia, (Boulder, Co: Westview Press, 2008), 96–117.
- 7.
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- 9.
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- 10.
Ibid., 109–110.
- 11.
Ibid., 123.
- 12.
Ibid., 20.
- 13.
Ibid., 21–22; note 18, 129.
- 14.
Ibid., 24–40.
- 15.
Ibid., 40–45, 109–124.
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- 19.
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- 25.
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- 26.
Charles Wheeler, ‘Missionary Buddhism in a Post-Ancient World: Monks, Merchants, and Colonial Expansion in 17th Century Cochinchina’ , in Michael Aung Thwin and Kenneth R. Hall, (eds.), New Perspectives on the History of Southeast Asia, 117–136.
- 27.
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- 28.
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- 29.
Frederic Mantienne, ‘Military Technology Transfers from Europe to Lower Mainland Southeast Asia, c. 18th–19th Centuries,’ Journal of Southeast Asia Studies, vol. 34 (3), October 2003, 519–534. Equally Chinese, French, and English purchased weapons in Goa, Melaka , Penang, Macao , and Singapore . In 1791 the Vietnamese leader Nguyen Anh ordered 10,000 muskets, 2000 cannons, and 2000 shells. This was part of the Nguyens’ response to the Tay Son Rebellion that began to gain ground in its efforts to overthrown the Nguyen rulers the year before.
- 30.
Li, ‘The Water Frontier: An Introduction’, 10; Thomas R. Trautmann, Elephants and Kings, An Environmental History, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015), 261–297.
- 31.
See the Mekong Delta period maps in Cooke and Li, (eds.), Water Frontier: Commerce and the Chinese in the Lower Mekong Region, 1750–1880, 136, 157.
- 32.
Li, ‘The Late-Eighteenth and Early-Nineteenth-Century Mekong Delta’, 74.
- 33.
Ibid., 75.
- 34.
See Carl Trocki, ‘Chinese Pioneering in Eighteenth Century Southeast Asia’, in Anthony Reid, (ed.), The Last Stand of Asian Autonomies, (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1997), 117–136, on Chinese farming networks.
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Pierre Poivre , Voyages of a Philosopher (Voyages d’un philosophe ou observations sur les moeurs et les arts des peuples de l’Afrique, de l’Asie et de l’Amérique) by Pierre Poivre, Fortuné-Barthélemy de Félice, 1769, passim.
- 36.
Li, ‘The Late-Eighteenth and Early-Nineteenth-Century Mekong Delta in the Regional Trade System,’ 77. Iron was in constant demand in Vietnam. During the Tay Son rebellion, the Nguyen lords allowed Chinese junks to bring iron to the Mekong Delta in return for tax free rice.
- 37.
Ibid., 79–80.
- 38.
Ibid., 80, as Li Tana cites contemporary Vietnamese government records.
- 39.
Using technology imported from China in the 1530s that increased extraction capabilities, the Japanese Iwami Ginzan mine was able to produce as much as 150 tons of silver each year in the sixteenth- to seventeenth centuries. Cesare Polenghi, Samurai of Ayutthaya: Yamada Nagamasa, Japanese Warrior and Merchant in early seventeenth-century Siam, (Bangkok: White Lotus Press, 2009), 31; Robert Innes, ‘The Door Ajar: Japan’s Foreign Trade in the Seventeenth Century’, Ph.D. Dissertation, (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1980), passim.
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Weichung Cheng, ‘War, Trade, and Piracy in the China Seas’, 1622–1683, Doctoral Dissertation, (Leiden University, 2012), 413–462.
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Leonard Blusse and Cynthia Vialle (eds.), The Deshima Dagregisters, (Leiden: The Netherlands Institute for the History of European Expansion, 2001), 11, Aug. 11, 1643.
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Murakami Naojiro, Nagasaki Oranda Shokan no Nikki, (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1956), 321–323, as cited in Laver, ‘Skins in the Game: The Dutch East India Company, Deerskins, and the Japan Trade,’ 14.
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Pieter van Dam, Beschrijvinge van de Oostindische Compagnie, Frederik Willem Stapel and Carel Wessel Theodorus van Boetzelaer (eds.), (s-Gravenhage: rijs Geschiedkundige Publicatien, 1927–54), Boek II, Deel 1, 429; See Weichung Cheng, ‘War, Trade, and Piracy in the China Seas, 1622–1683’, 421–422.
- 45.
See Hall, ‘Southeast Asia’s Sixteenth-Century Deerskin Trade in Eastern Indian Ocean and China Sea Context.’
- 46.
Li Tana, ‘The Inner Region: The Social and Economic History of Nguyen Vietnam in the 17th and 18th Centuries’, Ph.D. Dissertation, (Canberra: Australian National University, 1992), 70.
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D. Kyle Latinus, Analyzing Cambodian Rock Paintings: Ecology, Social Dimensions, and Networks and Supply/Value Chains, Technical Report, November 2015, https://www.researchgatenet/publication/283624600_Analyzing_Cambodian_Rock_Paintings_Ecology_Social Dimensions_Networks_and_Supply_Value_Chains.
- 48.
Kyle Latinus et al., ‘The Kanam Rock,’ National University of Singapore Nalanda-Srivijaya Center Archaeology Report Series No. 2, 2016, Fig. 17a, panel 6, used by permission and as the author of this subsequent study was a consultant in the photograph identifications. These cave paintings in the mountains of southeast Cambodia include previous elephant paintings, as this was a continuous longstanding site source of elephants for military, agriculture, and export. Notably this site is near a major contemporary ceramic kiln burial jar manufacturing centre for the Cambodian marketplace.
- 49.
Chandler , A History of Cambodia, op. cit.
- 50.
Cardamom Mountains: Body Jars and Cliff Coffins, Nancy Beavan’s exhibit at the National Museum, Phnom Penh, 2015; review in Khmer Times, 30 September 2015.
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Hall, K.R. (2018). The Coming of the West: European Cambodian Marketplace Connectivity, 1500–1800. In: Smith, T. (eds) Cambodia and the West, 1500-2000. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-55532-8_2
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