History

Thailand has provided a crossroads for cultural expansion throughout history, absorbing plenty of each, while establishing its own. Evidence shows Bronze Age settlers in Udon Thani 4,000 years ago. However, today’s nation germinated from seeds planted in the 7th century, when Bai tribes from Nanchao (Yunnan) fled T’ang Dynasty incursions, setting up communities as far south as the Golden Triangle.

Long before (1500 BC), Theravada Buddhism had spread from India through today’s Myanmar and Thailand, sweeping in the Mon on the way up the Chao Phraya River. This gave rise to Suvarnabhumi, “The Land of Gold”, centred in Nakhon Pathom, and stretching from Pattani into Korat and Cambodia. By the 6th century, this had blossomed into the Dvaravati Kingdom.

While the Dvaravati moved north and the Khmer Empire ventured west in the 10th century, the Nangchao continued pushing south past Chiang Rai and into the Chao Phraya basin. The new “Thais” bumped into the others, and accepted parts of both cultures. The Khmer continued towards Burma in the 11th century, stranding the remaining Dvaravati in Lamphun near Chiang Mai.

This was a critical time in the genesis of today’s Thailand. By the 1200s, the southward-moving Thais had established several principalities, which merged into two kingdoms: Sukhothai and Lanna. Sukhothai was founded in 1238 after ejecting the weakening Khmers, and expanded south and east under King Ramakhamhaeng. Chiang Saen’s King Mengrai established Lanna – with first Chiang Rai (1262) and then Chiang Mai (1296) as its capital – which swallowed the last vestiges of Dvaravati with assistance from Sukhothai kin.

This opened a migration corridor into Ayutthaya, where King Ramathibodi founded his dominion in 1351. Seagoing merchant ships from China, India and Persia sailed up the Chao Phraya to trade with the prospering new land they called Siam. The kingdom strengthened, quashing the remnants of Angkor, capturing Sukhothai and moving as far north as Nan, capital of the Thai Lue, by 1449. However, it couldn’t penetrate Lanna’s mountains.

But the Burmese could, arriving in the early 16th century to find political chaos, thus an opening to invade. They annexed Lanna in 1558, and moved on to take Ayutthaya in 1569. King Naresuan re-established Thai independence and foreign trade in the 1590s, and charged north, but failed to repel the Burmese from Lanna. War between the two continued until 1767, when the Burmese sacked Ayutthaya, pushing the Thais southeast.

King Taksin regrouped near Cambodia, before retaking Ayutthaya and driving the Burmese from Chiang Mai in 1775. Rather than rebuild the sacked capital, King Taksin moved it south to Thonburi. His goal was to reorganise and defend the born-again Siam, but his methods were questioned. His contemporaries deposed him in 1782 to make room for today’s Chakri Dynasty.

King Bhumibol Adulyadej (Rama IX), the world’s longest reigning monarch descended from King Rama I, an able general and natural leader, crowned in 1782. He moved the capital to Bangkok’s Rattanakosin Island and began building Thailand, while ending the Burmese threat. Rama II expanded the kingdom to its present boundaries and then some, only to have Rama III face western imperialism in the early 19th century.

He negotiated treaties to maintain Siamese independence, and managed to forestall the West until Rama IV ascended to the throne in 1851, bringing technological advances with him. Together with his son Chulalongkorn (Rama V), who ruled from 1868-1910, they kept the West at bay through diplomatic and political means. Rama V also launched administrative reforms, establishing ministries and agencies overseeing everything from the military and commerce to hospitals, schools, postal services and the railroads.

Rama VI gained international acceptance for Siam in 1917 by entering WW1, a move ending previous one-sided treaties. King Rama VII faced the worldwide Depression in the 1930s and a growing intelligentsia demanding democracy, which Siam converted to in 1932, when it became Thailand. The Japanese occupied the country during WW2, but again, careful negotiations kept the nation neutral. Thailand has maintained its democratic monarchy and socio-economic development through today, while retaining its position as a cultural crossroads, only now as a gateway to the GMS, and not from it.