Kampot of the Belle Epoque: From the Outlet of Cambodia to a Colonial Resort(<Special Issue>New Japanese Scholarship in Cambodian Studies)

Abstract

Historical studies about Cambodia have paid little attention to regional factors, and historianshave been hardly able to give much perspective about the history of particular regions within thecountry. Therefore, this paper looks at Kampot as it was during the French colonial period inorder to understand the foundations of present-day Kampot. Presently, Kampot is the name of aprovince and its capital city, which face the Gulf of Thailand. During the colonial period, it was an administrative center for the circonscription residentielle that extended over the coastalregion. The principal sources for this paper are the "Rapports periodiques, economiques et politiques de la residence de Kampot, " from 1885 to 1929, collected in the Centre des Archivesd'Outre-Mer in Aix-en-Provence, France.Drawing from the results of our examination, we can recognize two stages in the history ofKampot. These are (1) the Kampot of King Ang-Duong, and (2) modern Kampot, which was constructedby French colonialism. King Ang-Duong's Kampot was the primary sea outlet for hislandlocked kingdom. After colonization by the French, King Ang-Duong's Kampot became extinct, and the coastal region became isolated from other parts of Cambodia. The principal reason forthis was the opening of Saigon Port and the exploitation of the Mekong River route. FrenchKampot became a regional administrative center and a colonial resort, which continues to thepresent. The appearance of the colonial city was succeeded to the provincial capital city afterindependence. Kampot's status as a resort, which had been interrupted during the civil war period, began to be revived in the middle 1990s.Throughout the periods of its history, the coastal region had been located on the borderbetween inland Cambodia and the international maritime world. The delimitation of the Kingdomof Cambodia under French colonialism made Kampot into a state border district. The internationalopenness of Kampot sometimes disturbed regional security. From the French point ofview, the Chinese element had the potential to cause insecurity and, therefore, was strictlywatched. The border served as a zone of refuge for thieves and pirates, and menaced the stabilityof the French administration. This situation continued until quite recently. Until the mid-1990s, the Khmer Rouge dominated the zone where thieves had once raged during the colonial period.