Page 22 - Hikayat-Patani-The-Story-Of-Patani 1

A SHORT HISTORY OF PATANI 13

THE FIRST QUEENS (1584—1624)
The fact that the first two queens of Patani, Raja Ijau and Raja Biru,
were known both locally and abroad by the Thai term phra-cao; and
the fact their successor, Raja Ungu, specifically is recounted as having
refused to bear that title — later to rebel against Ayudhya — strongly
suggests that they maintained the relationship with Ayudhya established
early in the kingdom’s history and reaffirmed by Sultan Manzur Syah
by 1572. The period up to the death of Raja Biru in 1623 was consider­
ably more complex than this single theme, however, for Patani’s relation­
ship with Ayudhya must have been founded upon a delicate balance of
commercial interests, the internal factionalism of Patani, and its relations
with its Malay neighbours.
Patani undoubtedly enjoyed its greatest prosperity during the reign of
its first two queens. In terms of international trade and political con­
ditions, this was a period when the Portuguese definitely had lost their
grip over the trade even of the Straits of Malacca, and during which
the alternate trading route based on Acheh, Bantam, and Patani was
most profitable (and indeed it is no accident that the first northern
European traders to enter the region at the turn of the seventeenth
century headed precisely for those three ports). It was, in addition, a
period (1589—1641) during which the Japanese briefly were open to
extensive overseas trade, stimulating the export of deerskins and sappan­
wood from the Malay Peninsula and Thailand in return for silver,
copper, and silks. When Peter Floris lived for some time in Patani in the
years 1612—13, he observed that Patani was trading with virtually the
whole of Southeast Asia, with ships arriving from and departing for
Ayudhya, Brunei, Jambi, the north coast ports of Java, Makasar, the
Moluccas, China, Japan, Cambodia, and Sumatra, as well as dealing
with the Dutch, the English and the Portuguese,51 the first Dutch ship
reaching Patani in 1601 and the English in 1612.52 It undoubtedly was
the prosperous trade of Patani which attracted there around 1580
the famous Teochiu Chinese pirate, Lin Tao-ch’ien (vulg. Lim Toh
Khiem) ,53 * with whom the casting of Patani’s great cannon is associated
in some local legends.5^
This trade certainly would have been too valuable to encourage the

51 Moreland, 1934, passim.
62 Terpstra, 1938, pp. 1—2; Anderson, 1890, p. 46.
B3Hsii, 1946, pp. Ill—21, made available to us through the courtesy of Professor
Wang Gungwu.
M PMP, pp. 1—3; Wyatt, 1967, pp. 22—24.