The Kandy Kingdom

The Kandy Kingdom - I

The Kandiyan Kingdom 1658 - 1687

The elimination of Portuguese power in Sri Lanka aggravated rather than solved the problems that confronted Rajasimha II vis a vis the maritime regions of the island. He viewed the Dutch forces as mercenaries he had hired, and he hoped, quite unrealistically as it turned out, that after his aims had been achieved, the Dutch would return whence they had come, leaving behind a few officers and stores for trade purposes. As for the Dutch, their policy in the East was always that of gaining political control over spice-producing areas, and where possible securing a complete monopoly of trade. In Sri Lanka their aim was nothing less than the control of the cinnamon producing areas of the island, which they had no intention of handing over to Rajasimha II.

The Dutch claimed that the lowlands were being held as collateral security till the Kandyan ruler repaid the costs incurred in the expulsion of the Portuguese from Sri Lanka under the terms of the treaty of 1638. When, after the fall of Jaffna in June 1658, the Dutch presented their bill, it was evident that it had been computed with cynical disregard for equity. For one thing the value of the cinnamon, areca, elephants and land revenue they had obtained from the lands they controlled was calculated, unilaterally, at far below their true commercial value. Once this artificially low valuation of benefits derived was set against their expenses, the balance due was stated to be 7,265,460 guilders which, considering the Kandyan ruler's resources, was a staggering sum far beyond his capacity to pay. Besides, the king's liability kept increasing with every day the Dutch forces were stationed in the island. Such, in brief, was the sum total of the title which the Dutch could lay claim to, and realising its intrinsic weakness they did not make much of it. And not surprisingly Rajasimha II firmly refused to consider, much less recognise, the legality of Dutch rule in the maritime regions of the island. However, except in regard to Jaffnapatam where the Dutch took over the Portuguese possessions in their entirety, their control in other parts of the island extended to about the half the land area which the Portuguese had possessed.

Confronted with overwhelming evidence of Dutch duplicity, Rajasimha II retaliated by resorting to frequent and destructive raids on the territories under their control. The Wallalaviti, Pasdun, Rayigam, Salpiti and Alutkuru Korajes were systematically devastated and denuded of their population, thus creating a belt of wasteland which served as a 'natural frontier between the king's dominions and those of the Dutch. But this frontier was nevertheless an artificial one, for the king's influence permeated the border regions under Dutch rule, and was not without importance in the other areas controlled by them. The loyalties of the Sinhalese to the Kandyan ruler were kept alive. In the first two decades of Dutch rule in the maritime regions of the island, the dominant influence in shaping their response to the challenge posed by Rajasimha's militant hostility was Admiral Ryklof van Goens, who in 1656 had been given charge of the attack on the Portuguese possessions in South Asia. After the expulsion of the Portuguese from the island, he was stationed in Colombo as Commissary and Superintendent over Coromandel, Surat, Sri Lanka, Bengal and Malacca. The immediate need in Sri Lanka as he saw it was to erect a powerful defensive ring on the frontiers with the Kandyan kingdom, especially on the more populated western and southwestern sides. Van Goens, no believer in defence per se, soon emerged as the most forceful and consistent advocate of a forward policy in Sri Lanka. His first move was to seize, in 1659, the Kandyan port of Kalpitiya, which fell after a brief assault. He viewed it as the first of a series of such attacks devised for the purpose of encircling and weakening the Kandyan kingdom, and compelling it to come to terms and recognise Dutch sovereignty over the lowlands. In addition to a purposeful bid to gain control over Sabaragamuva, the Seven and Four Korales, van Goens sought to occupy the Kandyan ports on the east coast and thus impose an economic blockade on the Kandyan kingdom.

This forward policy did not receive the support of van Goens' superiors in Batavia, who were quite content to leave Rajasimha II in occupation of the lands he controlled provided he left the Dutch in peace to exploit the economic resources of the parts of the island which they held. As a commercial organisation their primary concern was the extraction of the maximum possible profits from the lands under their control. But to do this it was necessary to show the people that the Dutch were there in Sri Lanka to stay, and to persuade them of their good intentions. Above all, they had a realistic understanding of the fact that the success of the seasonal cinnamon harvest, the trading commodity that had been the original cause for Dutch involvement in the affairs of the island, depended greatly on the goodwill of the king and the people. The Dutch administration in the island was expressly forbidden to embark on any territorial expansion at the expense of the Kandyan ruler, and van Goens was directed to pursue a conciliatory policy in order to restore good relations with Rajasiriiha II. As a result Kalpitiya, where the trade had been closed to the Kandyans after its occupation, was now opened to their traffic, and routes to the Kandyan kingdom were reopened in the hope that commercial and other contacts would be reestablished. This reluctance to extend Dutch territory in the island was part of a policy of restraint involving South India as well. With the conquest of the Portuguese possessions in Malabar in 1663, Batavia felt that the limits of Dutch territorial expansion on South Asia had been reached.