Ang Mey

Biography Early life Ang Mey was born in 1815 as the second daughter of Ang Chan II, King of Cambodia during the Oudong period, by his second wife, Neak Moneang Krachap.

After King Ang Chan II died in 1834, there was no heir apparent to the Cambodian throne. The king had no son but four daughters: Princess Baen, Mey, Peou and Sngon. This delighted Vietnam and Siam, both of which wanted to eliminate the royal rulers in Cambodia. Although Ang Chan's surviving brothers, Ang Im and Ang Duang, immediately laid claim to the throne, the Vietnamese then occupying Cambodia did not allow them to be crowned.

Instead, the Vietnamese emperor and the Cambodian courtiers chose to install Ang Chan II's eldest daughter, Princess Ang Baen, as the sovereign. However, she was passed over due to her being sympathetic to the Thai court's interests and her refusal to marry the emperor's son. Ang Mey was an alternative to her sister, Baen. A Thai manuscript stated that the Vietnamese had tried to persuade Ang Mey to marry the son of emperor Gia Long in order to facilitate the incorporation of Cambodia into Vietnam; however, this plan was abandoned at strong objections from Cambodian nobles.

Puppet queen In May 1835, Ang Mey was crowned with the title of quận chúa (郡主) or "Commandery Princess," a title of princess which was lower than công chúa (公主), bestowed by the court of Hué. Her three sisters were given the title huyện quân (縣君), or "sub-prefecture ladies". The Vietnamese kept close guard over the Ang princesses. Queen Ang Mey had two companies of soldiers, 100 men in total, for her personal protection. The other three Cambodian princesses were each assigned thirty soldiers. Ostensibly for their safety, the guards were in reality assigned to ensure that they did not escape.

During Ang Mey's reign, all Cambodian women were ordered to wear Vietnamese-style garments :vi:áo ngũ thân instead of the khmer sampot (similar to the sarong), and had to grow their hair long in Vietnamese style. The market sold only Vietnamese food. Khmer classical dance had assimilated elements of Vietnamese and Chinese tradition. Cambodian officials had to don Vietnamese ceremonial garb. Wats were destroyed in order to eradicate the Khmer identity. Places also received Vietnamese names. The area around Phnom Penh was renamed Tran Tay, or "Western Commandery". The Cambodian people, not accustomed to be ruled by a Queen and despairing of the "Vietnamization" of their country, asked the Siamese to install a male ruler, Ang Duong, brother of Ang Chan II.

In 1840, the elder sister of Ang Mey, Princess Baen, was discovered corresponding with her mother and uncle who were living in Battambang and planning to escape to them. The princess was imprisoned pending her trial in Phnom Penh. The Vietnamese emperor, Minh Mạng, demoted Mey and the other princesses. In August 1841 they were all arrested and deported to Vietnam along with the royal regalia. Around that time, some of Ang Mey's relatives were imprisoned on the island of Poulo Condore. According to Thai and Cambodian sources, Ang Baen was drowned in the Mekong river, although Khin Sok states that Baen was tortured to death by the Vietnamese general and her body thrown in the river.

She later married an unknown man and had two daughters. She and her husband died in an accident in late December 1874 but were cremated at Phnom Penh in 1884.

Legacy and aftermath Ang Mey was portrayed as a puppet of the Vietnamese emperor and officials in sources like The Cambodia Chronicle. Ang Duong took care to emphasize association between Mey and the Vietnamese, and blamed her rule for the loss of indentured slaves. Most chronicles of the period imply that the Cambodian courtiers acquiesced to Ang Mey as their sovereign while secretly holding out for Ang Im or Ang Duong to return as sovereign. There were even rumors that Mey was a concubine of Truong Minh Giang, the Vietnamese governor in Phnom Penh but there is no historical evidence of such a liaison. Others tempered their allegation of Ang Mey's misdeeds; the once beautiful princess may have sold her country, but not her body, to the Vietnamese.

During the succession crisis, Ang Mey did seem to seek a peaceful solution to the factional strife in Cambodia, corresponding through Ang Duong's envoys that she wished for a return to peace and the family's reunion. This may have been at diplomatic response; the Vietnamese annals described her as an intelligent young lady at the time of her accession.

Cambodian history has constructed Mey as a passive victim hardly legitimate in the eye of her own people, her reign a disaster during which Khmer territory, culture, and independence was almost lost. While it cannot be denied that the Vietnamese were in control of Cambodia during Ang Mey's reign, she inherited a country that had already been mortgaged to the Court of Hué by her father, Ang Chan II. Mey was crowned sovereign of a kingdom under Vietnamese overlordship. It is difficult to ascertain what course of action other than acquiescence was available to her.