The Massacre of Rạch Giá
On the morning of June 17th, 1868, a Chinese cattle merchant was travelling from Châu Đốc along a canal to Rạch Giá, a small port on the Gulf of Siam just south of the Cambodian border. The port was originally founded by Chinese settlers and had been occupied by the French just the year before.
The merchant never made it to Rạch Giá. Somewhere along the canal he came upon thirteen wooden spikes planted along the bank, each one topped with a severed French head.
The merchant turned back and headed to Long Xuyên, where he reported what he had seen to the French authorities.
The message was quickly relayed through the colonial administration by telegram, first to Vĩnh Long and then onward to Mỹ Tho. A relief expedition was assembled and dispatched toward Rạch Giá.
Three officers led the operation: Captain Dismuratin commanded a detachment of marine infantry; Lieutenant de Taradel led a force of colonial militiamen; Lieutenant Richard supported the expedition from the water aboard a small steam vessel.
The rebels had positioned themselves along the route, forcing the French expedition to fight its way forward. The French detachments forced their way into Rạch Giá and retook the settlement.
The leaders of the insurgents fled by sea toward Phú Quốc.
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Once the French had secured the town, Cambodians from the surrounding countryside brought in a man named Duplessis. He was the sole survivor of what would come to be known as the Rạch Giá massacre.
From him the French officers learned what had happened.
At four o’clock in the morning on June 16th, the small French post at Rạch Giá had been attacked without warning. The fortification was little more than an earthen enclosure and was still unfinished; the main gate had not yet been completed. Only thirty soldiers were stationed there.
The attackers overwhelmed the sentry first, killing him before the alarm could properly be raised. Most of the soldiers, separated from their officers in the darkness, never reached their weapons. Commandant Sauterne fought back hard before he was killed. The post inspector was immediately surrounded and massacred.
About ten soldiers held out for a few moments, broke through, and scattered into the village, but all were hunted down and captured.
Duplessis alone managed to flee into the countryside. For two days he hid among the undergrowth, surviving on what little he could find. Finally, driven by hunger, he cautiously approached a small hut.
A Vietnamese man and woman living there took him in and gave him rice to eat. To reassure the frightened soldier, they ate from the same bowl first, showing that the food had not been poisoned.
Duplessis survived. So did the rebel leader who was responsible for the massacre.
Seventeen years later, a rebellion would break out in Kampot. 1,500 insurgents would end up fortifying themselves on Phnom Sa, White Mountain, just outside of Kampot.
Adhémard Leclère, who served as Resident of Kampot from 1886 and later wrote the history of the rebellion, would refer to their leader as “l’auteur du massacre de Rach-Gia”: the perpetrator of the Rach-Gia massacre: A Chinese pirate named Quan Khiem.
The Khmer called him Sdach Samut: The King of the Sea.
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