Cambodia After Angkor (Part Two): Conquistadors, Missionaries and the Master's Tea

In the 1590s a Spaniard and a Portuguese, Blas Ruiz and Diogo Veloso, arrived in Cambodia and came close to taking the country over. It ended in a massacre and a farce, and it was Europe's first serious attempt at the place. The next one, two centuries later, worked.

Time Period Covered: 1500 – 1825

How will the forces of imperialism and colonialism come to the region of Indochina? What role will Europeans play in shaping what will eventually become the state of Cambodia?

In this episode, Lachlan relays the ridiculous story of Ruiz and Veloso, and spends some time on what the larger forces of colonialism looked like around the globe at this time.

The attention then shifts to France. The story of Pigneau de Béhaine, a French missionary stationed in Vietnam, sets up the long and tangential relationship between Vietnam and France — the conflict inside Vietnam, and the eventual unification of the kingdom under Emperor Gia Long with the missionary's help. The episode ends with 'the master's tea', the infamous Cambodian folktale about Vietnamese cruelty to the Khmer that can still be heard today.

Sources
L.P. Briggs 'Spanish Intervention in Cambodia', T'oung Pao, Second Series, Vol. 39, 1950
David Chandler A History of Cambodia
Alex Hinton Why Did They Kill?