Dutch period in Ceylon
| Dutch Governorate of Ceylon | ||||||||||||||
| Nederlands-Ceylon | ||||||||||||||
| Governorate | ||||||||||||||
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| Capital |
Galle Colombo |
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| Languages | Sinhala, Tamil, Ceylon Portuguese–Dutch Creole and Dutch | |||||||||||||
| Political structure | Governorate | |||||||||||||
| Governor | ||||||||||||||
| • | 1640–1640 | Willem Jacobszoon Coster | ||||||||||||
| • | 1794–1796 | Johan van Angelbeek | ||||||||||||
| Historical era | Imperialism | |||||||||||||
| • | Established | 13 March 1640 | ||||||||||||
| • | Disestablished | 16 February 1796 | ||||||||||||
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Dutch Ceylon (Sinhala: ලන්දේසි ලංකාව Landesi Lankava) was a governorate established in present-day Sri Lanka by the Dutch East India Company. It existed from 1640 until 1796.
In the early 17th century, Sri Lanka was partly ruled by the Portuguese and Sri Lankan kingdoms, who were constantly battling each other. Although the Portuguese were not winning the war, their rule was rather burdensome to the people of those areas controlled by them. While the Dutch were engaged in a long war of independence from Spanish rule, the Sinhalese king (the king of Kandy) invited the Dutch to help defeat the Portuguese. The Dutch interest in Ceylon was to have a united battle front against the Iberians at that time.
The Dutch were invited by the Sri Lankans to liberate the country from the Portuguese. They signed the Kandyan Treaty of 1638 with Rajasinghe II and soon embarked on a war against their common enemy. As such the Dutch were appointed as a protector of the country.
Meanwhile, however, Rajasinghe II approached the French and offered them the Trincomalee fort as a check against Dutch power. The Dutch captured Trinco from the French and controlled all the maritime provinces of the island. Rajasinghe and the Dutch were both playing a double game trying to outwit each other, and the treaty of 1638 was never implemented. The Dutch ruled all the Tamil provinces and brought Tanjore Tamil slaves to work in the Cinnamon gardens in the Western Province and tobacco farms in Jaffna. The capital of Dutch Coromandel was in Pulicat and they brought needed manpower from the Indian colonies.
Portuguese rule was always in the maritime provinces and the people whom they converted were the coastal folk. They were the backbone of their power. Many of the Princes they converted had either died or were no longer Catholic. The rest of the Ceylon remained in the Buddhist-Hindu religion.
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Wikipedia