A Frontier in the Frontier: Sociopolitical Dynamics and Colonial Administration in the Lao-Vietnamese Borderlands

Abstract

When the French finally seized control of the Lao territories on the east bank of the Mekong from the Siamese in 1893, Houaphan became an internal upland frontier region within colonial Indochina. Unfamiliar with the concept of overlapping spheres of sovereignty—during the nineteenth century, Houaphan paid tribute to both Luang Prabang and Hué—members of the French colonial administration held discordant views on whether to attach Houaphan to either Laos or Annam. In 1896,...