|
1505 - Galle Ceylon, now Sri Lanka, was first set up by the Portuguese
as a trading station in 1505. Later it was taken by the Dutch who built
a fort with 300 houses and shops inside the walls, all still standing.
The Dutch passed off to the British for the last 100 years of the
colonial period, so the French couldn't get Ceylon
• 1602 - In 1602, the Dutch appeared in the east. They assumed to aid
the people of Ceylon against the oppression of the Portuguese, and
succeeded in gaining a footing on the island. They soon expelled the
Portuguese. If the Dutch are fairly dealt with in history, they were
very uncomfortable friends to the poor people of Ceylon, who were driven
on to the highlands in the interior, while the Dutch possessed the
fertile lowlands which border all around on the coast. Ceylon abounds in
rich ...
• 1656 - An example, on a large scale, of the disastrous results of
employing political methods of spreading Christianity is afforded by the
religious history of Ceylon. When the Dutch took over from the
Portuguese the island of Ceylon in 1656, they attempted to force a
Protestant form of Christianity upon its inhabitants by subjecting
Buddhists, Hindus, and Eomanists who were not prepared to embrace
Protestantism, to heavy civil disabilities.
• 1658 - The Dutch invaded Ceylon (Sri Lanka) in 1658 and was
dominant for 140 years Again the Dutch were not able to capture the
kingdom of Kandy. History says the Dutch like the Portuguese tried, but
they were not successful.
• 1690 - But before speaking of this new king, I will briefly glance
at the history of coffee in Ceylon. To begin with, it is a singular fact
that not only a very large proportion of all the coffee that once
clothed these thousand hills in Ceylon, but also the coffee plantations
of many other lands are all lineally descended from one plant, which,
about AD 1690,. was raised in a garden at Batavia by the Dutch governor,
General Van Hoorne, to whom a few seeds had been presented by a trader
...
• 1766 - Before the Kandian war, which terminated in 1766, the Dutch
annually exported from Ceylon from 8000 to 10000 bales of cinnamon, each
weighing 86 Ib. Dutch, or about 92i English. This war, which was very
unfortunate for the King- of Kandy, was extremely expensive to the
Dutch. The,chief advantage they obtained was the entire possession of
the harbours and coasts round the island.
• 1795 - In 1795 the British dispossessed the Dutch, and Ceylon has
been from that time to our own days under the direct government of the
English Crown. It might have seemed that warnings had been written with
terrible distinctness upon the face of that twice-conquered ...
• 1815 - English history records that the whole island, by the
invitation of the natives, was taken possession of, in 1815, by the
British crown, under the sovereignty of which Ceylon still remains.
|
