The story of the overthrow of the Konbaung Dynasty by the British in the late nineteenth century is a complex one, but a simplified explanation of the events of that time were published in an historical novel that British author, F. Tennyson Jesse, published in (I think) 1930 called The Lacquer Lady.
The main character in The Lacquer Lady is Fanny Maroni, a half-Burmese/half-Italian young woman who ends up working for Queen Supayalat, falls in love with a French engineer in Mandalay, and this leads to a lot of intrigue that eventually leads the British to decide to conquer what remained of Burma at that time (the plot is too detailed to explain here).
Fanny Maroni is based on an actual historical figure – Mattie Calogreedy, a half-Greek/half-Burmese woman who was born in Mandalay and who became a maid of honor for Queen Supayalat, and yes, who fell in love with a French engineer.
Whether or not this relationship led to a lot of intrigue that eventually led the British to attack is not an issue that I’m all that interested in. What I find more interesting is simply the fact that there was a hapa (i.e., “mixed blood”) woman in the palace in Mandalay.
A while ago I found some pictures of a half-French/half-Vietnamese woman by the name of Marie Vannier who accompanied an official Nguyễn Dynasty delegation to France in 1863. So at roughly the same time that Mattie Calogreedy was at the Burmese court, Marie Vannier had some kind of connection to the Vietnamese court.
And then there was Anna Leonowens, the Englishwoman who served as a tutor at the Siamese court in the 1860s. Leonowens was born in India, and some people have speculated that her mother may have been Indian.
Hence, at these three courts in mainland Southeast Asia there were hapa women. What does that mean? Why were they there? I think that this is a topic that would be fascinating to research further.
A lot of research has been done in the past two decades that demonstrates that there was never a clear dichotomy between “the colonizers” and “the colonized” during the period of colonial rule, as both groups were very heterogeneous.
I would argue that the existence of Mattie Calogreedy, Anna Leonowens and Marie Vannier at the Burmese, Siamese and Vietnamese courts prior to the colonial period suggests that this was the case before colonial rule was fully established as well. As such, (perhaps people have written about this and I simply haven’t read it but. . .) understanding the presence and roles of Europeans and European hapas in these societies and these courts in the period prior to colonial (or “semi-colonial” in the case of Siam) rule can probably give us a clearer sense of how heterogeneous pre-colonial courts were, and this in turn can perhaps give us a clearer sense of how colonial conquest was as complex a phenomenon as colonial rule was.
This Post Has 4 Comments
On the other hand “Eurasians” may they be Portuguese or Dutch descent did play an important part in the administration of the British Colonies. This is probably due to them having a foot in each camp so to speak and it can be speculated that they would be ideal intermediaries in dealing with the outside world
Thanks for the comment!!
This post isn’t very clear, but what I was thinking is that a lot of scholarship talks about things like “the British/French conquest,” etc. Yes, there are events that we can refer to as a “conquest,” but those events often came after many years of contact and interaction, during which time “both sides” became diverse.
So I was trying to think of what it would look like if we stood in that pre-conquest diversity and then looked at the episode of conquest. Would things look different if we looked at them from that perspective?
Your comment reminds me of a newspaper for Eurasians that was published in Singapore in the late 19th century. I’ve been meaning to write about that. I’ll do so soon.
Thanks again.
Just discovered this blog. Great stuff! I’ve been thinking a lot lately about hapas in Southeast Asia — Siam, particularly — but always in the context of the European/Eurasian communities, never in terms of the royal courts. According to Susan Morgan’s book, Anna concealed her hapa past but her upbringing as a “third-culture kid” in-between cultures allowed her to navigate the Siamese court (and other places) effectively. If so, would that suggest that these three women you mention are valuable because of their skills as cultural intermediaries, or were you suggesting that it was a strategy of some sort on the part of the courts’ HR office to employ hapas?
Thanks for the comment!!
I’m not sure, but I’m thinking that they were employed for their value as cultural intermediaries, but the fact that they were women also makes me wonder if they employment was related to the low regard/suspicion that the courts had for the Farang (Western) world. In other words, it was ok for a hapa woman to go to France as a translator, because “the big boys” had more important things to do.
I think it must have been more complex than that, but I’m guessing that these might things might have been part of the dynamic.