The Thon Buri and Early Bangkok periods

Thon Buri

A new era in Thai history began with the rise to power of Taksin, a military commander of great skill and charismatic personality who succeeded within a decade after the fall of Ayutthaya in expelling the Burmans and making himself king of Siam. In 1767 Taksin established his new capital at Thon Buri, on the opposite side of the Chao Phraya River from present-day Bangkok. The new location was less accessible to the armies of Myanmar than Ayutthaya had been and was ideally situated for the conduct of seaborne trade and commerce. Capitalizing on the trade relations that Siam had already developed with China, Taksin encouraged Chinese merchants and craftsmen to take advantage of the economic opportunities offered by the site of his new capital. Large numbers of Chinese settled permanently in Siam, where their involvement in business and trade—coupled with the tax revenues that these activities provided—helped restore the kingdom’s devastated economy.

Taksin not only recovered the territories that had formerly been part of the Ayutthayan empire but also set out to extend Siamese control over new areas. His armies annexed part of what is now northeastern Cambodia and advanced up the Mekong River as far as present-day Vientiane in Laos. In the south they subdued the northern part of the Malay Peninsula, and to the north they pushed the Burmans out of the old northern Tai kingdom of Lan Na.

Within a few years of seizing power, however, Taksin showed signs of serious mental instability, and in 1782 he was overthrown and put to death. He was succeeded by his former military commander, known by his official name of Chao Phraya (“Great Lord”) Chakri. The new king founded the Chakri (or Chakkri) dynasty, which has continued to the present day.

The early Chakri kings and a resurgent Siam

One of the first acts of the new king—who would come to be known as Rama I (reigned 1782–1809)—was to move his capital across the Chao Phraya River to Bangkok, which at the time was still a small village. By the mid-19th century, Bangkok had become a city of some 400,000 people, swelled by the huge numbers of Chinese who had poured into Siam during those years. In addition to settling in Bangkok, the Chinese established trading settlements inland, some of which grew into small towns. As time went on, the Chinese thus gained even greater control over both the internal and foreign trade of the country.

The Burmese kingdom continued to harass Siam throughout the early Chakri reigns. In 1785 it launched a massive invasion of the country, which was repelled only with great difficulty. Other lesser attacks followed. Not until the 1820s, when British encroachment on Burmese territory forced Burman attention inward, was Siam able to relax its vigilance along its western borders. In the east Rama I and later Rama III (reigned 1824–51) reduced Khmer territories to vassal status, and in the south Rama III strengthened Siamese control over tributary states of the Malay Peninsula. Rama III also put down a major uprising in the north led by Chao Anou, the young Lao ruler of the kingdom of Vien Chan (Vientiane). In 1827 Siamese armies razed and plundered Vientiane; thousands of Lao were taken prisoner and deported to central Siam.

The early Chakri kings sought to restore the cultural heritage of Ayutthaya. New temples and palaces were built in Bangkok following the same styles and even using some of the same bricks that had embellished Ayutthaya. Rama I reestablished court rituals, issued comprehensive law codes and authoritative Buddhist texts, and helped revive the sangha by placing learned and pious monks in leading positions within the Buddhist hierarchy. The early Bangkok period also produced a great literary flowering. The Ramakian, the Thai version of the Indian epic Ramayana, was set to verse during the reign of Rama I. Rama II (reigned 1809–24), an accomplished poet, was a patron of the arts, and Sunthon Phu, Thailand’s greatest poet, wrote some of his best-known works during Rama II’s reign.

Western influence also grew in mainland Southeast Asia during the early years of the 19th century, and with it came increasing Western pressures on Siam. When Britain declared war on the Burmese kingdom in 1824, Rama III feared that the British might also attack Siam. He subsequently agreed to sign the Burney Treaty (1826), which set conditions for the conduct of trade between the two countries.

Mongkut and the opening of Siam to the West

Demands for free trade and diplomatic representation in Siam accelerated with the British advances into Myanmar and Malaya and the opening of several Chinese ports following the first Opium War with China (1839–42). In 1855 Queen Victoria sent Sir John Bowring as her personal emissary to Siam to demand an end to all trade restrictions. He was also instructed to secure the right to establish a British consulate in Bangkok and, in addition, the right to set up separate law courts to try cases involving British subjects (an element of extraterritoriality). The resulting Bowring Treaty (1855), in which Siam acceded to those demands, was followed shortly by similar treaties with other major European powers and the United States. Although those treaties left Siam intact politically, they severely reduced the country’s sovereignty and independence.

The opening of Siam to world trade and the development of a cash economy brought major changes to the country. The Bowring Treaty deprived the Siamese government of large sums in customs duties, one of its major traditional sources of revenue, forcing it to increase taxes in their stead. Large areas of the Chao Phraya basin were planted with rice and other cash crops for the world market, while the need to transport goods from the interior to the port of Bangkok led to the growth of canal systems and marketing networks.

The years following the Bowring Treaty were also marked by an increase in foreign influence in Siam. King Mongkut (Rama IV; ruled 1851–68) appointed several Western advisers and assistants to his court, including the Englishwoman Anna Harriette Leonowens, who tutored his children. She later published a romanticized and inaccurate depiction of Mongkut’s court that became the basis for the musical The King and I (1951), which was even more inaccurate though still highly popular with Western audiences. Foreign nationals began to take up long-term residence in Bangkok. Missionaries, although largely unsuccessful in converting the Siamese to Christianity, set up the first Western medical facilities, secular schools, and printing presses in the country. Mongkut took great interest in the new Western ideas that were beginning to come into the country. He studied Latin, mathematics, and astronomy with the scholarly French Roman Catholic missionary Jean-Baptiste Pallegoix and English with American Protestant missionaries, one of whom, Dan Beach Bradley, later founded the country’s first newspaper.

Mongkut was already 46 years old when he came to the throne. He had spent 26 years as a monk, during which time he became a keen scholar of Pali (the language of the Theravada texts) and an expert in Buddhist doctrine. Mongkut also had become concerned that many superstitious practices had grown up around the core Theravada teachings, and he established a new sect, which was dedicated to purifying Buddhist practice. This new sect became the Thammayut order that later would dominate the Thai monkhood. Although Mongkut was an absolute monarch, he began to break down the age-old tradition of treating the king as a god. He traveled widely throughout his kingdom, inquiring about the conditions of his subjects. He also was the first Siamese monarch to allow his subjects to gaze directly upon his face. Mongkut’s willingness to adapt traditional Siamese patterns to more-modern ideas helped pave the way for the more-profound social and political changes that were to take place in Siam under his successor.