The Maritime Cultural Landscape between Siam and Guangdong Province, China: New Perspectives through Three Siamese Maps

Abstract

In the study of maritime history, maps serve as a powerful tool. However, indigenous maps drawn outside of the conventions of western cartography have long been marginalized for their alleged “inaccuracy.” This is particularly true in Southeast Asia, where a secular mapping tradition has yet to be established. This research aims to show that indigenous Siamese maps, when properly decrypted, can, however, provide invaluable insights which allow cartographers and historians to weave original narratives, bringing new perspectives to existing studies.

The research framework is based upon Westerdahl’s theory of maritime cultural landscape (1992), which proposes an integrated approach to encompass all tangible and intangible remnants of maritime human life. In this context, new sources can be introduced into the discussion of the maritime history of Siam, which has been reconstructed almost entirely from foreign sources given the scarcity of first-hand Thai materials.

The backbone of this research is built on three indigenous Siamese maps. The first map is the Coastal Map, spanning from China to the Middle East, slotted into the Buddhist cosmological manuscript Samut Phap Traiphum [Picture Book of Three Worlds] in the 18th century. The other two are early 19th century maps discovered in the royal collection in Bangkok – one illustrates the eastern shipping sphere towards China, dubbed the China Map, and the other maps the waterways from the mouth of the Pearl River to Guangzhou, and is entitled the Kwangtung Map. Threading these three maps together is a Thai poetic travelogue, commonly known as Nirat Kwangtung, which relayed a first-hand eyewitness account of the Siamese embassy to China in 1781.

The geographical scope of this research is placed between the Chinese province of Guangdong and the Siamese capitals Ayutthaya, and later Thonburi and Bangkok. The time period is the 17th to the mid-19th centuries, following the timeframe of the three Siamese maps.

Following an introduction to the background and scope of the research in Chapter 1, cartographic analysis of the three maps is addressed in Chapter 2. The Coastal Map from the Samut Phap Traiphum manuscript is inspected in detail to show the network and administration of the Siamese maritime trading system in the Ayutthaya period in Chapter 3. This is followed, in Chapter 4, by an examination of the China Map, which covered the sailing routes, maritime customs and transmission of nautical knowledge in the region in the early Bangkok period. Chapter 5 looks at the Kwangtung Map, which highlights the relevant stops for Siamese ships in the Canton System up to 1842. Chapter 6 provides a discussion and offers some concluding remarks.

Keywords: Sino-Siamese trade, maritime history, maps, traiphum, Guangdong, Ayutthaya, Bangkok