SOAS Research Online

Abstract

This thesis furnishes a survey of Portuguese rule over the northern , western and south-western plains of Ceylon from 1617 to 1638. The first chapter surveys the sources utilized and makes an assessment of previous historical writing on the subject. It also contains a brief chistorical introduction outlining Portuguese activity in Ceylon from 1505 to 1616. The three events that demarcate the period under consideration from the orevious era, namely the rebellion of Nikapitiya Bandara, the first treaty of peace between the Portuguese and the Highland kingdom of Kandy and the Portuguese conquest of the kingfom of Jaffna are examined in detail in the second chapter which traces political history up to 1623. The third chapter is exclusively concerned with events in Portuguese Ceylon during the captain generalship of Constantino de Sa de Noronha (second term 1623-1630).The survey of political history, and of the economic and social reasons which underlay political decisions is continued up to the Portuguese defeat at Gannoruwa in 1638 in the fourth chapter. The administrative superstructure established by the Portuguese in Ceylon and the armed forces, the ultimate basis of Portuguese power formed the subject of the fifth chapters while in the next are considered the principal sources of revenue and the probable revenue and expenditure of the Portuguese state in Ceylon. The seventh chapter deals with missionary activity and relates it to Portuguese political fortunes while the main themes of the study are summed up in the conclusion.