French establishment

During the 19th century, the kingdom of Cambodia had been reduced to a vassal state of the Kingdom of Siam. After the French establishment of a colony in southern Vietnam in 1862, King Norodom of Cambodia requested a French protectorate over his kingdom. The first decades of French rule in Cambodia included numerous reforms into Cambodian politics. The French found in Cambodia an established civilization with a recognized ruling class, at the apex of which was the king, king Norodom. They did nothing to upset or destroy the existing order and, in effect, ruled through the king rather than over him. The Cambodians quickly found out, however, that though the protectorate effectively stopped territorial inroads by their neighbors, it also reduced the country to a state of political and economic subordination to France.