The Chakri dynasty, established in 1782 in Bangkok after the Burmese invaded of Ayuthia, maintained Siamese independence. The king who founded the dynasty was later called Rama I. He extended Siamese power to Malaya, Cambodia, and to Luang Prabang and Vientiane in Laos. The wars with Burma ended, for the western neighbor was weak and occupied with domestic problems. His successors Rama II and Rama III, who ruled 1782-1851, consolidated his territorial gains and concluded Thailand’s first modern treaties. In 1822, from India the East India Company sent John Crawfurd to open negotiations for trade, but the Siamese granted no concessions. A second effort made by Captain Burney in 1826 was successful; for the Siamese, noticing that the British had just completed successful wars in nearby Malaya and Burma, offered limited concessions in this first treaty with the British. In 1833, the United States mission under Edmund Roberts concluded with Siam the first American treaty with an Asian state. More favorable than the British one, the Roberts treaty among other provisions, opened all Siamese ports to American ships, limited port duties to 15 per cent, and provided for the most-favored-nation treatment, or equality of diplomatic concessions. Siam was ushered into the modern world under the next two kings, Rama IV or Mongkut, who ruled 1851-68, and Rama V or Chulalongkorn, who ruled 1868-1910. Before ascending the throne, Mongkut had been a Buddhist monk for twenty-seven years at Nong Khae. Displaying astronomy from foreign teachers, as well as English from three American missionaries. Mr. Kincaid was one of them.

         As king, with a combination of eastern and western learning, he had “puzzlements” with his ruling classes and with his own philosophies. He invited, mainly from countries which he had little to fear politically, foreign advisers and teachers. At one time there were eighty-four of them in Bangkok. Perhaps the most famous of these was the tutor for his children, an English-woman, Mrs. Anna Leonowens, who later wrote a book on her experiences. Mong-Kut introduced many reforms in the military and civil service, administration, and legislation system. He inaugurated a mint and new types of coinage, furthered with teaching of western languages, constructed highways and canals, and updated the treaties with the west. In 1855, a revised treaty with the British was signed by Sir John Bowring, and the next year, Townsend Harris, on his way to Japan as the first American consul general there, stopped off in Bangkok to conclude a similar treaty. In 1867, in a Siamese-French treaty, the king recognized a French protectorate in place of his own in Cambodia. The next year Mongkut died from malaria contracted on a visit to an unhealthy spot to view an eclipse of the sun. 

His son Chula-Longkorn had learned his lessons well. He continued his father’s internal reforms on a broad scale. In 1893, Chulalongkorn surrendered some territory east of the Mekong River in Laos to the French. Siam entered the twentieth century on a modern world basis. Its rulers proved that they could adopt western ways without losing historic cultural traits. Preserving independence, Siam enjoyed a head start on its colonial neighbors in adjusting to the modern world. In 1939 Siamese government laid down the proclamation that consisted of 12 facts. The main point among those 12 facts was to rename the Siam as Thailand.