Kandian Wars
Encyclopedia
The Kandyan 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 present day 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.
control of the Netherlands
would result in their controlling the strategically important port of Trincomalee
, occupied Dutch
possessions in Sri Lanka in 1795. These included not only Trincomalee but Batticaloa
, Galle
, and Jaffna
, as well as the entirety of Sri Lanka's lowlying coastal areas. That the British were determined to expand and control the entirety of the island, and had reformed traditional social structures like the caste system and the rajakariya (lit. "kingwork", labour and or tithes owed to the Kandyan king) added to the tension between them and the independent kingdom of Kandy.
Mountainous central Sri Lanka remained independent, under the rule of the Nayaka
kings of Senkadagala
. Early British attempts at securing 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 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 resisting European colonists.
, 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 Macdowell, from Colombo
, and another, under 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 (and hence Muslim) prince called 'Sangunglo', an interesting commentary on the multiethnic nature of the mountainous kingdom. After fierce fighting 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 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, 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 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 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 occupied territory on hearing of 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 Johnson 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, 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.
Governor Thomas Maitland, in British Ceylon, initiated extensive legal and social reforms to further entrench and strengthen British power. These included 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 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 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.
who now openly revolted against the king, who torched his palace and fled to a fortress at Hanguranketha.
John d'Oyly, in 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 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 10th of 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 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
in India
, where he died 17 years later. His son, and potential heir, died childless in 1842.
The single most important event following 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 ponts of the agreement were:
The signatories of the convention were Governor Brownrigg, Ehelepola and the lords (called 'Dissawes' in Sinhalese) Molligoda, Pilimatalawe 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 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 a ban on proselytising and mission schools.
Perhaps most poignant is the transformation of central Sri Lanka's landscape itself. Much of Kandy's territory had, before 1815, been wild, jungle-covered and malarial, 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 (the Kadugannawa hairpin bend is a famous example of British engineering in Sri Lanka), and, in 1867, building the first railway. The other big transformation 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-recruiting song "Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye
", depicting a soldier from Athy
, County Kildare
who comes home horribly mutilated from the war in "Sulloon" (Ceylon).
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
colonial forces and the Kingdom of Kandy
Kingdom of Kandy
Kingdom of Kandy was an important independent monarchy of Sri Lanka, located in the central and eastern portion of the island. It was founded in late 15th century and endured until the early 19th century...
, on the island of what is now present day Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...
, between 1796 and 1818. More specifically it is used to describe the expeditionary campaigns of the British army
British Army
The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...
in the Kingdom of Kandy in 1803 and 1815.
Background
The British, fearing that FrenchMilitary history of France
The military history of France encompasses an immense panorama of conflicts and struggles extending for more than 2,000 years across areas including modern France, greater Europe, and European territorial possessions overseas....
control of the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
would result in their controlling the strategically important port of Trincomalee
Trincomalee
Trincomalee is a port city in Eastern Province, Sri Lanka and lies on the east coast of the island, about 113 miles south of Jaffna. It has a population of approximately 100,000 . The city is built on a peninsula, which divides the inner and outer harbours. Overlooking the Kottiyar Bay,...
, occupied Dutch
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
possessions in Sri Lanka in 1795. These included not only Trincomalee but Batticaloa
Batticaloa
Batticaloa is a city in the Eastern province of Sri Lanka. It is the seat of the Eastern University of Sri Lanka. It is on the east coast, south by south east of Trincomalee, and is situated on an island.-Etymology:...
, Galle
Galle
Galle is a city situated on the southwestern tip of Sri Lanka, 119 km from Colombo. Galle is the capital city of Southern Province of Sri Lanka and it lies in Galle District....
, and Jaffna
Jaffna
Jaffna is the capital city of the Northern Province, Sri Lanka. It is the administrative headquarters of the Jaffna district located on a peninsula of the same name. Jaffna is approximately six miles away from Kandarodai which served as a famous emporium in the Jaffna peninsula from classical...
, as well as the entirety of Sri Lanka's lowlying coastal areas. That the British were determined to expand and control the entirety of the island, and had reformed traditional social structures like the caste system and the rajakariya (lit. "kingwork", labour and or tithes owed to the Kandyan king) added to the tension between them and the independent kingdom of Kandy.
Mountainous central Sri Lanka remained independent, under the rule of the Nayaka
Madurai Nayak Dynasty
The Madurai Nayaks or Nayak Dynasty of Madurai were rulers of a region comprising most of modern-day Tamil Nadu, India, with Madurai as their capital...
kings of Senkadagala
Kandy
Kandy is a city in the center of Sri Lanka. It was the last capital of the ancient kings' era of Sri Lanka. The city lies in the midst of hills in the Kandy plateau, which crosses an area of tropical plantations, mainly tea. Kandy is one of the most scenic cities in Sri Lanka; it is both an...
. Early British attempts at securing a treaty with mountainous kingdom were rejected. The internal stability of Kandy was shaky, as king Sri Vikrama Rajasinha
Sri Vikrama Rajasinha
Sri Vikrama Rajasinha was the last king of Ceylon and the last of four kings from the Telugu origin of Nayakar dynasty...
found himself being constantly undermined and intrigued against by powerful Sinhalese
Sinhalese people
The Sinhalese are an Indo-Aryan ethnic group,forming the majority of Sri Lanka,constituting 74% of the Sri Lankan population.They number approximately 15 million worldwide.The Sinhalese identity is based on language, heritage and religion. The Sinhalese speak Sinhala, an Indo-Aryan language and the...
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 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 resisting European colonists.
The first war (1803–1805)
The first Kandyan war was precipitated by the intrigues of a minister of Sri Vikrama RajasinhaSri Vikrama Rajasinha
Sri Vikrama Rajasinha was the last king of Ceylon and the last of four kings from the Telugu origin of Nayakar dynasty...
, who defected to the British and offered to show them the way through central Sri Lanka's winding mountain passes to the capital city
Kandy
Kandy is a city in the center of Sri Lanka. It was the last capital of the ancient kings' era of Sri Lanka. The city lies in the midst of hills in the Kandy plateau, which crosses an area of tropical plantations, mainly tea. Kandy is one of the most scenic cities in Sri Lanka; it is both an...
. 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 Macdowell, from Colombo
Colombo
Colombo is the largest city of Sri Lanka. It is located on the west coast of the island and adjacent to Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte, the capital of Sri Lanka. Colombo is often referred to as the capital of the country, since Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte is a satellite city of Colombo...
, and another, under a Colonel Barbut, from Trincomalee. These included 51st Regiment of Foot
King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry
The King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry was a regiment of the British Army. It officially existed from 1881 to 1968, but its predecessors go back to 1755. The regiment's traditions and history are now maintained by The Rifles.-The 51st 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 (and hence Muslim) prince called 'Sangunglo', an interesting commentary on the multiethnic nature of the mountainous kingdom. After fierce fighting 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 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, 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 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 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 occupied territory on hearing of 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 Johnson 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, 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.
Interbellum (1805–1815)
Events in the ten years between the end of the First Kandyan War and 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 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 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 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 second war (1815)
The train of events leading directly up to the 1815 war commenced with 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. The deaths shocked the Kandyan aristocracyAristocracy
Aristocracy , is a form of government in which a few elite citizens rule. The term derives from the Greek aristokratia, meaning "rule of the best". In origin in Ancient Greece, it was conceived of as rule by the best qualified citizens, and contrasted with monarchy...
who now openly revolted against the king, who torched his palace and fled to a fortress at Hanguranketha.
John d'Oyly, in 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 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 10th of 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 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
Vellore
Vellore It is considered one of the oldest cities in South India and lies on the banks of the Palar river on the site of Vellore Fort. The city lies between Chennai and Bangalore and the Temple towns of Thiruvannamalai and Tirupati...
in India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, where he died 17 years later. His son, and potential heir, died childless in 1842.
The single most important event following the arrival of British forces in Kandy was the signing of the Kandyan Convention
Kandyan Convention
The Kandyan Convention was an agreement in 1815 between the British and the Chiefs of the Kandyan Kingdom, in Sri Lanka for the deposition of rule King Sri Vikrama Rajasinha. The king who was of Telugu ancestry faced powerful opposition from the Sinhalese chieftains who sought to reduce his power...
. 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 ponts of the agreement were:
- 'Sri Wickrema Rajasinha', the 'MalabariMalabarsMalabars is an appellation originating from the colonial era that was used by Westerners to refer to all the people of South India...
' king, [is] to forfeit all claims to the throne of Kandy. - The king is declared fallen and deposed and the hereditary claim of his dynasty, abolished and extinguished.
- All his male relatives are banished from the island.
- The dominion is vested in the sovereign of the British Empire, to be exercised through colonial governors, except in the case of the Adikarams, Disavas, Mohottalas, Korales, Vidanes and other subordinate officers reserving the rights, privileges and powers within their respective ranks.
- The religion of Buddhism is declared inviolable and its rights to be maintained and protected.
- All forms of physical torture and mutilations are abolished.
- The governor alone can sentence a person to death and all capital publishments to take place in the presence of accredited agents of the government.
- All civil and criminal justice over Kandyan to be administered according to the established norms and customs of the country, the government reserving to itself the rights of interposition when and where necessary.
- Other non-Kandyan's position [is] to remain [as privileged as previously] according to British law.
- The proclamation annexing the Three and Four Korales and Sabaragamuwa is repealed.
- The dues and revenues to be collected for the King of England as well as for the maintenance of internal establishments in the island.
- The Governor alone can facilitate trade and commerce.
The signatories of the convention were Governor Brownrigg, Ehelepola and the lords (called 'Dissawes' in Sinhalese) Molligoda, Pilimatalawe 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 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 third war (1817–1818)
It took the ruling families of Kandy less than two years to realise that the authority of the British government was a fundamentally different beast 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 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 liquidated the old aristocracy and ensured future rebellions would take on a much more subaltern character.Legacy
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 the intense pressures of subjugation and underwent immense upheaval and change.Perhaps most poignant is the transformation of central Sri Lanka's landscape itself. Much of Kandy's territory had, before 1815, been wild, jungle-covered and malarial, 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 (the Kadugannawa hairpin bend is a famous example of British engineering in Sri Lanka), and, in 1867, building the first railway. The other big transformation 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
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
is the traditional anti-war and anti-recruiting song "Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye
Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye
"Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye" is a popular traditional Irish anti-war and anti-recruiting song. It is generally dated to the early 19th century, when Irish troops served the British East India Company...
", depicting a soldier from Athy
Athy
The town developed from a 12th century Anglo-Norman settlement to an important British military outpost on the border of the Pale.The first town charter dates from the 16th century and the town hall was constructed in the early 18th century...
, County Kildare
County Kildare
County Kildare is a county in Ireland. It is part of the Mid-East Region and is also located in the province of Leinster. It is named after the town of Kildare. Kildare County Council is the local authority for the county...
who comes home horribly mutilated from the war in "Sulloon" (Ceylon).