Answer:
The 4th paragraph of the text titled The Vietnam Wars is the following:
They drafted peasants to produce rubber, alcohol, and salt in slavelike conditions. They also ran a thriving opium business and turned thousands of Vietnamese into addicts. When France arrived in Vietnam, explained Paul Doumer, architect of the colonial economy, "the Annamites were ripe for servitude." But the French, like the Chinese before them, misread their colonial subjects. The Vietnamese spurned slavery, and organized a determined resistance, using their knowledge of the countryside to outwit the French. "Rebel bands disturb the country everywhere," complained a French commander in Saigon. "They appear from nowhere in large numbers, destroy everything, and then disappear into nowhere."
Based on the given context, we can determine that the words misread their colonial subjects mean that the French didn't correctly predict what the reaction of the Vietnamese, whom they wanted to colonize, would be like. The words spurned slavery mean that the Vietnamese violently rejected to bow down to the French. We can see that the relationship between the French and Vietnamese wasn't a peaceful one.