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DUTCH and BRITISH COLONIAL INTERVENTION in SRI LANKA 1780 - 1815 TANAP Monographs on the History of the Asian-European Interaction DUTCH AND BRITISH COLONIAL INTERVENTION IN SRI LANKA 1780 - 1815 TANAP Monographs on the History of the Asian-European Interaction edited by LEONARD BLUSSÉ (GENERAL EDITOR) AND HENDRIK E. NIEMEIJER (PROJECT CO-ORDINATOR) VOLUME 7 DUTCH AND BRITISH COLONIAL INTERVENTION IN SRI LANKA 1780 - 1815 Expansion and Reform BY ALICIA SCHRIKKER LEIDEN • BOSTON 2007 The TANAP programme is funded by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO). This book is printed on acid-free paper Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A C.I.P. record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISSN 1871-6938 ISBN-13: 978-90-04-15602-9 ISBN-10: 90-04-15602-X © Copyright 2007 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Brill provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910 Danvers MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. printed in the netherlands SERIES EDITOR’S FOREWORD Probably nowhere in the world have such profound changes in historio- graphy been occurring as in the nation states of Monsoon Asia that gained independence after the conclusion of the Pacific War in 1945. These tra- ditionally outward-looking countries on the rims of the Indian Ocean and the Eastern Seas have been interacting with each other through mar- itime transport and trade for more than two millennia, but the exigencies of modern nation-building have tended to produce state-centred histori- cal narratives that emphasize a distinctive heritage and foster cultural pride and identity on the basis of such heroic themes as anti-colonial resistance. No one will deny the need for and utility of such “nation- building” agendas, but an inward-directed national historiography does not necessarily prepare one’s citizens for our present age of regional co- operation and globalization. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the coastal societies of Monsoon Asia witnessed the entry of European traders, the emergence of global maritime trading networks, and the laying of the foundations of colonial empires that reached their apogees in the nineteenth and twenti- eth centuries. The difficulties of studying this pre-colonial and early colo- nial past should not be underestimated. Local sources are often rare because of wars and the frequent changes of both indigenous and colonial regimes. The hot and humid tropical climate is also unkind to the preser- vation of manuscripts. The mass of western-language data preserved in the archives of the former East India companies and those of the Spanish and Portuguese empires in Asia often have an undeniably Europe-centred character and bias. Thus we face not only a highly imbalanced supply of source material, but also the very complex problem of how to decode the hidden agendas that often colour these primary materials. Over the past fifty years there has been a pronounced effort in academ- ic circles in North America, Australia and the former European colonial nations to “decolonize” historical writing on Asian-European interaction, albeit for reasons totally different from those in their Asian counterparts. Increasingly doubt has been cast on such longstanding paradigms as the superiority of the dynamic West over static Asian societies. Historians of international trade such as the late Holden Furber, whose description of this period as “The Age of Partnership” inspired the name of the TANAP programme, have taken an interest in the various ways and means by which Asian-European interaction began in various kinds of competition, rivalry, collaboration, diplomacy, and military confrontation. This vi SERIES EDITOR’S FOREWORD approach has forced historians to return to the archival sources and the places where these events unfolded with the result that new frontiers of research have opened in which close partnerships between Asian and European historians, with their specific cultural tool kits and linguistic backgrounds, is now starting to reap fruit. In anticipation of the four hundredth anniversary of the establishment of the Dutch East India Company in 1602, members of the history department of Leiden University proposed the establishment of an inter- national research programme aimed at training a new generation of Asian historians of Asian-European interaction in the early modern period. It was taken for granted that any such drive towards international educa- tional co-operation should be carried out in carefully planned collabora- tion with the National Archives in the Hague, the Arsip Nasional of the Republic of Indonesia in Jakarta and the archives of Cape Town (South Africa), Colombo (Sri Lanka) and Chennai (India), which together hold several kilometres of archival data from the former Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie. The TANAP – Towards a New Age of Partnership – educa- tional and archival preservation programme was started in 2000 thanks to generous grants from the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO), the Netherlands Foundation for the Advancement of Tropical Research (WOTRO), the Netherlands UNESCO commission, and Leiden University. Twelve universities in Asia sent some thirty young lecturers to Leiden during 2001-2003. Under the auspices of the Research Institute for Asian-African and Amerindian Studies (CNWS), these historians participated in an advanced master’s programme that included intensive courses on historiography, palaeogra- phy and the old Dutch written language. With additional funding from several Asian foundations, in 2002 seventeen of the TANAP graduates from Sri Lanka, India, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, China, Taiwan, Japan, South Africa, and the Netherlands began working towards a PhD degree at Leiden. Three others went on to pursue their doctorates at universities elsewhere in the world. The TANAP Monographs on Asian-European Interaction, which include two studies on early modern South African society, are the off- spring of their doctoral theses defended at Leiden. Leonard Blussé, University of Leiden CONTENTS Acknowledgements xi Glossary xiii Maps xv Introduction 1 PART I: TEMPTATION ISLAND Chapter One: Local politics and foreign intrusion 13 1.1 Sri Lanka prior to European arrival: the ancient civilizations 13 1.2 Political fragmentation and drift to the south 15 1.3 Island society around 1500 16 1.4 Portuguese political infiltration and the origin of the Kandyan Kingdom 18 1.5 Dutch Ceylon: the formative years 21 1.6 Political organization of the Kandyan Kingdom 23 1.7 Eighteenth-century Kandyan kingship and Buddhism 27 PART II: THE FIRST COLONIAL TRANSITION: LOCAL GROWTH OF COLONIAL INTERESTS Chapter Two: Colonial politics in Dutch Ceylon till 1780 33 2.1 Early developments 33 2.2 Contradicting policies and subordination to Batavia 35 2.3 A policy for Kandy 37 2.4 Prelude to change 39 2.5.1 Administrative organization of Dutch Ceylon – Company superstructure 40 2.5.2 Administrative organization of Dutch Ceylon – Indigenous input and indirect rule 45 2.5.3 Administrative organization of Dutch Ceylon – Managing indigenous power 48 2.6 Conclusion 50 Chapter Three: Beyond cinnamon: Dutch interior policy 1780-1795 52 3.1 Introduction 52 viii CONTENTS 3.2 Changing circumstances – the cinnamon plantations 53 3.3 Changing international conditions 57 3.4 Company in crisis 58 3.5 A testing ground in Galle 60 3.6 An island-wide approach 63 3.7 Beyond cinnamon 64 3.8 Creating enterprising headmen 66 3.9 Centralization of power: competition and cooperation 68 3.10 Company servants and native elites: joint ventures 71 3.11 Increased efficiency, land and capitation tax 73 3.12 Troubles in Jaffna 75 3.13 Conclusion 76 Chapter Four: Inland exploitation: the discovery of the periphery 78 4.1 “Broodkamer” ideology 78 4.2 New encounters: a journey around Trincomalee 80 4.3 Clash of cultures: useful versus threatening nature 83 4.4 Civilization as universal remedy 85 4.5 Colonial intervention in the Vanni 86 4.6 Administrative reform in Batticaloa 89 4.7 Conclusion 92 Chapter Five: Dutch perceptions of the colonial order 93 5.1 Developments in Europe 93 5.2 Ceylon and the colonial criticism 97 5.3 Van de Graaff’s “response” 100 5.4 The vision of Jacques Fabrice van Senden 102 5.5 Thomas Nagel and the Vanni 103 5.6 An ideal image: the colonial ruler as humanitarian father 107 5.7 Jacob Burnand’s practical reflections 108 5.8 Conclusion 111 Chapter Six: Isolation and disintegration: the Kandyans and the Dutch 113 6.1 Diplomatic relations after 1766 113 6.2 Official policy 1785-1795 115 6.3 Ulterior motives: the Sluijsken – Van de Graaff controversy 119 6.4 Revenue and conspiracy 121 6.5 Political developments in the kingdom: Rajadhi, his nobles and the Europeans 122 6.6 The aftermath: Batavia’s opposition and Van de Graaff’s prophecy 125 CONTENTS ix PART III: THE SECOND COLONIAL TRANSITION: IMPERIAL DESIGN AND LOCAL PRACTICE 127 Introduction 129 Chapter Seven: Regime change and transitional politics 1795-1798 131 7.1 The incorporation of
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