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Viewing articles tagged 'colonial'
Viewing articles tagged 'colonial'
3 articles
The "Kingdom of the Sedang," 1888
On June 3, 1888, at the village of Kon Gung on the Poko north of Kon Tum, the chiefs of several Sedang villages signed a constitution that made a Frenchman their king. The Kingdom of the Sedang lasted about two years, issued stamps, medals and a flag, and is usually told as a comic episode in the life of an adventurer. It is worth telling from o...
Four highland towns
The four towns of the highlands that the world knows, Buon Ma Thuot, Pleiku, Kon Tum and Da Lat, all carry highland names, and all grew up on highland land as posts of someone else’s government: a Rhade chief’s village made a French residence, a Jarai village made a militia post, a Bahnar village made a mission and then a province, and a pine-co...
Roads, taxes and forced labor, 1899–1945
In 1899 the tribute our villages had paid every three years in wax, horn and ivory was abolished and replaced by a tax in cash, on people who did not use cash. Three years later came the days: ten a year of unpaid work on the roads, rising to fifteen, and eight to ten more spent walking to the worksite and back. A man who could not find the mone...
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