Phaya Chaban Boonma,[2] a native Lanna nobleman in Chiang Mai, joined with Kawila of Lampang to cooperate with the invading Siamese to overthrow Burmese rule, initiating the Fuen Man (ฟื้นม่าน, 'to liberate from Burma') movement.

Chiang Mai ruler presided over Lanna lords and, in turn, owed tributary obligations to Chakri kings of Bangkok in alignment with the mandala system.

Inthanon visited Bangkok in 1873[7] to be confirmed as the new Chao Luang King Inthawichayanon of Chiang Mai but also inherited 466,000-rupee compensation debt to British loggers from his predecessor that was obliged to be paid in seven years.

Siamese intervention in Lanna was to preserve the kingdom's sovereignty but also put strain on relations between Bangkok and Chiang Mai, who viewed their traditional powers and privileges as being compromised.

In 1875, King Chulalongkorn appointed Phra Narinthra Ratchaseni to be the first Kha Luang or Central Siamese royal commissioner[13] to oversee Chiang Mai government and to act as judge.

[8] Noi Suriya, son of Inthawichayanon, was appointed as Prince Inthawarorot Suriyawong the nominal ruler of Chiang Mai in 1901, serving as nothing but ceremonial figurehead as he held no actual powers.

Upon death of the previous ruler, the Uparat or heir would perform native Lanna coronation ceremony before taking journey to Bangkok to pay tributes, waiting to be endorsed.

[3] In 1870 however, the Siamese regent Chaophraya Si Suriyawong intervened in Chiang Mai's royal succession, lifting Chao Inthanon (also known as Inthawichayanon) to the throne rather than the old king's logical successor who was viewed as less friendly towards Bangkok.

Unlike other Lanna cities, Lampang (also called Lakhon) on Wang River was spared from abandonment and depopulation in late eighteenth century and stood as frontline citadel against Burmese attacks.

By this time, Siamese government had exerted much control over Lanna as Monthon Lao Chiang was established in 1894 and Prince Norananthachai of Lampang received an annual salary of 30,000 rupees from the Kha Luang Phraya Songsuradet.

Four highest-ranking ministers of the Khao Sanam Luang were; In the early nineteenth century, the Chiang Mai Kingdom was so autonomous that it was able to conduct its own diplomatic overtures with the British, who called Lanna as 'Western Laos'.

[31] Edward Blundell the Commissioner of British Tenasserim dispatched David Richardson in 1834 from Moulmein to explore Tai-Shan States on the highlands to navigate Chinese trade routes to Yunnan, which apparently had to pass through Lanna.

This claim included modern Northern Thailand, Tai Lue towns of Mong Yawng, Vieng Phouka and Luang Namtha to the east, Kengtung to the north and Salween Shan States of Monghsat, Mongpu and Mongpan to the northwest.

King Chulalongkorn officially gave royal orders to Phraya Kraikosa the Kha Luang of Chiang Mai in 1892 to cede 'Thirteen Shan and Karenni Towns' of the Trans-Salween area to British Burma.

Those reforms aimed at integration of Lanna into Siam and solving economic issues including; After an optimistic year in Chiang Mai, Prince Phichit Prichakorn returned to Bangkok in 1885.

Princess Ubonwanna, younger sister of Queen Thipkraisorn, even posed herself as a shaman[7] and spoke, by the words of the spirit of her late father King Kawilorot, that Chinese tax collector system should be discontinued.

Kawila and his relatives who were the princes of the Chetton dynasty took on the policy of 'Gathering vegetables and putting them into baskets, gathering people and putting them into towns'[12] – a metaphor of waging military campaigns against other smaller Tai states to capture those Tai population to resettle in Ping, Kuang and Wang river valleys[4] of Southern Lanna in order to serve as manpower force in defense against Burma, to work as government labor forces and to sustain economy.

[4] On many occasions, the princely ruler of that state was deported along with his subjects as a whole to resettle in Lanna, where a whole community was set up to imitate the town that he came from, reflecting in modern place names.

[17] Like other Continental Southeast Asian polities, economy of Lanna before arrival of Western entrepreneurs mainly involved self-subsistence rice agriculture and forest products gathering[8] with limited trade contacts with outside world.

Situating between Burma to the west, Yunnan to the north and Siam to the south, Chiang Mai had been an important trade entrepôt and served as the place for commodity exchanges between regions.

[7] Richardson observed that Chinese horse merchant caravans from Yunnan sold gold, silver and ironwares, carpet and dyes and, in return, purchased native products including cotton, ivory and animal skin.

Starting around 1835 or 1840,[9] Lanna rulers and princes began to lease teak forest lands to Burmese and British individual timber loggers, in which the contracts were written on palm leaves.

In 1860, King Kawilorot Suriyawong of Chiang Mai asserted to Robert Schomburgk the British consul that Bowring Treaty did not apply to Lanna and his teak business was not subjected to free trade agreement.

[8][24] Forestry Department was to regulate forest renting contract terms and profit sharing between companies and the government[8] and to possibly contain concession to large British firms.

[39] Herbert Slade suggested that, in order to gain full control over timber business, Bangkok government should take over forest ownership from Lanna lords.

Unlike in Central Siam, Lanna government did not exert direct control over monastic institutions in bureaucratic hierarchy and did not attempt to purify doctrinal practices.

Idea of Protestant Christian proselytizing of Lanna-Lao people originated from Dan Beach Bradley,[42] an American Presbyterian missionary and a notable figure living in Bangkok.

[20] Kawilorot Suriyawong the ruler of Chiang Mai greeted American missionaries with warmth as he liked them distributing modern medicine to his people and also granted them a land on eastern bank of Ping river to establish themselves in 1869.

Kawilorot was against the preaching and, influenced by his Portuguese advisor Fonseca, asked Noah A. McDonald the acting American consul at Bangkok to remove the missionaries from Chiang Mai because their proselytism had upset natural spirits and caused crop failures.

In 1878, Nan Inta was to marry his daughter to another native-convert man in the first Christian marriage in Lanna but faced opposition from Uparaj Bunthawong his overlord, who demanded a compensation fee to fund the exorcising of supposedly angry ancestral spirits.