1. Presented by the Embassy of Portugal , from 8th to 11th December 2011,
on the occasion of the celebration of 500 Years of Diplomatic Relations
between Portugal and Thailand.
Conception, Santa Cruz, Rosario
The three 'Portuket' villages
in Bangkok
(Samsen, Kudi Chin, Kalawar)
2. Churches, landmarks of
Portuguese settlements in Siam
Throughout 500 years, many Portuguese have chosen Siam to
settle down. They started to arrive in the beginning of the
16th century. Some were traders, others were skilled at
soldiering and religious men came along to help these
Christian people.
Initially located in Ayutthaya a number of churches were built
by Portuguese Missionaries in Siam.
Siamese kings gave the Portuguese Padroado the right to
profess Catholic religion since the middle of the 16th century.
3. In Bangkok three congregations gave birth to three distinctive
communities of Thai Catholics of Portuguese descent.
The purpose of this exhibition is to tell their history and to
illustrate similarities and differences between them.
Bangkok
Santa Cruz Church
Rosario Church
Conception Church
4. Church of Immaculate Conception
Community of Samsen
The present church was rebuilt in 1847
5. The Portuguese were granted a settlement by King Narai the
Great (1657 - 1688) of Ayutthaya along the Chao Phraya River
at the Samsen area. There, in 1674, they built the Church of
the Immaculate Conception, served by a Dominican friar,
Father Laneau. At the start of the first Chakri reign, after a
Siamese military expedition against Cambodia (1781–2), a
group of 400 to 500 Christian Khmers arrived in Bangkok,
apparently accompanying the several thousands of war
prisoners brought back from the Thai campaign.
Wat Noi (the chapel)
Immaculate Conception Church
6. Our Lady of Mercês
Assigned to join the Christians at ‘Baan Portuket Samsen’
with the holy image they brought with them from Cambodia,
a delicately carved Our Lady that continues to grace the
Immaculate Conception Church.
Saint Anthony of
Lisbon also graces the
Church of Conception
7. The Cemetery of Conception
The existence of Portuguese people in Samsen community is
still evident today in the tombs like the one from 1824 carrying
the inscription “Senhora Feda Costa Mordoma de Confraria de
Conceição desfaleceu na idade 75 anos”.
9. Pasten and other food
Massaman (a meet stew
with potatoes similar to
the alcatra of Azores)
Pasten (pastel)
The Portuguese presence is testified also by the food and by
some Portuguese words that people in this community still
remember like tia, tio, mãe and pai.
In Samsen, during Christmas
people bake a cake similar to the
Portuguese Pão de ló that they call
Kanom farang.
10. Church of Santa Cruz
Community of Kudi Chin
The present building, after a near total renovation in Italianate
architectural style, dates from 1916.
11. The first church, finished in
1770, was made of wood. When
the whole settlement burned
down in 1833, a new church was
built, already in masonry.
During the Burmese invasion of 1767 many Portuguese
sacrificed their lives beside the Siamese army.
After this war, a great number of them accompanied
General Taksin, the future King, to found the new capital
of the Siamese Kingdom, in Thomburi.
The new King rewarded the Portuguese who had fought
for Ayutthaya with a plot of land for them to establish a
settlement and a church in a place near his palace.
The royal grant is dated 14th September, Day of The
Exaltation of the ‘Holy Cross’ (“Santa Cruz”) in the
Catholic liturgy.
12. Saint Anthony of Lisbon also graces
the Church of Santa Cruz
Although also known as
Saint Anthony of Padua,
Santo António, was born
Fernando Martins de
Bulhóes in Lisbon, in 1195.
He remains one of the
most celebrated Saints in
Portuguese churches.
13. Thais of Portuguese descent
from the Santa Cruz Community
Francis Chit or Chitrakan
(1830-1891) recruited by King
Rama IV as official court
photographer. In 1880, he
managed to set up a
photography shop in New
Road, becoming the first
studio photographer in
Bangkok.
Phayia Viset or Pascoal
Ribeiro de Albergaria,
General of Artillery
Angelina Sap, wife of Robert
Hunter and descent of Maria
Guiomar and Constantine
Falcon
Maria Guiomar de Pina
14. Kanom farang kudi chin
and other food
We find people still baking queques (a kind of sponge cake) calling it kanom
farang kudi chin.
Khrop khem similar to
coscorões, a traditional desert
for Christmas in Portugal.
16. A dissident group
of people from
Kudi Chin
established a new
settlement, and
some years later,
in 1786, King
Rama I granted
them the land to
build a church,
they called of the
Church of the
Calvary
(“Kalawar” in
Thai). Later it
became known as
Holy Rosary
(“Rosário” in
Portuguese).
Frei Francisco das Chagas, a Dominican from Goa, came to
the congregation of Kalawar in 1787.
Worth mentioning that around the same time the King also
proposed that the Portuguese establish a “factory” in
Bangkok, which would finally happen in 1820.
17. A legend tells us that the first settlers
brought from Ayutthaya a wooden
sculpture representing the laying body
of Lord Jesus. It is kept in the church
and is displayed during the procession
of Good Friday.
Saint Anthony of Lisbon
also graces Holly Rosary
Church
19. Names of the Portuguese survivors
from Auytthaya
20. 500 Years of ‘Portuket’ in Thailand
The Catholic Church arrived in Siam with Portuguese
culture, to support the many Portuguese who were
settling down in this country. Portuguese priests were
the only Christian farang priests for nearly one century,
till the arrival of the Missions Étrangères de Paris. The
relation of Portugal and Thailand is in a way unique due
to the existence of these communities of ’Luso-Asians’
dating from the 16th century, who married, lived and
died in Thailand.
The Portuguese presence
is still evident in many
ways: from culinary
(apart from the ones we
saw here, there are the
popular Foy Thong or
egg threads and egg yolk
sweets of Portuguese
origin) to vocabulary
(pang, missan, consun,
cradat, bot, calamé…).
Another distinctive sign of the Portuguese origin of
those neighborhoods is that many people retained the
surnames thai-ized like Ribeiro, Dias, de Paiva, Gomes,
Cruz, Rodrigues, Lopes, Horta, Fonseca, Sousa,
Pombeira.
