Rajasingha II.
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Rajasingha II. ( Also: Rajasimha II. Or Rajasinha II .; Before the coronation: Prince Mahastana ; * 1608 in Ceylon ; † November 25, 1687 ) was the third king of the Dinajara dynasty of the Sinhala Kingdom of Kandy and ruled between 1635 and his death in 1687 He supported the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in the expulsion of the Portuguese from Ceylon (today's Sri Lanka ), but in doing so initiated Dutch supremacy over the island, which Rajasingha II also tried militarily to avert.
Birth and youth
As Prince Mahastana, Rajasingha II was born to King Senarat (Senarath) and Dona Catherina of Kandy . The capital of Kandy was Senkadagala ( now Kandy ) in the mountains of Ceylon. The Portuguese had gained control of the coast and Ceylon’s foreign trade during this period. Kandy was the last independent empire on the island, constantly at war with the colonial powers. The short-term success of the Sitawaka Empire a hundred years earlier had aroused hope among the Sinhalese that the Portuguese could be driven out.
The prince took part in the fighting at a young age. In the battle of Randeniwela on August 25, 1630, he took part on the side of his father and brother Vijayapala. In the course of the battle, the Lascarins (local auxiliary troops of the Portuguese) suddenly switched sides. Captain General Constantino de Sá de Noronha and many other Portuguese were killed.
In 1635 he succeeded his father to the throne as Rajasingha II.
Arrival of the Dutch
The Dutchman Joris van Spilbergen had already made contact with Kandy in 1602 and in 1612 King Senarat signed a contract with the VOC, which, however, had no major effects. Around the time of the coronation of Rajasingha II, the Dutch had established themselves in Batavia (now the Indonesian capital Jakarta ) and took the Portuguese city of Goa under a sea blockade in the West Indies .
On March 28, 1638, Rajasingha II led his troops again against the Portuguese in the Battle of Gannoruwa . These had previously burned Kandy's capital under Captain General Diogo de Melo de Castro when they were surrounded on the retreat. Only 33 Portuguese survived the battle. Then Rajasingha II sent a request for help to the Dutch. On May 23, 1638, a far-reaching military and trade treaty was signed between Kandy and the VOC. Even if the allies were able to seize territories from the Portuguese, the alliance remained unpopular with the people of Kandy.
Tensions arose between Kandy and the VOC. Batticaloa was originally a port of Kandy before it was lost to the Kingdom of Jaffna , which in turn later had to surrender it to the Portuguese. Rajasingha II now demanded Batticaloa back from the Dutch, but in return they demanded financial compensation for the expenditure in the war against Portugal. Rajasingha II had to realize that the alliance with the Dutch was too important to simply be terminated and therefore continued to support them, for example with the conquest of Galle on March 13, 1640, which the VOC made its colonial capital. The area of influence of the Portuguese was now largely limited to the western coast of Ceylon.
After Portugal had freed itself from the personal union with Spain , there was initially an armistice between Portugal and the Netherlands from 1641, also on Ceylon. Since Rajasingha II feared that the two major European powers would now split up the island among themselves, the alliance with the VOC broke up. Until 1649, the king pursued a scorched earth policy in eastern Ceylon. The kingdom was too weak to conquer Dutch territory. In the regions, fields were burned down and villages were depopulated, which ultimately forced the Dutch to the negotiating table. In 1649 the alliance between Kandy and the VOC was renewed.
Late reign
At first, the revived alliance had no consequences. The Netherlands had gained their independence through the Peace of Munster and they lacked the money for expensive battles overseas and Kandy was also bled to death due to the permanent state of war and was internally unstable. In addition, Kandy still had no ports to participate in the lucrative foreign trade independently. It was not until October 1652 that the Dutch commander of Galle sent messengers to the Portuguese in Colombo and had the captain-general Emanuel Mascarenhas Homem informed that the closed season was now over and that hostilities would be resumed. A rude awakening for the Portuguese, because they had not used the time and even weakened their positions in the colony. The local population was so angry that they deposed Homem as captain general under the war hero under Gaspar de Figueira de Serpa .
Kandy and the VOC started a brutal war against the Portuguese on the coast, for which Rajasingha II had to request support from Patabanda, the sub-king of Koggala . A sign of how weak Kandy's central government had become. Kandy was relatively successful inland, for example in Korales and Sabaragamuwa , if only thanks to the support of the Dutch. But in 1655 Gaspar de Figueira de Serpa, now Capitão-Major, went over to the counterattack. Figueira defeated the army of Kandy in Malwana and Kananapella with the Portuguese garrison of Colombo and some Lascarins . On January 30, the Portuguese received further reinforcements and Figueira and his troops advanced inland and in February surprised the Kandy army in their camp in Arambepola . This fled into the hills above the Balane Pass. The Portuguese moved further inland and on April 12 came across Kandy's armed forces, which were repulsed. Rajasingha II decided to flee, only his Dutch bodyguard remained behind with a unit to cover the king's retreat. Depending on the sources, between 300 and 16,000 Kandy soldiers were killed or captured. But it should have been the last victory of the Portuguese against a Sinhalese armed force.
1655 reached Pietersz under General Gerard. Help Ceylon a large Dutch force. Negombo and Kalutara were captured and on November 12th the siege of Colombo began . When the Portuguese colonial capital fell seven months later, Rajasingha II demanded rule over it, but the Dutch also refused. General Hulft, with whom Rajasingha II got on well, had died during the siege. The king had his problems with his successor Adriaan van der Meyden . The king distrusted him and when he realized that the Dutch would not give up control of Colombo, he stopped all food deliveries to them. In November van der Meyden sent a small troop to the king's camp in Raygamwatte , but the king fled to the mountains before the Dutch got there. Ultimately, the king had only managed to have one colonial power replaced by another, which was paraphrased by the phrase “miris deela Inguru gatta wage” ( German to get ginger in exchange for chili ). On June 23, 1658, Jaffna, the last Portuguese city on Ceylon, fell into the hands of the Dutch.
Rajasingha II now carried out the same tactics against the Dutch as before against the Portuguese and limited himself to regular raids. In 1660 Kandy's soldiers captured the British Robert Knox near Trincomalee in the Netherlands . He lived in Kandy until 1679 and became an important chronicler of the empire in the 17th century.
The situation in Kandy destabilized. Dissatisfied nobles and the people who had always spoken out against an alliance with the Dutch revolted. Rajasingha II even had to leave his palace and capital to the rebels. In 1664 the leader of the rebellion, the noble Ambanwela Rala, was captured. Because of his anger, Rajasingha II couldn't think of a suitable punishment for the traitor and so he sent him to the Dutch, believing that they would execute Ambanwela Rala for him. Instead, the Dutch gave Ambanwela Rala a large coconut plantation in the Dutch territory in return for information about Kandy. He died in old age a rich man.
King Rajasingha II was able to maintain his rule. He died in 1687. His successor on the throne was Vimaladharmasurya II.
See also
literature
- IB Watson: Knox, Robert (1641-1720) . In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography . Oxford University Press , 2004, online edition, January 2008, doi : 10.1093 / ref: odnb / 6980 , (accessed February 28, 2011).
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Chandra Tilake Edirisuriya: Rasin Deviyo , In: Ceylon Today, May 10, 2015 ( Memento of the original from December 22, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ J. Ribeiro: The Historic Tragedy of the Island of Ceilāo , pp. 20, 91-92 , ISBN 8120613341
- ↑ SMJ Neangoda: Defeat of Portuguese at the Battle of Gannoruwa . In: Daily News , March 29, 2004. Archived from the original on February 20, 2011. Retrieved January 29, 2009.
- ↑ a b European Encroachment and Dominance: The Portuguese , In: Sri Lanka: A Country Study , accessed November 1, 2016.
- ↑ a b c d J. Sarath Edirisinghe: The siege of Colombo , In: The Sunday Times, May 4, 2014 , accessed November 1, 2016.
- ↑ Simon Gregory Perera: Jesuits in Ceylon (in the XVI and XVII Centuries) , 1941, p. 120 , accessed on November 1, 2016.
- ↑ Patabendige . In: defonseka.com . Archived from the original on June 22, 2006. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved June 22, 2006.
- ↑ Steven Thomas: ' Timeline for Colonial Ceylon , accessed November 1, 2016.
- ^ João Ribeiro: The Historic Tragedy of the Island of Ceilão
- ↑ LANKALIBRARY FORUM . In: lankalibrary.com .
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Rajasingha II. |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Rajasinha II .; Rajasimha II |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | King of Kandy on Ceylon |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1608 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Ceylon |
| DATE OF DEATH | November 25, 1687 |
| Place of death | Ceylon |