Portuguese-Sinhalese War (1595-1630 Phase)
Guerra Luzo-Singaleza (Faze de 1595-1630)
Ruling Portuguese Seilão [
Ceylon] was Governor Jerónimo de Azevedo, an excellent military commander with above-average administrative skills. He was responsible for salvaging the failed expedition of the late Pedro Lopes de Souza where he also managed to maintain control over the important Forte de Balana, the key to invading the Kingdom of Cândia [
Kandy] and negotiating the rescue of many captured Portuguese soldiers. He also had to put down revolts against the Portuguese after their failure to control Cândia.
But just as Balana was important for the Portuguese, it too was also important to Cândia because it would open Colombo, the capital of Portuguese Seilão to them and thus the Kandians often tried their luck at the fort. King Vimaladarmasúriá I [
Vimaladharmasūriya] do Cândia despite being widely accepted as the Monarch, continued to be seen as a usurper by the Portuguese and many of his countrymen and for this reason, he ordered the construction of new forts at Balana Pass to counterbalance Portuguese positions and improve his defences.
On January 1, 1595, Azevedo organized a military parade of the troops at his disposal together with King João Darmapala de Cota [
Kotte], a puppet of Portugal. Close to 900 Portuguese soldiers and 2 000 Lascarins were gathered at the Governor realized his army was small and very dependent on the unreliable mercenaries. For this reason, he asked for more men in both Goa and Lisboa. Darmapala died in 1597 and in his will, he donated his entire Kingdom to Portugal without worrying about the opposition to such a decision. With a sizable territory suddenly on his hands, Azevedo chose to negotiate a compromise with the population to have a smooth and peaceful transition of authority. A Convention was thus organized with representatives from all over Cota in the town of Malvana on the outskirts of Colombo.
The arrival of Catarina do Cândia at Colombo just a couple of days before the convention was to begin brought many unexpected things to the table, the first of which was a letter from King João IV with a set of predispositions regarding religious tolerance and the protection of Buddhists, which in Seilão’s case made up the majority of the island’s population. It stated that conversations should be done peacefully and consciously, not to mention that it had to come from the non-believer’s own conscience and not from external pressure such as threats.
Along with these predispositions and in a more secular demeanour, it was also established in the Convention that the natives of Cota would maintain their laws and customs as long as they did not contradict too much the King of Portugal’s laws and in return, they would swear their allegiance to him and join his army if need be. Thus the result was the Code of Malvana published in 1598 which was gradually spread through the Estado da Índia and the rest of the Empire, covering more religions than just Buddhism and Hinduism and becoming a very important symbol of tolerance in the Portuguese Empire.
With peace achieved, Azevedo began a profound reform of the territorial administration of Cota, dividing the Kingdom into four provinces ruled by a Disava (a mixture of a military captain and a judge) who was often either a Portuguese or a Half-Portuguese. The tribute system was replaced by a fixed tax which equaled the previous amount so that no one could say they were being exploited and the army at Azevedo's disposal slowly started to swell.
GovernorJerónimo de Azevedo who ruled Seilão from 1594 to 1615 and marked an era in the island
But the provisions that led to the Code of Malvana were not the only thing that Dona Catarina brought from the Portuguese capital…in her hands came a bastard son who had been born on board the ship that was carrying the Queen and whose father was never known until ADN tests were made in 2002 and compared with João IV, identifying him as the father of the child as many believed since the boy's birth but had no way of confirming aside from the name of the boy being João. Nevertheless having a son, no matter who the father was, meant that Catarina had arranged her successor without the need to marry or submit to a husband. This got rid of the biggest problem that caused the revolt that got her expelled from her hometown but created another because the child was still a bastard of a Portuguese father and this was very well availed by Vimaladarmasúriá who dubbed Catarina as the “Christian Whore”.
Catarina however did not let herself succumb to these insults and continued to claim the throne of Cândia, promoting the Code of Malvana in her Kingdom that she did not control in hopes of gaining the support of the moderates, but at that time, she got none. Little João do Cândia was a scion of the House of Siri Sanga Bo from his mother's side who at different times ruled many Kingdoms in Seilão and was educated by Catarina, her Catholic advisors, and the Jezuítas who were granted permission to preach on the island in 1602. She was granted the coastal and border town of Tangale in southern Seilão where she established her court.
A defensive fort called Santa Catarina de Tangale was built to protect the town from both land and sea attacks. The town’s small harbour was expanded to accommodate three Portuguese galleys that were to remain there at all times in case the Queen and her courtiers had to be evacuated and a church consecrated to Saint Catherine was built on the town square while the Buddhist temples remained untouched. To truly keep her protected, the Queen had her private army of Lascarins which she sometimes used to raid nearby villages or try to convince them to shift their allegiance to her.
With Cota pacified, Azevedo decided to try his luck against Cândia in 1603, hoping to restore Catarina to the throne as his directives from Lisboa encouraged him to. He organized an army of 1 000 Portuguese soldiers and 12 000 Lascarins and with it, he traversed the Balana Pass and almost reached the capital of the Kingdom with some successes along the way during skirmishes. The Governor, however, failed to properly coordinate the expedition with Catarina, who was still organizing her funds and army, and so her forces were way behind Azevedo’s so to compensate for this, he had to set camp on the outskirts of Cândia
Vimaladarmasúriá, worried about the situation decided to send some envoys to the Lascarins and bribed nearly all of them to his side and an attack was planned to happen by dawn. Those who were not bribed warned Azevedo just in time to prevent another butchery. The Governor thus retreated in what was called "A Famoza Retirada" [
The Famous Retreat] as he and his loyal men managed to escape back to Balana with very few casualties taken.
After his failure and being criticized by Catarina, Jerónimo changed his approach to dealing with his enemy. The new strategy that he came up with consisted of conducting raids against Kandian villages and fields to destroy the crops and kill the farm animals, provoking a food crisis to cripple the Kingdom. Parallel to this, the Governor and the Queen would conduct smaller campaigns through the coast of the island with the support of the Portuguese Navy so that Cândia was left with no ports to conduct commerce or receive food or weapons. The first of such raids took place in October 1603.
On June 2, 1603, while the Portuguese were making their plans, the Dutch Admiral Ióris vã Spilbergen [
Joris van Spilbergen] arrived in the town of Baticaloa on the east coast of the island and was warmly welcomed by the local authorities who sent him to the city of Cândia to meet Vimaladarmasúriá. The King of Cândia was eager to find allies that could counterbalance the Portuguese and to him the Dutch seemed to fit that role so he tried to develop cordial relations with them, going as far as to try and learn their language and discuss a possible trade agreement that would favour the North Europeans regarding the acquisition of cinnamon and pepper.
Unfortunately for Cândia, this was not to be…in 1604 King Vimaladarmasúriá perished and instead of being succeeded by his young sons as he wished, it was his cousin Senarate Adásim [
Senarat Adahasin] who took the throne in usurpation confining most of the boys in Buddhist monasteries or simply getting rid of them completely while he married the girls and their mothers to gain legitimacy. This caused a few supporters of the late Vimaladarmasúriá’s sons to shift their allegiance to either Azevedo or Catarina. The Dutch after two mostly fruitless trips to the island gave up on the idea to set a base there, leaving the Kandians at the mercy of Portugal.
Azevedo’s guerrilla technique was giving encouraging results as the new King of Cândia was unable to cope with the economic and food crisis thus leading to revolts against his rule. Catarina ever patient was gradually receiving the vassalage of more neighbouring villages who desperately sought her protection and food, which the Queen granted more than willingly.
In 1608, as soon as he came to power in Goa, Vise-Rei Duarte de Bragansa showed interest in helping Catarina’s cause in Cândia. Some said that he wanted to marry her and get a crown, others stated that his warmongering ways needed a war and Seilão’s constant warfare was a perfect place to get one. He was quick to contact Azevedo and ask what he could do to help and the reply he got was to help in taking over the eastern coast of the island, specifically the ports of Triquiminale and Baticaloa, the ports that prevented Cândia from having excessively large food shortages and from where they engaged in commerce.
Bragansa formed a squadron of 10 ships and a Terso of 2 000 mixed soldiers and took command of the Invasion of Triquinimale that was put into motion on 8 December 1608 when the Vise-Rei and his Terso landed on a beach nearby and then attacked the garrison of the town from its western side. They then managed to open the gates by December 19 and take the city, capturing or killing the soldiers.
Vise-Rei Duarte de Bragansa
News of the conquest alarmed Senarate who was not expecting such a move and so he wasn’t able to launch a proper response when he was worried about Azevedo taking the opportunity to launch another invasion through the Balana Pass. Senarate ended up sending 8 000 Sinhalese soldiers to the lost town by December 21 but these were defeated by Bragansa’s more disciplined and better-equipped Terso two days later. Azevedo occupied as much coastline as they could on their way to Baticaloa to confuse Senarate further. The plan worked because Bragansa’s Terso despite having taken sizable casualties after the engagement with Kandian forces took the aforementioned town which surrendered after his men arrived on January 7, thinking the Portuguese would eventually force their way in and kill them without mercy.
The whole coast between the target cities fell into Portuguese hands and was granted to Catarina as they were seen as an important part of Cândia and this would strengthen her power and claim. Duarte had achieved glory in his campaign but at this point, his duties as Vise-Rei and the casualties suffered compelled him to leave the island by March 1609 but his men remained and were used by Azevedo for his campaigns to dominate the coast which ended on January 4, 1612, when all the coast of Cândia was under Catarina’s hands.
While all this was happening, the puppet King of Jafana, Etirimana Sincão [
Ethirimanna Cinkam] also known as Parasasecarão VII [
Parasasekaran VII] began plotting to free himself from Portuguese influence and control by making an alliance with the Tamils of the southeastern coast of Índia and with Cândia who began using the ports of this Kingdom to counter their food crisis. Considering all that, the Portuguese’s gains were being galvanized, Duarte of Bragansa sent a warning to the aforementioned Monarch to leave his schemes under the threat of a full-scale invasion. When the answer took too long to reach Goa, as the King was measuring the Vise-Rei while trying his best to find a solution that suited him, Bragansa commanded Azevedo to invade Jafana, an action that finally compelled Parasasecarão to submit and cut off relations with Cândia, although the Kandians illegally continued to use the northern ports.
Senarate’s Cândia was thus close to submission while Catarina’s was increasing its size and power with more and more villages submitting to her when the Conselho do Ultramar and King João IV decided to promote Azevedo to Vise-Rei da Índia in 1615 as a way to use his skills on a wider area and reward him for his good service. Although Azevedo continued to keep a very close watch on the island of Seilão, the situation got grimmer for the Portuguese as soon as he was away…The new Governor, Nuno Álvares Pereira, former Captain-General of Sofala struggled to arrange money to pay the troops and so he raised the taxes to compensate it, causing resentment among the population. To make matters worse, he did not impose the Code of Malvana as much as he should and so, some more zealot missionaries and Catholics began desecrating Buddhist temples inflaming the situation further.
Everything culminated on the Revolt of March 24, 1617, which broke out in Sabaragamua [
Sabaragamuwa] in the southwest of the island, very close to Catarina’s lands. The revolt was quick to reach such an intensity that Álvares Pereira was forced to call the troops of the northernmost province of Sete Corales [
Seven Korales]. This created a void in Sete Corales and a new and larger revolt broke out there by June. This new revolt was led by a simple and poor grain measurer who claimed to be Prince Nicapitiá Bendara [
Nikapitiya Bendara], grandson of the late Rajasinha de Sitabaca, a claim that granted him much support.
Accumulated tensions being unleashed during the Revolts
Senarate promptly took advantage of this to reinforce his power and position. He ended the last rebellions on Cândia and sent support to Nicapitiá in hopes that he would restore an independent Cota and Sitabaca that had fallen into Portuguese hands. He also sent 5 000 men under the command of former rebel Cangara Aratxi [
Kangara Aratchi] and the Prince of Uva, Curuvita Rala [
Kuruvita Rala] who invaded Catarina’s lands in the south, taking most of them and forcing her to flee Tangale with her 17-year-old son who wished to remain and fight but was convinced by his mother to follow her lest to destroy all of her efforts.
The Queen arrived once again at Colombo amidst heavy protests against the Governor and his taxes. Some urged Catarina to claim control of Portuguese Seilão but she refused it and together with Álvares Pereira called for Azevedo’s help. By then a sizable chunk of Sete Corales had already fallen into the hands of Nicapitiá while Senarate’s Cândia had recovered the southern provinces and was preparing to take the eastern coast as well, food began reaching the Kingdom in larger quantities making all the effort go down the drain.
Given that no major war was going on at the time Azevedo raised 3 Tersos, 6 000 soldiers, which he led to Colombo. Arriving by October of 1617, he took command of the situation and joined the local troops under Álvares Pereira and advanced with close to 10 000 men to Tangale as he deemed the Kandians as the most dangerous at that time. The massive Portuguese army made the whole island tremble given that the bulk of this army was made of trained Portuguese soldiers and not Lascarins of dubious loyalty. Senarate, worriedly rose nearly all the might of his Kingdom to try and defeat them. 22 000 Kandians and close to a hundred war elephants under Curuvita faced the Portuguese at the Battle of Catuána [
Katuwana} near Tangale where despite being outnumbered 2 to 1, the Portuguese using the pike and shoot strategy took down nearly 4 000 Kandians at the expense of a 1 000 Portuguese. The experienced Kandian commander was overwhelmed with the butchery even when a sizable part of his troops had arquebuses so to not lose his entire army, he decided to retreat into the mountains, costing him an extra thousand men.
Rather than trying to invade Cândia and risk losing more troops, Azevedo focused on recovering the lost lands. Many villages that had sworn allegiance to Catarina were however fully lost to Senarate. After being successful on the southern and southeastern coast, Azevedo marched to Sete Corales to put an end to Nicapitiá’s Revolt. The King of Cândia convinced the Portuguese to sign a truce but this made many Kandian nobles openly contest Senarate’s move as they felt they could win. While taking control of the situation in the north and seeing the situation in Cândia favourably, Azevedo compelled Senarate to abdicate in favour of Queen Catarina but this was too much for the King and so while he kept the truce to recover his strength he refused the proposal and by doing so he managed to quell the angered nobles by promising them the lands under Portuguese control. Curuvita Rala, his best commander was assassinated during this time and many attributed the blame to the Portuguese, who were the ones who made the deed, but many suspected Senarate of being behind it due to fears of being usurped and so they began plotting to remove him in favour of one of his older sons.
All of Portuguese Seilão was pacified by March of 1618 and Catarina returned to Tangale while Azevedo much to his dismay had to return to Goa as other affairs demanded his attention. He did however leave a Terso in Colombo to strengthen the Governor’s Seilão’s power; reinforced and repaired damaged forts; sent the most zealot missionaries back to Europe and fined those who desecrated temples and lowered the taxes back to their previous numbers. Thanks to Catarina’s benevolence and pragmatism, she abdicated her right to earn a fifth of the revenue of Portuguese Seilão to facilitate the finances of the colony.
Nuno Álvares Pereira was sent to rule Insulíndia and was replaced by Constantino de Sá Noronha in 1617. The new Governor followed Azevedo’s policies and focused on recovering the army in hopes of making a campaign against Senarate who in turn was doing the same, preparing an invasion of Colombo. A couple of months earlier, Pararasasecarão VII died. Initially, his young son was proclaimed King but Pararasasecarão’s nephew, Txanquili [
Cankili] who was part of the Regency for the boy King, dissolved it and killed all other possible opponents to the throne and thus crowned himself King in a usurpation in the style of Senarate’s. Azevedo acknowledged him as King when he guaranteed that he would honour the established agreements with Portugal.
The murders of so many pretenders and the lack of political ability from the new King made him an unpopular ruler, especially among the Christians who revolted against the taxes that Txanquili II imposed and succeeded in expelling him. While the Catholics debated on setting a new King and appeasing the non-Christians or just submitting themselves to Portugal, Txanquili gathered the support of the Kingdom of Tanjore [
Nayak of Tanjavur], a Southeast Indian ruler and was reinstalled in the throne after an invasion of Jafana.
The King of Jafana decided to execute the heads of the revolt but this caused problems with the Portuguese and more revolts which he was unable to contain. While Txanquili supported Cândia in the shadows, Senarate driven by the need to fight the food shortages began seriously considering invading Jafana. But he wasn’t the only one considering such an approach…Sá de Noronha given that the King of Jafana could not pay the tributes he was due and was executing more and more Christians decided it was enough incentive to invade the country and right at the end of 1618 he did so, before his rival could.
The Disava Filipe de Oliveira entered Jafana at the command of 5 000 soldiers and contrary to what was expected, he did have to put down strong resistance by Txanquili and some other anti-Portuguese nobles. Senarate decided to make a move and invade Jafana, claiming it as his instead of supporting a potential ally. He tried to force Oliveira into battle but the Christian simply avoided him and focused on defeating Txanquili which he at the Battle of Nalur, fought on January 11, imprisoning the King and his remaining family. Having sent the aforementioned family to Goa, so they could be converted and compelled to celibacy, and recognizing the danger of the Kandians, he requested support while he tried his best to fend off Senarate with his relatively small army. Sá de Noronha began conducting more frequent raids in the Balana Pass in hopes to divert his opponent from the north but this did not have the expected result.
Reinforcements came to Manar by June where they joined with Oliveira’s forces and helped kick the Kandians from Jafana, pacify the mutineers and get rid of the pirates that started to infest the Estreito de Manar [
Strait of Palk] which separated Seilão from Índia. The Code of Malvana was promulgated with some changes since Jafana was a Hindu Kingdom and the capital was changed to Jafana itself as it had been for many years. By now the Portuguese had enough of Senarate, the rebellious Kandians and their schemes so Sá de Noronha invaded Cândia in February 1622, through the Balana Pass with 12 000 soldiers, most of whom were Lascarins which he seriously thought would keep their loyalty to him...It went wrong…as a sizable number of them deserted and a skirmish outside of one of the forts provoked heavy losses in the Governor’s army. Since his army was still mostly intact and more reinforcements were underway, Sá de Noronha made the gamble to proceed into the city of Cândia itself.
The move worked because Senarate was expecting him to turn back after taking so many casualties but once he learned of the Portuguese’s advance, he decided to meet the Portuguese in open battle, the Battle of Ganoruá [
Gannoruwa] right at the outskirts of Cândia. It was a bloody affair where the Portuguese lost 3 000 men and Senarate 5 000 but the King of Cândia ended up fleeing the capital into the mountains as he feared Portuguese reinforcements which were on their way giving the victory to Sá de Noronha who entered the city a day later.
Sá de Noronha leading the Portuguese in the Battle of Ganoruá
It was a Pyrrhic victory for the Governor whose army was incapable of pushing further given that it was now at 3 000 men strong. He did try to advance a little further on the mountain passes when 3 000 more soldiers arrived but the Kandians, protected by the hard terrain and dense forests prevented significant gains and Sá de Noronha fully gave up on his project before another disaster occurred. By September, Queen Catarina returned to the city in which she had been born with her son, now 25 years old and with four children of his own. She was sworn Queen of Cândia in the city once again and her son her legitimate heir with the local population accepting it as they were fed up with Senarate and the famines. The Queen was much more mature than the first time she was there: despite her known submission to the King of Portugal, she kept her Portuguese counsellors under a tight leash and pursued her independent policies such as extra tolerance towards other religions and how things were administrated. Having a strong son and many grandchildren with Royal blood from the previous dynasty gave her more legitimacy.
She, however, was not convinced with the current defences of the city as the last experience had left her afraid given how fast the situation changed, on one day she was a well-loved Queen and on the other she was on top of an elephant fleeing death, imprisonment or a forced marriage so she nominated a Disava to rule the city in her name and left the city with Sá de Noronha back to Tangale which she kept as her capital. The inhabitants of the city were thus allowed to keep their normal lifestyles with little interference which boosted the Queen’s popularity.
Defeated and humiliated, Senarate arrived at Uva where he raised his eldest son Sirimane Adásim [
Sirimane Adahasin] to Co-Monarch but now, given that he lost the city of Cândia and that he was never universally acclaimed he proclaimed the creation of the new Kingdom, the Kingdom of Uva. Depressed and sinking into excesses, Senarate had his son organize the guerrilla to oppose the Portuguese. He spread spies all along the Portuguese-held territory, reformed the army and trained troops to use the captured muskets and locally produced variants more efficiently, especially in a guerrilla situation. Food was rationed to last as much as possible and raids to steal food from Catarina’s lands were heavily promoted and scorched earth policies were also heavily used to turn villages in his favour.
Senarate despite all his flaws had managed to fend off the Portuguese even at times of weakness and his son was proving himself to be a tough opponent for the Portuguese to crack but would they be able to avoid submission given that they had no access to the sea and were encircled? The remaining 1620s were a period of stalemate, neither the Portuguese nor the Sinhalese made major campaigns, instead, guerrilla fights became the most common form of combat. Catarina was certainly happy and relieved in Tangale after succeeding in recovering a sizable part of her Kingdom but she was reported to have remained away from the affairs of her lands for three full days when she heard of João IV’s death…
Seilão in 1630, Queen Catarina directly controls the Provinces labeled with her name
and Cândia, Baticaloa and Trincomalai which she shares with the Portuguese
This Update grew much larger than what I anticipated but it's done. This is a much better Portuguese perfomance on the island than OTL but there is still plenty to do in the island. Queen Catherine rules in her name a considerable area and it's very likely she will increase her territory in the future given that she as a woman will live a long live. I also ended up going with the bastard child route which is accepted here because John of Kandy married a Singalese woman and he will be accept by Portugal and given the amount of usurpations I went through it would be to difficult to conceive. Only one Update to finish Asia...As always thank you for the comments and likes.
