A History Of Thailand

by Baker Chris

  2 Puangthong Rungswasdisab, ‘War and trade: Siamese intervention in Cambodia, 1767–1851’, PhD thesis, Wollongong University (1995), p. 144.

  3 The Dynastic Chronicle Bangkok Era: The First Reign, Chaophraya Thiphakorawong edition, tr. and ed. Thadeus and Chadin Flood, vol. I (Tokyo: Centre for East Asian Cultural Studies, 1978), p. 281.

  4 ‘Natural governments’ is a description invented by Nidhi Eoseewong in his magisterial study of Taksin, Kanmueang thai samai prachao krung Thonburi (Thai Politics in the Thonburi Period) (Bangkok: Sinlapa Watthanatham, 1986).

  5 Jean-Baptiste Pallegoix, Description of the Thai Kingdom of Siam, tr.W. E. J. Tips (Bangkok: White Lotus 2000 [1854]), p. 123.

  6 Dynastic Chronicle, pp. 78–84.

  7 Letter to Anna Leonowens, 6 April 1868, printed in Sinlapa Watthanatham 25, 5 (March 2004), p. 156.

  8 Pallegoix, Description, p. 117.

  9 Patrick Jory, ‘The Vessantara Jataka, barami, and the Boddhisatta-kings: the origin and spread of a Thai concept of power’, Crossroads 16, 2 (2002).

  10 B. J. Terwiel, Through Travellers’ Eyes: An Approach to Early Nineteenth Century Thai History (Bangkok: Editions Duang Kamol, 1989), p. 212.

  11 John Crawfurd, Journal of an Embassy from the Governor-General of India to the Courts of Siam and Cochin China (London: Henry Colbourn and Richard Bentley, 1830), vol. II, pp. 162–3.

  12 Nidhi Eoseewong, Pakkai lae bai rua (Pen and Sail) (Bangkok: Matichon, 1984).

  13 Phimpraphai Phisanbut, Nai mae: rueang di di khong nari Sayam (Great Mother: Good Stories of Siamese Women) (Bangkok: Nanmee Books, 2003), p. 96.

  14 M. Hardouin of the French Consulate in 1884, quoted in Rujaya Abhakorn, ‘Ratburi, an inner province: local government and central politics in Siam, 1862–1892’, PhD thesis, Cornell University (1984), p. 21.

  15 From Nirat mueang Phet, quoted in Nidhi, Pakkai, p. 315.

  16 Anna Leonowens, The English Governess at the Siamese Court (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1988 [1870]), pp. 14–15.

  17 Hong Lysa, Thailand in the Nineteenth Century: Evolution of the Economy and Society (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1984), p. 60.

  18 Mayoury Ngaosyvathn and Pheuiphanh Ngaosyvathn, Paths to Conflagration: Fifty Years of Diplomacy and Warfare in Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam, 1778–1828 (Ithaca: Cornell Southeast Asian Program, 1998), p. 117.

  19 Bernd Martin, ‘The Prussian expedition to the Far East (1860–1862)’, Journal of the Siam Society 78, 1 (1990), p. 39.

  20 Note dated 12 July 1822, The Crawfurd Papers (Bangkok: Vajiranana Library, 1915).

  21 Anthony Farrington (ed.), Early Missionaries in Bangkok: The Journals of Tomlin, Gutzlaff and Abeel, 1828–1832 (Bangkok: White Lotus, 2001), pp. 119, 123.

  22 F. A. Neale, Narrative of a Residence at the Capital of the Kingdom of Siam (Bangkok: White Lotus, 1997 [1852]), pp. 67, 181.

  23 A. Moffat, Mongkut the King of Siam (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1962), p. 57.

  24 Henry Alabaster, The Wheel of the Law: Buddhism Illustrated from Siamese Sources (London: Trübner, 1871), p. 73. Alabaster was a translator for the British diplomatic mission who resigned to work for the Siamese government. Part of this book is a condensed translation of Sadaeng Kitjanukit. The phrase ‘a foolish religion’ came from Mongkut.

  25 Andrew Turton, ‘Thai institutions of slavery’, in J. L. Watson(ed.), Asian and African Systems of Slavery (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1980), p. 258.

  26 Peter Vandergeest, ‘Hierarchy and power in pre-national Buddhist states’, Modern Asian Studies 27, 4 (1993), p. 855.

  27 Pallegoix, Description, p. 153.

  28 Junko Koizumi, ‘From a water buffalo to a human being: women and the family in Siamese history’, in Barbara Watson Andaya (ed.), Other Pasts: Women, Gender and History in Early Modern Southeast Asia (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i, 2000), p. 254.

  3 Reforms, 1850s to 1910s

  1 Attachak Sattayanurak, Kan plian plaeng lokkathat khong chon chan phu nam Thai tang tae ratchakan thi 4 thueng phuttasakkarat 2475 (Change in the Thai Elite’s Worldview from the Fourth Reign to 1932) (Bangkok: Chulalongkorn University Press, 1994), p. 151.

  2 H. Warrington Smyth, Five Years in Siam: From 1891 to 1896 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1898), vol. II, p. 19.

  3 Decree quoted in D. K. Wyatt, ‘The Buddhist monkhood as an avenue of social mobility in traditional Thai society’, in Wyatt, Studies in Thai History (Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books, 1994), p. 212.

  4 Letter dated 18 May 1864, printed in Sinlapa Watthanatham 25, 3 (January 2004), p. 85.

  5 1874, quoted in N. A. Battye, ‘The military, government and society in Siam, 1868–1910: politics and military reform during the reign of King Chulalongkorn’, PhD thesis, Cornell University (1974), p. 118.

  6 Quoted in Attachak, Kan plian plaeng, p. 134.

  7 Leonowens, English Governess, p. 47.

  8 This map is based on an 1866 document, quoted in Rujaya, ‘Ratburi’, pp. 34–5.

  9 In this era, the term ‘Lao’ was used to refer to the peoples of both Lanna (Chiang Mai) and Lanchang (Luang Prabang, Vientiane, Champasak).

  10 Sratsawadi Ongsakun, Prawatisat Lanna (History of Lanna) (Chiang Mai: Chiang Mai University, 1996), p. 359.

  11 Quoted in C. F. Keyes, ‘Millennialism, Theravada Buddhism, and Thai society’, Journal of Asian Studies 36, 2 (1977), p. 298.

  12 Thongchai Winichakul, Siam Mapped: A History of the Geo-body of a Nation (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1994).

  13 Le Myre de Vilers, governor of French Indochina in 1881, quoted in Patrick Tuck, The French Wolf and the Siamese Lamb: The French Threat to Siamese Independence, 1858–1907 (Bangkok: White Lotus, 1995), p. 44.

  14 Thongchai, Siam Mapped, p. 125.

  15 Battye, ‘Military, government and society’, p. 428.

  16 Davisakdi Puaksom, Khon plaek na nanachat khong krung Sayam (Siam’s International Strangers) (Bangkok: Sinlapa Watthanatham, 2003), pp. 31–2.

  17 King Chulalongkorn’s Journey to India, 1872 (Bangkok: River Books, 2000), p. 8.

  18 David Streckfuss, ‘The mixed colonial legacy in Siam: origins of Thai racialist thought’, in L. J. Sears (ed.), Autonomous Histories, Particular Truths: Essays in Honor of John R. W. Smail (Madison: University of Wisconsin, 1993), p. 131.

  19 Streckfuss, ‘Mixed colonial legacy’, p. 150 fn. 66.

  20 Chaiyan Rajchagool, The Rise and Fall of the Thai Absolute Monarchy (Bangkok: White Lotus, 1994), p. 96.

  21 Thongchai, Siam Mapped, pp. 101–2.

  22 Chaophraya Thammasakmontri, Thammajariya II, p. 104, quoted in Kullada Kesboonchu Mead, The Rise and Decline of Thai Absolutism (London: Routledge Curzon, 2004), p. 89.

  23 Somrudee Nicrowattanayingyong, ‘Development, politics, and paradox: a study of Khon Kaen, a regional city in Northeast Thailand’, PhD thesis, Syracuse University (1991), pp. 148–50.

  24 Streckfuss, ‘Mixed colonial legacy’, p. 143.

  25 Battye, ‘Military, government and society’, p. 418.

  26 Craig J. Reynolds, Autobiography: The Life of Prince-Patriarch Vajiranana (Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1979), p. 37.

  27 Damrong quoted in Nakharin Mektrairat, Kanpatiwat Sayam pho so 2475 (The 1932 Revolution in Siam) (Bangkok: Munnithi khrongkan tamra sangkhomsat lae manutsayasat, 1992), p. 64.

  28 1899, quoted in Thamsook Numnonda, ‘The first American advisers in Thai history’, Journal of the Siam Society 62, 2 (1974), p. 122.

  29 M. Peleggi, Lords of Things: The Fashioning of the Siamese Monarchy’s Modern Image (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2002), p. 64.

  30 Tuck, French Wolf, p. 191.

  31 Attachak, Kan plian plaeng, p. 38.

  32 Attachak, Kan plian plaeng, p. 153.

  33 Chris Baker, ‘The Antiquarian Society of Siam speech of King Chulalongkorn’, Journal of the Siam Society 89 (2001), p. 95.

  34 King Vajiravudh, Thiao m
ueang Phra Ruang (Visiting King Ruang’s Cities) (Bangkok: Ministry of Interior, 1954), p. 9.

  35 Saichon Sattayanurak, Somdet kromphraya Damrong Rachanuphap: kan sang attalak ‘Mueang Thai’ lae ‘chan’ khong chao Sayam (Prince Damrong: Creating the Identity of Thailand and Classes of the Siamese People) (Bangkok: Sinlapa Watthanatham, 2003), p. 115.

  36 Panni Bualek, ‘Sayam’ nai krasaethan haeng kan plian plaeng: prawattisat Thai tang tae samai ratchakan thi 5 (Siam in the Tide of Change: Thai History from the Fifth Reign) (Bangkok: Muang Boran, 1998), p. 67.

  37 Eiji Murashima, ‘The origins of modern official state ideology in Thailand’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 19, 1 (1988), p. 84. This quote is from Murashima’s summary of the document.

  38 Murashima, ‘Origins’, p. 86.

  39 Murashima, ‘Origins’, pp. 86–8.

  40 Saichon, Somdet kromphraya Damrong, p. 149.

  41 Kennon Breazeale, ‘The historical works of Prince Damrong Rachanuphap’, MA thesis, University of Hawai’i (1971), pp. 168–9.

  4 Peasants, merchants, and officials, 1870s to 1930s

  1 D. B. Johnston, ‘Rural society and the rice economy in Thailand, 1860–1930’, PhD thesis, Yale University (1975), p. 81.

  2 F. H. Giles in 1898, quoted in Johnston, ‘Rural society’, p. 125.

  3 Joachim Grassi in 1892, quoted in Johnston, ‘Rural society’, p. 123.

  4 H. S. Hallett, A Thousand Miles on an Elephant in the Shan States (Bangkok: White Lotus, 2000 [1890]), p. 131.

  5 Chatthip Nartsupha, The Thai Village Economy in the Past, tr. Chris Baker and Pasuk Phongpaichit (Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books, 1999), pp. 69–70.

  6 Carle C. Zimmerman, Siam: Rural Economic Survey, 1930–31 (Bangkok: White Lotus, 1999 [1931]), p. 52.

  7 Government’s main taxes came from the opium, liquor, and gambling consumed by urban Chinese who were mostly employed in the mills, port, and other enterprises connected to the export of rice and teak.

  8 Prince Dilok Nabarath, Siam’s Rural Economy under King Chulalongkorn, tr. W. E. J. Tips (Bangkok: White Lotus, 2000 [1907]), pp. xv, 169.

  9 Phraya Suriyanuwat, Sapphasat (Economics) (Bangkok: Rongphim Pikhanet, 1975 [1911]), p. 73.

  10 W. F. Vella, Chaiyo! King Vajiravudh and the Development of Thai Nationalism (Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii, 1978), p. 170.

  11 Farrington, Early Missionaries, pp. 34, 37.

  12 Smyth, Five Years, I, p. 9.

  13 Smyth, Five Years, I, p. 15.

  14 Nothing seems known of Nai But, other than that he wrote several such poems, mainly about Bangkok. From internal evidence, Nirat chom Sampheng was composed between 1912 and 1921. Somthat Thewet, Krungthep nai nirat (Bangkok in Verse) (Bangkok: Ruangsin, 1978), p. 44.

  15 Jek is a word conveying the meaning of ‘Chinese in Thailand’. With the rise of anti-Chinese attitudes, it was applied mainly to un-Thai-ified Chinese with pejorative intent, rather like ‘chink’.

  16 This translation from Somthat, Krungthep nai nirat, is adapted from that by Kasian Tejapira in ‘Pigtail: a pre-history of Chineseness in Siam’, Sojourn 7, 1 (1992), p. 110.

  17 In the simplest form, these names joined their sae name with trakun, a Thai approximation to the meaning of sae; hence Huntrakun, and so on. Others translated the sae name and some joined a translation of part of their Chinese name with wanit or phanit meaning commerce; hence Sophonphanit.

  18 Seksan Prasertkun, ‘The transformation of the Thai state and economic change (1855–1945)’, PhD thesis, Cornell University (1989), pp. 276–7.

  19 The early estimates, summarized by Porphant Ouyyanont, have some guesswork. The counts, from the first census in 1909–10, are complicated by rapid changes in the city’s area.

  20 Arnold Wright and Oliver T. Breakspear, Twentieth Century Impressions of Siam: Its History, People, Commerce, Industries and Resources (London: Lloyd’s Greater Britain Publishing Company, 1908), p. 244.

  21 J. Antonio, Guide to Bangkok and Siam (Bangkok: Siam Observer Press, 1904), p. 24.

  22 Wright and Breakspear, Twentieth Century Impressions, p. 244.

  23 Sathirakoses (Phraya Anuman Rajadhon), Looking Back: Book Two (Bangkok: Chulalongkorn University Press, 1996 [1967]), p. 77.

  24 Smyth, Five Years, I, p. 26.

  25 Scot Barmé, Woman, Man, Bangkok: Love, Sex and Popular Culture in Thailand (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2002), p. 81.

  26 A women’s newspaper, Satri Sap, in 1922, quoted in Barmé, Woman, Man, Bangkok, p. 166.

  5 Nationalisms, 1910s to 1940s

  1 Scot Barmé, Luang Wichit Wathakan and the Creation of a Thai Identity (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1993), p. 21.

  2 Vella, Chaiyo, p. 66.

  3 Vajiravudh, Pramuan bot phraratchaniphon (Collected Writings) (Bangkok, 1955), pp. 97–9.

  4 Chanida Phromphayak Puaksom, Kanmueang nai prawatisat thongchat Thai (Politics in the History of the Thai Flag) (Bangkok: Sinlapa Watthanatham, 2003), p. 84.

  5 Si Krung, 1928, quoted in Matthew Copeland, ‘Contested nationalism and the 1932 overthrow of the absolute monarchy in Siam’, PhD thesis, Australian National University (1993), p. 61.

  6 Attachak, Kan plian plaeng, pp. 273, 275.

  7 Siburapha [Kulap’s pen-name], Songkhram chiwit (The War of Life) (Bangkok: Suphapburut, 1949), p. 245.

  8 Attachak, Kan plian plaeng, pp. 250, 252.

  9 Copeland, ‘Contested nationalism’, pp. 189, 191.

  10 Nakharin, Kanpatiwat Sayam, p. 83.

  11 Nakharin, Kanpatiwat Sayam, p. 80.

  12 Copeland, ‘Contested nationalism’, p. 64.

  13 Chaiyan, Rise and Fall, p. 156.

  14 Chaiyan, Rise and Fall, p. 156.

  15 Copeland, ‘Contested nationalism’, p. 65.

  16 Nakharin, Kanpatiwat Sayam, p. 94.

  17 Copeland, ‘Contested nationalism’, p. 74.

  18 Chaloemkiat Phianuan, Prachathippatai baep Thai: khwamkhit thang kanmueang khong thahan Thai 2519–2529 (Thai Style Democracy: Political Thought of the Thai Military, 1976–1986) (Bangkok: Thammasat University, Thai Khadi Institute, 1990), pp. 20–1; Kullada, Thai Absolutism, p. 168.

  19 Benjamin A. Batson, The End of the Absolute Monarchy in Siam (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1984), p. 30.

  20 Benjamin A. Batson, Siam’s Political Future: Documents from the End of the Absolute Monarchy (Ithaca: Cornell University Data Paper 96, 1974), p. 15.

  21 Nakharin, Kanpatiwat Sayam, p. 104.

  22 Batson, Siam’s Political Future, p. 38.

  23 New York Times, 27 April 1931.

  24 Khun Wichitmatra, Lak Thai (Origins of the Thai) (Bangkok: Hanghunsuan, 1928), pp. 6, 9–10, 345.

  25 Copeland, ‘Contested nationalism’, pp. 209–15.

  26 Seksan, ‘Transformation of the Thai state’, p. 276.

  27 Asvabahu [pen name of Rama VI], Phuak yio haeng burapha thit lae mueang Thai jong tuen toet (The Jews of the Orient and Wake up Siam) (Bangkok: Foundation in Memory of King Rama VI, 1985 [1913]), p. 81.

  28 Batson, End of the Absolute Monarchy, p. 40.

  29 Copeland, ‘Contested nationalism’, p. 179.

  30 D. A. Wilson, Politics in Thailand (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1962), p. 173.

  31 Nakharin Mektrairat, Khwam khit khwam ru lae amnat kanmueang nai kan patiwat Sayam 2475 (Thought, Knowledge, and Political Power in the 1932 Siamese Revolution) (Bangkok: Fa dieo kan, 2003), p. 326.

  32 Batson, End of the Absolute Monarchy, p. 205.

  33 Nakharin, Khwam khit, p. 222.

  34 Pridi Banomyong, Pridi by Pridi: Selected Writings on Life, Politics, and Economy, tr. Chris Baker and Pasuk Phongpaichit (Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books, 2000), p. 70.

  35 Thamrongsak Petchloetanan, 2475 lae 1 pi lang kan patiwat (1932 and One Year after the Revolution) (Bangkok: Institute of Asian Studies, Chulalongkorn University, 2000), p. 80, quoting the memoirs of Chaophraya Mahithon.

  36 Thamrongsak, 2475 lae 1 pi lang, p
. 227.

  37 Suphot Jaengreo, Khadi yuet phraratchasap Phrabat Somdet Phrapokklao (The case about appropriating the assets of King Prajadhipok), Sinlapa Watthanatham 23, 8 (June 2002), p. 68.

  38 Vichitvong Na Pombhejara, Pridi Banomyong and the Making of Thailand’s Modern History (Bangkok, 1979), p. 78.

  39 Pridi, Pridi by Pridi, p. 188.