Osoet Pegua, a Dutch concubine in Ayutthaya

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It is a striking fact that many strong women have left their mark on the history of Siam.

Just think of Somdet Phra Sri Suriyotha who sacrificed her life to save that of her husband, King Maha Chakkraphat, during a duel with elephants during a Burmese invasion in December 1548. Or how about Than Phuying Chan and her sister Khun Muk who, as a kind of Siamese Joan of Arcs, resisted the Burmese near Phuket in 1785. And then, of course, there was Thao Suranari, whose mythical resistance in 1826 against the Laotian troops of Chao Anou saved Khorat from foreign occupation. Although recent historical research has shown that this last story should perhaps be taken with a large grain of salt and that it was created mainly to allow the Lao-Thai ethnic group to identify with that vague but today apparently so important sense of Thaiss… And then I'm not even talking about numerous Siamese noble women, princesses, queens or royal concubines who have played a historical role over the centuries.

Mhong woman

One of these strong women had solid ties with Holland and more specifically with the Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie or the VOC. Osoet Pegua or Tsjau Soet as she is sometimes called was not a Siamese by birth but a Mong who was probably born somewhere between 1610 and 1615 in what is now Myanmar. Despite not being Siamese, she had in Ayutthaya gained name and fame as a handy businesswoman who had managed to acquire a considerable share in the local, at the time largely through Expect controlled retail trade in the Siamese capital. Many details about her turbulent life are not known, but from the surviving documents she emerges as a very self-confident woman who made good use of her charms and a good portion of guts to take a key position in the world at a very young age. social life in Ayutthaya and this, despite her ethnic origin, to the highest circles.

Around 1630 she started a relationship with the well-to-do Dutchman Jan Van Meerwijck, who had recently established himself as a free merchant in Ayutthaya. She had a son from this relationship. When Jeremias Van Vliet arrived in the Siamese capital in April 1633 as an aide to VOC representative Joost Schouten, it was not long before he too ended up in Osoets arms. They certainly had their ambition and intelligence in common. Her relationship with Van Vliet ensured that he gained access to the Siamese trade networks, which were much needed for the VOC, without many problems. As a result, this Schiedammer not only managed to boost his income considerably, but he also quickly acquired influence and it was not long before he was promoted and replaced Joost Schouten as director of the VOC Factory in Ayutthaya. On the other hand, Osoet was able to acquire a quasi monopoly in the brokering trade with the VOC. Thanks to her new companion, she even succeeded in acquiring the exclusive right to supply the Dutch. Not only for supplying food for the VOC Factory in Ayutthaya, but also for the VOC ships that called at the city or stocked up on supplies at the VOC outpost near Phuket. A contract that did her no harm whatsoever.

Fictional portrait of Van Vliet

Furthermore, as we know from the General Missives of Governors General and Councilors to the Heren XVII of the VOC can make out, get a big finger in the pie with regard to trade with Japan and Formosa by supplying precious woods, buffalo horns and ivory, among other things. This made her a fortune because in 1636 Japan was the isolationist sakoku, a ban on foreign trade, which excluded everyone, with the exception of the Chinese and Dutch, as trading partners. Siam was still able to import silver and copper from Japan through Osoet and its VOC connections. She owed much of her commercial success to her friendship with the wife of Okya Sombathiban, who for many years was a phrakhlang, was responsible for the management of the royal warehouses and the Krom Tha Khwa, the Department of Western Maritime Affairs. He was the key figure in Siamese foreign trade and one of the king's most influential advisors. Okya Sombathiban in turn used Osoot as go between  between the phrakhlang and the VOC. At least as important to Osoet's social career were the very friendly ties she had with Princess Sirithida, a consort of King Prasat Thong, who was the mother of the later King Narai the Great. A relationship that came in very handy when the relationship between the Siamese king and the VOC had once again fallen apart for the umpteenth time…

Three daughters were born from her relationship with Jeremias Van Vliet. When Van Vliet left the VOC Factory in Ayutthaya in April 1642 to become chief merchant in Malacca, he broke off the marriage contract with Osoet Pegua. There was a reason for this break, because a few months later in Batavia he married Catharina Sweers, a sister of the influential VOC councilor Salomon Sweers. An incensed Osoet, who may have felt cheated, resisted tooth and nail the following years against the series of petitions by Van Vliet to send his daughters - whom he apparently missed very much - to Batavia to receive a Christian education. However, Van Vliet always got the short end of the stick because due to her influence at the Siamese court, all these requests were rejected. This confrontational divorce once again showed how wealthy Osut was. In an attempt to get the governor-general of the VOC in Batavia on her side in the dispute over Van Vliets' daughters, she sent him as a gift a shipload of precious fabrics and no less than six elephants, a small fortune in those days …

Rijcklof Van Goens

Incidentally, Osoet did not mourn the loss of Van Vliet for long, because shortly afterwards she lived in 'open concubinage' with Jan van Muijden who was the VOC representative in the Siamese capital from 1646 to 1650. Rijcklof Van Goens, who in 1650 had inspected the accounts of the VOC in Ayutthaya as commissioner of the VOC, wrote in January 1651 in a confidential report to the governor-general in Batavia that Osoet was not a beautiful woman, but that her attraction for van Muijden must rather have been in the prospect of easy access to the court and in her excellent knowledge of the local business world. However, he wisely concealed in his letter that he had offered to Van Vliet a few months earlier to kidnap his daughters from Ayutthaya….

Only after the death of Osoet in 1658 was Maria, one of Vliets' daughters, able to leave Siam. She sailed to Batavia where she married a VOC merchant, a certain De Vos. However, it is not certain whether she was ever reunited with her father, who had become mayor of Schiedam in the meantime.

As stated, Osoet died in 1658. Her influence on the VOC was illustrated for the last time, because in gratitude for her services she was buried in a chedi in the VOC cemetery next to the garden of the Factorij. A rather exceptional favor for a native.

Normally, due to her ethnic background in the Siam of those days, this Mon woman would never have been able to claim the status she eventually acquired. Osoet Pegua, with the help of her Dutch partners, through her local contacts and a good dose of ambition coupled with her nose for lucrative business, not only managed to accumulate wealth, but also profiled itself – which was not self-evident in those times – as a strong, her autonomy standing woman. It already earned her a mention The Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History us.