Siam
Siam
Constitutional monarchy in southeastern Asia, covering 198,115 square miles with a population of approximately 64,600,000; known as Siam until 1939. It is thought that the first Christian missionary in this region was a French Franciscan, Bonferre, who preached there about 1550. In 1554 two Dominicans, Father Hieronymus of the Cross and Father Sebastian de Cantu, came as chaplains to the Portuguese soldiers who were in the service of the king of Siam. They established three parishes and made many converts. Both were murdered in 1569, but others soon took their places, and in spite of intermittent persecution, in which there were additional martyrs, the work was continued by the same orders and by others, including Jesuits and Augustinians. In 1662 a Vicariate Apostolic of Siam was founded; this has since been reduced in extent and renamed Bangkok; since 1669 it has been under the care of the Society of Foreign Missions of Paris. Siam became a refuge for hundreds of Christians who fled from persecution in Annam andJapan. The Church there has often been protected and assisted by the kings, particularly Phra-Narai: in the 17th century and Mongkut and Chulalongkorn in the 19th and 20th, though many local mandarins and Burmese invaders have been hostile. Since the overthrow of the absolute monarchy in 1932, Thailand has had 17 constitutions and charters with government forms ranging from military dictatorship to electoral democracy; all have acknowledged a hereditary monarch as the head of state, and the current one is King Bhumibol Adulyadej.
The people are primarily Buddhist with less than 1% being Christian. Ecclesiastically, Thailand is governed by the archdiocese of
Bangkok
Thare and Nonseng
and the dioceses of
Chanthaburi
Chiang Mai
Nakhon Ratchasima
Nakhon Sawan
Ratchaburi
Surat Thani
Ubon Ratchathani
Udon Thani
See also
World Fact Book
Catholic-Hierarchy.Org
New Catholic Dictionary
Fuente: New Catholic Dictionary
Siam
Siam, “the land of the White Elephant” or the country of the Muang Thai (the Free), is situated in the south-eastern corner of Asia, lying between 4° and 21° north lat. and 97° and 106° east long. It is bounded on the north by Tong-king and the southern states of Burma, on the east by Annam and Cambodia, on the south by the Gulf of Siam and the Malay Peninsula, and on the west by the Indian Ocean, and thus forms a buffer state between French and British possessions. From north to south Siam measures in length some 1130 and in breadth some 508 miles, covering an area of some 242,580 square miles, about the size of Spain and Portugal, and is divided into 41 provinces. Its population is estimated to be between six and nine million inhabitants, of whom a third are Siamese, a quarter Chinese or of Chinese descent, whilst the rest is made up of Burmese, Cambodians, Laotines, Malays, Pegus, Tamils, and Europeans. The Siamese are described as a polite, hospitable, obliging, light-hearted, pleasure and feast-loving people, as clever gold and silversmiths, possessing great taste for art and skill as painters, decorators, and carvers in wood, stone, plaster, and mosaic. They are, however, not fond of work nor is it necessary for them to be so, for they have few wants for housing and food, fire and clothing, and mother earth has endowed them with a perpetual summer and a fertile soil, yielding rich harvests of rice and pepper, whilst the mountains abound in teak and yellow wood, box and ebony, sapan and padoo. The chief commerce is in silk, which is carried on along the Menam River and its numerous affluents and canals. The state religion is Buddhism, which, according to the earliest annals, was introduced as far back as 638. With perhaps the exception of Tibet, there is no country in the East where Buddhism is so intensely interwoven with the life of a nation from the king to the lowest subject, and where the talapoins or bonzes play such an important rôle in the national life, so that every male subject, the king and the crown prince not excepted, has to live in a Buddhist monastery and join the ranks of the talapoins for a short period. Up to a few years ago these Buddhist monasteries were the only establishments for education, which were restricted to the male population. Though Buddhism is the acknowledged religion of the state and towards it the Government allows some $20,000,000 yearly, all other religious creeds are granted full liberty of worship, nor does any one incur disabilities on account of his religious beliefs. The king, being the highest “supporter of the doctrine”, stands at the head of the religion and appoints all religious dignitaries, from the four Somdet Phra Chow Rajagana (archpriests) downwards.
Little is known about the early history of the country. It was first called Siam by the Portuguese (1511) and other nations who came into contact with it. Before Ayuthia or Yuthia was established as the capital (1350), the country was divided into a number of separate principalities bound together by race, language, religion, and customs. A continual migration from the north to the south took place till in 1350 a branch of the Thai race established itself at Ayuthia. The history of Siam as a dominant power begins with Phra-Chao Utong Somdetch Pra Rama Tibaudi I (1351-71) and it was ruled by thirty-four kings (1351-1767) belonging to three different dynasties. During the inroads of the Burmese (1767-82), Ayuthia was destroyed and the new Siamese capital was established at Bangkok, “the Venice of the East”. As early as 1511 the Portuguese made a commercial treaty with Siam and subsequently the Japanese, the Dutch, and the British entered into commercial relations with it. But the present flourishing commercial condition only dates from 1851, when King Mongkut opened Siam to Europeans and to European trade, favoured European factories, and made himself acquainted with Western civilization. After his death in 1868, his eldest son, Chulalongkorn (d. 1910), succeeded as the fortieth ruler of Siam, and during a reign of forty-two years showed himself one of the greatest and most farseeing princes who ever sat on an Asiatic throne, a king of European education and manners, to whose energy and initiative Siam owes much of her prosperity, railways, telegraphs, army (20,000 men), navy (37 ships, 15,000 men), and education for both sexes. Siam has so far been able to maintain her national independence, owing to the rivalry of England and France. The latter has tried ever since the days of Louis XIV to obtain a footing in Siam and has actually gained large concessions of territory by the treaties of 1891, 1893, 1904, and 1907, nor has England lacked her share (1909).
The first historical record of an attempt to introduce Christianity we owe to John Peter Maffei who states that about 1550 a French Franciscan, Bonferre, hearing of the great kingdom of the Peguans and the Siamese in the East, went on a Portuguese ship from Goa to Cosme (Peguan), where for three years he preached the Gospel, but without any result. In 1552 St. Francis Xavier, writing from Sancian to his friend Diego Pereira, expressed his desire to go to Siam, but his death on 2 December, 1552, prevented him. In 1553 several Portuguese ships landed in Siam, and at the request of the king three hundred Portuguese soldiers entered his service. In the following year two Dominicans, Fathers Hieronymus of the Cross and Sebastian de Cantù, joined them as chaplains. In a short time they established three parishes at Ayuthia with some fifteen hundred converted Siamese. Both missionaries, however, were murdered by the pagans (1569), and were replaced by Fathers Lopez Cardoso, John Madeira, Alphonsus Ximenes, Louis Fonseca (martyred in 1600), and John Maldonatus (d. 1598). In 1606 the Jesuit Balthasar de Sequeira at the request of the Portuguese merchant Tristan Golayo, and in 1624 Father Julius Cesar Margico, came to Ayuthia and gained the favour of the king. A subsequent persecution, however, stopped the propagation of the Faith and no missionary entered till Siam was made a vicariate Apostolic by Alexander VII on 22 August, 1662. Soon after, Mgr Pierre de la Motte-Lambert, Vicar-Apostolic of Cochin China, arrived at Ayuthia, accompanied by Fathers De Bourges and Deydier. In 1664 he was joined by Mgr Pallu, Vicar Apostolic of Tong King. Siam, in those days the rendezvous of all commercial enterprise in the East, gave shelter to several hundred Annamite and Japanese Christians who had been expelled or lived there as voluntary exiles on account of persecutions at home. Some Portuguese and Spanish Jesuits, Franciscans, and Augustinians had the spiritual care of their countrymen in Siam. Mgr Pallu, on his return to Rome (1665), obtained a Brief from Clement IX (4 July, 1669), by which the Vicariate of Siam was entrusted to the newly-founded Society of Foreign Missions of Paris. In 1673 Father Laneau was consecrated titular Bishop of Metellopolis and first Vicar Apostolic of Siam, and ever since Siam has been under the spiritual care of the Society of Foreign Missions. King Phra-Naraï (1657-83?) gave the Catholic missionaries a hearty welcome, and made them a gift of land for a church, a mission-house, and a seminary (St. Joseph’s colony). Through the influence of the Greek or Venetian, Constantine Phaulcon, prime minister to King Phra-Naraï, the latter sent a diplomatic embassy to Louis XIV in 1684. The French king returned the compliment by sending M. de Chaumont, accompanied by some Jesuits under Fathers de Fontenay and Tachard. On 10 December, 1685, King Phra-Naraï signed a treaty at Louvo with France, wherein he allowed the Catholic missionaries to preach the Gospel throughout Siam, exempted his Catholic subjects from work on Sunday, and appointed a special mandarin to settle disputes between Christians and pagans. But after the departure of M. De Chaumont, a Siamese mandarin, Phra-phret-racha, got up a revolution, the prime minister was murdered, King Phra-Naraï deposed, Mgr Laneau and several missionaries were taken prisoners and ill-treated, and the Christians were persecuted.
When in 1690 peace and order were restored, Bishop Laneau resumed work till his death in 1696. His successor, Bishop Louis of Cice (1700-27), was able to continue it in peace. But after his death the rest of the century is but the history of persecutions (those of 1729, 1755, 1764 are the most notable), either by local mandarins or Burmese invaders, though the kings remained more or less favourable to the missionaries and to Bishops Texier de Kerlay and de Lolière-Puycontat (1755). During the inroads of the Burmese the Siamese king even appealed to Bishop Brigot for help against the common foe, who sacked and burned the Catholic stations and colleges and imprisoned both the bishop and the missionaries. In 1769 Father Corre resumed the missions in Siam and thus paved the way for the new vicar Apostolic, Mgr Lebon (1772-80). But a fresh persecution in 1775 forced him to leave the kingdom, and both his successors, Bishops Condé and Garnault, were unable to do much. During the Burmese wars the Christians were reduced from 12,000 to 1000, while Bishop Florens was left in charge with only seven native priests. It was only in 1826 and 1830 that a fresh supply of European missionaries arrived, among them Fathers Bouchot, Barbe, Bruguière, Vachal, Grandjean, Pallegoix, Courvezy, etc. In 1834 the last was appointed Vicar Apostolic of Siam, and the missions began to revive. Under him Siam numbered 6590 Catholics, 11 European and 7 native priests. His successor, Bishop Pallegoix (1840-62), author of “Déscription du royaume Thai ou Siam” and “Dictionnaire siamois-latin-français-anglais” (30,000 words), was one of the most distinguished vicars Apostolic of Siam, the best Siamese scholar, and a missionary among the Laotines. He induced Napoleon III to renew the French alliance with Siam and to send an embassy under M. de Montigny to Siam in 1856. On 8 July, 1856, King Mongkut signed a political-commercial treaty with France, by which the privileges granted to the Catholic missionaries by Phra-Naraï in the seventeenth century were renewed. The bishop was highly esteemed by the king, who personally assisted at his funeral and accepted from the missionaries as a token of friendship the bishop’s ring. Thanks to the broad-mindedness of Kings Mongkut (1851-68) and Chulalongkorn (1868-1910), the Catholic Church in Siam has enjoyed peace under Pallegoix’s successors, Bishops Dupont (1862-72) and Vey (1875-1909). Owing to the complications between France and Siam, in 1894, the missionaries had to endure the ill-will of local mandarins, though the minister of foreign affairs promised that no harm would be done to the missionaries and their work on account of the French invasion. Though the mission in Laos, commenced in 1876, formally opened in 1883, and erected into a vicariate Apostolic on 4 May, 1899, is now separated from Siam, the Catholic missions have made great progress during the last thirty-five years. While in 1875 there were in Siam 11,000 Catholics, 17 European and 7 native priests, and 30 churches, these are now (1911), 23,000 Catholics, 42 European and 13 native priests, 38 catechists, 50 central stations, 55 churches and chapels, 12 Brothers of St. Gabriel, 103 sisters (Holy Infant Jesus, St. Paul of Chartres, Lovers of the Cross), 50 elementary schools with over 3000 pupils, 15 orphanages with 314 inmates, 3 agricultural schools, 1 seminary with 62 students, 1 college with 400 boys, and a pensionnat with 220 girls, under the jurisdiction of Mgr René Mary Joseph Perros de Guewenheim, titular Bishop of Zaora, appointed 17 September, 1909.
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CARTER, The King of Siam (New York and London, 1904); HESSE WARTEGG, Siam (Leipzig, 1899); PALLEGOIX, Description du royaume Thai ou Siam (Beaune, 1853); PIOLETT, Les Missions Catholiques françaises au XIX siècle, II (Paris, s. d.); LAUNAY, Hist. Général de la Société des Missions Etrangères (3 vols., Paris, 1894).
MATERNUS SPITZ Transcribed by Bobie Jo M. Bilz
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XIIICopyright © 1912 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, February 1, 1912. Remy Lafort, D.D., CensorImprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia
Siam
(meaning in Malay the brown race) is called by its people Muang T’hai, the kingdom of the free, i.e. free from the superstitions of the Brahmins. It is the chief kingdom of the peninsula called Indo-China, or Farther India. Siam proper occupies the middle portion of the peninsula, with all the country surrounding the Gulf of Siam, and stretches between lat. 4 and 22 N., and between long. 97 and 106 E. Its greatest length is 1350 miles, its breadth 450 miles, while its area is estimated at from 190,000 to 300,000 square miles (probably the latter estimate is nearly correct), with a population of between 5,000,000 and 6,000,000.
I. Soil, Climate, etc. A considerable portion of Siam is covered with mountains and hills. Two mountain ranges, extending mainly southeast from the Himalaya. form general natural divisions from China on thn north, and partly from Anam on the east, and Burmahl and British India on the west. A third range passes through the central regions, and in this is situated the P’hra Bat, or mountain of the sacred foot of Buddha. The great river of the country is called by foreigners Menam, or Meinam, and is the Nile of Siam. Its annual inundation commences in June and ends in November, and the area of land thus fertilized is upwards of 22,000 square miles. The coastline may be roughly estimated at 1100 miles, with several excellent harbors. The seasons are two: the wet or hot, and the dry or cool. The former begins near the middle of March, the latter in October. Siam is rich in natural productions. Rice, sugar, pepper, cotton, and hemp are the staple products. There are also many valuable articles procured from the forests gutta percha, lac, dammar, costly woods, etc. The animal kingdom is very varied, furnishing rhinoceroses, tigers, leopards, bears, otters, musks, civets, wild hogs, monkeys, deer, and elephants, especially the white elephant.
II. Inhabitants and Government. The Siamese are mainly of Mongolian type, but there is much reason to suppose that they are closely allied to the great Indo-European race. According to the researches of the late king, out of 12,800 Siamese words more than 5000 are found to be Sanscrit, or to have their root in that language, and the rest in the Indo-European tongue. Besides the Siamese, a great variety of races inhabit the territories of Siam, as the Chinese, Cambodians, etc. According to the French consul at Bangkok, Garnier (1874), the population of Siam proper and its Laos dependencies is composed of 1,800,000 Siamese, 1,500,000 Chinese, 1,000,000 Laos, 200,000 Malays, 50,000 Cambodians, 50,000 Peguans, 50,000 Karens, and others. The Siamese proper are gentle, timid, careless, indolent, and yet peaceable and polite. Most of the business is in the hands of the Chinese. Marriage takes place as early as eighteen for males and fourteen for females, without the aid of priest or magistrate, though the former may be present to offer prayers. The number of wives, ordinarily one, may, among the wealthy, reach scores and hundreds, but the first is the wife proper, to whom the rest are subject. Eighty or ninety percent of the males can read, a limited education being gratuitously furnished at the temples.
The government is theoretically a duarchy, practically a monarchy, for although there is a second or vice king, the first or senior king is actual sovereign. The crown is hereditary, and is bequeathed, with the sanction of the nobles, to any son of the queen. The second king seems to occupy the place of first counsellor, and is invariably consulted before taking any important step. The council of state comprises the first king (as president); the ministers, who have no vote; from ten to twenty councillors, who have to draft new laws, and from their own number elect a vice-president; and six princes of the royal house. The country is divided into forty-one provinces, each of which is governed by a phraya, or council of the first class.
III. History and Religion. The early history of Siam is entirely unknown. In 1511 the Portuguese, after the conquest of Malacca by Albuquerque, established an intercourse with Siam. In the 16th century Siam was for many years subject to the Burmans, but recovered its independence towards the close of the century. In 1604 the Dutch established relations; in 1612 the first English vessel went to Ayathia. Towards the end of the 17th century a European adventurer, a native of the island of Cephalonia, called Phaulkon, gained the esteem of the king, and was by degrees promoted to an important office in the government. Through his persuasion an embassy was sent to Louis XIV of France, who sent two embassies to Siam in 1685 and 1687, and also a corps of 500 soldiers, who were put in possession of the fortress of Bangkok by Phaulkon. They were expelled in 1690. About 1760 the Burmans laid waste the country and took the capital, Ayathia. In. 1782 the present dynasty ascended the throne, and transferred the seat of government to Bangkok. Treaties were made with the East India Company in 1822 and 1825, and with the United States in 1833.
The religion of the Siamese is Buddhism: nevertheless the lower classes, and in some respects the more enlightened, are profoundly superstitious. They have peopled their world with gods, daemons, and goblins. Over the footprint of Buddha, on the P’hra Bat, is built a beautiful temple, to which crowds of ardent Buddhists perform long and painful journeys, and millions of costly gifts are offered. The following account of missions is from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia (s.v.): Missions have been carried on by the Roman Catholics, under the greatest vicissitudes, since the middle of the 16th century. The missionaries are French, and their converts were reckoned in 1872 at 10,000, in sixteen congregations. At the head of the mission is a vicar apostolic. Protestant missions date from the visits of Gutzlaff, Tomlin, and Abeel, in 1828 to 1831, and properly from the settlement of Jones in 1833. Missions have been established by the American Baptist Union, and by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions; and the American Missionary Association has established several Protestant congregations, schools, and religious papers. The number of the Baptist congregations in 1874 was 154, and of Presbyterian, 38.
For literature, consualt Crawfurd, Embassy to Siam and Cochin China (Lond. 1828); Pallogoix, Description du Royaume Thai, ou Siam (Paris, 1854); Bowring, Kingdom and People of Siam (Lond. 1857); Bastian, Reisen in Siam (Berlin, 1867); Mrs. Leonowen, English Governess at the Siamese Court (Boston, 1870); M’Donald, Siam, its Government, etc. (Phila. 1871); Bacon, Siam, etc. (N.Y. 1873); Vincent, Land of the White Elephant (ibid. 1874).