History
Southeast Asia has been inhabited for more than half a million years. Recent archaeological studies suggest that by 4000 B.C., communities in what is now Thailand had emerged as centers of early bronze metallurgy. This development, along with the cultivation of wet rice, provided the impetus for social and political organization. Research suggests that these innovations may actually have been transmitted from there to the rest of Asia, including to China.
The Thai are related linguistically to groups originating in southern China. Migrations from southern China to Southeast Asia may have occurred in the 6th and 7th centuries. Malay, Mon, and Khmer civilizations flourished in the region prior to the arrival of the ethnic Thai.
A thousand or more years ago, most of Thailand apart from the southern area in the Malay Peninsula, was under the domination of the hinduiz ed Mon-speaking people of Dvaravati (457-657 A.D.) and the Khmer or Cambodian Empires (957-1257 AD); while the Malay Peninsula was under the suzerainty of Srivijaya, the hinduized Sumatran Empire (657-1157 A.D.). During these times the Thai, as a race, emigrated gradually from their home in Southern China into the Indo-Chinese Peninsula.
During these times many off-shoots of the Thai tribes migrated by slow degrees into the Indo-Chinese Peninsula. One of the western off-shoots became the Shans of Burma. On the other side of the Peninsula many of the Thai tribes come into Tongking, including the Laos of the Lao State who settled down in the Mekhong basin. Further west of the Lao State in a northernly direction were the northern Thai of Chiang Sen which was on the north border of Thailand. There is no doubt that the words Shan-san, the name of Nan-Chao Kingdom and Chiang Sen may be identified as one and the same work. All these Thai tribes established themselves in the Peninsula in many small independent states of principalities which engaged in s trifes and warfare not only among themselves but also with the neighbouring tribes (1117-1547 A.D.). Further South particularly in the now central area of Thailand the land was within the empire of the Mon (Dvaravati Kingdom), a race ethnologically akin to the Khmer, who subsequently became included in the Empire of the Khmer. By this time the Northern Thai of Chiang Sen had gone further south and founded a city of Chieng-mai, which means "new city", and succeeded in taking away the northern remnants of the decaying Mon empire. The frontier of the Northern Thai now touched the border of the Khmer Empire in the Northern parts or Central Thailand which was called Siam or Palized into Samadesa. There is no doubt that the Thai had been befor e that time already in the land of the Mon and The Khmer Empire but they were only a minority and formed themselves into semi-independent states under the suzerainty of these empires. Traditionally these Thai who settled in Central Thailand or Siam were called Thai Noi or Lesser Thai in contrast to Thai Yai or Major Thai who are the Shans of Burma. Traditionally the Thai Noi or Lesser Thai came from the north of Thailand. It was therefore presumed that they were the Northern Thai of Chiang-mai with the Laos or the Thai of Mekhong basin partly mixed; but to me the so-called Thai Noi or Lesser Thai had in their melting pot in no less degree the Thai Yai or Major Thai i.e. the Shan too.
Thais date the founding of their nation to the 13th century. According to tradition, in 1238, Thai chieftains overthrew their Khmer overlords at Sukhothai and established a Thai kingdom. By this time, in about 1257 A.D., one of the Thai princes within the Khmer-Empire Khan Sri Indradit, a name of Sunskrit origin bestowed by the Khmer King, with the help of his able son named Khun Ram Kamhang, or popularly known in legends as Ph ra Ruang, succeeded in making himself independent of the Khmer and establishing Sukhothai as his capital. Khun Ram Kamhang succeeded him as King of Sukhothai and enlarged his territory further south into the Malay Peninsula and further west to Mataban, the Mon country, in present Lower Burma. This Sukhothai Kingdom lasted nearly two centuries (1257-1438 A.D.) when it became a vassal state to King U-thong the founder of the City of Ayuthia in the lower part of the Menam Valley, which was subsequently mer ged into the Kingdom of Ayuthia (1438 A.D.). During this Ayuthia period Cambodia, the remnant of the Khmer Empire, became in turn a vassal state to Ayuthia. Ayuthia herself as the capital of Thailand in the course of history, gave place to Bangkok or Kr ung Thep as called by the Thai which was founded in 1782 A.D. and has since remained the capital of Siam or Thailand in its modern name of today.
After its decline, a new Thai kingdom emerged in 1350 on the Chao Praya River.
The first ruler of the Kingdom of Ayutthaya, King Rama Thibodi, made two important contributions to Thai history: the establishment and promotion of Theravada Buddhism as the official religion--to differentiate his kingdom from the neighboring Hindu kingdom of Angkor--and the compilation of the Dharmashastra, a legal code based on Hindu sources and traditional Thai custom. The Dharmashastra remained a tool of Thai law until late in the 19th century. Beginning with the Portuguese in the 16th century, Ayutthaya had some contact with the West, but until the 1800s, its relations with neighboring nations, as well as with India and China, were of primary importance.
After more than 400 years of power, in 1767, the Kingdom of Ayutthaya was brought down by invading Burmese armies and its capital burned. After a single-reign capital established at Thonburi by Taksin, a new capital city was founded in 1782, across the Chao Phraya at the site of present-day Bangkok, by the founder of the Chakri dynasty. The first Chakri king was crowned Rama I. Rama's heirs became increasingly concerned with the threat of European colonialism after British victories in neighboring Burma in 1826.
The first Thai recognition of Western power in the region was the Treaty of Amity and Commerce with the United Kingdom in 1826. In 1833, the United States began diplomatic exchanges with Siam, as Thailand was called until 1938. However, it was during the later reigns of Rama IV (or King Mongkut, 1851-68), and his son Rama V (King Chulalongkorn (1868-1910)), that Thailand established firm rapprochement with Western powers. The Thais believe that the diplomatic skills of these monarchs, combined with the modernizing reforms of the Thai Government, made Siam the only country in South and Southeast Asia to avoid European colonization.
In 1932, a bloodless coup transformed the Government of Thailand from an absolute to a constitutional monarchy. King Prajadhipok (Rama VII) initially accepted this change but later surrendered the kingship to his 10-year old nephew. Upon his abdication, King Prajadhipok said that the obligation of a ruler was to reign for the good of the whole people, not for a select few. Although nominally a constitutional monarchy, Thailand was ruled by a series of military governments interspersed with brief periods of democracy from that time until the 1992 elections. Since the 1992 elections, Thailand has been a functioning democracy with constitutional changes of government.
As with the rest of Southeast Asia, Thailand was occupied by the Japanese during the Second World War. Since Japan's defeat in 1945, Thailand has had very close relations with the United States. Threatened by communist revolutions in neighboring countries such as Burma, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, Thailand actively sought to contain communist expansion in the region. Recently, Thailand also has been an active member in the regional Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN).
