Publication Date
2009
Categories
Siam (present-day Thailand), kingdom located at 17° 0R42; N, 100° 0R42; E.
Siam became an independent kingdom in 1351, with the settlement of its capital in Ayutthaya (Ayuthia or Odiá in Portuguese sources). After the foundation of Ayutthaya, the Siamese expansion gained ground with the annexation of Sukhothai and Lopburi in 1438 and the conquest of Chiang Mai to the North. In 1431, the Siamese plundered the city of Angkor, capital of the Khmer kingdom (Cambodia). In parallel, Siam established more or less effective tributary relations with several Islamic States from the Malay Peninsula, among which Malacca. At the beginning of the 16th century, the Siamese borders were constantly being redefined, and wars with neighbouring States were frequent, especially with the kingdom of Pegu (present-day Burma).
The first descriptions of Siam come to us through authors such as Tomé Pires, Duarte Barbosa, Fernão Mendes Pinto and through official chronicles (Barros, Castanheda, Gaspar Correia). These geo-commercial narratives mostly deal with the characterisation of the most important ports and the goods that could be found there, such as benzoin resin, aloe xylem, rice and other food supplies and, in a smaller quantity, sealing wax, pepper from Kedah, products from China, including silk and China ware, gemstones from Pegu and Laos, amongst others. The Portuguese, in turn, introduced Indian cotton, scarlet cloth, brocade, velvet and vermilion in Siam. By the 17th century, another type of products became prominent, including animal skin and tin from the Malay Peninsula that mainly came from Talang (present-day Phuket).
In 1511, before the conquest of Malacca was concluded, Afonso de Albuquerque sent the first Portuguese ambassador to the kingdom of Siam, Duarte Fernandes. The signing of a friendship and trade contract was among the goals of this diplomatic mission, in addition to an explanation of the reasons why the Portuguese attacked Malacca, which was considered a vassal state of Siam. After meeting this embassy, the Siamese king sent his representatives to Malacca, and in 1512 and 1518, another two diplomatic exchanges took place, led by António de Miranda de Azevedo and Duarte Coelho respectively.
With the friendship ties solidified through these diplomatic efforts, conditions were created for the gradual settlement of Portuguese individuals who formed small communities in Ayutthaya and in other parts of the kingdom of Siam, such as Ligor (present-day Nakhon Si Thammarat), Tenasserim (Mergui), Quedá (Kedah) and Patani (Pattani). In the capital, the Siamese king donated a small plot of land, authorised free religious practice and exempted the Portuguese from paying some trade taxes. The area which would become know as "Bang Portuguet" (ethnic enclave, field), i.e. the Portuguese quarter of Ayutthaya, is located at 14°21'42'' N and 101°34'35'' E, on the left bank of the Chao Phraya River. In front, on the other bank of the river, one could find the Japanese settlement and to its North the English and Dutch ones.
The Portuguese population gradually began a miscegenation process, with unions between the Portuguese and the Siamese, Chinese, Peguan, Japanese and other populations becoming common. Their main occupations were in (foreign and domestic) trade and in the Siamese army as gunners or soldiers, with the incorporation of Portuguese into the personal guard of the Siamese monarch being noteworthy.
Later on, some Portuguese descents distinguished themselves as interpreters and administrative officials of the Siamese State. By mid 17th century, the total population of the Portuguese quarter was estimated at around 2,000 Catholic individuals, but it is unknown whether this figure included the extended families of the quarter's inhabitants.
It is, nonetheless, extremely difficult to calculate the actual number of inhabitants using the currently available data.
The houses of the Portuguese quarter of Siam may have been built using perishable materials, including wood and bamboo, and following local construction techniques, such as building on stilts, as a way of protecting them from the annual flood of the Chao Phraya River. Up to the present, no archaeological remains of this type of houses have been found. Religious buildings may have also been built using perishable materials; however, in some of them, other materials, such as bricks, stone, whitewash and others, were equally employed in a later phase. The archaeological excavations at the igreja de São Domingos [Saint Dominic's Church] provide some information about the construction style adopted in that building. On the one hand, we come across a design of European influence, but on the other hand, we find the use of bricks and of some local decorative options. The roof-tiles, included in the latter category, were quite probably of the same type of those used in the Siamese Buddhist temples.
Actually, the Portuguese religious presence in Siam began in 1565-66, when two Dominican friars arrived in Ayutthaya and, consequently, established a mission in the Portuguese quarter. Franciscan friars arrived around 1584, also settling in the capital.
The Jesuits arrived in the kingdom in 1606 and equally erected a church in Ayutthaya, which they named igreja de São Paulo [St. Paul's Church] and which was located to the South of the igreja de São Domingos. The initial goal of the Portuguese missionary presence was obviously the conversion of the natives. Nevertheless, the evangelisation of the Siamese population professing the Theravada Buddhist faith had a reduced success. Therefore, the Portuguese priests firstly centred their activity in the organisation of the religious life of the quarter's inhabitants, and secondly they provided religious support to Christians of other nationalities, such as the Japanese. The relations between the Portuguese and Japanese communities in Ayutthaya were very close, with Maria Guiomar being the better known example of this proximity. She had both Portuguese and Japanese ancestry, was educated by Portuguese Jesuits and got married to Constantino Falcão [Constantine Phaulkon], a Greek who would become the prime-minister of Siam.
From 1614 onwards, the relations between Portugal and Japan started to deteriorate. Following Japan's adoption of a policy of exclusion (bafuku) in 1639, Siam gained a new strategic importance for the Portuguese authorities. In fact, if the Portuguese could travel on the Siamese boats that regularly called at the Japanese ports and, thus, guarantee their access to Japanese products, Ayutthaya would serve as a bridge between Portugal and Japan, and the Japanese officials' policy of exclusion would be circumvented. In this regard, an embassy, led by Francisco Cutrim de Magalhães, was sent to Siam in 1646, with the objective of diverting the Dutch from the Japanese trade and of obtaining an authorisation from the Siamese king to trade the products that were part of the Royal or of the Dutch monopoly, such as deerskin, a good with a great demand in Japan. The goals of this embassy were not attained, and from what is known today, the Portuguese would only attempt a new embassy to the kingdom of Siam in 1684, this time on the initiative of merchants from Macau.
The role played by Macau in the development and sustainability of the Portuguese community of Ayutthaya is indeed important. Besides establishing trade relations between the port of that City and the one of Siam, there were private trade networks between Macanese and Portuguese-Siamese merchants.
The 1684 embassy was headed by a rich merchant from Macau Pêro Vaz de Siqueira, who was accompanied by around 150 individuals. The main objectives of this diplomatic initiative were to demonstrate Portugal's greatness, contradicting the generalised image of an empire in decay, to exert strong pressure on the Siamese monarch, in order to achieve the expulsion of the French missionaries who belong to the Foreign Missions of Paris and who threatened the supremacy of the ecclesiastic patronage, and to obtain advantageous conditions in terms of the duties paid by Portuguese ships at Siamese ports. This embassy, which required a considerable investment from the Portuguese authorities and from the personal estate of Pêro Vaz de Siqueira, was welcomed in Siam, despite not having attained the expulsion of the French bishops. Nonetheless, it clearly demonstrated the strength of the merchant community of Macau, as well as the importance of Southeast Asian ports in the trade strategy of private Portuguese merchants. Their participation in intra-Asian trade, also known as country trade, was intensified during the second half of the 17th century, as an answer to the difficult situation of the Portuguese empire in Asia. The survival of the empire was, thus, intrinsically connected to these communities of Portuguese and Portuguese descendents, and Siam was no exception. In fact, three Portuguese-Thai communities have survived in Bangkok: Bairro do Rosário [Rosário Neighbourhood], Bairro da Conceição [Conceição Neighbourhood] and Santa Cruz (in Thonburi).
Nowadays, the igrejas de Conceição and de Santa Cruz [Churches of the Conception and of the Holy Cross] can be visited in Bangkok, as well as the igreja de São Domingos in Ayutthaya. After the archaeological excavations that took place at the latter church in 1984, the building benefited from restoration work which has somewhat disregarded the original design but has aimed to create a space accessible to the public, completed with the construction of a support centre where some of the skeletons found during the excavations are exhibited.
The official commemorations marking the 500th anniversary of the Portuguese arrival in Siam are currently being organised, with the event scheduled to take place in 2011.
Bibliography:
A.A.V.V., Portugal e a Tailândia, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian - Serviço Internacional, Lisboa, 1988. BERNARDES DE CARVALHO, Rita, La présence portugaise à Ayutthaya (Siam) aux XVIe et XVIIe siècles, tese de Mestrado policopiada, EPHE, Paris, 2006 (disponível em http://rbcarvalho.pt.vc/). FLORES, Maria da Conceição, Os Portugueses e o Sião no século XVI, Lisboa, 1995. PUMPONGPHAET, Patipat, «Les fouilles archéologiques dans le Mu Ban Portuget, sur le site de Sao Pedro», in Phra Narai roi de Siam et Louis XIV, catálogo de exposição, vol. "Études", Paris, 1986, p. 23-26. SEABRA, Leonor de, A Embaixada ao Sião de Pêro Vaz de Siqueira (1684-1686), Instituto Português do Oriente / Fundação Oriente, Macau, 2004. SEABRA, Leonor, Relações entre Macau e o Sião (Séculos XVIII-XIX), 2ème ed., Universidade de Macau, Macau, 2000. TEIXEIRA, Manuel, Portugal na Tailândia, Macau, 1983.
Author: Rita Bernardes de Carvalho
Translated by: John Silva
Siam became an independent kingdom in 1351, with the settlement of its capital in Ayutthaya (Ayuthia or Odiá in Portuguese sources). After the foundation of Ayutthaya, the Siamese expansion gained ground with the annexation of Sukhothai and Lopburi in 1438 and the conquest of Chiang Mai to the North. In 1431, the Siamese plundered the city of Angkor, capital of the Khmer kingdom (Cambodia). In parallel, Siam established more or less effective tributary relations with several Islamic States from the Malay Peninsula, among which Malacca. At the beginning of the 16th century, the Siamese borders were constantly being redefined, and wars with neighbouring States were frequent, especially with the kingdom of Pegu (present-day Burma).
The first descriptions of Siam come to us through authors such as Tomé Pires, Duarte Barbosa, Fernão Mendes Pinto and through official chronicles (Barros, Castanheda, Gaspar Correia). These geo-commercial narratives mostly deal with the characterisation of the most important ports and the goods that could be found there, such as benzoin resin, aloe xylem, rice and other food supplies and, in a smaller quantity, sealing wax, pepper from Kedah, products from China, including silk and China ware, gemstones from Pegu and Laos, amongst others. The Portuguese, in turn, introduced Indian cotton, scarlet cloth, brocade, velvet and vermilion in Siam. By the 17th century, another type of products became prominent, including animal skin and tin from the Malay Peninsula that mainly came from Talang (present-day Phuket).
In 1511, before the conquest of Malacca was concluded, Afonso de Albuquerque sent the first Portuguese ambassador to the kingdom of Siam, Duarte Fernandes. The signing of a friendship and trade contract was among the goals of this diplomatic mission, in addition to an explanation of the reasons why the Portuguese attacked Malacca, which was considered a vassal state of Siam. After meeting this embassy, the Siamese king sent his representatives to Malacca, and in 1512 and 1518, another two diplomatic exchanges took place, led by António de Miranda de Azevedo and Duarte Coelho respectively.
With the friendship ties solidified through these diplomatic efforts, conditions were created for the gradual settlement of Portuguese individuals who formed small communities in Ayutthaya and in other parts of the kingdom of Siam, such as Ligor (present-day Nakhon Si Thammarat), Tenasserim (Mergui), Quedá (Kedah) and Patani (Pattani). In the capital, the Siamese king donated a small plot of land, authorised free religious practice and exempted the Portuguese from paying some trade taxes. The area which would become know as "Bang Portuguet" (ethnic enclave, field), i.e. the Portuguese quarter of Ayutthaya, is located at 14°21'42'' N and 101°34'35'' E, on the left bank of the Chao Phraya River. In front, on the other bank of the river, one could find the Japanese settlement and to its North the English and Dutch ones.
The Portuguese population gradually began a miscegenation process, with unions between the Portuguese and the Siamese, Chinese, Peguan, Japanese and other populations becoming common. Their main occupations were in (foreign and domestic) trade and in the Siamese army as gunners or soldiers, with the incorporation of Portuguese into the personal guard of the Siamese monarch being noteworthy.
Later on, some Portuguese descents distinguished themselves as interpreters and administrative officials of the Siamese State. By mid 17th century, the total population of the Portuguese quarter was estimated at around 2,000 Catholic individuals, but it is unknown whether this figure included the extended families of the quarter's inhabitants.
It is, nonetheless, extremely difficult to calculate the actual number of inhabitants using the currently available data.
The houses of the Portuguese quarter of Siam may have been built using perishable materials, including wood and bamboo, and following local construction techniques, such as building on stilts, as a way of protecting them from the annual flood of the Chao Phraya River. Up to the present, no archaeological remains of this type of houses have been found. Religious buildings may have also been built using perishable materials; however, in some of them, other materials, such as bricks, stone, whitewash and others, were equally employed in a later phase. The archaeological excavations at the igreja de São Domingos [Saint Dominic's Church] provide some information about the construction style adopted in that building. On the one hand, we come across a design of European influence, but on the other hand, we find the use of bricks and of some local decorative options. The roof-tiles, included in the latter category, were quite probably of the same type of those used in the Siamese Buddhist temples.
Actually, the Portuguese religious presence in Siam began in 1565-66, when two Dominican friars arrived in Ayutthaya and, consequently, established a mission in the Portuguese quarter. Franciscan friars arrived around 1584, also settling in the capital.
The Jesuits arrived in the kingdom in 1606 and equally erected a church in Ayutthaya, which they named igreja de São Paulo [St. Paul's Church] and which was located to the South of the igreja de São Domingos. The initial goal of the Portuguese missionary presence was obviously the conversion of the natives. Nevertheless, the evangelisation of the Siamese population professing the Theravada Buddhist faith had a reduced success. Therefore, the Portuguese priests firstly centred their activity in the organisation of the religious life of the quarter's inhabitants, and secondly they provided religious support to Christians of other nationalities, such as the Japanese. The relations between the Portuguese and Japanese communities in Ayutthaya were very close, with Maria Guiomar being the better known example of this proximity. She had both Portuguese and Japanese ancestry, was educated by Portuguese Jesuits and got married to Constantino Falcão [Constantine Phaulkon], a Greek who would become the prime-minister of Siam.
From 1614 onwards, the relations between Portugal and Japan started to deteriorate. Following Japan's adoption of a policy of exclusion (bafuku) in 1639, Siam gained a new strategic importance for the Portuguese authorities. In fact, if the Portuguese could travel on the Siamese boats that regularly called at the Japanese ports and, thus, guarantee their access to Japanese products, Ayutthaya would serve as a bridge between Portugal and Japan, and the Japanese officials' policy of exclusion would be circumvented. In this regard, an embassy, led by Francisco Cutrim de Magalhães, was sent to Siam in 1646, with the objective of diverting the Dutch from the Japanese trade and of obtaining an authorisation from the Siamese king to trade the products that were part of the Royal or of the Dutch monopoly, such as deerskin, a good with a great demand in Japan. The goals of this embassy were not attained, and from what is known today, the Portuguese would only attempt a new embassy to the kingdom of Siam in 1684, this time on the initiative of merchants from Macau.
The role played by Macau in the development and sustainability of the Portuguese community of Ayutthaya is indeed important. Besides establishing trade relations between the port of that City and the one of Siam, there were private trade networks between Macanese and Portuguese-Siamese merchants.
The 1684 embassy was headed by a rich merchant from Macau Pêro Vaz de Siqueira, who was accompanied by around 150 individuals. The main objectives of this diplomatic initiative were to demonstrate Portugal's greatness, contradicting the generalised image of an empire in decay, to exert strong pressure on the Siamese monarch, in order to achieve the expulsion of the French missionaries who belong to the Foreign Missions of Paris and who threatened the supremacy of the ecclesiastic patronage, and to obtain advantageous conditions in terms of the duties paid by Portuguese ships at Siamese ports. This embassy, which required a considerable investment from the Portuguese authorities and from the personal estate of Pêro Vaz de Siqueira, was welcomed in Siam, despite not having attained the expulsion of the French bishops. Nonetheless, it clearly demonstrated the strength of the merchant community of Macau, as well as the importance of Southeast Asian ports in the trade strategy of private Portuguese merchants. Their participation in intra-Asian trade, also known as country trade, was intensified during the second half of the 17th century, as an answer to the difficult situation of the Portuguese empire in Asia. The survival of the empire was, thus, intrinsically connected to these communities of Portuguese and Portuguese descendents, and Siam was no exception. In fact, three Portuguese-Thai communities have survived in Bangkok: Bairro do Rosário [Rosário Neighbourhood], Bairro da Conceição [Conceição Neighbourhood] and Santa Cruz (in Thonburi).
Nowadays, the igrejas de Conceição and de Santa Cruz [Churches of the Conception and of the Holy Cross] can be visited in Bangkok, as well as the igreja de São Domingos in Ayutthaya. After the archaeological excavations that took place at the latter church in 1984, the building benefited from restoration work which has somewhat disregarded the original design but has aimed to create a space accessible to the public, completed with the construction of a support centre where some of the skeletons found during the excavations are exhibited.
The official commemorations marking the 500th anniversary of the Portuguese arrival in Siam are currently being organised, with the event scheduled to take place in 2011.
Bibliography:
A.A.V.V., Portugal e a Tailândia, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian - Serviço Internacional, Lisboa, 1988. BERNARDES DE CARVALHO, Rita, La présence portugaise à Ayutthaya (Siam) aux XVIe et XVIIe siècles, tese de Mestrado policopiada, EPHE, Paris, 2006 (disponível em http://rbcarvalho.pt.vc/). FLORES, Maria da Conceição, Os Portugueses e o Sião no século XVI, Lisboa, 1995. PUMPONGPHAET, Patipat, «Les fouilles archéologiques dans le Mu Ban Portuget, sur le site de Sao Pedro», in Phra Narai roi de Siam et Louis XIV, catálogo de exposição, vol. "Études", Paris, 1986, p. 23-26. SEABRA, Leonor de, A Embaixada ao Sião de Pêro Vaz de Siqueira (1684-1686), Instituto Português do Oriente / Fundação Oriente, Macau, 2004. SEABRA, Leonor, Relações entre Macau e o Sião (Séculos XVIII-XIX), 2ème ed., Universidade de Macau, Macau, 2000. TEIXEIRA, Manuel, Portugal na Tailândia, Macau, 1983.
Author: Rita Bernardes de Carvalho
Translated by: John Silva