Patani during the turn of the 20th century: a Malayan perception
Khoo Kay Kim compiled and introduced a collection of eight documents from the Malayan English press (1900–1909) that reconstruct the “Malayan perception” of Siamese rule over Patani and the southern Malay states at the turn of the twentieth century. Published in 1988 in the Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, the article argues that the Malayan press—driven largely by Singapore-based European commercial interests anxious about French encroachment from Indochina—produced a consistently hostile picture of Siamese administration that shaped British public opinion ahead of the Anglo-Siamese Treaty of 1909.
Summary
The introduction situates the documents within the commercial and geopolitical anxieties of the Straits Settlements. British shipping interests in Singapore monitored Bangkok tonnage closely, and the dramatic shift in the commercial flotilla from British to German dominance between 1898 and 1901 heightened sensitivity to any development in the Siamese Malay states. The Straits Times emerged as the most vocal critic of Siamese governance, with the Malay Mail and Singapore Free Press providing corroborating coverage. Khoo notes that the Asian segment of the Malayan population showed little interest in these affairs, confirming that the alarmist tone reflected a narrow European commercial constituency.
The eight documents collectively trace the escalation from administrative grievance to open crisis. The traveller’s account of 1900 (Document I) offers a relatively measured comparison of Siamese reforms in the Ligor Circle versus the more autonomous Patani states, noting the nominal interregnum in Patani caused by the young Raja’s refusal to be a compliant figurehead. The crisis proper erupted with the kidnapping of Tengku Abdul Kadir on the night of 20–21 February 1902 by Phya Sri Sahathep, after the Raja refused to sign a document containing a clause permitting the King of Siam to depose him at will. Documents IV, V, and VI provide the most detailed accounts of the administrative practices that had built up to this rupture: the consolidation of opium farming under a single Chinese concessionaire without the Rajahs’ consent, the confiscation of the Raja’s salt wells, the imposition of kra (forced labour) on an unprecedented scale, and the systematic absorption of state revenues by Siamese officials. Document VI, the longest and most authoritative, is a correspondent’s account for the Singapore Free Press that reconstructs six years of political development and presents the Raja’s petition to the British Government in tabulated form.
Document VII shifts to a legal analysis of Siam’s sovereignty claims, arguing that the bunga mas (annual tribute) was merely a token of friendship, that the 1899 Boundary Delimitation Agreement could not override the 1826 Bangkok Treaty, and that Siam’s original post-conquest condition—merely a promise not to wage war—could not ground a claim to internal administrative control after nearly seventy years. The collection closes with Document VIII, an extract from the 1909 report of British Consul Wood, which provides a post-treaty snapshot of Patani as the only purely Malay state remaining under Siamese rule, confirming that the British had not extended protection to Patani as had been widely anticipated.
Key Findings
- The kidnapping of Tengku Abdul Kadir, Raja of Patani, occurred on the night of 20–21 February 1902; he was taken to Bangkok and held at Pitsanuloke without trial. The Siamese installed Phya Phitak (Rajah Pitak), a man over sixty years of age, as a figurehead receiving a salary of $1,000 per annum (pp. 100, 106).
- Siamese officials farmed out the opium and spirits revenues of the seven Patani states to a single Chinese concessionaire, extracting $230,000 per annum, while the deposed Raja received no payments after the first year of the consolidated farm (pp. 98, 103).
- The tiny island province of Tongka generated total revenue of $925,347.52 in a single year from over twenty-five distinct sources, including fees for testing dollars by fire and numbering sampans, all remitted to Bangkok (p. 97).
- Over 10,000 persons were estimated to have emigrated from the Patani states to Kedah, Perak, Kelantan, and Pahang; the village of Che Nak in Singgora saw its population fall from approximately 4,000 to fewer than 1,000 (pp. 101–102).
- The 1909 British Consular report recorded 4,209 boats, 155,629 cattle, and 35,714 buffaloes in the Monthon; three gold mines near Tomoh employed only about 35 men, and a British syndicate held a 12-square-mile lease at the Baja Gua Timbas tin mine (pp. 115–116).
- British commercial share of Bangkok imports fell from 88% in 1898 to 25.2% in 1901, while Germany’s rose to 47.4%, a shift that intensified Singaporean commercial anxiety about the region’s political stability (p. 87).
Conclusion
Khoo’s compilation demonstrates that the Malayan English press constructed a coherent and well-sourced narrative of Siamese misrule that was, by the evidence presented, largely accurate in its core allegations—revenue extraction, forced labour, confiscation of property, and the subordination of Malay rulers to Siamese commissioners. The definitive historical takeaway is that the 1902 kidnapping crisis was not an isolated incident but the culmination of a systematic process of administrative absorption that had been underway since the 1880s, and that the 1909 Anglo-Siamese Treaty, while resolving the boundary question, left Patani under Siamese sovereignty against the expectations of both the local Malay population and the Singaporean commercial community.
Context
- The primary sources are drawn from the Malayan English press: Straits Times, Malay Mail, Singapore Free Press, Pinang Gazette and Straits Chronicle, and Perak Pioneer and Native States Advertiser, supplemented by a British Consular report.
- The article’s historiographical contribution lies in using contemporary press reporting as a window into the “Malayan perception” of Siamese rule, a perspective that had been underutilised in favour of official Siamese or British diplomatic records.