ABSTRACT
Believed to have originally migrated from Siberia into China, the Hmong people were driven into Southeast Asia by the dominant Han Chinese during the latter half of the eighteenth century. Successive wars during the Qing dynasty (1644-1911) resulted in the displacement of Hmong throughout parts of China and the migration of communities into areas of Laos. Resettlement during the nineteenth century created Hmong communities in the highlands of Laos, where they lived in relative peace and resumed their traditional lifestyle of slash-and-burn agriculture. Viewed as an ethnic minority group by Laotians (members of the Tai ethnic group as well as indigenous Lao), the Hmong enjoyed relative peace until the Second Indochina War (late 1950s to 1975) and the Communist overthrow of the royal Lao government in 1975.
