| The Northern States of Thailand, formerly the Lan Na kingdom, had witnessed significant changes in the late nineteenth century, particularly the intrusion of external forces, including British economic expansion and the Bangkok centralization policy. These traditional structures were extensively undermined as the result of external forces. The Chiang Mai treaties of 1874 and 1883, negotiated in response to British demands, also became pretexts for administrative reforms that accelerated Bangkok's firm control over these formerly autonomous tributary states. The chao, the ruling class of the Northern States, were deprived of their exclusive prerogatives and were replaced by Bangkok officials. Peasants were released from their traditional bonds in the patronage system but were simultaneously forced to meet new demands. Numerous taxes in the form of cash payments became a heavy burden on the peasants who did not actually enter the money economy. Through the policy of centralization, the Bangkok government squeezed more from the peasants than they gave. No programs of rural development were introduced into the Northern States in the early twentieth century. The peasants were not well-prepared to enter the new socioeconomic order. There was much resentment, but the people were unable to resist the changes. After the suppression of the Phaya Prap revolt in 1889 and the Shan rebellion in 1902, there was no major popular resistance. People gradually adapted themselves new order.;In the economic sphere, the traditional caravan trade gave way to the Chinese traders, who migrated from Bangkok to settle down in the Northern States and successfully made their fortune there. The Northern States became a large market for foreign manufactured goods, predominantly textiles. People, particularly the urban inhabitants, were quick to adopt the new lifestyle and modernize themselves through new habits of consuming foreign goods. Rural dwellers were slow to perceive new things, but the new socio-economic order did affect their lives. Peasants continued to be agriculturalists and were excluded from trade. The bullock caravans of the peasant traders became fewer as the Chinese assumed the role of middlemen, bringing manufactured goods into the remote villages and taking agricultural produce to the town markets. Unlike those of the urban inhabitants, peasants' lives changed quite slowly. |
