A French writer on an expedition to Phuket in 1686 to check its suitability for a colony, reported that there were “but a few inhabitants on the island, perhaps six thousand persons adult and child, and the surrounding areas are even more sparsely populated”.
He wrote that there was “nothing beautiful, good, rare nor curious in this place”.
The people were “a little wild, or to put it in a better way, less polite than those in other areas of this kingdom of Syam…
“They apply themselves to nothing that is curious, they cultivate neither science nor art, their occupation consists solely in cutting wood, sowing rice, and digging the ground in order to find the entrails of tin which is the greatest wealth of the country”.
The most comprehensive descriptions by a Westerner were written by Thomas Bowrey, an early English merchant adventurer who traded around the Bay of Bengal between 1669 and 1688.
He wrote the first English Malay dictionary, and was the first Englishman in the east to describe the effects of marijuana after he and some shipmates drank Bangue, an Indian marijuana beer.
He describes spending one very stoned afternoon, “sweating profusely”, in a small, hot room, with some shipmates, four of whom “lay on carpets highly complimenting each other, each man fancying himself no less than an emperor”.
Another was “terrified with fear, wept bitterly all afternoon” and the last, “was quarrelsome, and fought with one of the wooden pillars of the porch until he had left himself little skin upon the knuckles”.
Bowrey frequently stayed in Phuket during his 19 years trading in the region. He described the island as “a very mountainous and woody country, not one tenth part of it is made use of more than by the wild elephants and tigers.…all the fruit this country affordeth is coconut, pantun, samcau and betele, save the wild calabashes that grow in the woods, an excellent food for the wild monkeys…some of them of a very large stature with great teeth”.
The island was covered with thick jungle and many huge trees and giant bamboos, which Bowrey felt “are more serviceable than all the wood in the country besides”.
The coast of Phuket and the region were primarily inhabited by Malays, a “resolute…roughish, sullen, ill natured people”.
He wrote that the inhabitants of Phuket generally spoke Malay “from their intercourse with that people” and felt the Thais, or “natural Syamers”, were friendlier than the Malays, “for the most part a very civil good humoured people” who stayed inland and made up the main villages of Baan Don and Baan Lipon.
These two villages traditionally provided the local élite Siamese families who were often the island’s rulers, or at least formed the ruling council to any outside governor appointed by Ligor (the European name for Nakhon Sri Thammarat) or the King.
Provisions on the island were “not very plenty”, not many “Cattle or fowle”, although the governor did provide Bowrey with “henns ducks cocnuts plantains etc” and seafood abounded. The rice was excellent but “scarcely enough to subsist with the whole year”. Foodstuffs including rice, salt, butter and oil from “Gingalee” (Bengal), were brought up from Keddah.
“The whole island affordeth nothinge save some elephants and tinne, that are fit for transportation and tinne they have in abundance and were they industrious they might have tenne times as much”.
Bowrey mentions three ports on the island with “very excellent roads” (harbours), but the entrance to their rivers were very shallow, not afordinge more than seven foot”. He mentions one harbour as “Lippone”. Baan Lipon at the time was the main town of Phuket and seems always to have been in the interior of Thalang so he probably meant Tharua, as the port used to access both Baan Lipon and Baan Don in Thalang. The other was “Buckett” most likely Phuket city’s harbour today, and the last port he called “Banquala”, which he describes as being on the southwest coast and a safe almost landlocked harbour. This can only be Patong, and Banquala is probably where the road Soi Bangla gets its name. Originally Soi Bangla would have been the path that led from Patong (palm forest) village, which sat inland on the Klong near Wat Patong today, down to Banquala or ‘Bangla’ Bay.
There was also a port called Bangklhi on the mainland just north of the Pakpra channel near Kokloi today. This was the port that serviced the mines of Takuatung and the western Phang Nga region.
The islands all round Phuket were the haunt of the ‘Salang’ sea gypsy pirates referred to by the 17th and 18th century Europeans as “Salateers”.
Bowrey noted they were a nomadic people, “great seamen” and “formidable” raiders. “The sailateers are absolute Pirates and are often cruiseinge about Jansalone and the Pulo Sambelon Isles near this shore. They are subject to no manner of government and have many cunninge places to hide themselves and their men of warre prows in upon the maine of the Malay shore”.
The salateers plagued Phuket. In the 1720’s, a Scottish merchant captain, Alexander Hamilton, wrote that “between Mergui and Junkceylon … the sea coast is very thin of inhabitants because there are a great numbers of … saleteers who inhabit the islands along the sea coast. They both rob and take people for slaves and transport them to Aceh and there make sale of them and Junkcelon often feels the weight of their depredations”.
These Salateers, however, mainly avoided European trading ships armed with cannon and grapeshot. A Persian traveller in the 1680s wrote, “They have many ships, small boats and dinghies which they … stationed in certain places for the sake of robbery and capturing helpless travellers.
“As soon as they catch sight of a ship they pursue it and open fire once they are within range. They will struggle to capture a ship as long as their life’s soul remains within them.
“They will attack any vessel except one which belongs to the Franks (Farangs) as these pirates have already burned themselves several times in the crackling fire of the Franks”.
Adapted with permission from A History of Phuket and the Surrounding Region by Colin Mackay.Available from bookshops or Amazon.com. See also historyofphuket.com