French Colonization Quotes
Thompson sailed into Phnom Phen in a gunboat. With armed “bodyguards” he forced his way into the palace, manhandled the king’s secretary who tried to prevent him from seeing King Norodom, and presented the treaty to the king who signed it. Cambodia had sought French “protection” from the two great powers adjacent, Vietnam and Thailand—see {601401}. In addition to the pressure of the two large neighbors, Norodum’s government was extremely weak and the French were ready to back a rival Sisowath. One of the ironies of this egregious example of gunboat diplomacy is that one of the first things the French did under the clause was to abolish Cambodian slavery. There were a few good things that occurred with most colonialism. The argument has always been was the good worth the bad that inevitably came with an undemocratic form of government.
His ancestors had come to New Orleans from Haiti around 1800 before the United States made the Louisiana Purchase.
Grey’s statement which had been made without any coordination with the Prime Minister, came to be called the “Grey Declaration,” and was the talk of diplomatic Europe. Grey claimed to be only talking about a hypothetical possibility, but the French actually had designs on the “other side” of Africa. They perceived that Grey was threatening war and referred to the declaration as the “fameuse manifestation.” The French sought and obtained a rapprochement and left the Niger valley to the British.
The proclamation was witnessed by O C Gagnon and Louis Jolliet.
