Dambro

Dambro (Pak Tai or Southern Thai) is the Southwestern Tai speech of the people of the Thai half of the Malay Peninsula, from Chumphon to the sultanate borderlands. Their country had been the Indianized Buddhist land of Tambralinga, Tai settlers making Nakhon Si Thammarat (Ligor) their chief mueang before the mid-thirteenth century.

Ram Khamhaeng's inscription lists Ligor as Sukhothai's southernmost tributary in the late thirteenth century; after Sukhothai weakened it became the peninsula's dominant Thai state. In 1337 the lands were a frontier between Thai and Malays, Buddhism and Islam; Majapahit recognized Ligor as belonging to Siam in 1365, Ayutthaya making it one of its eight great cities in 1468.

Rich from Portuguese and Dutch trade, Ligor kept its dynasty and vassals and revolted in 1629 and 1688. After Ayutthaya's 1767 fall it was independent until Taksin subdued it in 1769; Rama I made its ruler an appointed governor.