British victory
91-420: [REDACTED] Sri Lanka portal British Ceylon ( Sinhala : බ්රිතාන්ය ලංකාව , romanized: Britānya Laṃkāva ; Tamil : பிரித்தானிய இலங்கை , romanized: Biritthāṉiya Ilaṅkai ), officially British Settlements and Territories in the Island of Ceylon with its Dependencies from 1802 to 1833, then the Island of Ceylon and its Territories and Dependencies from 1833 to 1931 and finally
182-783: A supposed former abundance of lions on the island. According to the chronicle Mahāvaṃsa , written in Pali, Prince Vijaya of the Vanga Kingdom and his entourage merged in Sri Lanka with later settlers from the Pandya kingdom . In the following centuries, there was substantial immigration from Eastern India, including additional migration from the Vanga Kingdom (Bengal), as well as Kalinga and Magadha . This influx led to an admixture of features of Eastern Prakrits. The development of Sinhala
273-516: A Colonel Barbut, from Trincomalee. These included 51st Regiment of Foot , the 19th Regiment of Foot , the Malay (Muslim) 1st Ceylon Regiment, the all-Sinhalese 2nd Ceylon, and the mixed Sinhalese Malay 3rd Ceylon. In the Kandyan army, at least one contingent was under the command of a Malay Muslim prince called 'Sangunglo', an indicator of the multiethnic nature of the mountainous kingdom. After fierce fighting
364-653: A Dravidian origin for this word. ), dola for pig in Vedda and offering in Sinhala. Other common words are rera for wild duck, and gala for stones (in toponyms used throughout the island, although others have also suggested a Dravidian origin). There are also high frequency words denoting body parts in Sinhala, such as olluva for head, kakula for leg, bella for neck and kalava for thighs, that are derived from pre-Sinhalese languages of Sri Lanka. The oldest Sinhala grammar, Sidatsan̆garavā , written in
455-461: A ban on proselytising and mission schools. It took the ruling families of Kandy less than two years to realise that the authority of the British government was of a fundamentally different type to that of the (deposed) Nayakkar monarchy. Discontent with British activities soon boiled over into open rebellion, commencing in the duchy of Uva in 1817. Generally called the 'Uva Rebellion', it is also known as
546-580: A frontier town. This and the 1803 victory at the Battle of the Mahaveli, were to be Kandy's last, meaningful military successes. Though no treaty was signed officially ending the First Kandyan War, the appointment of General Thomas Maitland as governor of Ceylon in 1805 is generally accepted as the end of this first phase of open hostilities. Events in the ten years between the end of the First Kandyan War and
637-759: A guerilla war (much the same tactic as they had adopted against the Portuguese and the Dutch) and proved difficult to dislodge. Disease ravaged the garrison left behind in Senkadagala to secure the capital. Perhaps most worrying for them, a number of native sepoys defected to the Kandyans, including a soldier of Malay descent called 'William O'Deen' or 'Odeen', who years later became the first Sri Lankan exiled to Australia . The Kandyans counter-attacked in March and seized Senkadagala. Barbut
728-763: A new constitution was agreed on, based on the behind-the-curtain lobbying of the Soulbury Commission. At the elections of 1947, the UNP won a minority of the seats in Parliament but cobbled together a coalition with the Sinhala Maha Sabha of Solomon Bandaranaike and the Tamil Congress of G.G. Ponnambalam. The successful inclusions of the Tamil-communalist leader Ponnambalam, and his Sinhala counterpart Bandaranaike were
819-458: A partly elected assembly, and not until 1920 that elected members outnumbered official appointees. Universal suffrage was introduced in 1931, over the protests of the Sinhalese, Tamil and Burgher elite who objected to the common people being allowed to vote. Sivasundaram argues, reinforcing the analysis first made by famed local historian, G.C. Mendis in his book, Ceylon Under the British , that
910-722: A period of prior bilingualism: "The earliest type of contact in Sri Lanka, not considering the aboriginal Vedda languages, was that which occurred between South Dravidian and Sinhala. It seems plausible to assume prolonged contact between these two populations as well as a high degree of bilingualism. This explains why Sinhala looks deeply South Dravidian for an Indo-Aryan language. There is corroboration in genetic findings." In addition to many Tamil loanwords , several phonetic and grammatical features also present in neighbouring Dravidian languages set modern spoken Sinhala apart from its Northern Indo-Aryan relatives. These features are evidence of close interactions with Dravidian speakers. Some of
1001-532: A remarkable political balancing act by Senanayake. However, the vacuum in Tamil Nationalist politics created by Ponnamblam's transition to a moderate opened the field for the Tamil Arasu Kachchi, a Tamil sovereignist party (rendered into English as the "Federal" party) led by S. J. V. Chelvanaykam, the lawyer son of a Christian minister. The multiracial population of Ceylon was numerous enough to support
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#17328484728671092-538: A special relationship with Britain. Meanwhile, the Marxists, identifying the war as a sideshow between rival empires and desiring a proletarian revolution , chose a path of agitation disproportionate to their negligible combat strength and diametrically opposed to the "constitutionalist" approach of Senanayake and other Ethnic Sinhalese leaders. A small garrison on the Cocos Islands , crewed by Ceylonese, attempted to expel
1183-423: A staple of the British market, bringing great wealth to a small class of European tea planters. To work the estates, the planters imported large numbers of Tamil workers as indentured labourers from south India, who soon made up 10% of the island's population. These workers lived in harsh conditions and were accommodated in line rooms , not very different from cattle sheds. The British colonial government favoured
1274-525: A total population of 2.8 million, consisting of 1.8 million Sinhalese; 687,000 Ceylon and Indian Tamils; 185,000 Moors; as well as 4,800 Europeans; 17,900 Burghers and Eurasians; 8,900 Malays; 2,200 Veddhas; and 7,500 other. The Censuses of 1871, 1881, 1891 and 1901 had shown Ceylon Tamils and Indian Tamils of Sri Lanka grouped together. By 1911 Indian Tamils were shown as a separate category. The population statistics reveal that by 1911, Indian Tamils constituted 12.9%, whereas Sri Lankan Tamils formed 12.8% of
1365-433: A treaty with mountainous kingdom were rejected. The internal stability of Kandy was shaky, as king Sri Vikrama Rajasinha found himself being constantly undermined and intrigued against by powerful Sinhalese nobles. He also faced a potential usurper in the form of Muttusami, brother-in-law of the previous king Rajadhirajasingha, who had fled to British controlled lands in the early 19th century and had been agitating against
1456-694: A workable solution that would allow for inter-communal differences. This was replaced by the Soulbury Commission proposals that led to the Dominion of Ceylon of 1948–1972, after which the Free, Sovereign and the Independent Republic of Sri Lanka was established. The Ceylon Defence Force (CDF) was the military of British Ceylon. Established in 1881 as the Ceylon Volunteers, as the military reserve in
1547-473: Is a conspicuous example of the linguistic phenomenon known as diglossia . Sinhala ( Siṁhala ) is a Sanskrit term; the corresponding Middle Indo-Aryan ( Eḷu ) word is Sīhala . The name is a derivative of [[[:wikt:सिंह|siṁha]]] Error: {{Transliteration}}: transliteration text not Latin script ( help ) , the Sanskrit word for 'lion'. The name is sometimes glossed as 'abode of lions', and attributed to
1638-584: Is an Indo-Aryan language primarily spoken by the Sinhalese people of Sri Lanka , who make up the largest ethnic group on the island, numbering about 16 million. Sinhala is also spoken as the first language by other ethnic groups in Sri Lanka, totalling about 2 million speakers as of 2001. It is written using the Sinhala script , which is a Brahmic script closely related to the Grantha script of South India. Sinhala
1729-473: Is an important legal document because it specifies the conditions which the British promised for the Kandyan territory. It took the ruling families of Kandy less than two years to realise that the authority of the British government was a fundamentally different one to that of the (deposed) Nayakkar dynasty. Soon the Kandyans rebelled against the British and waged a guerrilla war. Discontent with British activities soon boiled over into open rebellion, commencing in
1820-479: Is divided into four epochs: The most important phonetic developments of Sinhala include: According to Wilhelm Geiger , an example of a possible Western feature in Sinhala is the retention of initial /v/ which developed into /b/ in the Eastern languages (e.g. Sanskrit viṁśati "twenty", Sinhala visi- , Hindi bīs ). This is disputed by Muhammad Shahidullah who says that Sinhala Prakrit branched off from
1911-412: Is one of the official and national languages of Sri Lanka, alongside Tamil . Along with Pali , it played a major role in the development of Theravada Buddhist literature. Early forms of the Sinhala language are attested as early as the 3rd century BCE. The language of these inscriptions, still retaining long vowels and aspirated consonants, is a Prakrit similar to Magadhi , a regional associate of
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#17328484728672002-603: Is the history of Sri Lanka between 1815 and 1948. It follows the fall of the Kandyan Kingdom into the hands of the British Empire. It ended over 2300 years of Sinhalese monarchy rule on the island. The British rule on the island lasted until 1948 when the country regained independence following the Sri Lankan independence movement . Periodization of Sri Lanka history: The first Europeans to visit Ceylon in modern times were
2093-583: The Dutch captain Joris van Spilbergen landed, the king of Kandy appealed to him for help. In 1669, the British sea captain Robert Knox landed by chance on Ceylon and was captured by the king of Kandy . He escaped 19 years later and wrote an account of his stay. This helped to bring the island to the attention of the British. The island attracted the attention of the newly formed Dutch Republic when they were invited by
2184-599: The Island of Ceylon and its Dependencies from 1931 to 1948, was the British Crown colony of present-day Sri Lanka between 1796 and 4 February 1948. Initially, the area it covered did not include the Kingdom of Kandy , which was a protectorate, but from 1817 to 1948 the British possessions included the whole island of Ceylon, now the nation of Sri Lanka . The British Ceylon period
2275-718: The Kandian Wars ) refers generally to the period of warfare between the British colonial forces and the Kingdom of Kandy , on the island of what is now Sri Lanka , between 1796 and 1818. More specifically it is used to describe the expeditionary campaigns of the British Army in the Kingdom of Kandy in 1803 and 1815. From 1638–58, the Dutch East India company had intervened in the Sinhalese–Portuguese War , capturing all
2366-700: The Middle Indian Prakrits that had been used during the time of the Buddha . The most closely related languages are the Vedda language (an endangered, indigenous creole still spoken by a minority of Sri Lankans, mixing Sinhala with an isolate of unknown origin and from which Old Sinhala borrowed various aspects into its main Indo-Aryan substrate), and the Maldivian language . It has two main varieties, written and spoken, and
2457-491: The Portuguese : Lourenço de Almeida arrived in 1505, finding the island divided into seven warring kingdoms and unable to fend off intruders. The Portuguese founded a fort at the port city of Colombo in 1517 and gradually extended their control over the coastal areas. In 1592 the Sinhalese moved their capital to the inland city of Kandy , a location more secure against attack from invaders. Intermittent warfare continued through
2548-650: The Portuguese possessions on the island of Ceylon (now called Sri Lanka). They established the colony of Dutch Ceylon , controlling the coasts and lowlands, whilst the Kingdom of Kandy maintained their independence in the mountainous eastern interior. In 1795 the Dutch Republic was overthrown with French assistance , forming the Batavian Republic as a puppet state . Britain, which was at war with France , feared that influence would result in French control or use of
2639-885: The Second Boer War and both World Wars . It is the predecessor to the Ceylon Army . Trincomalee Harbour was an important strategic base for the British Royal Navy until 1948, primarily to control the sea lanes of the Indian Ocean . 7°N 80°E / 7°N 80°E / 7; 80 Sinhala language Sinhala ( / ˈ s ɪ n h ə l ə , ˈ s ɪ ŋ ə l ə / SIN -hə-lə, SING -ə-lə ; Sinhala: සිංහල , siṁhala , [ˈsiŋɦələ] ), sometimes called Sinhalese ( / ˌ s ɪ n ( h ) ə ˈ l iː z , ˌ s ɪ ŋ ( ɡ ) ə ˈ l iː z / SIN -(h)ə- LEEZ , SING -(g)ə- LEEZ ),
2730-463: The Third Kandyan War . In many ways the third name is more appropriate, as the rebellion (which soon developed into a guerilla war of the kind the Kandyans had fought against European powers for some time) was centred on the Kandyan nobility and their unhappiness with developments under British rule since 1815. However it is the last uprising of this kind and Britain's response essentially abolished
2821-576: The UNESCO National Commission of Ceylon According to Wilhelm Geiger , Sinhala has features that set it apart from other Indo-Aryan languages. Some of the differences can be explained by the substrate influence of the parent stock of the Vedda language . Sinhala has many words that are only found in Sinhala, or shared between Sinhala and Vedda and not etymologically derivable from Middle or Old Indo-Aryan. Possible examples include kola for leaf in Sinhala and Vedda (although others suggest
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2912-492: The caste system , and claimed that the protection of Tamil rights requires the Tamils (45% of the population in 1931) having an equal number of seats in parliament to that of the Sinhalese (about 72% of the population). This "50-50" or "balanced representation" policy became the hallmark of Tamil politics of the time. Ponnambalam also accused the British of having established colonization in "traditional Tamil areas", and having favoured
3003-464: The 13th century CE, recognised a category of words that exclusively belonged to early Sinhala. The grammar lists naram̆ba (to see) and koḷom̆ba (fort or harbour) as belonging to an indigenous source. Koḷom̆ba is the source of the name of the commercial capital Colombo . The consistent left branching syntax and the loss of aspirated stops in Sinhala is attributed to a probable South Dravidian substratum effect. This has been explained by
3094-453: The 16th century. Many Lowland Ceylonese were forced to convert to Christianity while the coastal Moors were religiously persecuted and forced to retreat to the Central highlands while some of them desired to leave the country. The Buddhist majority disliked Portuguese occupation and its influences and welcomed any power who might rescue them and defeat the Portuguese. In 1602, therefore, when
3185-695: The British Crown colony of Ceylon, by 1910 it grew into the Ceylon Defence Force, a regular force responsible for the defence of Ceylon. The CDF was under the command of the General Officer Commanding, Ceylon , of the British Army in Ceylon if mobilised. However, mobilisation could be carried out only under orders from the Governor . The Ceylon Defence Force has seen action in a number of wars such as
3276-460: The British Empire in the war, with Lord Louis Mountbatten using Colombo as his headquarters for the Eastern Theater. Oliver Goonatilleka successfully exploited the markets for the country's rubber and other agricultural products to replenish the treasury. Nonetheless, Sinhalese continued to agitate for independence and Sinhalese sovereignty, using the opportunities offered by the war to establish
3367-523: The British force found Senkadagala deserted in February 1803. They swiftly established a garrison, crowned Muttusami as the new, puppet, king of Kandy, and set about subduing the remainder of the kingdom. Despite these early successes the army soon suffered a number of setbacks. The Chief Minister responsible for guiding the British into Kandy had greatly inflated the extent of the king's unpopularity, and resistance proved fierce. The Kandyans resorted to fighting
3458-415: The British used geographical knowledge to defeat the Kandyan holdouts in the mountainous and jungle areas in the centre of Ceylon. They used local informants and British surveyors to map the island, and then built a network of roads to open the central region. This made possible export production of plantation agriculture, as well as tighter military control. With its trading ports of Trincomalee and Colombo,
3549-511: The British would allow him to retain power. The Kandyan treaty which was signed in 1815 was called the Kandyan Convention and stated the terms under which the Kandyans would live as a British protectorate. The Buddhist religion was to be given protection by the Crown , and Christianity would not be imposed on the population, as had happened during Portuguese and Dutch rule. The Kandyan Convention
3640-617: The British. It has been claimed that the LSSP had some hand in the action, though this is far from clear. Three of the participants were the only British Subject Peoples to be shot for "mutiny" during World War II. Sri Lankans in Singapore and Malaysia formed the 'Lanka Regiment' of the Indian National Army . The constitutionalists, led by D. S. Senanayake, (the first prime minister) succeeded in winning independence. The Soulbury constitution
3731-564: The Buddhists by the Buddhist temporalities act. The Soulbury Commission rejected these submissions by Ponnambalam, and even noted their unacceptable communal character. Sinhalese writers pointed out the large immigration of Tamils to the southern urban centres, especially after the opening of the Jaffna-Colombo railway. Meanwhile, Senanayake, Baron Jayatilleke, Oliver Gunatilleke and others lobbied
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3822-700: The Eastern Prakrits prior to this change. He cites the edicts of Ashoka , no copy of which shows this sound change. An example of an Eastern feature is the ending -e for masculine nominative singular (instead of Western -o ) in Sinhalese Prakrit. There are several cases of vocabulary doublets , one example being the words mæssā ("fly") and mækkā ("flea"), which both correspond to Sanskrit makṣikā but stem from two regionally different Prakrit words macchiā (Western Prakrits) and makkhikā (as in Eastern Prakrits like Pali ). In 1815,
3913-590: The Elder, Pilimatalawa the Younger, Monerawila, Molligoda the Younger, Dullewe, Ratwatte, Millawa, Galgama and Galegoda. The signatures were witnessed by d'Oyly, who became British Resident and effective governor in the area, and his private secretary James Sutherland. The convention is interesting in many ways. It represents the theoretically voluntary transferral of authority in Kandy to the British, and indeed later events showed that
4004-513: The European colonists; the Portuguese and the Dutch offspring of the past 440 odd years of colonial history was large enough to run a stable government. Unlike the previous rulers, the British embarked on a plantation programme which initially brought coffee plantations to the island. These were later wiped out by coffee rust . Coffee plants were replaced by tea and rubber plantations. This made Ceylon one of
4095-525: The Kandyan invasion was suppressed. Frederick North , governor of Ceylon from 1798–1805, maintained pressure on the Kandyan frontier with numerous attacks, in 1804 dispatched a force under Captain Arthur Johnston towards Senkadagala. In a pattern that had become clear over the past two hundred or so years, the Kandyans once again defeated the British in the mountainous territory they called home. In 1805, emboldened by their successes, they captured Katuwana,
4186-652: The Kandyan nobility did hope that they were simply replacing one malleable master (the Nayakkar monarchy) with another (the British). Indeed, Ehelepola appears to have hoped that the new master would not be the British at all, but himself. The nobles and religious potentates of Kandy were also adamant in including clause 5 concerning the protection of Buddhism. Later in 1815 the heads of the Buddhist monasteries at Malwatte and Asgiriya both met Governor Brownrigg and extracted guarantee that Buddhism would not be compromised. This included
4277-595: The Second were such that the complexion of the second conflict was quite different from the first. Whereas in 1805 the British had been forced to contend with a largely hostile native nobility, in 1815 it was this same nobility who essentially invited the British into Kandy and supported their overthrow of Sri Vikrama Rajasingha. Governor Thomas Maitland, in British Ceylon, initiated extensive legal and social reforms to further entrench and strengthen British power. These included
4368-515: The Senanayake government to secure the independence of Sri Lanka. The shrewd cooperation with the British as well as diverting the needs of the war market to Ceylonese markets as a supply point, managed by Oliver Goonatilleke, also led to a very favourable fiscal situation for the newly independent government. During World War II, Sri Lanka was a front-line British base against the Japanese. Opposition to
4459-440: The Sinhalese King to fight the Portuguese. It was in 1639 that the Dutch attacked in earnest but ended with an agreement (which was disrespected by both parties), and not until 1656 that Colombo fell. By 1660 the Dutch controlled the whole island except the kingdom of Kandy. The Dutch (who were Protestants) persecuted the Catholics (the left-over Portuguese settlers) but left the Buddhists, Hindus and Muslims alone. However, they taxed
4550-439: The Soulbury Commission without confronting them officially. The unofficial submissions contained what was to later become the draft constitution of 1944. The close collaboration of the D. S. Senanayake government with the war-time British administration led to the support of Lord Louis Mountbatten . His dispatches and a telegram to the Colonial office supporting Independence for Ceylon have been cited by historians as having helped
4641-422: The Sri Lankan nobility which assisted in colonisation, and thought of as a great traitor in modern Sinhalese popular thought. Also such siding with European powers is seen of as the key weakness in the subcontinent which enabled colonisation itself. The deaths shocked the Kandyan aristocracy who now openly revolted against the king, who torched his palace and fled to a fortress at Hanguranketha . John d'Oyly, in
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#17328484728674732-471: The State Council, N.M. Perera and Philip Gunawardena , were aided in this struggle by Colvin R. de Silva , Leslie Goonewardene , Vivienne Goonewardene , Edmund Samarakkody and K. Natesa Iyer . They also demanded the replacement of English as the official language by Sinhala and Tamil. The Marxist groups were a tiny minority and yet their movement was viewed with grave suspicion by the British administration. The concerted (but ineffective) attempts to rouse
4823-401: The arrival of British forces in Kandy was the signing of the Kandyan Convention . Essentially a treaty of annexation, it was agreed to in March 1815 after negotiations between John d'Oyly and the nobles of Kandy. The central points of the agreement were: The signatories of the convention were Governor Brownrigg, Ehelepola and the lords (called 'Dissawes' in Sinhalese ) Molligoda, Pilimatalawe
4914-436: The arrival of a group of British traders who Sri Vikrama Rajasingha had ordered mutilated at Hanguranketha. The British forces met scant resistance and entered Kandy on the 10 February, 1815, accompanied by John d'Oyly; Brownrigg informed the Admiralty that 'Let by the invitation of the chiefs and welcomed by the acclamations of the people, the forces of His Britannic Majesty, have entered the Kandyan territory and penetrated to
5005-429: The beleaguered king ever since. The earliest British garrison numbered about 6,000 which was increased through the recruitment of local sepoys, and the forces of the Empire further enjoyed exclusive access to the sea. Kandy, in contrast, had the advantage of being situated in difficult, mountainous terrain, and could also draw on four hundred years of experience fighting European colonial powers. } The first Kandyan war
5096-513: The capital. Divine Providence has blessed their efforts with uniform success and complete victory. The ruler of the interior provinces has fallen into their hands and the government remains at the disposal of His Majesty's Representative'. Sometime later Sri Vikrama Rajasinghe 's hiding place was discovered; the deposed king was exiled with his harem, to Vellore Fort in India , where he died 17 years later. His son, and potential heir, died childless in 1842. The single most important event following
5187-410: The caste system and the rajakariya (lit. "kingwork", labour and or tithes owed to the Kandyan king). This added to the tension between them and the still independent Kingdom of Kandy. Mountainous central Sri Lanka remained independent, having resisted 250 years of European attempts to control Ceylon. Kandy was now under the rule of the Nayaka kings of Senkadagala . Early British attempts at securing
5278-399: The colony was one of the very few sources of cinnamon in the world. The spice was extremely valuable, and the British East India Company began to cultivate it in 1767, but Ceylon remained the main producer until the end of the 18th century The laying of the railway was carried out during the Governorship of Sir Henry Ward . Other major works of the British include road-building projects and
5369-424: The constitutionalists led to the arrival of the Donoughmore Commission reforms (1931) and the Soulbury Commission recommendations, which essentially upheld the 1944 draft constitution of the Board of ministers headed by D. S. Senanayake . The Marxist Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP), which grew out of the Youth Leagues in 1935, made the demand for outright independence a cornerstone of their policy. Its deputies in
5460-426: The duchy of Uva in 1817, so-called the Uva Rebellion , also known as the Third Kandyan War. The main cause of the rebellion was the British authorities' failure to protect and uphold the customary Buddhist traditions, which were viewed by the islanders as an integral part of their lives. The rebellion, which soon developed into a guerrilla war of the kind the Kandyans had fought against European powers for centuries,
5551-470: The establishment of coffee and tea plantations, hospitals, and maternity homes. The Ceylon National Congress (CNC) was founded to agitate for greater autonomy. The party soon split along ethnic and caste lines. Prof. K. M. de Silva, the famous Peradeniya historian has pointed out that the refusal of the Ceylon Tamils to accept minority status to be one of the main causes which broke up the CNC. The CNC did not seek independence or "Swaraj". What may be called
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#17328484728675642-670: The features that may be traced to Dravidian influence are: ඒක ēka it අලුත් aḷut new කියලා kiyalā having-said මම mama I දන්නවා dannavā know ඒක අලුත් කියලා මම දන්නවා ēka aḷut kiyalā mama dannavā it new having-said I know "I know that it is new." ඒක ēka it අලුත් aḷut new ද da Q කියලා kiyalā having-said මම mama I දන්නේ Kandyan Wars [REDACTED] Kingdom of Great Britain [REDACTED] Frederick North Green Howards 19th Regiment of Foot King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry 51st Regiment of Foot The Kandyan Wars (or
5733-447: The hands of G. G. Ponnambalam who had rejected the "Ceylonese identity". Ponnamblam had declared himself a "proud Dravidian", and attempted to establish an independent identity for the Tamils. Ponnamblam was a politician who attacked the Sinhalese, and their historical chronicle known as the Mahavamsa . One such inflamed attack in Navalapitiya led to the first Sinhala-Tamil riot in 1939. Ponnambalam opposed universal franchise , supported
5824-434: The humiliation of Ehelepola, Pilima Talauve's nephew and successor as First Adigar. Ehelepola had been involved in several intrigues against the by now deeply unpopular Sri Vikrama Rajasinghe since his appointment in 1810. In 1814 his actions were revealed and the noble fled to British territory. The furious king had Ehelepola's entire family put to death in various gruesome ways. Ehelepola came to symbolize weaknesses of part of
5915-512: The independence movement broke into two streams, viz., the "constitutionalists", who sought independence by gradual modification of the status of Ceylon, and the more radical groups associated with the Colombo Youth League, Labour movement of Goonasinghe, and the Jaffna Youth Congress. These organizations were the first to raise the cry of Swaraj, or outright independence, following the Indian example, when Jawaharlal Nehru , Sarojini Naidu and other Indian leaders visited Ceylon in 1926. The efforts of
6006-426: The independence struggle there. The movement in Ceylon was minuscule, limited to the English educated intelligentsia and trade unions, mainly in the urban centres. These groups were led by Robert Gunawardena, Philip's brother. In stark contrast to this "heroic" but ineffective approach to the war, the Senanayake government took advantage of the war to further its rapport with the commanding elite. Ceylon became crucial to
6097-440: The intense pressures of outside rule and underwent immense upheaval and change. Before 1815, much of Kandy's territory had been underdeveloped with unreliable dirt-track roads for access, apart from a few 'royal roads'. The British proceeded to transform the hill country by constructing roads across previously inaccessible terrain (such as the Kadugannawa Pass ), and, in 1867, building the first railway. The other big transformation
6188-431: The island of Ceylon came under British rule . During the career of Christopher Reynolds as a Sinhalese lecturer at the School of African and Oriental Studies, University of London , he extensively researched the Sinhalese language and its pre-1815 literature. The Sri Lankan government awarded him the Sri Lanka Ranjana medal for his work. He wrote the 377-page An anthology of Sinhalese literature up to 1815 , selected by
6279-448: The lands they possessed, as the disastrous Kandyan counter-campaign later in the year proved. Equipped with a handful of captured six-pound cannon, the Kandyan army advanced through the mountain passes as far as the city of Hanwella . Here the army was utterly routed by superior British firepower, forcing Sri Vikrama Rajasinghe to flee back into the mountains. A general rebellion that had erupted in British-controlled territory on hearing of
6370-403: The meanwhile, had been advising Governor Brownrigg for some time that Kandy's nobles were ready to cooperate with any British attempt at dislodging Sri Vikrama Rajasinghe. Kandyan troops soon crossed the British-Kandyan border seeking Ehelepola, and attacked the British garrison at Sitawaka - of itself enough provocation for Brownrigg to dispatch a force to Kandy. The situation was only worsened by
6461-488: The native Kingdom of Kandy a protectorate, an offer initially refused by the King of Kandy. Although the previous Dutch administration had not been powerful enough to threaten the reign of the Kandyan Kings, the British were much more powerful. The Kandyan refusal to accept a protectorate led eventually (1803) to the 1st Kandyan War , but was repulsed. In 1815 Kandy was captured in the Second Kandyan War , ending Ceylonese independence. The rule of King Sri Vikrama Rajasinghe
6552-636: The old aristocracy and ensured future rebellions would take on a much more subdued character. The Ceylon Medal was instituted by the Ceylonese Government in 1819, the only gallantry medal struck for the Kandyan Wars. The British capture of the kingdom of Kandy marked not only the end of the 400-year-old Kingdom of Kandy, but also of all native political independence. Kandy, as a result of its geographical and political isolation, had developed unique cultural and social structures that were now subject to
6643-450: The people far more heavily than the Portuguese had done. A mixed Dutch-Sri Lankan people known as Burgher people are the legacy of Dutch rule. In the late 18th century the Dutch, weakened by their wars against Great Britain , were conquered by Napoleonic France , and their leaders became refugees in London. No longer able to govern their part of the island effectively, the Dutch transferred
6734-587: The population of 4,106,400; in 1921, 13.4% and 11.5%; in 1931, 15.2% and 11.3%, and in 1946, 11.7% and 11.0% respectively. The censuses show that during a large period of time in the history of Ceylon, Indian Tamils outnumbered Ceylon Tamils until between 1971 and 1981 when more than 50 per cent of the Indian Tamil population were repatriated as Indian citizens back to India. However, many Indian Tamils were also granted Sri Lankan citizenship whereupon declared themselves as Sri Lankan Tamils. Between 1796 and 1948, Ceylon
6825-570: The public against the British Raj in revolt would have led to certain bloodshed and a delay in independence. British state papers released in the 1950s show that the Marxist movement had a very negative impact on the policy makers at the Colonial office. The Soulbury Commission was the most important result of the agitation for constitutional reform in the 1930s. The Tamil leadership had by then fallen into
6916-709: The reform of the civil service to eliminate corruption, and the creation of a Ceylonese High Court based on caste law. The Catholic population was enfranchised whilst the Dutch Reformed church lost its privileged position. Maitland also worked to undermine Buddhist authority and sought to attract Europeans to the island by allowing grants of up to 4000 acres (16 km²) on the island. He was replaced in 1812/1813 by Sir Robert Brownrigg, who largely continued these policies. In contrast, an increasingly paranoid Sri Vikrama Rajasinghe categorically alienated Kandy's powerful nobility and volatile commoners. The construction of Kandy Lake
7007-616: The richest countries in Asia. The British also brought Tamils from British India and made them indentured labourers in the Hill Country. This was in addition to the several hundred thousand Tamils already living in the Maritime provinces and another 30,000 Tamil Muslims . The linguistically bipolar island needed a link language and English became universal in Ceylon. Censuses in Ceylon began in 1871 and continued every ten years. The 1881 census shows
7098-483: The rule of it to the British, although this was against the wishes of the Dutch residing there. The capture of the island immediately yielded £300,000 of money in goods, as well as the acquisition of the cinnamon plantations, making this a valuable venture. In 1803, as soon as Great Britain gained the European-controlled parts of Ceylon from the Dutch, they wanted to expand their new sphere of influence by making
7189-432: The semi-European Burghers, certain high- caste Sinhalese and the Tamils who were mainly concentrated to the north of the country while ignoring the other ethnic groups on the island. Nevertheless, the British also introduced democratic elements to Sri Lanka for the first time in its history. The Burghers were given some degree of self-government as early as 1833. It was not until 1909 that constitutional development began with
7280-512: The strategically important port of Trincomalee and others on the island. Following the Kew Letters of 1795, the British occupied Dutch possessions in Sri Lanka. These included not only Trincomalee but Batticaloa , Galle , and Jaffna , as well as the entirety of Sri Lanka's lowlying coastal areas. The new colony of British Ceylon was determined to expand and control the entirety of the island, and had reformed traditional social structures like
7371-674: The suppression of the Uva Rebellion , the Kandyan peasantry was stripped of their lands by the Crown Lands (Encroachments) Ordinance No. 12 of 1840 (sometimes called the Crown Lands Ordinance or the Waste Lands Ordinance), a modern enclosure movement and reduced to penury. The British found that the uplands of Sri Lanka were very suited to coffee , tea and rubber cultivation, and by the mid-19th century Ceylon tea had become
7462-550: The war in Sri Lanka was orchestrated by Marxist organizations. The leaders of the LSSP pro-independence agitation were arrested by the Colonial authorities. On 5 April 1942, the Japanese Navy bombed Colombo, which led to the flight of Indian merchants, dominant in the Colombo commercial sector. This flight removed a major political problem facing the Senanayake government. Marxist leaders also escaped, to India, where they participated in
7553-541: Was a British Crown colony. Although the British monarch was the head of state, in practice his or her functions were exercised in the colony by the colonial Governor, who acted on instructions from the British government in London. On the approach to self-government and independence, the Donoughmore Commission recommended the Donoughmore Constitution of 1931–1947, one of a series of attempts to create
7644-501: Was centred on the Kandyan nobility and their unhappiness with developments under British rule since 1815. However it was the last uprising of this kind and in the Uva Province a scorched earth policy was pursued, and all males between 15 and 60 years were driven out, exiled and killed. More than 10,000 Sinhalese were killed by British in the rebellion. The British Crown annexed the Kingdom of Kandy to British Ceylon in 1817. Following
7735-424: Was completed in 1807. Despite its beauty it was a deeply unpopular project, as it served no practical purpose - central Senkadagala had no paddy fields that required irrigation, the traditional cause for the construction of such hydraulic monuments. In 1810 he removed the powerful Pilima Talauve from the position of Chief Minister (1st Adigar). Talauve rebelled the following year and much to the horror of Kandy's nobles
7826-546: Was essentially what Senanayake's board of ministers had drafted in 1944. The promise of Dominion status, and independence itself, had been given by the Colonial office. The Sinhalese leader Don Stephen Senanayake left the CNC on the issue of independence, disagreeing with the revised aim of 'the achieving of freedom', although his real reasons were more subtle. He subsequently formed the United National Party (UNP) in 1946, when
7917-470: Was executed. The king further alienated the powerful Buddhist establishment with arbitrary requisitions of land and treasure. Throughout this period John D'Oyly, a British civil servant, was in close contact with various Sinhala nobles, who increasingly seemed to prefer the rule of the British to the volatile government of the Nayaka monarchy. The train of events leading directly up to the 1815 war commenced with
8008-405: Was not favoured by his chieftains. The king, who was of South Indian ancestry, faced powerful chieftains and sought cruel measures to repress their popularity with the people. A successful coup was organised by the Sinhala chiefs in which they accepted the British Crown as their new sovereign. This ended the line of the kingdom of Kandy and King Rajasinghe was taken as a prisoner, ending his hope that
8099-483: Was precipitated by the intrigues of a minister of Sri Vikrama Rajasinha , Pilimatalawe, who defected to the British and offered to show them the way through central Sri Lanka's winding mountain passes to the capital city . Enraged, the King of Kandy had the minister's family executed. The British dispatched two separate forces into Kandyan territory - one, under Major-General Hay MacDowall , from Colombo , and another, under
8190-425: Was taken prisoner and executed, and the British garrison wiped out; only one man, Corporal George Barnsley of the 19th Infantry, survived to tell the tale (though other sources put the number of survivors at four). In the meanwhile the retreating British army was defeated on the banks of the flooding Mahaveli river , leaving only four survivors. Despite this setback the British still remained unquestioned masters of
8281-486: Was the introduction of tea to central Sri Lanka in 1867 and the massive settlement of Tamils in the region. Central Sri Lanka is now dominated by the vast tea estates that helped make Sri Lanka the world's biggest exporter of tea for a while, and were still owned by British companies in 1971. A lasting legacy of the same war in Ireland is the traditional anti-war and anti-recruitment song " Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye ", depicting
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