ABSTRACT
The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries marked a period of reorganisation for Tai polities. Ethnologists have emphasised the dichotomy between lowland and upland ethnic groups in Tai polities, while historians have focused on the dominant lowland Tai ethnic group. Tai political organisation is renowned for its hierarchical structure with a major division between royalty/aristocrats and commoners. In the new political environment of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, both the Burmese and Chinese courts strove to intensify their authority over Tai polities. Sino-Tibetan-speaking ethnic groups occupied the uplands, and though Tai rulers could not govern them as tightly as the lowlands due to the nature of the terrain, all inhabitants owed fealty to the Sipsong Panna hereditary princes. Sources recorded the role of Tai leaders as spokesmen for upland subjects on many occasions. The sudden crackdown by the Qing on how native officials governed their own domains caught Tai rulers off guard.
