“Missionaries, Martyrs, and Political
Change in Northern Thailand in the Late 19th
Century”
Martyrdom set within the
broader context of persecution has been a defining feature of the
history of the expansion of Christianity worldwide, including Thailand.
The seminal martyrdom story in the annals of the Protestant
(Presbyterian) church is northern Thailand is the death of
two Thai Christian men, Nan Chai and Noi Sunya (later sources use the
central Thai, Suriya) in 1869 on the authority of Chao Kawilorot, who
ruled Chiang Mai from 1856-1870. The event is set within the historical
context of the early years of the American Presbyterian mission in
Chiang Mai and the late nineteenth century political situation in the
Lao States (as northern Siam was then known) immediately prior to the
emergence of the modernizing Thai nation-state during the reigns of
Kings Mongkut and Chulalongkorn from 1851 to 1910. Against this
historical background, I propose to examine the account of the death of
Nan Chai and Noi Sunya based on missionary records and assess the
impact of the story on the early history of the Protestant church in
Thailand. I contend that the account of the death of Nan Chai and Noi
Sunya as a martyrdom story was primarily a theological construction;
that as such it reflected the long tradition of Christian martyrdom
beginning with St. Stephen; that this construction was consistent with
the Old School Scottish Presbyterian worldview and Second Great
Awakening American evangelical sentiment of the first Protestant
missionaries in Chiang Mai, Daniel McGilvary and Jonathan Wilson; and,
that the death of the two "heroes of the faith" (Thai, virabut haeng
quam ch¢'a) reinforced the cultural isolation of the Protestant
Christian church in Thailand that persisted for decades.
Martyrdom
and the Christian Church
Although
martyrdom, both religious and non-religious, has been omnipresent in
human history since time immemorial, only Christianity among the
world's religions identifies martyrdom with its founder. Consequently,
beginning with the stoning to death of Stephen recorded in the New
Testament book of the Acts of the Apostles, martyrdom has served as a
major paradigm for the Christian Church and its worldwide missionary
expansion. For the early church fathers, a martyr was one who perfectly
imitated the suffering and death of Jesus. Martyrs were considered to
be witnesses to faith in Jesus as the Son of God (e.g., The Martyrdom
of Polycarp, ca. 165 C. E.), and their courage in the face of death
provided evidence of God's active power in the world. The early church
fathers considered the martyr's life to be the highest fulfillment of
Christian striving for perfection. Martyrdom, consequently, became a
heroic virtue associated with death not only at the hands of others but
also for acts of heroic self-sacrifice.
In
his seven volume History of the Expansion of Christianity from the
first Christian century to World War II, Kenneth Scott Latourette cites
ample evidence that Christians "expected persecution and gloried in
it," so much so that Latourette characterizes early Christianity as
having a "martyr complex." Of special relevance to the martyrdom of Nan
Chai and Noi Sunya is the prevalence of martyrdom stories from the
nineteenth century Christian missionary enterprise in Asia. Martyred missionaries in Cawnpore, India,
included the sister of the wife of Rev. S. C. George, who was appointed
by the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions to Siam in 1862. In French
Indo-China between 1833 and 1840 many missionaries, foreign and native
priests, and hundreds of native Christians were killed. In Korea,
"persecution by the state was the lot of Christians almost from the
first," and was especially virulent in the middle decades of the
nineteenth century. In China, missionaries were
branded as "foreign devils" and Chinese Christians as "secondary
devils." The death of 188 missionaries at Paotingfu, north China,
during the Boxer Rebellion is one of the best known Protestant
missionary martyrdom episodes. Speaking at a memorial service 14 years
after the event, Sherwood Eddy characterized the Christian missionary
enterprise as nothing less than a crusade "on a far-flung battle line"
to make Christians of all peoples. The first Presbyterian missionaries
to northern Thailand
shared a similar commitment to bring the "Lao nation" to Christ.
Christianity
Comes to Thailand.
The Presbyterian Mission in Siam and Laos
"Siam
has not been opened by British gunpowder, but by missionary effort,"
said the Siamese regent in Chiang Mai when talking about the old days
to an American visitor.
Christianity
first came to Siam in the late seventeenth century when Roman Catholic
missionaries represented chiefly by the Société des
Missions Êtrangères of Paris began propagating their faith
in the kingdom of Ayutthaya during the reign of King Narai
(1656--1688). After an initial degree of success that led to the
establishment of several chapels and a seminary, anti-French sentiment
following King Narai's death resulted in the expulsion or imprisonment
of French priests and monks. By 1828, the date of the arrival of the
first Protestant missionaries in Bangkok, there were only six Catholic
churches in the country, and it was not until 1841 that the first Vicar
Apostolic of Siam, Jean-Baptiste Pallegoix, was appointed. Pallegoix, a
keen observer and student of Siamese culture, left historical accounts
that provide a major resource for understanding mid-nineteenth century Siam.
Protestant
mission work began in Bangkok in 1828 during the reign of Phra
Nangklao, Rama III (1824-1851), with the arrival of the Rev. Carl A. F.
Gutzlaff, a German medical doctor, and the Rev. Jacob Tomlin, of the
London Missionary Society, but it was not until 1840 when the Rev. and
Mrs. William P. Buell became the first American Presbyterian
missionaries to Siam. After the Buell's departure in 1844, the
Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions assigned the Rev, and Mrs.
Stephen Matton and Dr. Samuel R. House to Bangkok in 1847. The Rev. and Mrs.
Daniel McGilvary and the Rev. Jonathan Wilson, who were to open the
Presbyterian mission station in Chiang Mai in 1867, were appointed by
the Board in 1858.
To
say that the early Protestant missionary efforts at conversion met with
limited success is a glaring understatement. From 1831 to 1849
twenty-two American Board missionaries counted no converts and American
Presbyterian missionaries in Bangkok
baptized their first Thai convert after being in the country for
nineteen years. Kenneth E. Wells, the author of a history of the
Protestant church in Thailand, who served as a Presbyterian missionary
from 1927 to 1967, cites the following reasons for this lack of
success: missionaries knew little or nothing about Siam; travel to and
within Siam was tedious and long and many missionaries either were
forced to return home because of debilitating illness or died in the
field; and, perhaps of even greater importance, believing that all
forms of Thai cultural religion--Buddhism, animism--were evil, they
created a Christian community divorced from its indigenous cultural
roots that mirrored the American Presbyterianism of their day.
Rama
III's ambivalent attitude toward Christian missionaries may also have
inhibited their evangelistic efforts in Siam, a situation that
changed with the accession of Rama IV, King Mongkut, to the throne in
1851. Prior to assuming the throne, as the abbot of Wat Bowoniwet,
Mongkut was tutored in English and science for eighteen months by the
Rev. Jesse Caswell, a Presbyterian appointed under the American Board.
His relationship with Caswell and his longstanding friendship with Dan
Beach Bradley, arguably the most important American missionary to go to
Thailand,
helped to dispose him favorably toward the missionaries. During the
reigns of King Mongkut and his son-successor, King Chulalongkorn,
relationships between American Presbyterian missionaries and the
extended royal family were marked by cordiality. They expressed their
gratitude to the missionaries for their numerous contributions to
modern medicine, education, and government. These included the
following: The Rev. Dr. Daniel Beach Bradley (Siam residence,
1850-1873) is remembered as the father of modern medicine in Thailand;
at the invitation and sponsorship of King Chulalongkorn, the Rev.
Samuel G. McFarland (residence, 1860-1878) founded King's College, the
first government school; his son, Dr. George McFarland, at age
twenty-five became the superintendent of the new Sirirat Hospital as
well the dean of its medical school and was decorated by the king with
a royal title; his brother, Edwin, invented the first Thai typewriter
and served as secretary to the distinguished H.R.H. Prince Damrong,
Minister of Interior; and a another brother, William, was private
secretary to H.R.H. Prince Bhanurangsi, the Minister of Defense. These
were outstanding and noteworthy contributions that led to the growing
modernization and inevitable Westernization of Siam as a modern
nation-state.
Daniel
McGilvary and Jonathan Wilson arrived in Bangkok on June 20th 1858.
McGilvary and Wilson were classmates and graduates of Princeton
Seminary where they came under the influence of Dr. Charles Hodge, an
exponent of Old School Scottish Presbyterian theology and a strong
proponent of foreign missions. This theological worldview had a
profound influence on their work among the Lao and the relationship of
the emergent Protestant church in the north to its cultural environment.
McGilvary's
interest in the Lao developed soon after his arrival in Bangkok when, in 1859, on a trip to Petchaburi,
south of Bangkok,
he encounters a colony of 10,000 Lao war captives. Subsequently, in
1861 McGilvary moved to the Petchaburi mission where he reports that
the Lao appealed to him as a people of "more stamina and less levity
than the Siamese." He also regarded them
as more likely candidates for conversion since they had, "a system of
religion much nearer Christianity than Buddhism; holding to a creator
and governor of the universe… Buddhism consequently has no hold
on them, except as it has been adopted a little by degrees as the
religion of the ruling race." As McGilvary was to discover after
reaching Chiang Mai, however, the Lao character was not quite as
Calvinistic as he thought and Buddhism was more culturally ingrained
and socially definitive than he had realized.
In
December 1860, prior to his move from Bangkok to Petchaburi, McGilvary
married Dr. Bradley's daughter, Sophia. Bradley
also was interested in the possibility of a mission to the Lao, and
toward that end had cultivated a friendly relationship with Chao
Kawilorot during the Prince's triennial trips to pay tribute to the
King of Siam. In visits to the Bradley home, the Prince showed a keen
interest in the Siamese language printing press and in the smallpox
vaccine Bradley had developed. Bradley may even have vaccinated some of
the chao nai (members of the royal family) who accompanied Chao
Kawilorot. Because the Prince was in Bangkok when McGilvary and Sophia
Bradley were married they took the opportunity to pay him a visit with
a gift of wedding cake. McGilvary appealed to Chao Kawilorot to open a
mission in Chiang Mai, but it was not until October 1866, that he was
able to secure permission from both the Prince of Chiang Mai and King
Mongkut.
Departing
from Bangkok
on January 3rd 1867, McGilvary, his wife Sophie and their
two children, reached Chiang Mai on April 3rd after an
arduous three-month trip upriver and overland. One can only imagine the
physical discomfort of their first year. Arriving at the peak of the
hot season, attired in long, heavy, dark Victorian clothing, their
first home was a twelve by twenty foot sala, a semi-open rest house
near the central market area, where daily they were gawked at by crowds
of curious country folk. While their crowded and exposed living
conditions must have been stressful, at the same time their situation
gave the McGilvarys an opportunity to teach and for Daniel to practice
rudimentary medical skills such as sewing up wounds, setting broken
bones, and vaccinating against smallpox. From the outset the practice
of medicine, especially dispensing quinine and smallpox vaccinations,
proved to be a crucial aspect of the Presbyterian mission to the Lao.
After living in Chiang Mai for ten months, the McGilvarys were joined
by Jonathan Wilson and his wife in February 1868.
The Presbyterian Mission in Chiang Mai, Chao Kawilorot, and the
Death of Nan Chai and Noi Sunya
The
McGilvarys began their work in Chiang Mai with high hopes and
expectations of the success for their mission. In Bangkok Chao
Kawilorot seemed "not only willing for us to go but pleased at the idea
and voluntarily offered to give us a [building] lot and also the timber
for our house and to furnish a house in the meantime." Although he
granted McGilvary permission to teach Christianity, one assumes the
Prince expected that McGilvary would treat endemic health
problems--smallpox, malaria, goiter--and open a school, but that he
would be no more successful than the Siam
mission in Bangkok
in making converts.
Both
McGilvary and Wilson testify to the initial friendliness and interest
of Chao Kawilorot and other royal family members, writing that they
were allowed to teach "without restraint;" that the Prince and his
family would visit them to hear Sophia play the harmonium, and they
were warmly welcomed at the palace; and that, "He [the prince] has been
very kind and gracious…whenever any of us have met him, and the
good will of the people has stood a test that in such a country as this
seems little less than miraculous." Chao Kawilorot also provided two
houses to the missionaries without cost.
After
two years the fledgling Presbyterian mission had ample reason for
optimism. In August 1869, just two months prior to the martyrdom of Nan
Chai and Noi Sunya, McGilvary voiced little suspicion that the
missionaries or the little band of seven native Christians faced
persecution:
“I
think I can say that I never began a year's labor with more faith in
God's promises or the ultimate and possibly not distant triumph of the
Gospel. Yet we know not what trials may await us, or how the rulers
will be affected by our present beginnings or what oppositions it may
awaken. But we have no apprehension of
this kind of trouble. Our relationship with the king and authorities
are about all we could ask. We never met his Majesty…that we do
not meet with a kind reception. We have had another good opportunity or
two to preach the Gospel to his Majesty to which he listened
attentively.”
The
reasons for what appears to have been an abrupt turn of events in the
fortunes of the Chiang Mai mission cannot be determined precisely from
the missionary record and, consequently, are a matter of educated
inference. The mission's unexpected early success relative to the Siam
mission was assuredly one cause. By August 1869, seven converts had
been baptized. The first was Nan Inta, a former Buddhist monk, baptized
on January 3rd 1869. He became
the first elder in the church in May 1876, and later the first Lao
evangelist. In relatively quick succession, in May and June Noi Sunya,
Nai Boon Ma and Saen Ya Wichai received baptism soon to be followed by
the August baptisms of Nan Chai, Pu Sang, and Noi Kanta. Four of the
seven new Christians were people of some influence. Like Nan Inta, Nan
Chai was a former monk and Jonathan Wilson's teacher of the Lao
language; Noi Sunya was a folk medicine practitioner and employed to
help tend Kawilorot's cattle; and Ya Wichai was a Saen or official in
the government of the chao of Lamphun. Furthermore, two of Kawilorot's
daughters had shown more than a polite interest in the missionaries and
their message and McGilvary also reports optimistically that one of the
Princes was convinced of the truth of Christianity and was considering
conversion. This increasing interest in Christianity encouraged
McGilvary's optimism but also left him with a nagging anxiety, "I have
the impression that this year will be a crisis in the history of the
mission. Should a few others make public profession, it will probably
decide whether any stand will be taken by those in authority against
it."
In
and of themselves these conversions to Christianity might not have
distressed Kawilorot; however, the missionaries' zeal to convert, their
total rejection of the Lao religious-cultural synthesis of Buddhism and
animism, and their demand that baptism required an absolute loyalty to
the church posed a dangerous threat to his political authority, and the
well-established socio-economic system of corvee labor.
Regarding the first, missionary records bear ample testimony to their
conviction that Lao religious beliefs and practices were a heathen,
superstitious, idolatry that must be totally rejected. The Lao were
regarded one of the "tribes yet in darkness" and the Presbyterian
mission was portrayed as a station on the "great missionary map"
engaged in the battle to "overthrow Satan's kingdom." Although
McGilvary found Buddhism to be a more ethical religion than
Brahmanism's "disgusting and often obscene rites," Buddhism's noble
ethics simply meant that it was "harder to overthrow." But, overthrown
it must be--totally--as an "indispensable prerequisite toward embracing
the Gospel." Or, in McGilvary's metaphorical characterization, before a
"new superstructure can be reared, the ‘old foundation’
must be raised."
The
system of corvee labor was an integral part of the
patron-client structure of Lao society which, in turn, was linked to
the absolute authority of the chao muang ("lord of the kingdom"). In
January 1869, and on several subsequent occasions, Nan Inta refused his
patron's request to work on the Sabbath, thereby challenging the
traditional requirements of the patron-client system and demonstrating,
"that his new allegiance and faith meant more to him than the
traditional system to which he had previously adhered." Ostensibly, a
similar situation pertained regarding the killing of Nan Chai and Noi
Sunya. Chao Kawilorot had issued a command that the inhabitants of
several villages, including Mae Bu Kha where Nan Chai and Noi Sunya
resided, were required to provide timber to repair the city wall. That
they had failed to comply with the order of the chao muang, was the
ostensible reason given for the execution of the two Christians, a
fabricated excuse in McGilvary's eyes. Would they have been killed had
Nan Chai and Noi Sunya obeyed the Prince's order in a timely fashion
and so met their corvee obligation? History does not provide an
answer, although had they done so Kawilorot would have been unable to
use their lack of compliance as the excuse for their murder.
The
historical record does tell us, however, that by mid-1869 Chao
Kawilorot wanted to banish the McGilvarys and Wilsons from Chiang Mai.
He had little control over the historical forces beginning to transform
his kingdom and challenge his authority that included Chiang Mai's
tributary subservience to Bangkok;
lawsuits over British-Burmese teak concessions pending before the
British Consul; and the threat of Shan incursions from the north that
could be exploited by the Siamese. However, the Prince could rid
himself of the aggravation created by the American missionaries and
authorized by King Mongkut. It is possible, furthermore, that a
personal grudge factored into the Prince's feelings. Among the people
McGilvary vaccinated for smallpox was his daughter's son who
subsequently died. Although the princess and her husband, Chao Intanon,
who succeeded his father-in-law to the throne of Chiang Mai in 1871,
assured McGilvary that they did not consider him to be responsible for
their son's death, one wonders whether or not Kawilorot harbored
feelings of resentment and anger.
Whatever
factors influenced the chao muang, I propose that his behavior can be
seen as a series of strategies aimed at forcing the missionaries to
leave Chiang Mai. The first was to have the McGilvarys and Wilsons
recalled by the government in Bangkok.
With the apparent help of a Portuguese adventurer by the name of
Fonesca, who had offered his services to the Prince of Chiang Mai
having become persona non grata in Siam, the chao muang petitioned the
Minister of Foreign Affairs in Bangkok to recall the missionaries on
the pretext that their presence had created a drought responsible for a
rice famine. The Minister sent the petition to the Rev. Noah A.
McDonald, the acting American Consul, who refuted the charge, pointing
out that the shortage of rainfall was quite wide spread in the north
and began a year before McGilvary arrived in Chiang Mai. He concluded
his letter to the prince with the tongue-in-cheek comment that he would
"enjoin the missionaries to do nothing in the future to cause a famine."
There
were additional signs that the presence of the McGilvarys and Wilsons
in Chiang Mai was becoming increasingly politically tenuous and that
Kawilorot might employ more severe measures to force the missionaries'
departure. On September 5th 1869, an agent of the British
Borneo Company told them of a rumor that Chao Kawilorot was devising a
plan to expel the new Christians from the kingdom. McGilvary's
assessment of this possibility reveals a preoccupation with evangelism
that may have blinded him to the political realities of the situation.
Moreover, it also pointed to his belief that persecution could have a
potentially positive effect on the growth of the church:
"…[expelling the new converts] would
not have been so great a disaster. These men had no great possessions
to lose. Their banishment would only plant the Gospel in other
provinces or other lands." Leaving aside McGilvary's culturally biased
reference to possessions, his observation typifies the nineteenth
century missionary attitude that persecution and martyrdom promote the
growth of the church.
On
September 11th, the day Nan Chai legally became a client of
Kawilorot's younger daughter and ostensibly under her protection, he
was ordered to return home immediately by his village headman. He was
staying with McGilvary but the order caused him such apprehension that
he left for Mae Pu Kha village at dawn the morning of the 12th,
not even waiting for Sunday morning worship. On September 13th
1869, the missionaries' servants suddenly vanished and at the same time
the stream of visitors to their homes mysteriously stopped. Concerned
by this turn of events, McGilvary and Wilson visited the chao muang's
executive officer who reassured them that there was no plot against
Christians and, as if to prove this was the case, he ordered
McGilvary's cook to return. The absence of Noi Sunya, whom the
missionaries had not seen since September 5th, and Nan Chai
prompted Wilson
to walk to Mae Pu Kha village to check on their whereabouts. Their
wives, reportedly out of fear for their lives, "pretended…that
their husbands had gone to the city to visit us. Mr. Wilson noticed
that one of the women had tears in her eyes as she spoke. Puzzled
rather than satisfied by the result of the visit Mr. Wilson returned
with the hope that…the men were still alive."
As
it turned out, the worst happened. On Monday morning September 13th
1869, an armed party seized the two Christians and marched them to the
district headman's home where they were reportedly interrogated,
incarcerated, and left bound throughout the night. After Nan Chai was
seized, his wife hurried to inform McGilvary but was intercepted along
the way by an agent of the village headman and warned that she would be
killed if she informed the missionaries. Even though there were
reasonable suspicions that Nan Chai and Noi Sunya had been killed, it
appears that only on September 26th did the McGilvarys and
Wilsons learn definitively that on the morning of September 14th
the two had been taken into the jungle and executed. Prior to that
date, the missionaries, uninformed about what had transpired, lived in
anxious trepidation. Their situation called to McGilvary's mind the
imprisonment and suffering of the famed Baptist missionary to Burma,
Adoniram Judson, and his wife Ann in Ava in 1825. Identifying with the
Jewish exiles of the Old Testament whose nation had been destroyed,
McGilvary reported to the Board of Foreign missions, "It has been our
hope that we could hold on till God should bring us deliverance, and
thus retain one of the most hopeful missions of the church today, and
one where we believe the Gospel is to have one of its greatest triumphs
when the obstacles shall be removed."
For
two months the missionaries lived in uncertainty regarding their future
and the future of the Lao Christians, even though visitors now
regularly dropped by and life resumed a more normal routine. There were
many groundless rumors--that there were warrants for the arrest of
Christians and others associated with the missionaries, and that the
boatman with whom McGilvary had entrusted letters to Bangkok had been
murdered. When McGilvary's communications eventually reached the
Presbyterian missionaries in Bangkok,
they took up the matter with the Siamese regent. He agreed to send a
commissioner to Chiang Mai to review the case accompanied by the Revs.
N. A. McDonald and S. C. George. The commission arrived in late
November with a letter from King Mongkut addressed to Chao Kawilorot
requesting that the missionaries be allowed to remain unmolested or
leave if they wished. The letter did not refer directly to the death of
Nan Chai and Noi Sunya. At the audience with the Prince on the morning
of the 28th McDonald spoke of the recent problems
encountered by the missionaries and the Lao Christians but did not
refer directly to the death of the two Christians. Kawilorot allowed
that he had put to death of couple of his slaves for failing to comply
with his orders but made no allusion to the fact they were Christians. McGilvary responded to the chao muang's
remarks by accusing him of lying and of murdering the two men because
they were Christians. In astonishment and rage at McGilvary's
challenge, the old Prince angrily blurted out that he had killed them
because "they had embraced the Christian religion. And he would
continue to kill every one who did the same. Leaving the religion of
the country was rebellion against him and he would so treat it." The story of McGilvary's blunt challenge to
Kawilorot has been handed down in the annals of the Church of Christ
in Thailand
as a heroic example of the "honored father-teacher's" (phokhr¢
luang) courage, and a major reason for the fortitude of the Protestant
church in the Northern States.
In
the aftermath of the meeting, McGilvary and Wilson were urged by the
royal commissioner, McDonald, and George to leave Chiang Mai as
Kawilorot's future course of action was unpredictable. Wilson decided to
move his family to Raheng, now Tak, and establish a mission there.
McGilvary, believing that Kawilorot would not take precipitous, drastic
steps against him was determined to stay in Chiang Mai, hoping that the
mission that had such promising beginnings could continue. Calling on
the chao muang the morning after the commission meeting, McGilvary was
cordially received by the Prince and assured that the missionaries
could remain until after he returned from his upcoming trip to Bangkok. McGilvary calculated that this reprieve would
give him at least six more months in Chiang Mai. As it turned out, on
the return trip to Chiang Mai Kawilorot fell ill and died before
reaching the city, an event that led to a change in the political
climate under Chiang Mai's new ruler, Chao Inthanon, who looked more
favorably on the mission.
Whether
the death of Nan Chai and Noi Sunya could have been prevented if the
missionaries had forcefully interceded remains open to speculation.
Although McGilvary and Wilson were assured by the Prince's executive
officer that there was no plot against Christians, why did McGilvary
not accompany Nan Chai, an anxious, frightened new convert, to Mae Pu
Kha village on that fateful day he was incarcerated?
Had he done so, as Nan Chai apparently told
his wife, he and Noi Sunya would have been spared. And, given the
climate of fear explicitly described by the missionaries, how could Wilson not have
realized that the tears in the eyes of one of the spouses revealed a
truth that he chose to ignore? We might speculate that fear for the
safety of his family played a role in Wilson's behavior, and that
McGilvary's total dedication to sustaining the mission at all costs
might have influenced his.
Although
Nan Chai had become the client of Chao Kawilorot's daughter, he was
employed by the missionaries who thereby entered into a patron-client
relationship with him. Perhaps the
Prince's actions were calculated to undermine the development of
missionary patronage and thus challenge his own authority. Given the
chao muang's earlier attempts to get rid of the McGilvarys and Wilsons
by appealing to the government in Bangkok and then by spreading rumors
to the effect that the Christians would be expelled from Chiang Mai, it
might be inferred that the primary reason behind the extreme measure
now taken by Kawilorot was to force the missionaries to leave. Even the
angry exchange between McGilvary and the Prince at the meeting of the
commission could be explained in this vein. Was the Prince's outburst
at the meeting a statement of actual intention, or might it be read as
an outspoken, angry response to a man who had transgressed northern
Thai convention regarding behavior toward royalty; had challenged the
Prince's authority; and, whose patronage Kawilorot hoped to eliminate
by killing Nan Chai and Noi Sunya, two of his clients. As Herb Swanson
notes, the Lao, in particular Kawilorot, saw the mission as trying to
create a "new pattern of patron-client relationships in which it [the
mission] rather than the traditional rulers was lord."
The Declining Power of the Chao
The
chief factor [behind the killing of Nan Chai and Noi Sunya] was not
religion but the resentment of the old Prince, the Lord of Life, at
seeing pass away the old order in which all significant moves and
decisions rested on his approval.
When
Kawilorot's order that a number of Christians perform corvee
labor on Sunday was ignored, the chao luang interpreted this
recalcitrance as yet another threat to his authority. To deal with this
situation, Kawilorot executed two converts in September 1869 as a
warning to others.
For
Chao Kawilorot the killing of Nan Chai and Noi Suriya was primarily an
exercise in princely authority. He had absolute authority regarding the
governance of the kingdom. He promulgated laws, levied taxes, and
exacted labor for public works such as roads and irrigation canals. In
addition, he conscripted able bodied men as soldiers, adjudicated cases
ranging from small offenses to murder and levied punishments as he saw
fit, including death. His was, however, a declining power that was
being increasingly eroded by events beyond his control: The passing of
the old order of which the Protestant Mission was only one
manifestation, upset the old Prince of Chiengmai. Lawsuits by Burmese
timber merchants had been filed against him, the King of Siam had
gradually cut into his authority and he felt that the missions were
undermining his hold on his subjects.
As
the vast teak reserves in the north became an increasingly valuable
global commodity, especially for the British ship building industry,
Burmese timber men who held British citizenship negotiated logging
concessions with Kawilorot and the chaos of the other northern
city-states. Most of the cut teak was transported down the Salween River
through British Burma to Muolmein to be shipped to England. By 1858/9 teak
exports from Muolmein amounted to nearly four hundred thousand pounds
with the largest share of the teak coming from the Chiang Mai region.
The Bowring Treaty of 1855 that gave extraterritorial rights to British
subjects, reciprocal consular representation, and set a low ceiling on
import and export duties, greatly widened the scope of British
commercial activity in Siam, including the
northern teak forests. The extraterritorial rights granted to Burmese
and Shan under the treaty threatened the chaos’ control over an
increasing number of loggers.
Because
the teak forests were considered to be the property of the chaos of the
northern city-states, Burmese-British loggers competed with one another
in their negotiations with individual chaos. To win concessions lessees
had to pay special fees and bribes. A chao might even lease the same
forest to two competitors, or having leased a forest a chao might seize
the licensee's property once the trees had been felled. As a
consequence, there were many lawsuits. Prior to the Bowering Treaty
these lawsuits were tried in the courts of the Northern States but the
courts were run autocratically, followed traditional law codes such as
the Laws of King Mangrai (Mangraisat), or were decided by ordeal. Furthermore, proceedings often
dragged on interminably. Understandably, the loggers who held British
citizenship objected. After the treaty, cases could be appealed to the
British Consul in Bangkok
who could override a decision made by the Thai Court for Foreigners but
cases could still drag on for years. The situation was finally resolved
by the Chiang Mai treaty of 1874 that established a dual government in
the north, that of the chao and a Thai commissioner (kha luang). The
latter dealt with cases involving British subjects and regulated timber
lease registration. The net effect was to strengthen the power of the Bangkok
government in the north at the expense of authority of the chaos. This
trend continued until, by the turn of the century, the north was no
longer a collection of semi-autonomous tributary states but a
centralized region (monthon). The patronage system at the basis of the
chaos' power and authority was gradually replaced by the political and
economic structures of an early modern nation-state controlled from Bangkok.
While
the commercial interests of the British in the north abetted the
transformation of the Northern States into a monthon of the Siamese
nation, American Presbyterian missionaries contributed to the
Siamization of the Lao region. The Chiang Mai treaties of 1874 and 1883
were a crucial watershed in the first process; the 1878 Edict of
Religious Toleration played a similar role in the second.
The
instrumental cause behind the Edict of Religious Toleration was the
first Christian wedding in Chiang Mai, the marriage of Nan Inta's
granddaughter. The groom was one of McGilvary's students preparing for
the ministry who's patron was Chao Tepawong, the brother of the uparat,
the viceroy or "second king" who opposed the mission and harassed
native Christians. On the day of the wedding, the titular head of the
groom's family refused to sanction the marriage unless he received the
traditional 'spirit fee' of six rupees. Because McGilvary saw such
payment as a religious act "since it recognizes the spirits and
guardians and protectors of the family," and "when one becomes a
Christian that allegiance is cast off," the wedding had to be postponed
until the confrontation could be resolved.
McGilvary
and Dr. Marion Cheek, who joined the Presbyterian mission in 1874,
appealed for support to Phaya Thepworachun who was appointed in 1877 as
the first resident Siamese commissioner in Chiang Mai, and also to Chao
Intanon and his wife. Although all three were sympathetic, they would
not override the uparat who refused to approve the wedding without the
payment of the ‘spirit fee’ demanded by the head of the
groom's family. McGilvary wrote, "He [the uparat] has us just where he
wanted us to be. If our young people could not marry, our work would be
virtually stopped." The uparat's opposition proved to be a fatal
mistake, however, because it actually hastened the chaos' loss of
authority and power.
At
the royal commissioner's urging, McGilvary appealed to King
Chulalongkorn not only to allow Christian marriage without the payment
of the traditional ‘spirit fee’, but to guarantee the same
civil and religious privileges as non-Christians, and also to exempt
Christians from compulsory work on the Sabbath. The commissioner,
himself, also requested that his own powers over the chaos be expanded.
On September 29th 1878, the commissioner notified McGilvary
that the King had granted him enlarged powers "including power to make
proclamation of religious toleration in the Lao states." The Edict of
Religious Toleration, promulgated on October 8th, applied
only to the Lao states and not the entire nation, but it was a crucial
turning point in the history of the Protestant church in the north.
Protected by the authority of Bangkok's
official sanction, the mission was now poised to embark on a decade of
expansion that included establishing mission stations in Lamphun,
Chiang Rai, Phrae, and Nan, and
several hospitals and school. Through the establishment of schools and
the propagation of a Christian literature in Siamese, Presbyterian
missionaries became collaborators with Bangkok in the Siamization of the
nation.
The
Edict was the first document that officially referred to the royal
commissioner as pu samret rachakan, "he who fulfills the king's work,"
and "marked the passing of the sceptre from the hands of the Princes of
Chiang Mai." In denying McGilvary's request that marriage within the
church be exempt from the traditional ‘spirit fee’, the
uparat thereby "…hastened…[the] centralization of
government which Siam
was waiting for," so that now the Lao states were no longer a feudal
dependency but consolidated into the Kingdom of Siam.
Becoming Martyrs: The Missionary View
"These
were stirring days [i.e. the martyrdom] and gave to the church in the
North the heritage of faith that places it with the churches of the
apostolic age."
The
missionary narrative of the death of Nan Chai and Noi Sunya is found in
several different sources, however, both missionary and Thai Christian
accounts rely primarily on the correspondence and records of McGilvary
and Wilson who were in Chiang Mai at the time but were not
eye-witnesses. Consequently, since all versions of the event reflect a
common our-story they tend to be similar. Ambiguities in the narrative,
itself not eye-witness, the absence of attribution regarding specific
details, and the fact that there are no non-missionary or even
non-Christian corroborating sources, make it difficult to sort out the
actual facts from interpretation. In the January 2nd 1870,
session minutes of the First Presbyterian Church, Chiang Mai, that
records the deaths of Nan Chai and Noi Sunya, McGilvary clearly
indicates that accounts of the event are based on hearsay ("And from
all we know of their behavior…" or
inference ("We have never been permitted to learn…"). While not
questioning the veracity of the event, ambiguities in the record
prompted Prasit Pongudom, Department of History, Church of Christ
in Thailand,
to query in what sense the story was "fact" (ruang ching) or "legend"
(tamnan). I take up Prasit's question and suggest that, although the
death of Nan Chai and Noi Sunya at the behest of Chao Kawilorot is not
in question, in the light of historical, political, and personal
variables, the meaning of the event is contingent; and, that in the
hands of McGilvary, Wilson, and other missionary interpreters, it
becomes a martyrdom story.
McGilvary's
letters to the Board of Foreign Missions uplift three martyrological
themes: by their death the martyrs gain the crown of heaven; they
emulate the pattern of the dying Stephen commending their souls to
heaven; and, "the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church." In this vein, Dr. Daniel B. Bradley,
McGilvary's father-in-law, records in his diary that his reading at a
prayer meeting in Bangkok of McGilvary's account of the martyrdom
created a "thrilling effect," and that, "the two native Christians who
were executed by order of the king did like the martyr Stephen, call on
the name of the Lord Jesus."
The
most fulsome missionary description of the martyrdom was written not by
McGilvary but by Jonathan Wilson in a letter to the Presbyterian Board
of Foreign Missions dated January 3rd 1870. This description
as well as other reports Wilson
sent to the Board reveal him to be a man of poetic inclination:
"Alas! That we should
have to write of blood, the blood of the saints shed by the sword of a
merciless despot? Our little church was planted so lovingly and
tenderly by the Good Savior, that we expected soon to become a numerous
people. Our first disciple is now fleeing for his life. Two are hiding
among their friends. But--the happiest of us all are in heaven--Nan
Chai and Noi Sunya are singing the song of redeeming love."
Wilson describes
the capture, incarceration, and execution of Nan Chai and Noi Sunya in
considerable detail, including Nan Chai's own words, without
attributing his information to particular sources. There is no
documentary evidence that any Christians witnessed their death nor does
Wilson
report that he talked to an observer of the event, although Nan Chai's
wife spent some time at the district chief's house with her husband
before he was tried. Wilson reports that Nan Chai said to
her, "Tell the missionaries that we die for no other cause than we are
Christians." The trial, if it can be called that, consisted of asking
Nan Chai and Noi Sunya if they had "entered the religion of the
foreigners" and when they replied, "yes," they were condemned to death.
Wilson provides a
moving account of Nan Chai's execution replete with Biblical overtones.
Before he was killed the martyr interceded for the innocent, "'You may
kill us. We are prepared. But I beg you not to kill those who are in
the employ of the missionaries. They are not Christians and are not
prepared to die.' What a noble forgetfulness of self in that earnest
request for the lives of others." With the hour of the martyrs death at
hand, Wilson
paints a scene reminiscent of the Biblical portrait of the crucifixion:
"And now after a long and weary night of painful watching, the morning
of Tuesday the fourteenth dawns upon them. The hour has come. They are
led out into the retirement of the jungle. They kneel down. Nan Chai is
requested to pray. He does so, his last petition being, 'Lord Jesus
receive my spirit.' The tenderness of the scene melts his enemies into
tears."
References
to the martyrdom of Nan Chai and Noi Sunya, sometimes in conjunction
with subsequent harassment of Christians, appear in the early
nineteenth century in missionary monographs, the Laos News, devoted
exclusively to the Lao mission, and Women's Work for Women. These
accounts reinforce the picture drawn by McGilvary and Wilson. In 1871,
the Rev. N.A. McDonald who accompanied the Siamese commissioner from
Bangkok to Chiang Mai in 1869 wrote, "The two…died as
courageously and as triumphantly for the faith, as any in that long
list of martyrs which the history of the Church has to record." Forty
years later, another Presbyterian missionary in Chiang Mai opined that
the ground of the Northern States had been consecrated by the blood of
the martyrs, implying that Nan Chai's and Noi Sunya's death laid the
ground work for a strong church.
Time
doesn’t permit to discuss in detail the impact of the death of
Nan Chai and Noi Sunya on the development of the Protestant church in
northern Thailand.
Let me conclude simply by suggesting that their death, whether a
martyrdom in the definitional sense or not, affected the fledgling
Protestant church in northern Thailand in two principal
ways: first, it inhibited the growth of the church, and, second, it
served to reinforce and prolong its cultural isolation. Herb Swanson
proposes that the martyrdom impacted negatively on the fledgling
Protestant church among the Lao in four principal ways: 1) that the
majority of converts after 1869 came from distressed lower classes who
converted more for social rather than spiritual reasons;
2) Kawilorot's persecution nipped in the bud
any possibility that Christianity might become a mass movement and from
that time forward was seen as the "religion of the foreigners;" 3) the martyrdom and its aftermath was
decisive in aligning the missionaries with the growing power of the
Siamese elites, creating a hierarchical divide between the mission and
the church; and, 4) the growth of the church was stunted for over a
decade until after the promulgation of the Edict of Toleration.
Herb’s
contention that the martyrdom had an unmitigated negative effect on the
development of the Protestant church among the Northern States needs to
be set within the Lao cultural and social context. The ideological
beliefs and cultural biases that McGilvary, Wilson, and the other early
Presbyterian missionaries brought with them brooked no compromise with
a context they saw as religiously heathen, morally defective, and
socially deficient. Consequently, conversion demanded forming a
community outside of the Lao socio-cultural, political synthesis. The
fact that Christianity was perceived by the chaos as a "foreign
religion" had as much or more to do with the missionary view that the
Lao lived in a realm of darkness ruled by Satan, as with the
persecution of Christians by Chao Kawilorot and later harassment by
Chao Intanon's viceroy.
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