Around 1790 to the 1860S
Hmong Timeline
Around 1790 to the 1860s
For centuries, the Hmong lived autonomously in remote areas of China, retaining a unique culture despite ongoing conflicts with Imperial China. Major uprisings, such as the Miao Rebellion (1795–1806) and the Taiping Rebellion (1850-64), occurred when Chinese rulers used military might to suppress the Hmong and other ethnic minorities. These conflicts resulted in a mass exodus by the Hmong into the mountainous regions of Southeast Asia—areas known today as Laos, Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, and Vietnam.
We always knew that our history was rooted in China. However, our ancestors never got along with the Imperial Chinese. They invaded our lands. Killed our people. This went on for hundreds of years. Many Hmong leaders and their families, including my great-grandparents, moved to Laos to escape being persecuted. CHER CHA VANG, former military major and Hmong leader, Minneapolis, interview 2006
1945-54
At the end of World War II, the French attempted to reassert control over their former colonies in Southeast Asia, but were fiercely opposed by Chinese-backed Communist forces in Vietnam and Laos. Many Hmong were drawn into the new war that engulfed the entire region. During the 1954 battle at Dien Bien Phu, Vietnam, about 500 Hmong soldiers were sent from Laos to assist the French. They were days away from the front line when the French surrendered to the Communist Viet Minh; this effectively ended French rule in Southeast Asia. The Geneva Accords in 1954 divided Vietnam into two separate countries. North Vietnam was formed as a communist country, while South Vietnam, a democracy, soon gained American support after the French. Within Hmong society, clan leaders became proactive both politically and militarily in the Lao government.
1961-1963
A coup d'état in 1960 in the Lao capital, Vientiane, deepened the country’s political instability. As a result, newly elected US president John F. Kennedy authorized the recruitment of ethnic minorities in Laos to participate in covert military operations against the spread of communism. CIA agent Bill Lair met with the young Hmong military officer Vang Pao to discuss supporting US objectives in Laos. A sharp increase in the number of Hmong troops, supported by American military and CIA advisers, along with huge drops of military supplies, signaled the start of what is now called the Secret War. Of the 300,000 Hmong people living in Laos, more than 19,000 men were recruited into the CIA-sponsored secret operation known as Special Guerrilla Units (SGU) while some enlisted as Forces Armees du Royaume, the Laotian royal armed forces. Each soldier was paid an equivalent of three dollars a month. Air America—the “private” airline contracted by the CIA—dropped 40 tons of food per month. The US funded new schools throughout the remote regions of Laos, which opened opportunities to Hmong girls. As the war escalated, some Hmong girls were trained as nurses and medics to care for wounded soldiers.
Communism was spreading in our part of the world—pouring into Laos, Cambodia, and South Vietnam. We had to find a way to stop them. The US had the vision to stop them from spreading into these countries. I aligned with the US because they were the most powerful country in the world at that time. The United States had won World War I and World War II, and I assumed that winning the Vietnam War would be no problem.”GEN. VANG PAO, St. Paul, interview 2006
1968-72
In the two worst years of the both the American War in Vietnam and the Secret War in Laos, 18,000 Hmong soldiers were killed in combat, in addition to thousands more civilian casualties.
By 1969, Hmong troop strength was nearing 40,000. Under the new administration of Pres. Richard Nixon, U.S. bombing of Laos escalated, and Congress learned of CIA covert military operations in Laos. By 1971, the Secret War was weighing heavily on the Hmong and the people of Laos. The estimated death toll for Hmong soldiers this year alone was 3,000, with 6,000 more wounded. More and more boys were becoming involved; the average age of Hmong recruits that year was 15. Throughout 1971, Long Cheng air base was pounded constantly by artillery from massive guns hidden in the surrounding hills. Meanwhile, American opposition to the wars in Southeast Asia mounted, even as Pres. Richard Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger spoke of “peace with honor” and “the light at the end of the tunnel.”
Before the war all the men in our village worked hard and supported their families. We had peace. There was no war. All of a sudden, our lives changed. The men began to disappear. They went to fight for Gen. Vang Pao, for the Americans. Most of our husbands never returned home. My husband died in the war. We told Gen. Vang Pao that we wanted the war to end and to end all the killing. He also wanted the war to end.
YOUA LEE, ST. PAUL, interview 2011
1973-75
In February, a cease-fire and political peace treaty was signed in Paris, requiring the US and all foreign powers to withdraw all military activities from Laos. More than 120,000 Hmong became refugees in their own homelands. 18,000 Hmong soldiers were left in Laos, representing nearly three-quarters of the irregular forces. About 50,000 Hmong civilians had been killed or wounded in the war.
By the war’s end, between 30,000 and 40,000 Hmong soldiers had been killed in combat, and between 2,500 and 3,000 were missing in action. An estimated one-fourth of all Hmong men and boys died fighting the Communist Pathet Lao and the North Vietnamese Army. The official US military death total in Vietnam exceeded 58,000.
On September 14, 1973 the Vientiane Agreement was signed, giving the Communist Pathet Lao more control of the Lao government.
I hope you all believe me when I say that your welfare has always been, is now, and will always continue to be of the highest priority interest for me and my fellow USA co-workers. I still remember that I and, perhaps, other Americans who are representatives of the United States government, have promised you, the Hmong People, that if you fight for us, if we win, things will be fine. But if we lose, we will take care of you.
JERRY (“HOG”) DANIELS, CIA case officer and adviser to the Hmong and Gen. Vang Pao. From A Letter From Jerry Daniels (1941-1982)
1975-2015
After overthrowing the Laotian monarchy, the Pathet Lao launched an aggressive campaign to capture or kill Hmong soldiers and families who sided with the CIA. Thousands of Hmong were evacuated or escaped on their own to Thailand. Thousands more who had already gone to live deep in the jungle were left to fend for themselves, which led to the creation of the Chao Fa and Neo Hom freedom fighters movements. Many men also took up arms again to protect their families as they crossed the heavily patrolled Mekong River to safety in Thailand.
Hmong began moving into refugee camps overseen by non-governmental organizations such as the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the International Rescue Committee, Refugees International ,and the Thai Ministry of the Interior. The first Hmong family to resettle in Minnesota arrived in November 1975. The largest wave came after the passage of the US Refugee Act of 1980.
In 2004, the Buddhist monastery at Wat Tham Krabok—the last temporary shelter for 15,000 Hmong remaining in Thailand—closed. This “last wave” came to the US, with as many as 5,000 settling in established Minnesota Hmong communities.
The 2010 census recorded more than 260,000 Hmong in the United States. More than 66,000 of that number lived in Minnesota, most of them in or near the Twin Cities—the largest urban population of Hmong in America.
Questions
Answer the questions on a separate sheet of paper after you have read and annotated the article. Make sure you are using complete sentences to answer each question. In order to answer each question completely, you should have at least three full sentences for each answer.
1. Who are the Hmong people?
2. How were the Hmong involved in the Vietnam War?
3. What was the Secret War in Laos?
4. How did Hmong involvement in the Vietnam War affect the war?
5. Why did the Hmong have to flee Laos and Vietnam?
6. Why do we have many Hmong in the United States.