Portuguese conquest of the Jaffna kingdom

This is a good article. Click here for more information.
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Portuguese conquest of the Jaffna kingdom
Part of
Nallur, Jaffna
Result
  • Portuguese captured the capital
  • King
    POW
    , and then hanged
  • Fall of Jaffna kingdom
  • Repulsion of Kandyan attacks
Belligerents  Portugal Jaffna kingdom  KandyCommanders and leaders Phillippe de Oliveira
Constantino de Sá de Noronha Cankili II Executed
Varunakulattan
Migapulle Arachchi Mudaliyar AttapattuStrength 5,000 soldiers
(by land) Unknown 10,000Casualties and losses Unknown High Unknown

The Portuguese conquest of the

Roman Catholicism
, but eventually made peace with them.

By 1591, the king of Jaffna

Kandyan kingdom in its quest to get military help from South India. Eventually, a usurper named Cankili II resisted Portuguese overlordship only to find himself ousted and hanged by Phillippe de Oliveira
in 1619. The subsequent rule by the Portuguese saw the population convert to Roman Catholicism. The population also decreased due to excessive taxation, as most people fled the core areas of the former kingdom.

Initial contact

See also: Portuguese Ceylon

Portuguese traders reached

Catholics in the island of Mannar. These Catholics had been brought from India to Mannar to take over the lucrative pearl fisheries extending to Puttalam from the Jaffna kings.[3][4]

Client state

The

Kandyan kingdom under kings Vimaladharmasuriya I and Senarat (1604–35) during the period 1593–1635 with the intent of securing help from South India to resist the Portuguese. He, however, maintained autonomy of the kingdom without overtly provoking the Portuguese.[5][7]

End of the kingdom

With the death of Pararasasekaran in 1617,

Nallur.[9]

By June 1619, there were two Portuguese expeditions: a naval expedition that was repulsed led by the Varunakulattan, also known as Khem Nayak, and a land expedition by Phillippe de Oliveira and his army of 5000 was able to defeat Cankili.[2][6][10] Cankili, along with every surviving member of the royal family, was captured and taken to Goa, where he was hanged. Jaffna prisoners were beheaded. The remaining captives were asked to become monks or nuns in the holy orders, and as most obliged, their celibacy avoided the production of further claimants to the Jaffna throne.[11]

Although the Portuguese attempted to eliminate the Jaffna royal family through celibacy, a number of families of

Sri Lankan Tamil origin claim descent from the royal family today.[12]

Portuguese and the Kandyan kingdom

1692 engraving by Wilhem Broedelet of Robert Knox's 1681 map

According to the Description of the Isle of Ceylon (Amsterdam 1672) by the Dutch Rev.

Jaffnapatnam because to it are also added the neighboring lands and those of the Vanni which is said to be name of the lordship which they held before we obtained pocession of them, separated from the proceeding by a salty river and connected only in the extremity or isthamus of Pachalapali within which the lands of Baligamo, Bedamarache and Pachalapali forming that peninsula and outside of it stretch the lands of Vanni. Crosswise, from the side of Mannar to that of Triquillemele, being separated also from the country of Mantota in the jurisdiction of Captain of Mannar by the river Paragali;which (lands) ends in the river of the Cross in the midst of the lands of Vanni and of others which stretch as far as Triquillemele which according to the map appears to be a large tract of country".[10]

which indicated the kings of the kingdom just prior to capitulation to the Portuguese had jurisdiction over an area corresponding to the modern Northern Province of Sri Lanka and parts of the northern half of the eastern province and that the Portuguese claimed these based on their conquest.[13]

At the time, the mainland south of

King of Kandy, Senerat; he and his troops were consistently harassing the Portuguese in the Jaffna Peninsula. His wife's two sons, Vijayapala and Kumarasinghe, were also married to princesses from Jaffna. After the fall of Jaffna to the Portuguese, Senarat dispatched a 10,000 strong army to Jaffna under the command of Mudaliyar Attapattu. The Portuguese withdrew and the Kandyan army occupied Jaffna. The Portuguese General Constantino de Sá de Noronha later attacked with reinforcements from Colombo and defeated Mudaliyar Attapattu's army and seized Jaffna. According to Portuguese and Dutch publications, the last battle for Jaffna was fought between the King of Kandyan kingdom and the Portuguese, and the Europeans seized Jaffna from the Kandyan king.[14] Following Portuguese defeat by the Dutch, the Jaffna Mannar islands and most of Jaffna's Vannimai lands had been reincorporated into the Tamil Coylot Wannees Country
by the 18th century.

Consequences

Over the next forty years, starting from 1619 until the

Jaffna were "reduced to the uttermost misery" during the Portuguese colonial era.[11][16]

Notes

  1. ^ a b c d e Abeysinghe, T. Jaffna Under the Portuguese, p. 2
  2. ^ a b c d De Silva, Portuguese Encounters with Sri Lanka and the Maldives, p. 95, 110, 111 & 137
  3. ^ Kunarasa, K The Jaffna Dynasty, pp. 82–4.
  4. ^ Gnanaprakasar, S. A critical history of Jaffna, pp. 113–7.
  5. ^ a b Abeysinghe, T. Jaffna Under the Portuguese, p.3
  6. ^ a b c Vriddhagirisan, Nayaks of Tanjore, p.80-1,91-2
  7. ^ de Silva, A. History of Sri Lanka, p.166
  8. ISBN 9789555520003
    .
  9. ^
    ISBN 9788120609969
    .
  10. ^ a b c De Queyroz, The Temporal and Spiritual Conquest of Ceylon, p. 51 & 468
  11. ^ a b c d Abeysinghe, T. Jaffna Under the Portuguese, pp. 58–63.
  12. ^ Kunarasa, K The Jaffna Dynasty, p. 115
  13. ^ Tambiah, Laws and customs of Tamils of Jaffna, pp. 62–3.
  14. ^ "The historic tragedy of the island of Ceilão". João Ribeiro. Archived from the original on 2005-03-13. Retrieved 2008-01-08.
  15. ^ Sabaratnam, Sri Lankan Tamil Struggle, Chapter 5
  16. ^ a b Gnanaprakasar, S. A critical history of Jaffna, pp. 153–72.
  17. ^ "Portuguese Colonial Period (1505–645 CE)". Rohan Titus. Retrieved 2007-12-07.
  18. ^ "Sri Lanka: The Untold Story Chapter 27 – Horsewhip Amirthalingham". KT Rajasingham. Archived from the original on 2002-06-22. Retrieved 2007-12-07.

References

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Portuguese_conquest_of_the_Jaffna_kingdom&oldid=1268690765"