Portuguese Period

By about 1500 trade in the Indian Ocean was dominated by Arab, Indian, Malay, and Chinese merchants, who together used various seafaring craft to transport a spectrum of cargo, from spices to elephants. In the early 16th century a new force, in the form of Portuguese ships with mounted guns, arrived in the ocean. These vessels, with their firepower and capacity for high speeds, helped implement a policy of control that began to undermine the region’s long-standing, relatively open trade competition. In 1505 a Portuguese fleet commanded by Lourenço de Almeida was blown into Colombo by adverse winds. Almeida received a friendly audience from the king of Kotte, Vira Parakrama Bahu, and was favourably impressed with the commercial and strategic value of the island. The Portuguese soon returned and established a regular and formal contact with Kotte. In 1518 they were permitted to build a fort at Colombo and were given trading concessions.

In 1521 three sons of Vijayabahu, the reigning king of Kotte, put their father to death and partitioned the kingdom among themselves. The eldest of the brothers, Bhuvanaika Bahu, ruled at Kotte, and the two others set up independent kingdoms at Sitawake and Rayigama. Mayadunne, the king of Sitawake, was an ambitious and able ruler who sought to expand his frontiers at the expense of his brother at Kotte. Bhuvanaika Bahu could not resist the temptation of seeking Portuguese assistance, and the Portuguese were eager to help him. The more he was pressed by Mayadunne, the greater was his reliance on Portuguese reinforcement. Bhuvanaika Bahu defended his kingdom against Mayadunne, who in turn allied himself with an inveterate enemy of the Europeans, the zamorin (member of the Zamorin dynasty) of Kozhikode (also known as Calicut, in southwestern India).

Bhuvanaika Bahu was succeeded by his grandson Prince Dharmapala, who was even more dependent on Portuguese support. An agreement between Bhuvanaika Bahu and the king of Portugal in 1543 had guaranteed the protection of the prince on the throne and the defense of the kingdom; in return the Portuguese were to be confirmed in all their privileges and were to receive a tribute of cinnamon. The prince was educated by members of the Franciscan order of the Roman Catholic Church; in 1556 or 1557, when his conversion to Christianity was announced, he became easily controlled by the Portuguese. Dharmapala’s conversion undermined the Kotte dynasty in the eyes of the people. Mayadunne’s wars of aggression were now transformed into a struggle against Portuguese influence and interests in the island, and he annexed a large part of the Kotte kingdom. After Mayadunne’s death, his son Rajasinha continued these wars successfully on land, though, like his father,