Article

A Malay mission to Bangkok during the reign of Rama II

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A Malay mission to Bangkok during the reign of Rama II

Cyril Skinner’s 1983 article in the Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society presents a translation of a Thai court manuscript recording the arrival of Malay tributary envoys at the Bangkok palace in October 1809, the first year of Rama II’s reign. The article’s central contribution is to supply a Siamese administrative perspective on the tributary relationship between Bangkok and the northern Malay states, a relationship previously documented almost exclusively from Malay or English sources.

Summary

Skinner’s article addresses a gap in the historiography of Siam–Malay relations by translating and annotating a previously unpublished Thai manuscript held in the National Library, Bangkok. The document records the formal audience granted by Rama II to twenty-two envoys representing Kedah, Trengganu, Kelantan, and three Patani statelets (Nongchik, Palam, and Rangae), who had come to present the bunga emas (gold and silver flowers) and other tokens of respect to the new king following Rama I’s death in September 1809. The speed with which the Malay states dispatched their missions suggests they acted upon prompting from the Siamese governors at Nakhon Si Thammarat and Songkhla, through whom relations with Bangkok were normally conducted.

The article situates this event within the broader context of the 1808 Patani uprising, the third major clash in less than three decades, after which Bangkok dismantled Patani as a unitary state and divided it into seven districts under the supervision of the Governor of Songkhla. At the time of the mission, part of Patani was under direct Siamese governance, and the three statelets represented in the audience were likely the only Patani Malay statelets still under Malay rule. If so, the mission encompassed every one of Bangkok’s Malay client states, making it a comprehensive snapshot of the tributary system at a moment of transition.

The translation itself reveals the highly ritualised and formulaic nature of the audience. The King’s three observations—concerning the health of the envoys’ rulers and subjects, the conditions of their voyage, and instructions for any business they wished to conduct—are couched in a benevolently patronising tone that Skinner compares to the Peking court’s treatment of Lord Macartney’s mission. The ceremony, conducted in the Chakraphatphiman Hall with full musical fanfare including conch shells played by court Brahmins, underscores the sacral and hierarchical dimensions of the relationship.

Key Findings

  • The manuscript is a samud thai dam (Thai black book) consisting of 35 concertina pleats, each approximately 33 × 11 cm, written in white crayon on bark paper dyed black; it is held in the National Library, Bangkok, under the label ‘2nd Reign, 1171 Chulasakarat, No. 7, Part 2’, and was not included in the published Chodmai het Rachakan thi Song (1970–71) (p. 135, n. 2).
  • The audience took place in the 11th month of the Year of the Snake, 1st of the decade (October 1809), in the Chakraphatphiman Hall, the inner hall of the Amarin Winicchai palace complex (pp. 136, 138 n. 4).
  • A total of twenty-two envoys attended (though the scribe’s unfamiliarity with Malay names caused him to ‘telescope’ one name, reducing the true count of twenty-three by one): 5 from Kedah, 8 from Trengganu, 3 from Kelantan, 4 from Nongchik, 1 from Palam, and 2 from Rangae (pp. 136–139, n. 11).
  • The Sultan of Kedah (Ahmad Tajuddin) held the Siamese rank of Chao Phaya with the long title Chao Phaya Ritthi Songkhram Ramaphakdi Seri Sultan Muhamad Ratanarachabodin Surinthra Rawi Wangsa, while the Sultan of Trengganu held the lower rank of Phaya with the title Phaya Phichai Phuben Narenthrabodi Seri Sultan Muhamad Ratanarachabodin Surinthra Rawi Wongsa; the rulers of Kelantan and the Patani statelets bore no such honorifics (pp. 135, 139).
  • Patani was divided into seven districts after the 1808 uprising; Prince Damrong dates this division to 1792, but Skinner considers that date untenable, noting the Thai Annals of Pattani place it during the governorship of Thiang Chong (p. 135, n. 1).
  • The King’s three observations followed a fixed formula: inquiry into the welfare of the envoys’ homelands, inquiry into the voyage, and instruction to report any business through the official interpreter to the Minister (pp. 139–140).

Conclusion

Skinner’s definitive takeaway is that the Siamese court’s own records confirm the tributary relationship as a comprehensive and hierarchically structured system encompassing all of Bangkok’s Malay client states, and that the ceremonial language employed by Rama II—patronising yet formulaic—reflects a political practice more influenced by Chinese imperial precedent than by the Indian God-King concept from which Siamese political theory nominally derived.

Context

  • The primary source is a single unpublished manuscript in the National Library, Bangkok, not included in the standard published corpus of second-reign documents, making this translation a significant recovery for the field.
  • The article’s historiographical contribution lies in shifting the evidential base for Siam–Malay tributary relations from Malay and English sources to the Siamese administrative record, thereby revealing how Bangkok itself categorised, ranked, and ritualised its Malay vassals.

References