Introduction
Woman’s work for man is found recorded on nearly every page of human history, but the inauguration and prosecution of well-organized work by woman in enlightened lands for woman, not only in our own land but in the benighted lands of heathendom, has been reserved for the nineteenth century. Among its grand achievements must be ranked the noble efforts of woman to educate, elevate and liberate her ignorant, degraded and enslaved sisters…In heathen lands, in the midst of the grossest ignorance, degradation and misery, she is found laboring to dispel the darkness, and to let in the light of western civilizationFootnote 1
The quotation above reflects the goals of many women missionaries for overseas travels, as well as their perspective on Asian women. Though the main purpose for missions was undoubtedly to convert locals to Christianity, women missionaries believed that they had other equally noble causes: They believed that the average Asian woman was uneducated, oppressed, and lived miserably in poor conditions. It was thus their role to uplift these women with proper education, Christianity, and “the light of western civilization.”
Many American missionary women came to nineteenth-century Siam with these exact objectives. Through American eyes, Siam’s Buddhist tradition, practices of debt bondage, and local marriage customs represented a society in need of reform. Although the number of actual Siamese converts was negligible, missions remained active in the kingdom, and female missionaries were steadfast in their goal of saving Siamese women.
This article focuses on the perspectives of American missionary women to Siam from 1871 to 1910 to better understand how they perceived Siamese societies and local women, as well as their roles in provoking change in Siam. It will utilize the writings of American Presbyterian women in the magazine Woman’s Work for Woman. Through a colonial mindset and the framework of white women’s burden, missionary women created a generalized portrait of Siamese women as oppressed and ignorant, thus necessitating their involvement in Siamese society as saviors. Siamese elites were presented in these magazines as cooperating with American cultural hegemony, accepting the narrative that Siamese women were backwards and could only be saved with Western emancipation.
The rest of the article is organized in three main sections: the second section presents the theoretical frameworks of the paper, namely the relationship between colonialism, feminism, and their relevance to American Presbyterian missionaries in Siam. It also examines the primary sources utilized in the article. Section three discusses how Siamese society and women were portrayed in American women’s writings, while section four explores how missionaries presented themselves as saviors of Siamese women and girls.
Colonialism, feminism, and American missionaries in Siam
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (Reference Spivak, Nelson and Grossberg1988) was one of the first to question the lack of discussion of women in the history of colonialism and post-colonialism, even though women were both involved in and affected by the process of colonization. This section addresses this critique by discussing the relationship between colonialism and feminism, their relevance to American Presbyterian missionary women in Siam, and how Woman’s Work for Woman magazine illuminates how these dynamics shaped both the missionaries’ worldview and their perceptions of Siamese women.
Colonialism and feminism
Colonialism affected Western women differently from men. While European and American women lacked power domestically, their racial privilege positioned them as ambiguous participants in the colonial project (McClintock Reference McClintock1995, 6), in which they were simultaneously subject to patriarchal power and complicit in the domination of colonized peoples through their feminist activities. Indeed, the first of Western feminisms came about at the height of colonialism, during which women did not only campaign for their rights as citizens of their countries but also of their empires (Burton Reference Burton, Chaudhuri and Strobel1992). At the same time, their worldviews and their activism were shaped by colonialism and ideals of Western superiority. Although these feminist ideas were often driven by a willingness to help women in societies perceived to be patriarchal and oppressive, such good intentions operated within colonial power structures that placed Western values and practices above native ones. These structures shaped how many European and American women considered, interpreted, and acted toward indigenous women (Abu-Lughod Reference Abu-Lughod1998; Amos and Parmar Reference Amos and Parmar1984).
European and American feminists often portrayed women from Asia, Africa, and the Americas as backwards, oppressed, and even barbaric (Mohanty Reference Mohanty1984). This depiction of indigenous women thus necessitated their participation in the empire. It became their “white women’s burden” to “civilize, educate, and emancipate” by bringing civilization to colonized societies and helping oppressed women (Burton Reference Burton, Chaudhuri and Strobel1992). For instance, English women saw India as an opportunity for them to prove themselves as citizens of the empire by civilizing and “saving” Indian women (Grewal Reference Grewal1996). Such activism has been defined as imperial feminism, which claimed to “emancipate” non-white women while asserting the superiority of English culture and civilization (Amos and Parmar Reference Amos and Parmar1984).
At the same time, indigenous women’s wellbeing, or lack thereof, was utilized as justification for Western domination. For instance, foot binding in China, sati rituals in India, and polygamy in various parts of Southeast Asia signaled to the west that these societies were “barbaric” (Liu et al. Reference Liu, Karl and Ko2013). Colonialism was thus necessary to “raise” the standards of living for women through social reforms, and so indigenous women became both the targets and an arena for European and American societies to demonstrate racial and cultural superiority (Chatterjee Reference Chatterjee1989). As Ann Laura Stoler (Reference Stoler2010) argues, colonial power was not limited to formal rule but was also embedded in the intimate and domestic life of both Europeans and natives. White women played an important role in this arena through producing and disseminating colonial discourse. Because of their different worldviews and positions, the knowledge they produced differed from that of men (Foster and Mills Reference Foster and Mills2002; Lewis Reference Lewis1996; Mills Reference Mills1993). The representation of indigenous women in white women’s writing thus played a significant role within European and American understanding of Asian societies and justification for colonial domination.
American Presbyterian missionaries in Siam
This framework can be applied to American Presbyterian women’s representation of Siamese women in Woman’s Work for Woman. Though some may argue that Siam was never formally colonized, it was still profoundly affected and changed by colonialism. Post-colonial scholars have contended that though Siam was nominally independent, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries it shared many experiences with colonized countries and was in a “colonial situation” (Herzfeld Reference Herzfeld2002; Hong Reference Hong2008; Jackson Reference Jackson, Jackson and Harrison2010; Loos Reference Loos2006; Winichakul Reference Winichakul2000, Reference Winichakul2019). Additionally, many studies have maintained that gender issues were a primary arena of social reform projects in semi-colonial Siam (Barme Reference Barme, Jackson and Cook1999; Reynolds Reference Reynolds1979) and that Western ideals affected Siamese women in terms of law, norms, and cultural values (Bowie Reference Bowie2010; Koizumi Reference Koizumi and Andaya2000; Loos Reference Loos2006; Sukhlabhkich Reference Sukhlabhkich2018, Reference Sukhlabhkich2022).
While the role of the United States of America in Siam’s semi-colonial status is less apparent than that of the European powers, American Presbyterian missionaries had a strong presence in Siam. Though there were various missions and travelers to Siam in this period, American Presbyterians were the most numerous group of missionaries, were in Siam for the longest period of time, and had the most continuity (Nunsunanon Reference Nunsunanon2004). William and Seignoria Buell, the first representatives of the American Presbyterian Mission (APM), arrived in Siam in 1840 (McFarland Reference McFarland1928, 9). The APM remained active in Siam until 1957 (Thai Church History, n.d.; The Church of Christ in Thailand, n.d.). Indeed, there is ample scholarship on missionaries as “orientalizing agents” in Siam (Aphornsuvan Reference Aphornsuvan2004, Reference Aphornsuvan2009, Reference Aphornsuvan2020; Puaksom Reference Puaksom1998; Wannarat Reference Wannarat1986) and their crucial role in establishing some of Siam’s state services, such as public health and public education (Lee Reference Lee1995; Nunsunanon Reference Nunsunanon2004; Pongudom Reference Pongudom1990; Swanson and Pongudom Reference Swanson and Pongudom1990).
These missionaries played an important role in questioning and criticizing Siamese society. Thongchai Winichakul (Reference Winichakul2000) has argued that Siamese elites struggled to be perceived as “civilized” by Westerners’ standards and adapted to gain acceptance. For instance, King Rama IV alluded to white (farang) women who have criticized Siamese polygamy as “belligerent women” (ying jai phan-phan) (King Mongkut 1985, 36–39). While the issue of polygamy was not resolved until the 1930s (Loos Reference Loos2006; Sukhlabhkich Reference Sukhlabhkich2018), nineteenth-century Siamese “modernization” and changes to laws regarding women were partly in response to criticisms from these Westerners (Anamwathana Reference Anamwathana2025; Koizumi Reference Koizumi and Andaya2000; Wannarat Reference Wannarat1986). A well-known commentator and, at times, critic of the Siamese regime was Anna Leonowens (1831–1915), a British governess to King Rama V from 1862 to 1867. She wrote two books based on her experiences, her memoir The English Governess at the Siamese Court (1870) and the fictional Romance of the Harem (1873), both of which criticized the status of Siamese women. While the extent of her influence on the king and the veracity of the latter book have been topics of scholarly debate, Leonowens’ writing was popular among contemporary European and American travelers to Siam. Presbyterian missionaries praised her for instructing the king to appreciate “the moral and philanthropic elements in missionary work.”Footnote 2
Furthermore, religious missionaries shared many viewpoints with colonialists and paved the way for colonial expansion. Many missionaries saw local religions and, by extension, indigenous populations as barbaric. Missionary social reforms thus were not limited to conversion. They also aimed to change the roots and foundation of indigenous societies so that their peoples could accept Christianity (Jayawardena Reference Jayawardena2014, 22; Pongudom Reference Pongudom1990). Social reform agendas of religious missions helped legitimize colonialism by downplaying violence, exploitation, and racial oppression (Said Reference Said1993, 131).
In the United States, religious movements in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries transformed women’s roles in public society (Coleman Reference Coleman and Labbe2010; Krutz Reference Krutz2015), allowing them space to campaign for social and political reform, such as abolition, prohibition, and female suffrage (Rendall Reference Rendall1985, 35–36). Overseas missionary work can be seen as an extension of this domain for American women. They could travel the world under a mission of charity, social reform, and spreading the gospel (Jayawardena Reference Jayawardena2014, 24–25). Indeed, during the early nineteenth century, the number of American women missionaries increased significantly. Women-only religious organizations were established to raise funds for female-led missions and charity (Penfield Reference Penfield1977).
In Siam, missionaries first concentrated their efforts on the Chinese community in Bangkok, then expanded to include Siamese and other ethnic groups as the mission expanded to the south and north.Footnote 3 In fact, ethnic Chinese individuals in Bangkok were some of the earliest converts in the kingdom to Protestant Christianity and among the first to receive Christian education in Siam and scholarships to study abroad. Regardless of ethnicity, women missionaries focused on women, and providing education for young girls was an almost exclusively female task. Religious conversion and social reform were seen as mutually reinforcing. Literacy would not only allow Asian women to read the Bible but also help them become more educated, better wives, and better mothers. At the same time, an indigenous society “improved” by missionary reforms would be more accepting of Christianity and its ideals (Jayawardena Reference Jayawardena2014, 14).
A prominent example of how missionaries served as points of contact between the progressive movement at home and the push to improve women’s status abroad was Sarah Blachly Bradley, wife of the influential Dr Dan Beach Bradley. She liaised with ambassadors of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) during their visits in the late nineteenth century. The interdenominational WCTU originated in the United States to promote women’s suffrage, abolition, and prohibition. While in Siam, members of the WCTU gave speeches, secured an audience with King Chulalongkorn, visited Presbyterian girls’ schools, and even established a Bangkok chapter, though no Siamese women were admitted as the chapter’s founding members (Bowie Reference Bowie2010, 714–20). Siam’s position as a semi-colony through American missionaries can thus be summed up by this quote from an 1880 issue of Woman’s Work for Woman: “Siam has not been opened by British gunpowder, but by missionary effort.”Footnote 4 Despite these important roles, women missionaries were often only credited for expanding girls’ education in Siam (Patimaprakorn Reference Patimaprakorn2006) and largely left out of studies on the interaction between colonialism and gender in Siamese history.
Woman’s Work for Woman magazine
This article thus aims to fill in this gap by utilizing the Woman’s Work for Woman Footnote 5 magazine to understand missionary women’s role as colonial agents in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The magazine was published by the American Presbyterian Church, and its contents included letters, reports, essays, maps, and pictures, which were mostly written and contributed by women missionaries. Mission fields discussed in the early years of the magazine were Africa, China, India, Persia, and Syria. Later, they expanded to include Japan, Korea, Mexico, the Philippines, Siam, and South America. Content on Siam appeared in a regular column in the form of letters and mission progress reports, with the May issue of every year featuring Siam as the main focus. These sections on Siam were mostly anecdotes interspersed with the authors’ opinions and judgements, which form main primary sources for this article.
Its targeted readers were literate Americans, especially women. The main goals of the magazine were to describe travels of missionaries, report on progress of conversion and social reforms, and encourage donations and future volunteers for overseas missions. While some of the exaggerated or oversimplified tales in the magazine can be explained by its fund-raising goals, disseminating the narrative of saving indigenous women was equally, if not more, important to the contributors of the magazine. As discussed above, missionary women were eager not only to save their “oriental sisters,” but also to prove themselves as worthwhile citizens of their country and empire through charity and social reform. Woman’s Work for Woman was an important and suitable platform for these objectives. Granted, American women missionaries were not homogenous, with some possibly more accepting of Siamese culture than others. An example is Miss Mary L. Cort, who lived in Siam for more than thirty years, expressed her admiration of the Siamese kings, wore local clothing (panung), and learned the local language.Footnote 6 Yet, due to the nature of the magazine, missionary portrayals of Siam and Siamese women’s everyday lives through an American gaze produced knowledge for an American audience that perpetuated and reinforced colonial discourses and stereotypes (Pratt Reference Pratt1992; Spivak Reference Spivak, Nelson and Grossberg1988).
The existence and contents of the magazine not only demonstrated that American Presbyterian women missionaries played a crucial role in their own religious organization but also that their work was generally accepted as important even among male missionaries (Lord Reference Lord1969; Nunsunanon Reference Nunsunanon2004; Pongudom Reference Pongudom1990; Swanson and Pongudom Reference Swanson and Pongudom1990; Lee Reference Lee1995). It is the aim of this article to situate the contents of the magazine and the perspectives of these missionary women within the context of colonialism and the import of American feminist ideas into Siam. The article will do so by examining how Siamese women and American missionaries were represented, with the latter as saviors of the former.
Representation of Siamese women
Though American missionaries conceded that Siamese women were better off compared to women in neighboring countries, Siamese women were still depicted as oppressed by their social system, religion, and even husbands. These representations demonstrate that many missionaries viewed Siamese women through an American-centric lens, holding them to American standards, which were believed to be culturally and morally superior.
Siamese women’s relative freedom
It is true that many missionary women observed that Siamese women held far better positions than their Chinese and Indian counterparts. For instance, Mary L. Cort observed in 1889 that “the position of woman in Siam is one of much greater freedom than is found in most Oriental lands.”Footnote 7 Another account concurred:
As to the condition of woman in Siam, she has more liberty than in most other Asiatic countries, not being shut up in zenanas, except in the case of the women of the royal harem, but left free to go abroad at pleasure, visiting the bazaars, temples and all public places, engaging in business for herself, or assisting her husband in his.Footnote 8
This was a common consensus among travelers to Southeast Asia, where commoner women had more social and economic liberty compared to East and South Asia. British visitors to Burma also remarked on Burmese women’s high social status, freedom, and rights (Ikeya Reference Ikeya2011, 47). Furthermore, the depiction of Siamese women in these magazines was often different from that of other Asian women, who were described as weak and lazy. Instead, Siamese women were presented as hardworking and held much responsibility for both domestic and agricultural work:
Woman, in Siam, has more freedom than in most Eastern countries, not being secluded, as are her sisters in China and India. They are permitted a large share of work in the fields, as well as most of the buying and selling in the markets, while the men, not unfrequently, remain at home, do the cooking, and look after the children.Footnote 9
Another missionary commented that Siamese women were “very shrewd traders and some of them amass large fortunes by good speculations in rice, sugar and cloth.”Footnote 10 Even when constructing a new building for their mission, Americans had to hire female brick makers: “We have undertaken the erection of a new building for a children’s home and boarding-school. The earth has been purchased and the women hired to make the brick, as in nearly all heathen lands the women do most of the hard work.”Footnote 11
These portrayals were consistent with other historical sources and scholarly interpretations that nineteenth-century Siamese women had many rights and freedoms that many of their European and American contemporaries did not: they legally owned property, inherited land and wealth from their parents, and participated in the economy both as producers and consumers (Bunnag Reference Bunnag2020; Chankrajang and Vechbanyongratana Reference Chankrajang and Vechbanyongratana2021). Bowie (Reference Bowie2010) also argued that Siamese women could vote in village elections from as early as 1897. This strong economic and social standing was bolstered by the matrilocal and matrilineal traditions of many Siamese communities, which allowed women to maintain land inheritance and close relations with their natal families (Bowie Reference Bowie2008; Purinsinsit Reference Purisinsit1999).
From the last observation by Mary L. Cort, however, it is apparent that despite these positive notes, women in Siam were still represented as backwards in their “heathen lands.” Some missionaries saw this relative economic freedom as a drawback, as it made Christianity less likely to be accepted:
It is much more difficult to reach them with the gospel. Its light and comfort have not the charm it offers to down-trodden woman in other heathen lands, since here no cruel domestic tyranny drives her to Jesus as a refuge and friend.Footnote 12
In addition, women working outside the home contradicted Victorian morality and strict gender roles, which prescribed strict separate spheres for men and women. Men belonged in the “public sphere” of politics and paid work, while women should remain in the “private sphere” of domestic life and housekeeping (Chumwattana Reference Chumwattana1988; Davidoff and Hall Reference Davidoff and Hall1987). Siamese society, however, did not maintain such rigid gender divisions of labor. Consequently, American observers often found Siamese women lacking in their housekeeping: “In these ways, the labors of housekeeping are greatly lightened in Siam…There is no annual season of house-cleaning, for no Siamese woman ever thinks of scrubbing her house, or even sweeping it thoroughly.”Footnote 13 While having less time for housework may be a logical consequence of working outside the home, missionaries implied that Siamese homes were unkept, dirty, and consequences of Siamese women failing to fulfill their domestic duties in the private sphere. These critiques reveal a fundamental contradiction in American feminism. While advocating for women’s participation in the public sphere in their own country, missionary women simultaneously insisted that Siamese women conform to their conception of the ideal wife and devote more of their time to domestic work, thereby imposing strict gender roles and confining Siamese women in areas where they previously had freedom.
Siamese women and the social system
In Woman’s Work for Woman, missionaries portrayed Siamese women as triply subjugated by their social system, religion, and husbands. The traditional social system of Siam was depicted as generally repressive towards all common people, especially women and slaves. For instance, Miss Mary E. Hartwell, a missionary to Petchburi province, wrote, “If anyone would learn how to prize freedom, let that one come to Siam a little while.”Footnote 14 Similarly, another woman missionary who traveled to Bangkok described how she felt seeing slaves around Bangkok: “One’s heart is often chilled in walking by the sight of gangs of slaves in chains. In many cases the chains have worn into the flesh until they have caused terrible sores.”Footnote 15
These descriptions served two purposes. First, they depicted Siam as a barbaric society. In colonial discourses, a people’s freedom was often the measure for their societies’ civilization, and the lack of freedom in Siam thus demonstrated backwardness. According to missionaries, Siamese people were enslaved by their system of governance and by the king, who was their “chow chewit [sic],” literally “the lord of life.”Footnote 16 Additionally, debt slaves were created because of exorbitant interest rates or as unfair punishment for wives or children who were sold as slaves to pay off men’s gambling debts.Footnote 17 While records of people in chains did exist, missionaries were likely conflating Siamese debt peonage in Siam with the chattel slavery they knew from home. Unlike enslaved African Americans, Siamese debt peons were not reduced to property, completely removed from their communities, nor constantly chained.Footnote 18 The individuals missionaries described as being in chains were more plausibly prisoners. In missionary writing, Siamese people, including women, were generalized and depicted as having accepted being unfree, in contrast to “free” American citizens. A second related purpose of these descriptions was to set Siamese women apart from American women, who were educated, well-mannered, and free. These descriptions played a role in manufacturing the superiority of missionary women, setting the stage for their much-needed involvement in saving Siamese women (discussed in the following section).
Siamese women and Buddhism
A common viewpoint among missionaries was that indigenous religions oppressed women. The most prominent example is the sati rituals of Hinduism in India (Hall Reference Hall and Levine2007). Though less violent, Buddhism was presented as similarly repressive in Woman’s Work for Woman. For instance, missionary to Bangkok, Annie E. Sturge stated in her report that Siamese women were:
kept in ignorance, with the idea that womanhood in itself is a disgrace, — the fact that they are women being due to their want of merit, a punishment for sins committed in some previous existence. Their only hope is, that, by feeding the priests and building temples, they make sufficient merit for themselves to be born men when next they come into this world, and thus have an opportunity to enter the priesthood, and be saved.Footnote 19
While it is true that women cannot be ordained as monks in nineteenth-century Siam and modern-day Thailand, scholars have observed that Theravada Buddhism highly valued the laity and piety of female followers. Women’s roles as mothers, though perhaps at odds with modern feminist ideals, were highly valued in Buddhist traditions. Enduring childbirth and raising sons who could enter monkhood, as well as supporting monks through donations of food and other necessities to temples, were extremely meritorious and could earn lay women good karma. Additionally, Siamese women also found comfort in Buddhist rituals as protection against sickness and misfortune, as well as inspiration in powerful female figures from Southeast Asian Buddhist history such as Queen Camdevi (Andaya Reference Andaya2000; Keyes Reference Keyes1984, 76–81). The missionaries’ depiction of Buddhism as uniformly oppressive to women was thus an incomplete picture.
Siamese women and their husbands
Missionary accounts depicted Siamese women as oppressed by their husbands, pointing to their economic labor, the practice of polygamy, and legal customs that appeared to give husbands excessive power over family members.
As observed above, missionary women did not depict Siamese women’s work ethic and business acumen in a positive light. Rather, the fact that women had to struggle and work hard meant that Siamese men oppressed their wives to the point of slavery. For instance, a missionary woman wrote, “The young wife enters upon her new duties. She is slave not only to her husband, but often to the whole family.”Footnote 20
Missionaries were not wrong to recognize the disproportionate burdens placed on women to care for their families; however, they tended to overlook the considerable social and economic autonomy that Siamese women enjoyed through waged work. Rather than seeking to alleviate Siamese women’s economic burden through empowerment, missionaries sought to impose a doctrine of separate spheres on Siamese families. Siamese wives who worked were not portrayed as independent but were victims of their husbands’ failure. As Victorian masculinity required men to be sole breadwinners and heads of household, the economic activities of Siamese women outside the home meant that their husbands were emasculated and poor providers. Western observers thus frequently portrayed Siamese men as lazy, cruel, and inadequate.
Polygamy was another important point of contention and often cited as evidence for Siamese women’s subjugation. While Siamese elites utilized polygamy as a means of strengthening political and economic relationships, missionaries opposed the practice on both religious and cultural grounds (Sukhlabkich Reference Sukhlabhkich2018). American missionary women called polygamy a “terrible system.”Footnote 21 They argued that it “fill[ed] the houses with immorality, bitter jealousies, and strife”Footnote 22 and “one of the greatest hindrances to true home life.”Footnote 23 This reflected how missionaries viewed Siamese customs through their own cultural lens, believing that a “true home life” was only formed within a monogamous marriage with a male breadwinner.
Additionally, under Siam’s traditional Three Seals Law, wives and children were under the issara Footnote 24 power of their husbands or fathers. Missionaries documented accounts of Siamese wives subject to physical abuse and punishment at the hands of their husbands. An unnamed Presbyterian wrote that when she intervened during corporal punishment of a woman, “the man looked up and said: ‘Why, Mem [Ma’am], it is the custom here! We must always give our wives two or three good whippings before they know their place.”Footnote 25
Traditional Siamese laws also permitted heads of household to sell wives and children into slavery.Footnote 26 At the same time, wives cannot sell their husbands into slavery,Footnote 27 which made many missionary women see wives as no different from indentured servants or debt-bonded slaves. These sentiments were exemplified by Mary L. Cort’s description of Siamese wives:
The Siamese woman is usually married in her early girlhood to someone she does not love, and, later, an easily obtained divorce releases her. It is a rare sight to see an old man and woman with their children about them, who have lived together from their youth. As a rule, every first wife is solemnly assured by her husband that he will never take another wife as longs as she lives; but the promise is broken, and discord and strife and separation are the result. A man can sell his wife and children if he chooses, but she cannot sell him, no matter how worthless and distasteful he may prove. If he is guilty of crime, or runs off from government service, or debts, his wife may be arrested and punished in his stead.Footnote 28
The fact that husbands could sell wives into slavery was frequently brought up to highlight the plight of Siamese women. Another missionary wrote on the subject with similar disapproval:
It was then possible for the husband to sell into slavery not only his children but his wife, in order that he might have money with which to gamble… woman was the slave of man in every respect. She had no rights that she could call her own. If she displeased her lord, it was his prerogative to beat her into servile submission. The crying of abused women was often heard in the land.Footnote 29
These portrayals of oppressed women were exaggerated in several ways. First, the criticisms of the legality of men selling dependents into slavery were valid during the early years of the mission; however, this message continued even after King Rama IV prohibited the sale of women and children into slavery without consent in 1867.Footnote 30 Indeed, in 1886, the magazine printed, “Still, a woman in Siam is considered greatly inferior to a man. She is really a piece of property, and nearly always bought as a wife, with borrowed money, which debt she must afterward help pay.”Footnote 31 Second, Siamese women were never reduced to “property.” As discussed above, they enjoyed economic independence, social freedom, and even limited suffrage that were remarkably unusual by the standards of the time (Bowie Reference Bowie2010; Loos Reference Loos, Edwards and Roces2004). Additionally, scholars have noted that commoner women gained the legal right to choose their own husbands from 1865 onwards and maintained close ties with their natal families, who could balance out husbands’ issara power, intervene, and even seek damages in cases of abuse or mistreatment (Bunnag Reference Bunnag2020; Koizumi Reference Koizumi and Andaya2000). This is not to suggest that women were not disadvantaged in nineteenth-century Siam, but to characterize them as slaves or property was an exaggeration and oversimplification of Siamese customs and legal protections of women.
While it was plausible that women and children were more likely to be slaves than men due to women being legally unable to sell husbands into slavery, there were both male and female slaves (Ninsri Reference Ninsri2002). Yet, missionary women tended to only focus only on the latter (Hall Reference Hall and Levine2007, 107; Wilson Reference Wilson and Levine2007). For example, a missionary woman called Ms. Nelson wrote of a slave girl:
Oh, this abominable system of slavery! I have seen a poor slave girl before my eyes every day since I have been in Petchaburi, and every time I see her I groan and wish I could set her free; but her debt is large. She works from early morning till late at night, year in and year out, for what? To pay the interest on her debt! She will never, never get out of debt, for she has no chance to earn a cent. She gets her board, and, I suppose, her mistress cast-off clothes. Her case is a hopeless one, and despair is written on her face. Her life knows not one ray of joy or happiness. Oh, pity her, Christians at home, and pity the thousands like her!Footnote 32
This is not to dismiss the real hardships that debt bondage imposed on many Siamese women, but rather to explain why missionary women were inclined to overemphasize the presence of female slaves in their writing. Indeed, these criticisms became more prominent from the 1860s onwards, during which slavery and abolitionism were at the forefront of the American progressive agenda (Aphornsuvan Reference Aphornsuvan2020) and championed by many women’s organizations such as the WCTU. These missionaries drew parallels between Siamese women and slaves in the American colonies. This underscores that their activities in Siam can be seen as a continuation of their social reform agendas at home and that many American missionary women viewed Siamese women through a similar lens, in which American women typically saw black enslaved women, who were often objects of charity and not seen or treated as equals (Ferguson Reference Ferguson1992).
White women as saviors
Women missionaries’ goals for their overseas travels were evident from the title of the magazine, Woman’s Work for Woman. In their eyes, white women had moral duties to free their “oriental sisters.” This sentiment has been labeled by some scholars as a “white woman’s burden” (Burton Reference Burton, Chaudhuri and Strobel1992; Jayawardena Reference Jayawardena2014; Syed and Ali Reference Syed and Ali2011), an extension of the white man’s burden, which placed responsibility upon white people to bring civilization and progress to others through conquest and colonial rule (Kipling Reference Kipling1919). Siamese women were thus portrayed as oppressed, and Siamese elites as accepting and cooperative, so that missionary women could assert and legitimize their role as saviors.
Saving Siamese women
Missionary women portrayed themselves as saving Siamese women and girls from slavery, expanding education access, and pushing for cultural change. They presented the rescued girls as transformed and enlightened and as proof that missionary intervention was powerful and necessary.
An important aspect of saving missionaries’ oriental sisters was literally redeeming them from slavery. Many missionary women wrote about freeing enslaved girls who were sold by their parents and lamented the torture that young women suffered at the hands of members of their families. For instance, Jennie C. Kooser wrote of saving a girl whose father was going to sell her to a theater. She also wrote of Amie, a German-Siamese girl whose German father passed when she was young:
…but the mother, being a woman of bad character, soon squandered all the money in gambling, and they were penniless…Amie was placed in the school for three years, or if she desired, to remain until she was settled in life; her three years would have expired in October, 1878. But her mother has been trying for the last year to get her out, to sell or dispose of her in some way to get money to gamble; we of course would not let her go. Her mother had repeatedly boasted that as soon as her time was up in the agreement, she would sell her to a foreigner as his mistress.Footnote 33
Another missionary, Jennie M. Small, shared a similar story in her article:
Tap is one of our older girls. Nearly four years ago I redeemed her from slavery for $24, and she has been with us ever since, studying and improving all the time. I hope she will make a teacher. Her mother is a gambler and an unprincipled, bad woman. She will do anything for money and I am not sure she will allow the girl to stay. Indeed, I heard only a few days ago that she was trying to get her away so that she could sell her again. Tap is a sweet girl, so gentle and lady-like and tries so hard to do right, that it is hard to believe she is the child of such a mother.Footnote 34
In this depiction, many Siamese families were cruel to their children, especially daughters. Western women who “saved” these young girls contrasted themselves with “wicked” mothers. Missionaries thus saw it as a moral duty to travel to Asia and save indigenous children from such evil customs and lands.
Another main push to improve the lives of indigenous women was to expand access to education. As stated above, American missionaries played important roles in various public services in Siam, including education. The majority of missionary women in Siam and other parts of Asia gained access to higher education at home, and some had worked as teachers or educators before arriving in Siam.Footnote 35 These women believed that education was the key to emancipating indigenous women (Jayawardena Reference Jayawardena2014, 262) and that the goal of literacy was not only to be able to read the Bible but also to accumulate knowledge and become proper, well-mannered wives.
Again, some of the girls’ families were depicted as obstacles. For instance, a missionary called Susie D. Grimstead complained that Siamese mothers did not want their daughters to be educated at missionary schools: “That is one great trouble, the mothers cannot bear to have their girls come to us, for fear they will learn to think more of us and our customs than of theirs.”Footnote 36 In fact, many Siamese commoners at the time were skeptical of formal schooling in general, including state-sponsored education, preferring instead that their children acquire practical skills in farming, trade, and other livelihoods (Tupprasert Reference Tupprasert1985, 2, 64–65). Missionaries, however, argued that Siamese parents’ lack of enthusiasm for education was comparable to how Chinese mothers continued to bind the feet of their daughters,Footnote 37 or how Indian families refused to send their daughters to schools for fear that they would not be able to find husbands.Footnote 38 Indeed, Grace E. Wilder stated that such women wrapped “the coils of her bondage around her with a self-complacency, which makes it impossible to release her.”Footnote 39 It was thus necessary for missionary women to release those that could be saved from these “coils of bondage.”
Some of the meaningful changes were brought about by abolishing “outdated” local customs. For instance, an article stated that three main examples of Asian practices that were harmful to women were foot binding in China, veiling in Persia, and chewing betel nut in Siam. Foot binding caused limb deformity; veiling caused overheating and suffocation; and betel nut chewing caused tooth decay.Footnote 40 Another local practice that was heavily criticized by missionary women was Siamese women’s dress – or lack thereof. Due to the hot climate and necessity of mobility for their work, many Siamese women often wore minimal clothing and were seen as immodest. Indeed, missionary women praised the 1875 passing of legislation that required individuals to wear “proper clothing” in public or face a heavy fine of 10 baht for not “maintaining the interior and exterior of the metropolitan.”Footnote 41
Missionary women observed that the girls who accepted education and Christianity were distinct from other Siamese women. For instance, Miss Hartwell spoke of Pan, a Christian girl, who went to visit family members in Petchburi: “Her relatives instantly dropped their buckets and wy-ed [paid respect to] her, mistaking her for a person of rank although she is only a poor little slave girl.”Footnote 42 This suggested that the education Pan received seemingly elevated her above other Siamese.
Similarly, Miss Bissell, who was a newly arrived teacher, wrote:
The pupils are dear girls. I have not had to learn to love them, it came with my coming. There certainly is a beautiful spirit throughout. It is like one great family, and these girls must be a power in Siam as they go out with education, enlightenment and Christianity, and make Christian homes of their own. The contrast is great between them and the girls I saw in Petchaburee who had never been to school.Footnote 43
Such depictions confirmed the missionaries’ beliefs that the heathen population could be saved by American civilization and that their work had immense value in transforming and elevating these young girls’ lives. Printing these experiences in the magazine served to strengthen missionaries’ white women’s burden and responsibilities to their “Asian sisters.”
These sentiments were also reflected in how advances to Siamese women’s status were portrayed as an emulation of the West. For instance, missionaries praised the establishment of the first Women’s Club in Siam by stating that “the first aim of the club is to unite its members in loyal fellowship, an idea very modern to women in Siam.”Footnote 44 As it was their objective to bring civilization to Siamese women, missionaries were indirectly congratulating themselves for helping Siamese women with this achievement. The word choice of “modern” contrasted with their depiction of traditional Siamese culture as backwards and in need of fundamental change. The magazine went so far as to conclude, “American missionaries were the forerunners in the uplift of woman in Siam.”Footnote 45
Progress and the role of Siamese elites
This “progress” in the eyes of missionaries was only possible with the cooperation of the Siamese population, about which was written extensively in Woman’s Work for Woman. This is consistent with Thongchai’s argument that Siamese elites accepted the cultural superiority of the West and adapted and hybridized Western customs to their needs (Reference Winichakul2000). It is true that in doing so, the Siamese ruling class often portrayed rural peasants as backwards and needing “civilization.” However, elites were more preoccupied with being perceived as civilized than transforming common women’s positions or forcing cultural change upon peasants, for better or for worse. Consequently, though many missionaries explicitly praised the Siamese ruling class for its apparent acceptance and enthusiasm to receive Western culture and be “modernized,” much of what was adopted was outward etiquette and presentation. For instance, Sarah Adorna Bradley, missionary and daughter of the influential Dr. Bradley, wrote that “the Siamese are really improving in many respects, especially in education, and in dress and manner of living. The better class have comfortable, well-furnished homes, and pleasant gardens.”Footnote 46 She even commended them for hosting parties and social gatherings in the European style, complete with billiards, croquet, other “fashionable games,” and wine that sometimes flowed “too freely.”Footnote 47
In a similar vein, the first women’s club in Siam had an elite woman, Princess Choedchome, as the first president.Footnote 48 Missionaries also wrote of elite men‘s and women’s roles in starting the first Siamese women’s magazine:
Another item of interest, A LADIES’ JOURNAL IN SIAMESE [capitalization in original] has just been published. The editor, a noble man of the second rank, invited the members of the Woman’s Club to assist him, but, although individuals will give some help, they decided it was not wise to take up the work of the magazine as a club. The King’s Daughters have taken a twelve-page department in Daybreak,Footnote 49 the mission newspaper in Siamese…Footnote 50
Another prominent example of Siamese elites gaining praise for adopting Western customs was in 1897 when King Chulalongkorn traveled to Europe and established his queen consort, Saovabha Phongsri, as his regent. Missionaries claimed that “she won the admiration of the people. Before this, we had often heard Siamese men make sneering remarks about England being ‘ruled by a woman.’ Now, we hear them speak of ‘noble Queen Victoria and her prosperous reign’.”Footnote 51
Despite American women’s own observations that Siamese women had relatively high levels of freedom, Siamese elites were portrayed as having internalized the missionary narrative, according to which Siamese women were oppressed and required emancipation. For instance, in a graduation speech at the Harriet M. House School,Footnote 52 the Minister of Education stated:
There is an old proverb that women are like buffaloes and men only are human. The reason for this proverb was that women have been allured to remain in ignorance and entirely under the control of men…If I should omit here to speak of the kindness and goodness of the American people in promoting the cause of education in our country, I would be as one without gratitude. The Americans are and always have been our best and warmest friendsFootnote 53
This speech was reprinted in Woman’s Work for Woman to demonstrate to its American readership that the Siamese elites were grateful to American missionaries for giving them knowledge and uplifting Siamese girls from “buffaloes” to “human beings.” The content and omissions of this passage demonstrate Siamese elites’ stance on this issue. Notably, the speech did not include religious acknowledgements, as Siamese elites wanted to engage only with American knowledge and etiquette, not Christianity (Jiamrattanyoo Reference Jiamrattanyoo2017; Sukhlabhkich Reference Sukhlabhkich2022).
Similarly, after King Vajiravudh’s ascension to the throne in 1910, Prince Devawongse, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, wrote a letter to American missionaries in Siam to acknowledge their contribution and assistance in improving education for Siamese children. Writers of Woman’s Work for Woman were especially proud of this recognition, stating,
It is especially gratifying…the American Presbyterian Missionaries in Siam have not been idle spectators, but have been active participants with a devotion worthy of every praise. Having now succeeded to his present high estate… His Majesty will ever regard the American Missionaries in our midst as fellow worker in a great cause: the moral elevation and progress of a nation. His majesty sincerely thanks you all… and fervently prays that increasing success and prosperity may ever be vouchsafed to your good and benevolent Missions.Footnote 54
It is not the purpose of this article to dismiss the contributions of American missionaries in Siam, but it aims only to point out that Siamese elites were depicted as having accepted American values and supported women missionary work in Siam. Such passages of recognition from the king and high-ranking bureaucrats were utilized in the magazine to further encourage missionaries to spread their gospels and to give financial support to these missions, under the guise that their mission received endorsement from enlightened local political elites and was valuable in helping “Oriental sisters.” This is reflected in how women missionaries proudly wrote of their accomplishments and capabilities:
Who dare say that the women of America cannot help, cannot do! I have heard from those who ought to know better, that the “Ladies’ Missionary Societies” were not really doing any good; they were only diverting into a new channel what formerly found its way into the Board’s treasury through the hands of the men. Many of us know better and if on account of the ladies’ liberality some men withhold their gifts, let the blame rest where it belongsFootnote 55
Conclusion
In conclusion, this article has shed light on the significant yet often overlooked role of American missionary women in Siam during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In their writing, they viewed Siamese society through an American-centric lens. Their colonial mindset and the notion of the “white women’s burden” drove their perception of Siamese women as oppressed and ignorant and allowed them to position themselves as saviors. This perspective shaped how they promoted cultural and social reforms in Siam and facilitated cooperation of the Siamese elite, who accepted and propagated narratives of American superiority.
These findings contribute to the broader historiography by highlighting the interaction of colonialism and feminism and how missionary women played a crucial role in the cultural imperialism of the era. Their missionary work, educational initiatives, and social reform efforts were inseparable from imperialism, even when framed in the language of women’s emancipation. This study also underscores the need to include and center women’s perspectives in studies of colonial history, as their contributions and influence were significant in shaping the social fabric of colonized societies.
Finally, a more nuanced understanding of feminism in Asia is necessary. A core tenet of feminism is equality for all women. In reality, however, early European and American feminisms were born and expanded alongside colonialism and rested on differentiating white women from “other” women. The case of American missionary women in Siam reveals how feminist rhetoric could serve imperial purposes, with the “liberation” of Asian women functioning as both rationale and mechanism for cultural domination. A more inclusive and anti-colonial understanding of feminism should acknowledge this troubling legacy and recognize the diverse experiences of women across different cultural and historical contexts.
Competing interests
None.
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