| Sedang (Kingdom of the) 
Charles
Marie David Mayréna was born in France in 1842. When France launched
its conquest of Southeast Asia, Mayréna volunteered for service there.
After gaining a post as an administrator, he promptly fled Paris for
Java in June of 1883, fearing prosecution for embezzlement. The next
year, he was expelled from the Dutch East Indies. He returned to Paris
and organized an arms shipment to Aceh. While returning to the East
Indies, he stopped in Vietnam and started a plantation. In 1888, the
King of Siam began claiming territory west of French territory. Anxious,
the Governor of the Indochinese Union agreed to a proposal from Mayréna
to lead an expedition into the interior in order to negotiate treaties
with the local tribespeople. Once
there however, he convinced some tribal chiefs to form a new kingdom -
with himself as king. Mayréna, his supporters and some tribespeople
claimed that the tribes were not vassals of the Annamese (Vietnamese)
emperor and therefore could form their own kingdom. The Kingdom of the
Sedang was founded when Mayréna was elected King by the chiefs of the
Bahnar, Rengao and Sedang tribes in the village of Kon Gung on June 3,
1888. He then assumed the style and title Marie the First, King of the
Sedang. He
then offered to cede his kingdom to France in exchange for monopoly
rights, and hinted that the Prussians were interested if the French were
not. When the French government became understandably chilly, Mayréna
approached the English at Hong Kong. When he was rebuffed there he
travelled to Belgium, where in 1889 a Belgian financier named Somsy
offered to provide Mayréna with arms and money in exchange for mineral
rights. Unfortunately, the French Navy blockaded Vietnamese ports to
prevent his return, and his arms were seized as contraband at Singapore.
During
the period of his reign Marie I awarded titles of nobility, orders of knighthood and medals
to his supporters. He also created a series of postage stamps that have
subsequently become the chief historical legacy of his kingdom. |
Postage
Stamps of Sedang: Marie I arranged for a second printing of his kingdom's stamps whilst visiting Paris in 1889. Unfortunately it appears that the King neglected to pay the printers for their efforts, so not only did these stamps never actually make it to Sedang, but in order to recover their costs the printers flooded the gullible European collector market with mint and 'cancelled' sets - to the extent that over a century later they are still comparatively easy to find.
|
