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Sri Lanka The British Replace the Dutch
In 1766 the Dutch had forced the Kandyans to sign a treaty,
which the Kandyans later considered so harsh that they
immediately began searching for foreign assistance in expelling
their foes. They approached the British in 1762, 1782, and 1795.
The first Kandyan missions failed, but in 1795, British
emissaries offered a draft treaty that would extend military aid
in return for control of the seacoast and a monopoly of the
cinnamon trade. The Kandyan king unsuccessfully sought better
terms, and the British managed to oust the Dutch without
significant help in 1796.
The Kandyans' search for foreign assistance against the Dutch
was a mistake because they simply replaced a relatively weak
master with a powerful one. Britain was emerging as the
unchallenged leader in the new age of the Industrial Revolution,
a time of technological invention, economic innovations, and
imperialist expansion. The nations that had launched the first
phase of European imperialism in Asia--the Portuguese and the
Dutch--had already exhausted themselves.
While peace negotiations were under way in Europe in 1796,
the British assumed Sri Lanka would eventually be restored to the
Dutch. By 1797 however, London had decided to retain the island
as a British possession. The government compelled the British
East India Company to share in the administration of the island
and guaranteed the company a monopoly of trade, especially the
moderately profitable--but no longer robust--cinnamon trade. The
governor of the island was responsible for law and order, but
financial and commercial matters were under the control of the
director of the East India Company. This system of "dual control"
lasted from 1798 to 1802. After the Dutch formally ceded the
island to the British in the 1801 Peace of Amiens, Sri Lanka
became Britain's first crown colony. Following Lord Nelson's
naval victory over the French at Trafalgar in 1805, British
superiority on the seas was unchallenged and provided new
security for the British colonies in Asia.
Once the British had established themselves in Sri Lanka,
they aggressively expanded their territorial possessions by a
combination of annexation and intervention, a policy that
paralleled the approach pursued by Lord Wellesley in India in the
early nineteenth century. This strategy directly threatened the
continued existence of the Kingdom of Kandy. Unrest at the
Kandyan court between a ruling dynasty of alien, southern Indian
antecedents and powerful, indigenous Sinhalese chieftains
provided opportunities for British interference. The intrigue of
the king's chief minister precipitated the first Kandyan war
(1803). With the minister's knowledge, a British force marched on
Kandy, but the force was ill prepared for such an ambitious
venture and its leaders were misinformed of the extent of the
king's unpopularity. The British expedition was at first
successful, but on the return march, it was plagued by disease,
and the garrison left behind was decimated. During the next
decade, no concerted attempt was made to take Kandy. But in 1815
the British had another opportunity. The king had antagonized
local Sinhalese chiefs and further alienated the Sinhalese people
by actions against Buddhist monks and temple property. In 1815,
the Kandyan rebels invited the British to intervene. The governor
quickly responded by sending a well-prepared force to Kandy; the
king fled with hardly a shot fired.
Kandyan headmen and the British signed a treaty known as the
Kandyan Convention in March 1815. The treaty decreed that the
Kandyan provinces be brought under British sovereignty and that
all the traditional privileges of the chiefs be maintained. The
Kingdom of Kandy was also to be governed according to its
customary Buddhist laws and institutions but would be under the
administration of a British "resident" at Kandy, who would, in
all but name, take the place of the monarch.
In general, the old system was allowed to continue, but its
future was bleak because of the great incongruity between the
principles on which the British administration was based and the
principles of the Kandyan hierarchy. Because the changes under
the treaty tended to diminish the power and influence of the
chiefs, the British introduced the new procedures with great
caution. The monks, in particular, resented the virtual
disappearance of the monarchy, which was their traditional source
of support. They also resented the monarchy's replacement by a
foreign and impartial government. Troubled by the corresponding
decline in their status, the monks began to stir up political and
religious discontent among the Kandyans almost immediately
following the British annexation. The popular and widespread
rebellion that followed was suppressed with great severity. When
hostilities ended in 1818, the British issued a proclamation that
brought the Kandyan provinces under closer control. British
agents usurped the powers and privileges of the chiefs and became
the arbitrators of provincial authority. Finally, the British
reduced the institutional privileges accorded Buddhism, in effect
placing the religion on an equal footing with other religions.
With the final British consolidation over Kandy, the country fell
under the control of a single power--for the first time since the
twelfth-century rule of Parakramabahu I and Nissankamalla.
Data as of October 1988
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