November 15 marks the 510th anniversary of the arrival of the Portuguese in Sri Lanka:

The Portuguese footprint

by Special Correspondent

It was 510 years ago on 15 November 1505 that the Portuguese set foot on Sri Lanka. In just 135 years of suzerainty, they made a sweeping, deep seated and lasting impression on the island, its institutions and its people. The Portuguese were game changers in more senses than one. Ironically, they came not by design, but accidentally, pushed by a storm which had struck their fleet of nine small sailing vessels called "baxeys" near the Maldives.

The commander of the little fleet, Lourenco de Almeida, son of Dom Francisco de Almeida, the Portuguese Governor of India seated in Goa, had set sail from the Portuguese outpost of Cochin (modern Kochi in the south Indian state of Kerala). He was on a mission to destroy the Saracens or Moors (as Muslims were referred to in 16th Century Europe). At that time, the Moors were dominating international trade in South and South East Asia and the Indian Ocean. The Moors had to be ousted if Portugal, the new power in Europe, was to prosper.

Though the tempest over the Maldives put paid to Almeida's Moor destroying mission, it led to the serendipitous discovery of Sri Lanka which was known in Europe as Taprobane, and among the Arabs as Zeilan.

A golden shore

At Galle, where the fleet touched the Sri Lankan shore, Lourenco de Almeida found it difficult to communicate with the local people. Therefore, after collecting some food, he sailed north along the western coast and landed in Colombo on 15 November 1505. To mark the event, he inscribed a "Quinas" or an emblem having shields, on a rock on the shore. This can be seen within the compound of the President's House in the Fort. A chapel for St. Lawrence - Almeida's patron saint -was erected and the mass was conducted by Friar Vicente. St. Lawrence became the patron saint of Colombo.

Almeida was well treated by the then king of Kotte, Veera Parakramabahu (1483-1513) and his people, whom the Portuguese called "Chingalas" (Sinhalas). But Almeida seems to have subtly arm-twisted the king into submission. According to Fr. V. Perniola, author of "The Catholic Church in Sri Lanka: The Portuguese Period Volume I 1505-1565," the Portuguese ambassadors bluntly asked the king whether he wanted an alliance or war. Their pluck (despite being outnumbered and being in an alien island) paid off. The king, who the Portuguese described as the "most powerful in the island," lording it over six other kingdoms besides his own, listened to their demands "most politely and settled everything peacefully and favourably."

Among the demands made by the Portuguese was an annual supply of 150 measures of the best cinnamon. The king not only agreed, but gave the first installment then and there. What the Kotte king wanted in return, is not mentioned by chroniclers.

Almeida did not tarry in Ceylon. And since his main mission was to search and destroy Moorish traders, he attacked and burnt Muslim settlements along Sri Lanka's western coast before returning to Cochin. There is nothing to indicate that permission to indulge in this atrocity was sought from the Kotte king.

Religious agenda

At Cochin, the Portuguese welcomed Almeida with fanfare. According to a contemporary account, there were "many profane rejoicings as jousts, bull fights and other demonstrations, solemn masses, sermons and other Thanks Giving." The Lord had opened the door "for the mastery of a new kingdom and for a large conquest of so many infidel souls," an account said, stressing the religious agenda underlying Portuguese conquests and diplomatic triumphs in Asia and Africa.

Sure enough, in March 1521, Portuguese King Manoel issued a decree on spreading Christianity in Sri Lanka addressed to lay men as well as priests. "We recommend to you that you make every effort to see that many of that country (Sri Lanka) become Christians and receive holy Baptism. To this, you should urge them personally and through those you find helpful in the matter, for you cannot do us a better service," the decree said.

Manoel asked the Portuguese to instruct Christian converts properly, treat them with honour and favour them "so that this is seen as a consequence of the step they have taken and an invitation to others to become Christians themselves." In 1541, the great Jesuit missionary, Francis Xavier (1506-1552), began to eye Sri Lanka. In a letter dated 18 March 1541 to Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Society of Jesus, Xavier said that the island was "inhabited only by pagans, without any admixture of Moors or Jews, where a great harvest could be reaped, where the king and its inhabitants would have no difficulty to become Christians." Xavier scored major successes in Mannar as well as the Fisheries coast of Tamil Nadu across the Palk Strait.

Misuse of power

However, by 1539, the Portuguese had become a law unto themselves. They were brazen enough to be disrespectful to the then king of Kotte, Buvanekabahu VII (1521-1551). Miguel Ferreira, a Portuguese Fidalgo (nobleman) from Mylapore in Chennai, India, who had visited Sri Lanka, wrote to the Portuguese king Joao III graphically describing the indignities heaped on Sri Lankans and their king by the Portuguese including the Factor or head of the Portuguese trading establishment, Pero Vaz Travassos.

"He (Pero Vaz Travassos) used foul language against the king. The king felt very humiliated and I saw tears trickling down his beard," Ferreira wrote. He further said the king wanted Travassos to be taken to Goa and denounced by the Portuguese Viceroy, Garcia de Noronha. King Joao III acceded to this request.

In 1541, Buvanekabahu VII wrote to King Joao III complaining that the Portuguese in Kotte were draining an already drained kingdom, which had lost a number of ports and a lot of land to his brother and rival, Mayadunne, the king of neighbouring Sitawaka. The Portuguese were being given 300 bahars (one bahar is 384 lbs) of cinnamon per year, but much of it was being discarded by the Portuguese. Land owners and others, who had converted to Christianity, were refusing to pay their dues to the king and perform the traditional services due to the king. The converts claimed that they had become subjects of the Portuguese king. Off Kalpitiya and Chilaw, the Portuguese were illegally levying taxes on Muslim pearl fishers from India, and depriving the Kotte king of his dues.

But Buvanekabahu needed King Joao III's help to meet the ever present threat from his brother, Mayadunne. He sought a contingent of 50 Portuguese soldiers, the cost of which he would bear. He also wanted the Portuguese king to recognize Dharmapala, his six- year -old grandson through his daughter Samudra Devi, as his heir to forestall Mayadunne's bid to succeed him.

To present his case forcefully, Buvanekabahu sent to Lisbon, his Brahmin priest, Sri Ramaraksha Pandita, who was also fluent in Portuguese, as an Ambassador in 1542. To smoothen Dharmapala's passage to succession, Ramaraksha Pandita told the Portuguese monarch that Buvanekabahu himself wanted to be baptized "to free himself

from the annoyance which he was daily suffering from Mayadunne." Very pleased with all this, King Joao III held a grand coronation ceremony at the Cathedral in Lisbon, recognizing Dharmapala as the heir to the throne of Kotte.

Refusing to convert

However, Buvanekabahu refused to convert to Christianity despite threats and inducements from adamant Portuguese friars and his own utter political dependence on the Portuguese. Even when the Franciscan friars headed by Fr.Joao de villa de Conde warned him that he might lose the support of the "most powerful king of Portugal" if he did not convert, he refused to give up Buddhism.

"Neither for the present king of Portugal not for two others like him, will I desert the law in which I was born, grew up and was educated. You may be quite sure that I will never embrace the Christian religion or speak in favour of it. But if I am forced, I will abdicate my kingship and abandon my land rather than be dipped in the waters of baptism," the king declared.

Buvanekabahu was intolerant towards the Portuguese and Christians and when he died in a firing accident in 1551, the Portuguese claimed it was divine retribution.