page_title: Jaffna
section_title: Colonial history
hierarchical_section_title: Jaffna / History / Colonial history
caption_attribution_description: Nederlands: Titel catalogus Leupe (NA): Afbeeldinge van 't Casteel ende de Stad Jaffanapatnam, representerende 't Coninckryck in correcte aenwysing, hoedanich deselve belegert en voor de Generaele Nederl. Geoctr. Oost-Ind. Comp. onderdanich gemaekt is. Notities verso: 39 OBP Ceilon portefeuille II nr. 585a [folio nr.?]. English: According to the Leupe catalogue (NA), the original title reads: Afbeeldinge van 't Casteel ende de Stad Jaffanapatnam, representerende 't Coninckryck in correcte aenwysing, hoedanich deselve belegert en voor de Generaele Nederl. Geoctr. Oost-Ind. Comp. onderdanich gemaekt is. Notes on reverse: 39 OBP Ceilon portefeuille II nr. 585a [folio nr.?].
context_page_description: Jaffna is the capital city of the Northern Province of Sri Lanka. It is the administrative headquarters of the Jaffna District located on a peninsula of the same name. With a population of 88,138 in 2012, Jaffna is Sri Lanka's 12th most populous city. Jaffna is approximately six miles from Kandarodai which served as an emporium in the Jaffna peninsula from classical antiquity. Jaffna's suburb Nallur, served as the capital of the four-century-long medieval Jaffna Kingdom.
  Prior to the Sri Lankan Civil War, it was Sri Lanka's second most populous city after Colombo. The 1980s insurgent uprising led to extensive damage, expulsion of part of the population, and military occupation. Since the end of civil war in 2009, refugees and internally displaced people began returning to homes, while government and private sector reconstruction started taking place. Historically, Jaffna has been a contested city. It was made into a colonial port town during the Portuguese occupation of the Jaffna peninsula in 1619 who lost it to the Dutch, only to lose it to the British in 1796. During the civil war, the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam occupied Jaffna in 1986.
context_section_description: The Portuguese established Jaffna city in 1621 as their colonial administrative center. Prior to the military capitulation to the Portuguese Empire in 1619, the capital of the local Jaffna Kingdom, also known as the Kingdom of the Aryacakravarti was Nallur, which is close to the city limits of Jaffna. The capital city was known in royal inscriptions and chronicles as Cinkainakar and in other sources as Yalpaanam in Tamil and Yapaapatuna in Sinhalese.
   From 1590, Portuguese merchants and Catholic missionaries were active within the Jaffna kingdom. Impetus for a permanent fortified settlement happened only after 1619, when the expeditionary forces of the Portuguese Empire led by Filipe de Oliveira captured Cankili II, the last native king. De Oliveira moved the center of political and military control from Nallur to Jaffnapatao (variously spelt as Jaffnapattan or Jaffnapattam), the Portuguese rendition of the native name for the former Royal capital. Jaffnapatao was attacked number of times by A local rebel Migapulle Arachchi and his allied Thanjavur Nayakar expeditionary forces attacked Jaffnapatao a number of times, but the Portuguese defence of the city withstood the attacks. Jaffnapatao was a small town with a fort, a harbour, Catholic chapels, and government buildings. Portuguese merchants took over the lucrative trade of elephants from the interior and monopolised the import of goods from Colombo and India, disfranchising the local merchants. The Portuguese era was a time of population movement to the Vannimais in the south, religious change, and as well as the introduction to the city of European education and health care.
  In 1658, Portuguese lost Jaffapatao to the Dutch East India Company (VOC) after a three-month siege. During the Dutch occupation, the city grew in population and size. The Dutch were more tolerant towards native mercantile and religious activities than the Portuguese had been. Most of the Hindu temples that the Portuguese had destroyed were rebuilt. A community of mixed Eurasian Dutch Burghers grew up. The Dutch rebuilt the fort and expanded it considerably. They also built Presbyterian churches and government buildings, most of which survived until the 1980s, but suffered damage or destruction during the subsequent civil war. During the Dutch period, Jaffna also became prominent as a trading town in locally grown agricultural products with the native merchants and farmers profiting as much as the VOC merchants.
  Great Britain took over the Dutch possessions in Sri Lanka from 1796. Britain maintained many of the Dutch mercantile, religious, and taxation policies. During the British colonial period, almost all the schools that eventually played role in the high literacy achievement of the Jaffna residents were built by missionaries belonging to American Ceylon Mission, Weslyan Methodist Mission, Saivite reformer Arumuka Navalar and others. Under British rule, Jaffna enjoyed a period of rapid growth and prosperity, as the British built the major roads and railway line connecting the city with Colombo, Kandy and the rest of the country. The prosperity of the city's citizens enabled them to underwrite the building of temples and schools, and the library and museum.
caption: Bird's eye view of the city of Jaffnapatnam in 1658[31]
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