History of Phuket

Phuket is the largest island in modern Thailand, locating in Southern Thailand on the western coast in the Andaman Sea. Historically at the fringe of Thai sphere of influence, Phuket has a unique place in Thai history, as its natural maritime wilderness hid lucrative tin resources that attracted both locals and foreigners who competed for control over the island, also a battleground for intensive Burmese–Siamese Wars, later becoming a Hokkien Chinese labor immigration entrepôt in tin mining industry and eventually a world tourism hub.

Historiography

Locating on the southern frontier of Thai sphere of influence, far from Thai historical centers such as Ayutthaya and Bangkok, closer to the Malay archipelago, events in Phuket were rarely recorded by the mainstream official royal Siamese chronicles. Native records about Phuket are scarce and none of them described events prior to the eighteenth century. Most of early history of Phuket can only be constructed from Western records by various foreigners such as the Dutch, the British and the French, who occasionally visited or had businesses in the Phuket island in the seventeenth to eighteenth centuries. Dearth of Phuket indigenous records may be attributed to the Burmese destruction of all settlements on Phuket in 1810, which presumably destroyed any historical documents and clues of the island.

The oldest extant native Thai historiography about the history of Phuket is dated to 1841, a small excerpt recounting a list of governors of Thalang or Phuket from around mid-eighteenth century to that time. Phraya Thalang Roek the governor of Thalang, relying on oral accounts of some elderly people of Phuket, provided a slightly more detailed account of History of Phuket, published by Prince Damrong in 1914 as Phongsawadan Mueang Thalang ("Chronicles of Thalang").

Gerolamo Emilio Gerini or Phra Sarasat Phonlakhan composed Historical Retrospect of Junkceylon Island in 1905.

Gerolamo Emilio Gerini, an Italian man known by Siamese title Phra Sarasat Phonlakhan (พระสารสาสน์พลขันธ์), served as a military instructor at Chulachomklao Royal Military Academy from 1897 to 1905. Gerini studied Siamese history and culture, composing Historical Retrospect of Junkceylon Island in 1905, the first modern historical narration of Phuket, republished in 1986 under Siam Society.

Names of Phuket

For most of its history, Phuket was known as "Junkceylon" in Western sources. The term Junkceylon came from Portuguese attested terms Jonsalam, Jonsalan or Junsalão of the sixteenth century. These terms were derived from the Malay term "Ujong Salang", meaning the "Cape of Salang", referring to the southern tip of the island. The name "Salang" was apparently related to native calling of the island "Chalang" or Thalang", which was adopted by the Thais to call the island. The name Salang, Chalang or Thalang did not have translatable meanings in both Thai and Malay languages, in which Gerini theorized to be derived from indigenous Austroasiatic language spoken by Semang Negrito people of the Malay peninsula. Merong Mahawangsa the Chronicles of Kedah, dated to late eighteenth century to early nineteenth century, called Phuket "Pulau Salang" or "Island of Salang".

The name "Phuket" came from the Malay term Bukit ("Mountain"), substantiated into Thai term "Phukej" (ภูเก็จ) from Phu ("Mountain") and Kej ("Diamond"), meaning "Diamond Mountain", which was related to Siamese title of the governors of Thalang "Phraya Phetkhiri" (พระยาเพชรคีรีฯ, "Lord of the Diamond Mountain"). Thalang and Phukej are two distinct settlements on the island. Thalang was the preferred term by pre-modern Siamese government as it was the main administrative center, locating in various shifting places in the center-northern part of the island, while Phukej began as a small settlement on the southern half of the island around late eighteenth century under jurisdiction of Thalang. With the foundation of modern Phukej town in 1827, the Phukej city grew rapidly and exponentially as a tin mining hub, attracting Hokkien Chinese tin mine laborers. After mid-nineteenth century, Phukej became the preferred term to call the island. Official spelling changed from Phukej to Phuket in early twentieth century.

Early history

Nakhon Si Thammarat

Main article: Nakhon Si Thammarat Kingdom

There are two Tamnan or histories, Tamnan Mueang Nakhon Si Thammarat (History of Nakhon Si Thammarat) and Tamnan Phrathat Mueang Nakhon Si Thammarat (History of Phrathat of Nakhon Si Thammarat), which provide semi-legendary narration of history of the area of Southern Thailand from thirteenth to seventeenth centuries, believed to be composed around the later half of the seventeenth century, discovered by modern Thai historian Prince Damrong and published during the 1930s. According to these Theravadin Buddhist Tamnans, King Si Thammasok established the city of Nakhon Si Thammarat as the center of his new Nakhon Si Thammarat Kingdom around mid-thirteenth century. With the foundation, King Si Thammasok also organized twelve Naksat zodiac satellite cities to be under the rule of Nakhon Si Thammarat. The term Naksat, from Sanskrit Nakshatra, referred instead to the Chinese zodiac.

Modern seal of Nakhon Si Thammarat Province depicting Phrathat surrounded by the twelve Naksat zodiacs.

Twelve Naksat satellite cities subordinating to Nakhon Si Thammarat, each assigned with a zodiac emblem, are Saiburi (Rat), Pattani (Ox), Kelantan (Tiger), Pahang (Rabbit), Kedah (Dragon), Phatthalung (Snake), Trang (Horse), Chumphon (Goat), Banthay Smoe (Monkey, theorized to be Krabi), Sa U-Lau (Rooster), Takua Pa (Dog) and Kraburi (Pig). These cities covered modern area from Southern Thailand to northern Malaysian states. In one version, Takua Pa was replaced with "Takua-Thalang" (ตะกั่วถลาง), which could either mean Takua Pa or Thalang, suggesting that the Phuket area was under control of Nakhon Si Thammarat Kingdom, as did much of Southern Thailand. However, this seventeenth-century account lacks supporting collaborative evidences from other sources.

Sukhothai and Early Ayutthaya

In the Ramkhamhaeng Stele, dated to 1292, Nakhon Si Thammarat is named as one of subordinate cities of Sukhothai Kingdom. The Tamnan suggests that a King of Sukhothai had come to subjugate Nakhon Si Thammarat. Therefore, the Thai Sukhothai kingdom has at least some influences over Southern Thai region in the fourteenth century but it is dubious that Sukhothai had solidified control over Southern Thailand or Malay peninsula as a whole.

Nakhon Si Thammarat and Southern Thailand was incorporated into Ayutthaya kingdom by fifteenth century. Towns on the Andaman Coast were not mentioned in the list of peripheral cities in Phra Aiyakarn Tamnaeng Na Thaharn Huamueang, which was complied in under King Trailokkanat, which included Nakhon Si Thammarat, Chumphon, Chaiya and Phatthalung as Ayutthayan authority was concentrated on Gulf of Siam side of Malay peninsula. According to Jeremias van Vliet's Chronicles of the Ayuthian Dynasty (1640), King Borommaracha III of Ayutthaya went on his leisure journey to "Tjongh Tjelungh" where he died, presumably in 1491. Fernão Mendes Pinto passed by the port of "Juncalan" in 1539, visiting Nakhon Si Thammarat or Ligor, mentioning that fourteen petty kings were subordinates of the viceroy of Ligor, Mendes Pinto again mentioned "Coast of Juncalan" in 1545. In 1580, Ralph Fitch passed by "Junsalaon" on his sea journey from Pegu to Malacca.

Earliest recognized inhabitants of Phuket seemed to be the Malays. Orang Laut sea nomads, called Saletters in Dutch sources, also patrolled the area. In October 1592, Edmund Baker from the fleet of Sir James Lancaster visited the "kingdome of Junsaloam", where Baker sent a Portuguese man to speak to the inhabitants in Malay language; "Here we sent our souldier, which the captaine of the aforesaid galion had left behind him with us, because he had the Malaian language to deale with the people for pitch,". This was the first recorded encounter between visitor and native inhabitant of Phuket.

Dutch tin monopoly in Phuket

Arrival of the Dutch in Phuket

King Prasat Thong of Ayutthaya enacted Phra Thammanun (พระทำนูน) or Constitution in 1633, in which Thalang was mentioned for the first time as a city under Kalahom or Southern Siam department. Tenasserim Hills was abundant in tin, which had been exported from various seaports of the Malay peninsula, attracting foreign merchants to trade tin in exchange for their goods. In the early seventeenth century, there had been a flourishing trans-Indian Ocean trade, in which South Indian merchants from Coromandel Coast would trade for tin in the Malay peninsula in exchange for Indian textiles brought with them. In the aftermath of Dutch conquest of Malacca in 1641, Malacca served as the foothold for expansion of Dutch commercial power in the region. As tin became a key commodity, the Dutch sought to take control and monopolize over this trans-Indian Ocean tin trade, at the expense of their competitors the South Indian and Acehnese merchants, through treaties and agreements with local rulers.

By the reign of King Prasat Thong in mid-seventeenth century, there were many Southern Siamese ports that exported tin including Nakhon Si Thammarat (Ligor), Chumphon, Chaiya, Phunphin, Thalang and Bangkhli, on both coasts of Southern Siam, of which Thalang and Bangkhli were on the Andaman Coast (Bangkhli is in modern Takua Thung). Dutch East India Company (VOC) sought to make treaties with local Asian governments, either through diplomacy or forced naval blockade, to obtain tin export monopolies to their benefits. Dutch sources described governors of Thalang and Bangkhli as "viceroys" who held autonomous powers, capable of conducting independent diplomatic ventures with the Dutch. The Dutch had earlier concluded a treaty with Kedah in 1642 granting tin export monopoly to the Dutch. The Dutch concluded separate treaties with the governor of Thalang in March 1643 and the governor of Bangkhli in January 1645, in which local tin miners were forced to sell tin only to the Dutch, who suppressed the price low, not to South Indian merchants, in exchange for Indian textiles brought in by the Dutch. Any tin miners who were caught selling tin to other parties were to be punished by seizure of their tin goods. Furthermore, any Dutch traders committing criminal offenses in Thalang and Bangkhli would not be subjected to native Siamese legal system but the opperhoofd from Ayutthaya would come to judge instead, a partial form of extraterritoriality.

Ayutthaya struggles to control technically autonomous towns like Thalang and Bangkhli, which were under nominal authority of Nakhon Si Thammarat or Ligor, the Mueang Ek or first-level principal city of Southern Siam. The governor of Thalang even independently sent letters to Jeremias van Vliet the Governor of Dutch Malacca in 1644–1645. In 1645, King Prasat Thong appointed a new governor of Ligor and, through him, summoned the Thalang governor to Ayutthaya for the fourth time without success. The Ligor governor sought to control Thalang. In 1654, the Ligor governor divided Thalang island into two administrative parts, upsetting Okphra Phetkhiri the governor of Thalang. Okphra Phetkhiri, through Tenasserim, complained his case to Ayutthaya. The result was that the Ligor governor was replaced by the governor of Tenasserim as the new governor of Ligor.

Tin export monopoly is the Dutch way of conducting businesses in the area, using local governments and law enforcement to ensure their benefits. The result was that South Indian and Acehnese merchants were legally barred from buying tin in these ports. Dutch tin export monopoly generated resentment among local population, who were eager to sell tin to South Indian merchants who offered higher prices. The Dutch soon found out that local authorities barely honored the treaties, as their competitors South Indian and Acehnese merchants continued to buy tin in these ports.

Incident of 1658

Local fury burst out in December 1658, when the Dutch insisted on searching Malay ships suspecting of smuggling tin, the local Malays killed Dutch officials and burnt down VOC factory in Phuket, causing the damage of over 22,000 guilders. King Narai of Ayutthaya responded to this incident by sending two royal commissioners, along with another Southern Siamese official from Ligor, to conduct investigation at Ligor and Phuket in 1659. The Dutch suspected that Okphra Phetkhiri the governor of Thalang was behind this incident. Phetkhiri was summoned to Ligor to provide his testimony. Siamese commissioners returned to Ayutthaya in 1661, bringing with them governor Okphra Phetkhiri and three Malay men suspected of killing Dutch officials. Phetkhiri was found no guilty and the three Malay men were sent to Malacca for punishments appropriated by the Dutch. Nevertheless, this incident led to closing down of Dutch factory of Phuket in 1660, leading to a ten-year hiatus of Dutch presence in Phuket.

Dutch–Siamese Treaty of 1664

King Prasat Thong of Ayutthaya had been in favor of the Dutch. In the reign of his son King Narai, however, Dutch–Siamese relations deteriorated. In the seventeenth century, Ayutthayan government had been sending royal ships to bring Siamese products such as deerskin and sappanwood to trade at Nagasaki, port of Tokugawa Japan, as a major source of revenue. Due to the Sakoku policy, Siam was unable to trade directly with Japan but rather through Dutch or Chinese middlemen. Dutch VOC had been exploiting this condition by asking for deerskin and tin export monopoly from Siam, guaranteeing them as the only channel for Siamese goods to be exported. However, King Narai commissioned his own trade junks under Chinese agents to sell Siamese products at Nagasaki, bypassing Dutch grip on Siamese export. By 1661, Chinese junks from Ayutthaya carried goods belonging to the king, members of royal family and high-ranking ministers to Nagasaki.

The Dutch found Siamese circumvention of their export monopoly increasingly frustrating, which they considered unfair trade competition. In 1661, the Dutch seized a Portuguese ship belonging to King Narai in Macao. Narai responded by decreeing next year in 1662 that all export commodities should be sold to Royal Warehouse before going out, thus abolishing any Dutch privileges. The Dutch seized another trade ship belonging to King Narai at Banda Islands in 1663. Siamese troops attacked Dutch settlement at Ayutthaya in response, prompting the Dutch to closed down the VOC factory of Ayutthaya and retreat in 1663. Joan Maetsuycker the Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies at Batavia responded by sending three Dutch warships to impose naval blockade upon Ayutthaya. The blockade lasted for four months from October 1663 to February 1664.

Siamese court eventually took a reconciliatory stance as the Dutch–Siamese Treaty was signed on 11 August 1664, normalizing Dutch–Siamese relations. In the treaty, Ayutthaya granted deerskin export monopoly to the Dutch. Peaceful, undisturbed trade and no higher duties were to be guaranteed in "Ligor, Oetjangh Salangh and other places". Even though Dutch–Siamese relations was normalized, the incident took a huge impact on King Narai's sentiments towards the Dutch, prompting the king to soon seek out for other European nations to counter Dutch influence. The Dutch was yet to re-obtain tin monopoly in Phuket after 1658. Even though the Dutch continued to acquire tin from Phuket, they did with difficulty and the yield was minimal.

Dutch Blockade of Phuket: 1673–1675

Nicolaas de Rooij obtained licenses from King Narai in 1670 granting tin export monopoly to the Dutch in Ligor, Thalang and Bangkhli. The success of the Dutch was short-lived as the Dutch ship Dolphin was seized at Bangkhli by local inhabitants in April 1671, massacring the Dutch, for the local tin miners were angry that South Indian merchants were offering much higher prices for tin in Tenasserim, they refused to be under Dutch commercial dominance again. With Ayutthayan government taking minimal responses to this incident, the Dutch decided to take matters into their own hands. In 1673, Dutch sloops attacked and set fires on settlements on Phuket, imposing naval blockade onto the island. Taking their base on the Banquala bay (modern Patong Bay), the Dutch, with three sloops, patrolled the surrounding waters, searching and preventing any attempts to smuggle tin out of the island.

For two years, the Dutch imposed naval blockade onto Phuket. In 1675, the Dutch sloop seized an Acehnese merchant ship, funded by an English trader, with full load of tin. This incident angered the local Malays, who had enough of the Dutch. The local Malays protested that the Dutch action was against the protection of the "Radja of Jansalone" (Okphra Phetkhiri, the govenor of Thalang) but the Dutch replied that all the roads and rivers of Jansalone belonged to them. The Dutch fired into the gathering crowd, killing some and dispersing the rest. The local Malays took revenge by cutting down tree logs to block the exit passageway, trapping the Dutch inside of the waterway. The local Malays then descended upon the Dutch, killing every Dutch men, tearing Dutch sloop into pieces.

The Dutch VOC protested this incident to Ayutthaya. Upon learning about this incident, King Narai decided to go against the Dutch. King Narai ordered Okphra Phetkhiri the governor of Thalang to supply each of the three ports of Phuket with two large war prows, to arm and fortify the island against possible Dutch attacks. Another attack on Dutch ship in Phuket occurred in 1677. The Dutch considered conquering Phuket but realized that the cost of conducting warfare would not be met by minimal tin product yield from the island.