Seventeenth-Century Foreign Lives of Ayutthaya: Sources of Cross-Cultural Cooperation and Integration in the Asian Trading Entrepôt

This article analyzes and discusses the modes and forms of cooperation between various groups of foreign nationals sojourning in Ayutthaya during the seventeenth century. It argues that Siamese monarchs' religious and ethnic tolerance toward foreigners as well as the large scope of autonomy they granted to overseas incomers was paralleled by the kings' predatory usage of law and inherently conflictual system of exploitation of foreign merchants that satisfied the court's fiscal needs. In effect, traders residing in Siam reacted by creating among themselves cross-national informal networks and by reaching out to court officials and Buddhist clergy. These networks superseded global conflicts raging between the kingdoms and treading companies (such as Portuguese and Dutch wars and the Dutch East India Company war against Ming loyalists, etc.). Moreover, in the latter part of the seventeenth century, the long-standing cooperation between various nations led to a significant cultural amalgamation and growing uniformization in customs and modes of consumption. Due to the strong state institution and specific multiethnic and multireligious social structure, Ayutthaya provides a fascinating early example of reasons, forms, and limits for social and cultural integration within the globalizing entrepôts of early modern Asia.

This article analyzes the ways various groups of foreign merchants residing in Ayutthaya cooperated with each other in order to maintain their position, advance their interests, and protect themselves from the predations of the Siamese monarchs and bureaucracy. Research on these issues requires outlining the context in which various foreign nationalities existed, namely the organizations that structured foreigners' lives and operations. They included the socioeconomic urban environment of commercial metropolis of Ayutthaya, the legal conditions that regulated the residence and trade, and the position and policies of each Siamese king, his officialdom, and his courtiers. By redirecting the analytical focus from trade competition and the merchant-state relations to the forms of cooperation between nationally and organizationally diversified historical actors, we gain a novel and often surprising perspective on the social life of the "Venice of the East."¹ The following discussions should also be seen within the frame of recent research on cosmopolitanism in Asia. In Ayutthaya, similarly to South Asia, it is more often in the field of quotidian cultural and social practices, rather than in the elite discourse and exchange that we find earliest and most durable forms of cross-cultural exchange and integration.² Yet, Siam had its marked differences, which shall be made visible in my analysis: its kings neither patronized cosmopolitan discussion in the style of the Mughal emperor Akbar (1556–1605) nor they shared his ambition of being a universal rulers.³ Foreign merchants, whether Chinese, Indo-Persian, or European, operated alongside rather than within the Ayutthaya's society, but, nevertheless they existed within the legal and political frames of the kingdom. And that, in effect, contributed to tighter web of exchange between these oversees communities.

Many established perceptions of European expansion and colonialism in Asia—such as the war between the Dutch and Portuguese, or the vicious competition and infighting between the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and Chinese states and merchants—need reevaluation in light of evidence that describes life in the realms of the Siamese kings. There, the VOC agents sought protection of locally established Chinese merchants-cum-officials and enjoyed cordial social relations with their Portuguese counterparts, even inviting Catholic priests to officiate during baptisms, marriages, and funerals. Such "aberrant" social relations, running counter to the declared political interests of the respective states and trading companies, point to the centrality of Siam and Ayutthaya (understood as social, economic, political, legal and cultural structures) in shaping the relations between various nationalities, organizations, and religious groups that ventured or sent their agents there. These social relations also reveal the role of personal and institutional networks in Ayutthaya and the way they altered and challenged loyalties, policies, and interests related to the global trade.

On the following pages, we shall first provide a thorough overview of this context and then venture to examine the case studies available to us through the extant sources. The focus here is on the two leading groups of merchants: the Dutch and the Chinese, while others (such as the Portuguese), will be mentioned in less detail. Certain forms of cooperation and adjustment between the foreign cultures in Ayutthaya have already received scholarly attention, particularly the Portuguese and the Portuguese-creole populations, the Persians, and the French.⁴ These studies have typically concentrated on the forms of social integration and cultural adjustment within Ayutthaya monarchy or the way foreigners succeeded in influencing and shaping Siam's culture and politics. Instead, here we will analyze the manner in which foreign communities interacted with each other within the socio-political realities formed by the Siamese monarchy.

Ayutthaya's Monarchy: A Complex Trading Environment

In the seventeenth century, Ayutthaya's monarchy emerged as a victorious regional power, able to dominate its neighbors and to secure trade and political interests both on the Malay peninsula and along its land borders with Lan Na, Burma, and Cambodia. The well-researched transition from the militarily active state toward an international trade hub occurred under the reigns of the kings Naresuan (ruled 1590–1605) and Ekathotsarot (r. 1605–1620).⁵ As stated by Chris Baker and Pasuk Phongpaichit: "kings became the chief merchants in the maritime trading economy, and the crown became spectacularly wealthy."⁶ The transfer toward trade-based financing of the royal court and state economy (although taxes, corvée labor, and contributions were by no means unimportant) led to refurbishing of the social composition of kingdom of Siam and its capital, Ayutthaya. The city and the Chao Phraya delta, which had long been a magnet for overseas traders (and Chinese settlers), started absorbing a substantial number of migrants from across the world and emerged as an essentially globalized entrepôt and a locus of intersecting interests of traders from across Asia and Europe. This new multinational social structure of the Siamese capital was placed in a legal framework established, according to Kenneth Hall, few centuries prior, but implemented fully by in the seventeenth century by king Naresuan.⁷ This system corresponded to the ideological and political interest of the monarchy: it legitimized Ayutthaya monarchs as the holy Buddhist rulers, living bodhisattvas, protectors of law and dharma.⁸ At the same time, the system provided an institutional framework for management of the extensive royal economic and social resources based on access to free labor, trade and production monopolies, as well as the right to tax and impose custom duties.⁹ More importantly for us, this legal and socio-political framework also guaranteed the official means for protection and control of the incoming and residing foreigners. Under the office of Phraya Phraklang, a minister of royal treasury, foreigners were received by two bureaus, one supervising the sojourners from the West (typically staffed by Persians and busy with Indian, Persian and Arab traders), another presiding over the merchants coming from the East (most often staffed by Chinese and overviewing the commerce not only with China, Japan, Ryukyu, Annam, Cochinchina, etc., but also with the VOC that was perceived as resident on Java).¹⁰ Within the borders of Siam and in the metropolis of Ayutthaya, foreign communities enjoyed extensive autonomy pertaining to self-management, religious belief and organization, and interactions between them and other sectors of Siamese society, as long as their actions did not stand in conflict with law.¹¹ This propelled a considerable process of creolization among certain groups of migrants, such as the Portuguese, Chinese and Japanese, many of them due to various conditions either stranded in Ayutthaya, or instrumentally exploiting the inclusive and relatively tolerant environment of Siam.¹²

As orderly and inviting as Ayutthaya may have appeared, both the lives of foreign merchants and their relations with monarchy were riven with conflict and uncertainty. As presented by Bhawan Ruangsilp, Siam's kingship hid multiple agencies, those of the kings, of the court and of the officials, all of which often did not act in concert. For example, incoming merchants were obliged to present themselves in front of the monarchs and establish formalized relations between the royals of two realms engaged in trade. In some cases, this requirement led to inventive political fictions as in the case of the Netherlands, where Prince of Orange was styled a king and a counterpart to the Siamese monarchs. In others, such as in case of the Ming and Qing Empires, no official diplomatic mission was ever sent from China to Siam because the latter was a subordinate tributary kingdom. None of these significant exceptions interrupted the continuation of the court rituals which defined international trade relations. The formal harmony of the ritually structured contact between kings and merchants was, however, sabotaged by conflicting interests between the monarchs, officials, and courtiers, each having their own agendas in dealing with foreign traders. Moreover, immense insecurity of the official post, radical changes in personnel and brutality in punishments vested by the kings (often affecting the survival of entire clans of implicated officials), increased the stakes in the struggles for power and wealth.¹³ These were aggravated by narrow channels of communication available to kings: only a small group of courtiers with access to the monarch could manipulate his views and influence him to perceive particular groups as enemies or disloyal subjects.¹⁴ This dynamic has perhaps been most thoroughly demonstrated (at least in scholarly literature) in the case of French-Siamese relations during the king Narai (r. 1656–1688), when court intrigues and succession games led to collapse of the Greek-Venetian-English minister, Constantine Phaulkon (1647–1688) and forced expulsion of French soldiers, merchants and missionaries from Ayutthaya.¹⁵

Apart from conflicting interests within the court, the position of Ayutthaya's kings vis-à-vis sojourning merchants featured another fundamental contradiction. Namely, foreign merchants were simultaneously competitors and service providers for the monarchs. As mentioned before, the Kingdom relied on its ability to manage the forced labor of its commoner population and on the foreign immigrants who served the interests of the ranked upper classes and the king's household by providing shipping, capital, skill, and networks of international contacts for vending goods monopolized by the monarchy and the court. Foreign traders, trading companies (such as the VOC or English East India Company), lineage merchant networks (mostly from Fujian Province), as well as other institutions participated only to an extremely limited extent in the most representative activities of the state, such as religion and dynastic politics. Yet, their position as service providers remained unchallenged and grew within the expanding position of Ayutthaya in the China-centric East Asia. Thus, conflicts between the state and the merchant organizations frequently emerged and their resolution required coordination between the resident traders of various nationalities (who at the same time competed with each other), certain flexibility on the side of the court, networking with the Siamese upper classes, wielding of social, cultural and economic capital, and even targeted use of force. The seventeenth century, in which Ayutthaya emerged as a trading power, was a period of negotiating and structuring the balance between mercantile interests and court's need (and greed). We should therefore see Ayutthaya's kings as the "merchant kings" who dominated certain markets but needed services of "the others" in order to insure the profitability of his enterprise.

In this period, these "others" were traders originating from China and the Netherlands (namely, the VOC Batavia branch), as well as Persians, Portuguese, Japanese, Malays, French, and English, among others. Among these individuals, the best documented and most prominent were the Dutch and the Chinese. In Siam, members of both nations shared a number of important affinities: they negotiated through the same institution (branch of the Phrakhlang), they resided close to one another, and operated on the same East-SE Asian routes. Nevertheless, many descriptions of the Dutch-Chinese contacts in East and Southeast Asia point to trade conflicts and antagonisms leading to warfare and pogroms. Three events are considered emblematic: the VOC's violent entry into the trade relations on the Fujian coast in the 1620s, Koxinga's destruction of Fort Zeelandia on Taiwan (and thus destruction of the Taiwan Dutch colony, 1662) and a pogrom of Chinese in Batavia by the Dutch (1740).¹⁶ Moreover, within the scholarship, the VOC is often depicted as Chinese competitor in East Asian commerce. Stories of Ming resistance to Europeans, which involved violence on both sides, casted additional shadow on the representation of these relations. Yet, these narratives of conflict hide a complex reality of Dutch-Chinese exchanges in the region, especially in Ayutthaya, as both sides needed to cooperate with each other in front of the royal monopolies and royal legal power (and use of it) and in procuring goods and services necessary for trade. Some questions pertaining to these relationships have not been touched by researchers, such as why both communities were typically placed side-by-side: the VOC base Fort Amsterdam was located in the mouth of Chao Phraya near Thonburi and Bangkok, which the in seventeenth century were both predominantly Chinese cities; the Dutch Lodge in Ayutthaya also neighbored the Chinese settlements. Much evidence shows that the members of various Fujian merchant networks that settled and operated in Siam found a partner in the VOC that was worth cherishing. The same went for other communities of foreigners—proof that by living in Ayutthaya the foreigners were better off acting in cooperation than fighting each other. Those amicable relationships, however, could have soured upon departure from the realm of Ayutthaya's kings. Yet, as long as in the Siamese territory, friendship prevailed as demonstrated by the cases analyzed below.

Cooperation and Cultural Integration of Foreign Communities

Making Friends and Making Enemies—The Social Dynamics of Merchant Relations in the 1630s

One of the Ayutthaya's best described cases of cooperation between merchants of different origins is the so-called Picnic Incident of 1636–37. In short, a group of drunk employees of the Dutch East India company ran afoul of the royal law, allegedly not only offending the state religion by misbehaving in a Buddhist monastery, but also by attacking the palace of the king's brother. The only opportunity to be spared harsh punishment for these offenders was a potentially successful intervention of their superior, the VOC factor (opperhoofd), Jeremias van Vliet (1602–1663) who incidentally became a prolific chronicler of life, customs, history and politics of contemporary Ayutthaya. Van Vliet, like all his international peers engaged with commerce in Siam, could not rely on any form of muscular gunboat diplomacy to bend the local rules to his advantage. On the contrary, his presence (and life), as well as the continuation of VOC's operations, was based on the generosity and conditional acceptance earned from the king of Siam with gifts, diplomatic letters (granting prestige and recognition by European monarchs), and services rendered in expanding the royal treasury's commerce. Survival and success in managing the company's station (called Lodge) was therefore based on each factor's ability to weave and exploit a network of amicable social relations with merchants of other nationalities, prominent religious figures, as well as courtiers and ministers that maintained immediate access to the king. As van Vliet's story demonstrates, all of these elements were indispensable: jealousy of another sojourning nationality or disinterested attitude of the local elite could turn into dangerous accusations and reprisals from the side of the monarchs.

Van Vliet possessed such network of sympathetic and trusted friends, whose relationship linked the care for mutual wellbeing with privileged trading arrangements. In its center stood "Tjoucko, a Chinese (presently the chief Tonghsin), who is also a long-standing friend of the Netherlands and a person with many influential friends at the court."¹⁷ Another partner of the VOC factor was "a trusted friend […] Radie Ebrehem, who was at the palace of the Prince."¹⁸ According to van Vliet, he was "a Muslim merchant and one of the slaves of the Prince, because he was a friend who, I knew, was quite influential at the court."¹⁹ G. V. Smith identified this person as Raden Ibrahim, probably Javanese, and "the most important Thai Muslim merchant" at the time.²⁰ Their mission as van Vliet's friends was to channel presents to appropriate officials and, most importantly, to Phraya Phrakhlang, a minister responsible for all foreign traders in Ayutthaya, with a purpose of altering the king's understanding of the apparent Dutch "crimes" against the royal law. If they managed to succeed the sentence would be mitigated, or possibly even dismissed.

Yet foreign friends, however powerful or helpful, were not sufficient in the event of troubles; it was the local powerholders who needed to sympathize with the accused. Among the well-disposed acquaintances of the Dutch, there were court officials such as "Oya Otheyathan, the chief Chamberlain of the King, (a powerful lord and an exceptionally good friend of ours)"²¹ and important clerics of the monasteries present in the capital such as Abbot of Thimphiatti and Priest of Wantthong, "close friend but not as powerful."²² These Thai officials and monastics, in contrast to mentioned Chinese and Muslim merchant-friends, needed appropriate motivation, denominated in catties of silver, gold chains, and gold cloth, in order to show their goodwill. Still, many of them refused presents or were unavailable when called on for help in mediating the Dutch cause. We could ascribe such behavior to simple lack of good will or widespread corruption of the ecclesiastical and court officials of Ayutthaya, but van Vliet allows us to understand more complex inner workings of the relationships binding foreign communities with Siamese officialdom and clergy.²³ We learn that, while Tjoucko, one of the leading personages of the Chinese commercial community, was trying to defend the VOC and safeguard its interests, other people reported to van Vliet of the countering activity from the side of the Japanese community:

Oya Pitsia Songhcram, the Ney or Head of the Japanese, responding to pressure from these bald-headed villains [i.e. samurai], had today suggested to the King that the crimes of the imprisoned Hollanders had given His Majesty just cause to execute not only them, but all the Netherlanders in his Kingdom. [Oya Pitsia Songhcram had added] that this was necessary so that His Majesty's Kingdom be cleansed once and for all of the wicked nation, [a desirable outcome] because the Netherlanders had spread bad rumors about the King in Japan and about the Japanese in Siam, so that Japanese merchants no longer dared to come to this Kingdom, which meant that the Siamese crown continued to be cut off from silver-rich Japan. When His Majesty had driven all the Hollanders from his Kingdom, [the Oya had concluded], Japanese junks would come to Siam once more so that the good relations between the two Kingdoms were certain to be quickly restored. But even though this Oya had given his proposal a semblance of reason, the King had remained silent, which meant that the suggestion did not please His Majesty.²⁴

Ultimately, the king did not agree to an outright pogrom of the Dutch and their brutal expulsion from Siam. In order to prevent such thing from occurring, he even ordered a quick census of all resident Japanese and a lock down on their settlement for as long as the incident with the Dutch remained unresolved.²⁵

These accounts reveal important mechanisms of struggle for power and privilege used by the sojourning merchant communities within the political structure of Ayutthaya. Various foreign communities congregated according to shared interests and, as it appears, personal sympathies developed through a prolonged cooperation between their members. To secure their interests, these communities formed blocks (Chinese-Dutch-Muslim against Japanese)²⁶ and built links with local powerholders such as abbots of the capital monasteries and various central government officials. The pivot in this system was the minister of royal treasury (and foreign trade), Phraya Phrakhlang, and ultimately, the king, the final judge, the sole legislator and decision taker within Siam's polity. The economy of these relations was based on building sympathetic factions among the court and monastic elite by channeling gifts and trading opportunities.²⁷ If a particular foreign community managed to reach royal ears and persuade the monarch to their point of view on political and economic affairs, it could reap substantial advantages and possibly undermine competition of other traders. Alternatively, if the king was estranged to interests of a group of sojourning merchants, others could play it to their advantage. Van Vliet in his Description of the Kingdom of Siam, written after his departure to Batavia, commented on this state of affairs:

For during the change of rulers many malicious mandarins have crept in and have reached high positions, so that at present there is hardly on single distinguished person of upright mind. These jealous rascals imagine wrongly that the Company enjoys incredible profit from the trade with Japan and Tayounan, and that the noble general for this reason and also in regard to the newly erected building will not lightly decide to recall the servants of the Company and the whole establishment connected with their trade. Apparently they tried to make the king (who is very credulous) believe this whenever they had an opportunity; also because they did not get a certain share in the profits, so they wanted to make our nation odious in the eyes of the king.²⁸

Van Vliet simply blamed his own problems on the scheming of the representatives of the Japanese community and their high-ranking friends within officialdom who were envious of the VOC successes and comparatively privileged position in Ayutthaya. The "Picnic Incident" that scourged his otherwise uneventful and fruitful mission in Siam was depicted as an outcome of a power struggle inherent to the matrix of relationships binding foreign merchants with Siamese royalty and elites.

In this context, van Vliet also stated his affection for and politico-economic sympathy with Chinese merchants. He clouted his Description of the Kingdom of Siam with the semblances of objectivity, which, however, acquire different meaning if we consider all the faction-building and games of power and privilege described above:

The Chinese from Chincheeu and Couchinchina were trading in former days to a greater extent to Siam than at present. They used to bring pretty large cargoes of all kinds of Chinese goods to this country, and returned with big loads of sappanwood, lead, and other merchandise. By the trade of these nations to Siam the income of the king and the welfare of the people increased and trade flourished. But as the present king preferred to force the market by his factors and the prices of the goods which are imported by the Moors, the Chinese, etc., and further lays taxes upon them and does no pay market prices, nobody comes to Siam unless compelled to do so. This is the reason that the king's resources have grown less and that all trade has suffered.²⁹

Thus, we learn that the King Prasat Thong, of whom van Vliet writes, already misinformed and abused by his evil advisors, also decided to cut the profitable trade of Chinese merchants, forcing them to obey the extortionate regime of monopolies and high custom duties. The drained trader's profits at the same time hurt the kingdom, the king, and his subjects. How un surprising is this judgment if we consider the deep friendship, which bound Jeremias van Vliet with Tjoucko or the fact that, as noted in the Report, "On December 31, the Muslim merchant, Redie Ebrehem, and the Chinese, Tjoucko and Sitong, bought nearly all the Company's clothes that were available at the lodge for such prices as have been recorded in the account books."³⁰ Indeed, the merchants of different nationalities, bound by loyalties and responding to authorities and organizations placed thousands kilometers and months of sailing apart found the amicable and functioning modes of living and working together to be to their mutual advantage. In Ayutthaya during Van Vliet's sojourn, the representatives of the VOC bound themselves to the well-established Muslim traders hailing from Java (and not their dependents) and Chinese official-merchants who acted within a Chinese socio-economic network that is impossible for us to reconstruct. Irrespective of all differences, their common interests aligned them within a faction that involved court and clergy officials and that fought for position, profits, and, at times, survival with a competing group dominated by the Ayutthaya's Japanese. This friendships and factional wars had nothing to do with the relations between the VOC and the Japanese Empire under Tokugawa shoguns or between the VOC and the Ming Empire. They were born within particular conditions of the legal, political, economic, and social structure of Ayutthaya and were a modus operandi in the specific Siamese trade of the early seventeenth century. Once off the coast of Siam, different rules applied.

The Reach of Ayutthaya Kings' Authority and Their Relations with Foreign Traders

Almost twenty years after van Vliet's sojourn to Ayutthaya, another sharp-eyed VOC employee with a proclivity for writing arrived at the mouth of the Chao Phraya river. For Gijsbert Heeck (1619–69), a medical doctor on the company's ship, entry into Siam started with a brawl. The crew of his ship got into a quarrel and then engaged into a minor sea battle with a Portuguese vessel moored just in the very mouth of the Chao Phraya. The fight, though inconclusive, brought more damage to the Portuguese. The next day, this conflict turned from shooting into a litigation in front of the Siamese authorities that not only forced both sides to stop the hostilities, but also accused them both of infringing the public order of the kingdom.³¹ On August 22 Heeck noted:

[…] A Siamese boat arrived with some officials from the shore. They wanted to know the name of our ship, its size, cannon, and crew, and other information, including the name of the captain, the time when we attacked the Portuguese, and the like. We also had to show the wounds of the boatswain, the shots [that had gone] through and into the ship and the undamaged rigging, which was all written down in order (so they said) to be able to make a proper report to the king. They had done the same on the Portuguese flute […], and had been told that there were six dead and at least as many wounded. They said that the Portuguese had complained bitterly about the injustice we had done them, demanding from the king immediate right to compensation for the damage they had suffered. Fully informed, the Siamese officials returned to land.³²

In other words, while engaging in an armed struggle, both Dutch and Portuguese crews acted on conviction that they were on the open seas and thus had the right to carry out the war that engaged both nations in Asia. Nevertheless, they rapidly discovered that they had violated the laws of the Siamese kingdom, on whose territory they were obliged to live in peace and entertain amicable relationship. If they wanted to quarrel, they were supposed to follow the law, through a litigation in front of the appropriate authorities. Learning those rules, both sides engaged in collecting evidence of who endured deeper loses and who should pay the reparations: "Siamese of rank (named Okyas) would examine and deliberate to distill the truth from everyone's statements, in order to pass (after due deliberation) clear judgment to satisfy and moderate both parties, as they thought best."³³ We do not learn of the final resolution of this case, but it demonstrates that within the kingdom of Siam laws and regulations of its kings overrode the international conflicts of European maritime powers.

To our best knowledge, these monarchal powers not only imposed peace on various incoming foreigners, but also transmuted their otherwise hostile relations into friendly if not intimate ones. Gijisber Heeck leaves us with little doubt about it and his account deserves to be quoted in length:

We also passed a fairly broad street that was almost wholly inhabited by Moors and Gujaratis. Every nation lives together, as we already described for the Portuguese and Japanese quarters. As you sail away from the city they [the Portuguese and Japanese] live on the right hand side and we on the left. Similarly, there are many Malays and Chinese here, each living in their own area. Each nation has its own clergy and priests, thus making use of the free exercise of religion. They baptize, marry, and celebrate mass without any restriction. In this situation they increase not a little, being like populated villages with their own special laws and customs. The Portuguese very frequently visit our lodge, and our people in return go to their quarter, almost as if they were allied friends, even though the contrary was evidenced [by the incident] at the mouth of this river. Their priests come and baptize the children begotten by our people, and they marry them and drink with one another in all friendship, but it is a Machiavellian friendship, as one may imagine. The Frenchman Thomas, free burgher from Batavia and now subject of this king, also stalks among our people, as recounted above.³⁴

This fascinating quotation reveals the dynamics existing within the foreign settlements of Ayutthaya. Firstly, most of these communities were placed outside the city walls on the main river access to the capital and on the adjacent plots. Secondly, we learn of the existence of multiple trading nations, all treated without discrimination or privilege, irrespective of their professed origin and religion. They included the Guajarati, Moors (Persians or Indo-Persians), Portuguese, Japanese, Chinese, Dutch and French. Thirdly, each of these communities enjoyed high degree of autonomy from Siamese authorities—however, they needed to submit to the royal official nominated for that purpose by the kings and, in many matters of life and trade, to deal with the minister of treasury and foreign trade (Phrakhlang). This autonomy remained unaltered for more than thirty years later as it was ascertained by Simon de la Loubère (1642–1729):

'T Was, as I have said, the Liberty of Commerce, which had formerly invited to Siam a great multitude of Strangers of different Nations; who settled there with the Liberty of living according to their Customs, and of publickly exercising their several ways of Worship. Every Nation possesses a different Quarter. The Quarters which are without the City, and which do compose the Suburbs thereof, the Portuguesses do call Camp, and the Siamesses Ban. Moreover every Nation chooses its Chief, or its Nai, as the Siamesses do speak, and this Chief manages the Affairs of his Nation with the Mandarin, whom the King of Siam nominates for this purpose, and whom they call the Mandarin of this Nation. But Affairs of the least importance are not determined by this Mandarin, they are carried to the Barcalon.³⁵

Apparently, it also remained valid until the very day Ayutthaya collapsed under the Burmese siege in 1767.³⁶

The fourth and perhaps most fascinating characteristic of these communities was the scope of international and cross-cultural exchange in which they engaged. Even on his short stay in Ayutthaya, Heeck noticed that in the capital, the Portuguese and Dutch lived in harmony, irrespective of the brawls and violence in both nations had engaged before his own eyes, just on the border territories of Siam. Most remarkably, they even engaged in common religious practices, namely that Catholic priests officiated to ritual and spiritual needs of the Dutchmen, something that was unthinkable considering decades of religious war that split the Catholic Iberians from Protestant Netherlanders (the Eighty Years War, 1568–1648).

Many factors could have contributed to the emergence of such tight integration of these otherwise warring nations. The Portuguese were among the longest standing, most numerous, and deeply creolized overseas nations in Ayutthaya—in this respect, not unlike other trading Asian nations. Although a generation later than Heeck's trip, La Loubère observed: "Amongst the several Nations, that of the Moors has been the best established under this Reign. […] There are therefore three of four Thousand Moors at Siam, as many Portuguesses born in India, and as many Chinesses, and perhaps as many Malays, besides what there is of other Nations."³⁷ In contrast to Chinese and Persian communities, the Portuguese were not terribly prosperous and did not secure high social position within the ministerial system of Siam for individuals among their ranks.³⁸ Above all, their communities were linked by an intercontinental web of missionary activities organized by Catholic monastic orders (mostly Jesuit, Dominican, Augustinian, and Franciscan), by the papal Propaganda Fide (after 1622) and by the royal courts (such as French) and were much better provided with members of clergy than their Dutch counterparts.³⁹ Their affinity with fellow Christians, albeit of competing and mutually antagonistic confessions, was still closer than the unbreachable divisions between Christians and Muslims, Buddhist Thais and Mons, or the Chinese. A choice out of necessity fell on those otherwise considered sworn enemies.

Yet, this explanation does not fully capture the mechanisms of cross-confessional cooperation found in Ayutthaya. To obtain a full picture, we should be more attentive to the particular conditions of social and political life of Siamese capital. The kingdom's division between its own subjects and foreigners was based on the type of obligations to the monarchs: Thais were either due corvée labor or, as nobles, were free from this burden, while foreigners, especially longstanding communities like the Chinese, had to pay a tax in place of labor obligations.⁴⁰ Additionally, all foreigners were divided into groups that only seemingly corresponded to ethnic divisions. Mons and Chinese lived in the Chao Phraya basin before arrivals of the Thais. The former were not immediately linked to Mon states and empires emerging in Burma, while the latter were never linked to diplomatic relations binding Ayutthaya to Chinese empires: there has never been an ambassadorial mission sent by either Ming or Qing, while Ayutthaya kings sent tribute and pictured themselves as lowly subjects of the Heavenly Emperors.⁴¹ Mons preached the same Hinayana Buddhism as the Thais, while Chinese had their own religion distinct from the Thais but common to all people from China. Other groups present in seventeenth-century Ayutthaya were organized according to two interrelated principles: the loyalty to kings who sent them on a trade sojourn to Siam and the religion they professed. In this manner, it appears that Siamese kings distinguished little between various Christian sects and, as necessity of ritual (believing that any member of clergy is better than none), they were proven right that these differences were indeed dismissible. Finally, we would be mistaken to assume that the confessional divisions and political loyalties (whether to monarchs or East India companies), that were highly emphasized on the home front during the century of Dutch-Portuguese wars, were not permeable in the distant Asian ports. Heeck's story of a Frenchmen who had served the VOC but once in Ayutthaya decided to live as an independent entrepreneur, proves this point much like the friendship and "confessional union" between the Dutch and the Portuguese. The same crossing of cultural and political borders occurred between Thais and sojourning merchants. Quoted here, Jeremias van Vliet had a Thai wife, Chao Sut who run much of the VOC affairs even after he left for Batavia and later for the Netherlands.⁴² In fact, van Vliet behaved no different than many Chinese merchants contemporarily trading in Ayutthaya.⁴³ Moreover, the main trading and social partners of the Dutch, as it was demonstrated, were Chinese and Persians. It was indeed the cosmopolitan culture brewed within the specific legal environment in Ayutthaya that determined their choices and that encouraged cross-cultural and cross-denominational integration, even between Catholics and Protestants.

Socio-Cultural Integration and the Loss of Political Significance

It has been argued that the European influence in Siam reached its peak between 1660s up until the revolutionary turn of events in 1688.⁴⁴ Several events substantiate that point. In 1663–1664, the VOC fleet made a military demonstration in the Chao Phraya delta squeezing concessions from the Siamese king and obtaining exterritoriality for the Dutch.⁴⁵ A few years later, French and English subjects became active in trade and royal service to Siamese kings, among them, most prominently, an already mentioned Constantine Phaulkon. From the Thai perspective, European presence was both productive and manipulative: French military engineers in service of Siam fortified Bangkok according to the most current fortress-building technology. At the same time, many of these new actors present in Siam followed their primary agenda of exploiting Ayutthaya for the purpose of their distant monarchs, the trading companies and the churches they served.⁴⁶ King Narai found it useful to deal with these newcomers and in most probability was himself manipulated by them. In 1688, when he was too sick to rule effectively, there came a violent finale for Phaulkon (who was beheaded) and much of the Western influence was curtailed. As scholars argued, from that moment on, Ayutthaya was more strongly bound to the reinvigorated and newly accessible maritime trade with Qing Empire (that lifted its maritime ban in 1684) and with Persia and Mogul India.⁴⁷

Yet, as there is an evidence supporting increased interconnectedness between Ayutthaya and the Qing (and the Chinese culture) there are also many proofs of continuing significant presence, amalgamation, and integration between many Europeans and Asians taking place before and after the 1688.⁴⁸ Based on the available sources, it appears that the longstanding foreign communities in Ayutthaya developed forms of common culture, which included shared attitudes as well as behaviors and consumption patterns. La Loubère noted that by the 1680s there grew a divide between the Thai and European-descent populations based on Westerners' scorn and racism:

The Portuguesses being naturally bold and distrustful, have always treated the Indians with a great deal of Loftiness, and with very little Confidence: And the Dutch have thought they could not do better, than herein to imitate the Portuguesses, because that indeed the Indians being educated in a Spirit of Servitude, are crafty, and, as I have said in another place, subservient to those who treat them haughtily, and insolent to those that use them gently. The King of Siam says of his Subjects, that they are of the temper of Apes, who tremble so long as on holds the end of their Band, and who disown their Master, when the Band is loosed. Examples are not rare in India of simple European Factors, who have bastinado'd the Officers of the Indian Kings without being punished. And it is evident, that the certain vigorous Repartees which are sometimes made in our Countries, appear to us more daring than the Bastinado is in theirs; provided it be give them in cold Blood, and not in Anger: A Man that suffers himself to be transported with Passion, is what the Indians most concern.⁴⁹

To provide an excuse for the blunt disrespect, such as calling Thais (and other Asians) "Apes" or for beating whenever it seemed convenient, La Loubère's interlocutors stated they were following the percepts proposed by the very kings of Ayutthaya. Thus, to a certain extent, they equaled themselves to the royals in occupying the superior position in front of the general population of the kingdom. Equally interesting in this quotation is the author's clear indication that this view and practice spread from the Portuguese to other nationalities. In other words, the longest standing and most creolized European population in Asia (though after 1640s economically marginalized by Dutch and English) provided a model for social interactions between the Westerners and Asians.⁵⁰

More than widespread sense of superiority toward the Asians, sources indicate clear changes in the foreigners' customs and culture resultant from long-term cultural integration. Primarily, the housing that Europeans, Indo-Persians and Chinese was typically built on land, constructed from stone, clustered in neighboring districts, and very similar to one another. According to sojourning observers, Thais preferred wooden structures along canals and boat dwellings.⁵¹ Secondly, both foreigners and Siamese nobility stepped up their consumption of Chinese luxury goods that by the end of the seventeenth century provided a predominant part of the decorations within private and official spaces. French observers in the 1680s clearly demonstrate that these included not only progressively ubiquitous porcelain, but also furniture, lanterns, golden carpets, satin, decorated screens, or medicines.⁵² Thirdly, the cultural life of the foreign communities assimilated the customs of the Siamese elites, which also included consumption of cultural imports from the Qing Empire. From the Siamese social customs, foreign communities took possession of decorated barges that were paraded on Ayutthaya's canals during important occasions.⁵³ Moreover, watching performances of visiting Chinese opera troupes and other shows presented by Thai, Lao, Malay, Mon et al. artists became customary at the royal court and at the courts of officials of foreign origin such as Constantine Phaulkon. Among the spectators of such shows we find both courtiers, an ambassador of the French king with his entourage, Jesuit fathers present in Ayutthaya, and other members of the sojourning foreign community.⁵⁴ Indeed, the late-seventeenth century royal elite of Siam was outstandingly multicultural.

After the political crisis of 1688 and the expulsion of the French from Siam, the remaining foreign communities continued their daily life in a manner not dissimilar to the past. They continued living in restricted suburban settlements, while central districts of the city were occupied by the Muslim and Chinese traders.⁵⁵ The Portuguese still conspicuously exercised their Catholic faith with four churches in the city environs, while the Dutch Lodge remained an important center of trade and diplomatic exchange.⁵⁶ Moreover, by that time the Portuguese mostly consisted of the creole population, according to Engelbert Kaempfer (1651–1716), another VOC doctor: "a […] race begot on black Women."⁵⁷ We are not provided with information if such mixed populations were only characteristic to this one nationality or were common for all other sojourning populations. Besides that, as described by Kaempfer only two years after Phaulkon beheading, the official elite of the kingdom and the advisors to Phrakhlang in particular passed securely to the hands of the Muslim (Persians and Indo-Persians) and Chinese merchants.⁵⁸ Thus, although European lives outlasted the crisis of 1688, the political position of the Europeans collapsed compared to their Asian counterparts.

Certain factors of stability need to be underlined within this context. Whether representatives of the VOC or trading houses from Fujian 福建 and Guangdong 廣東, each of these actors had to respond to and act in accordance with the law and decisions of the Siamese sovereigns. Even the efforts to force exterritoriality and trade privilege attempted by the Dutch in 1664, or domination of official positions related to foreign trade by Persian and Chinese communities, did not alter the fundamental structure of social, economic, political relations in Ayutthaya, that is, the domination of royal law and relative weakness of all foreign sojourning traders in face of the monarchs.⁵⁹ The result of this specific environment was a growing amalgamation of all overseas communities, which settled close to one another and interacted with each other on a daily basis. This environment provided a fertile ground for multifaceted cross-cultural exchange that served as the basis for the adoption of similar lifestyles, consumption patterns, and even attitudes toward Thai commoners, marked by a sense of superiority. All of these processes superseded basic differences dividing the foreign merchants, including those that were considered insurmountable on the home turf. And thus, a Chinese merchant-official could be an intimate friend to a "red hair barbarian" (hongmaofan 紅毛番) as the Dutch were called in Xiamen 厦門 (Fujian province) from where most Ayutthaya Chinese came.⁶⁰ Or, a Protestant Dutchman could appreciate and even participate in religious rituals performed by a Catholic missionary from the Dominican or Jesuit order: a behavior difficult to imagine at that time in Europe, divided by confessional hatred.

Conclusions

Summarizing our discussion on the forms and reasons for collaboration among various foreign sojourners in Ayutthaya, we can establish a number of points. Firstly, it is quite apparent that under the strong kingship of Ayutthaya there was no field for advancing egoistic interests of foreign powers, such as the East India companies or Chinese merchant lineages. Even if the kings were pushed with force of arms to submit some concessions, as it happened after the VOC blockade of Chao Phraya in 1663–1664, this neither undermined the monarchy nor gave an upper hand to Dutch merchants over other nationalities. In fact, the reverse happened: first king Narai privileged French and English and then forged closer cooperation with Persian and Chinese traders, while the VOC enjoyed rather modest profits. These developments provide quite a striking contrast to the relative weakness of the Thai monarchy under kings Mongkut (1851–1868) and Chulalongkorn (1868–1910) in the latter part of the nineteenth century, who not only had to swallow an unequal treaty with the United Kingdom (Bowring Treaty, 1855), but also ceded large sections of the territory to expansionist France (1863–1907). A colonial perspective on reading Ayutthaya's history is thus inapplicable because drawing any straight line between the seventeenth century European presence in Southeast Asia with the historical context of the nineteenth century is inconceivable. All the historical actors of this earlier epoch needed to adjust to the political and legal power of the kings of Siam and had to learn to function and manipulate the officialdom while residing in Ayutthaya. The best method to succeed in this specific environment was by building networks with other resident merchants and supporting (or creating) factions in court and in government that could impress their will (or perspective) onto the absolutist monarchs. A successful player in these complex games of friendship and clientage could win a position, deflect accusations, and alter royal laws to his advantage, while a failure could be paid on the execution ground.

Secondly, although in this inclusive social environment various nations could reside and profit, ultimately the same system concealed mechanisms of exploitation for the advantage of the Ayutthaya's court. The kings and royalty of Ayutthaya posed both as enemies and as benefactors for foreigners—using them as service providers, mercenaries, cash-cows, and buyers of stingily dispensed goods from royal monopolies. So, it was not only the long residence and cooperation between the merchants from around the world that gave foundations to Ayutthaya's multiculturalism, but also resistance to constant predation of royal officials and the kings themselves who found in foreigners a great source for filling the treasury.

Finally, the co-residence and often interweaving interests of otherwise very distant culture groups, such as the Dutch, Chinese, Portuguese, and Persians, produced unique forms of cultural amalgamation within a few decades. This was strongly augmented by a specific cosmopolitan social structure and culture at the "Venice of the East," based on religious toleration, royal foundations to temples of any denomination, employment for office of foreign subjects, and legal provisions for political autonomy to settler communities. Other factors that deepened the collaboration between theoretically sworn enemies, such as Catholics and Protestants in the 1640s and 1650s or the Dutch and Chinese in the 1660s, resulted from mundane factors like scarcity of ritual specialists, or simply personal sympathy. Moreover, links, though sometimes concealed in understatements of the sources, were constructed through associations and intimacies between the foreigners and Thais. Those often led to complex family situations, personal tragedies of abandoned children, or to the emergence of the whole creolized populations, such as in case of the Ayutthaya's Portuguese (or for that matter the Thai-Chinese). By the latter part of the seventeenth century, we can also observe an increasing Sinicization of the consumption patterns among the sojourning communities exposed to and involved in the growing volume of trade with the Qing Empire. We can see in Ayutthaya perhaps some early buds of the developing chinoiserie among Europeans who happily surrounded themselves with objects of Chinese crafts and even occasionally enjoyed classical Chinese opera. All that happened together with a growing feeling of superiority toward Thai commoners, as resident Europeans thought themselves to be closer to Siamese aristocracy and royalty.

Seen in the global scale, Ayutthaya's two centuries of engagement with multiculturalism stands side by side with later development of other global cities in Asia, most significantly with Guangzhou after the imposition of the Canton System in 1757. Both cities provide a laboratory of social and cultural interaction outside the discourse of colonialism, but within the historical process of European expansion limited, supervised, and controlled by the early modern Asian bureaucratic monarchies. The Canton System was structured along divided settlement of foreigners and Chinese, exclusive support given to European trading companies, protection of imperial income, tight bureaucratic control, and a system of privilege wielded by a select group of Chinese merchants. Although it purposefully discouraged emergence of multicultural practices, it neither impeded contacts between the foreign seamen and Guangzhou's population, nor stopped the domestication of certain European luxury objects among Chinese elites.⁶¹ As it has been recently pointed out, within its specific legal, political, and social limits, Canton system also contributed to the cross-cultural exchange between foreign traders and between them and their Chinese intermediaries (yet hardly with Cantonese society in general).⁶² In the case of Ayutthaya, centuries of trading and cohabitation, led to significant cultural amalgamation that, out of will and necessity, overrode stereotypes, conflicts, loyalties, and enmities persisting in home populations of the sojourners. Under the inviting but at times predatory rule of the Siamese kings this led to the creation of networks of cooperation and permitted development of the cultural apparatus that allowed for long term integration across ethnic, linguistic, and religious divides. It is also telling that for most of these communities, centuries of residence and interaction had built firm loyalties between them and the monarchy, loyalties that made Chinese, Farang (European/Christian), Lao, Mon, and Muslim volunteers stand to the last in defense of Ayutthaya against fatal Burmese invasion in 1767.⁶³