Phuket Society

Introduction :

Phuket is an island connected by bridges to southern Thailand’s Andaman Sea coast, in the Indian Ocean, lying between 7′45″ and 8′15″ north latitude, and from 98′15″ to 98′40″ west longitude on the map. Phuket, Thailand’s largest islands, is surrounded by 32 smaller islands that form part of the same administration, with a total area of 570 square kilometers. Measured at its widest point, Phuket is 21.3 kilometers; at its longest, 48.7 kilometers.

History :

Phuket was known as Bukit, Junk Ceylon, or Muang Talang, in the variety of reason. Bukit is the name that derives in meaning from the Tamil manikram, or Crystal Mountain. Junk Ceylon is the name that found on the old maps (Ptolemy’s Geographical, written by the Alexandrian geographer in the Third Century A.D.) and Muang Talang is called since the part of the Srivichai and Siri Tahmarach empires. It was first called Monton Phuket in Rama V’s reign.

Phuket is a town with a long history. In centuries past, Phuket was an important trading post on the eastern shore of the bay of Bengal, handing shipping and dealing with sailors from the Arab and Malay worlds, India, Burmar, China and, of course, Siam. By the 16th century, the island was also well-know to Europeans, as first Portuguese and Dutch, then English and French sailed to its fabled shore. The island enjoyed an unprecedented surge in wealth when tin was found to be available in large quantities in the nearby shadows. Ambitious, hardworking miner and business flocked to the island from the province of south China (the 19th century), adding a considerable Chinese element to the island’s already mixed population.

The most important historic event is the story of two heroines: Thao Thep Kasatri (Kunying Jan) and Thao Sri Sunthon(Kunying Mook) that people in Phuket were assembled led by the two heroines to fight with the Burmese that come to attack them. After a month’s siege the Burmese were forced to depart on 13 March, 1785. Kunying Jan and her sister were credited with the successful defense. In recognition King Rama I bestowed upon Kunying Jan the honorific Thao Thep Kasatri, a title of nobility usually reserved for royalty, by which she is known today. Her sister (Kunying Mook) became Thao Sri Sunthon.

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In the 17th century, the Dutch, the English, and from the 1680s the French, competed with each other for trade with the island of Phuket (the island was named Junk Ceylon at that time), which was valued as a very rich source of tin. In September 1680, a ship from the French East India Company visited Phuket and left with a full cargo of tin. In 1681 or 1682, the Siamese king Narai, who was seeking to reduce Dutch and English influence, named Governor of Phuket the French medical missionary Brother René Charbonneau, a member of the Siam mission of the Société des Missions Etrangères. Charbonneau held the position of Governor until 1685

In 1685, king Narai confirmed the French tin monopoly in Phuket to a French ambassador, the Chevalier de Chaumont. Chaumont’s former maître d’hôtel Sieur de Billy was named governor of the island. The French were expelled from Siam in 1688 however, following the 1688 Siamese revolution. On April 10, 1689, the French general Desfarges led an expedition to re-capture the island of Phuket in an attempt to restore some sort of French control in Siam. The occupation of the island led nowhere, and Desfarges returned to Pondicherry in January 1690.

The Burmese attacked Phuket in 1785. Captain Francis Light, a British East India Company captain passing by the island, sent word to the local administration that he had observed Burmese forces preparing to attack. Than Phu Ying Chan, the wife of the recently deceased governor, and her sister Mook(คุณมุก) then assembled what forces they could. After a month-long siege, the Burmese were forced to retreat March 13, 1785. The two women became local heroines, receiving the honorary titles Thao Thep Krasatri and Thao Si Sunthon from King Rama I. During the reign of King Chulalongkorn (Rama V), Phuket became the administrative center of the tin-producing southern provinces. In 1933 Monthon Phuket (มณฑลภูเก็จ)was dissolved and Phuket became a province by itself. Old names of the island include Ko Thalang

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