page_title: Batticaloa
section_title: Batticaloa principality
hierarchical_section_title: Batticaloa / History / Batticaloa principality
caption_attribution_description: Spilbergen meeting king Vimaladharmasoorya of Kandy, 1602.
context_page_description: Batticaloa is a major city in the Eastern Province, Sri Lanka, and its former capital. It is the administrative capital of the Batticaloa District. The city is the seat of the Eastern University of Sri Lanka and is a major commercial city. It is on the east coast, 111 kilometres south of Trincomalee, and is situated on an island. Pasikudah is popular tourist destinations situated 35 km northwest with beaches and flat year-round warm-water shallow-lagoons.
context_section_description: Lanka was a confederacy of various rulers for a long time and different princes ruled the different provinces and helped each other and plotted against each other. As the Portuguese colonisers were dividing and ruling Kotte, Kandy Kingdom and Jaffna Kingdom had to create a confederacy to fight against Portugal. As a joint strategy they approached the Netherlands to have a global free trade and to get rid of the Portuguese.
  From Cape Comorin the Dutch Admiral Joris van Spilbergen steered his course to Point de Galle; but, without landing there or at any of the other places which were strongly fortified by the Portuguese, he sailed round the south coast of the Island and made for Batticaloa, where he anchored on 31 May 1602.
  He learnt that the town of Batticaloa, where the chief of the province resided, was about three miles (5 km) inland; so he sent him a messenger proposing to enter into trade with him. In the meantime he learnt from some Tamils who came on board that there was plenty of pepper and cinnamon to be had, but that it was to be obtained from the chief of the place. These Tamils brought with them a Portuguese interpreter; for Portuguese was the only European
  language then heard or spoken in Ceylon, and the natives of the island had no idea that there were other white people who spoke a different language.
  The Admiral was taken from Batticaloa to Kandy and was given a liberation hero's welcome as King Rajasinghe seized the opportunity to get rid of the Portuguese, the oppressors who were slowly encroaching the island systematically and promoting subversion against Rajasinghe.
  The Batticaloa fort was built by the Portuguese in 1628 and was the first to be captured by the Dutch (18 May 1638). It is one of the most picturesque of the small Dutch fort of Sri Lanka, it's situated in an island, still in good condition.
caption: Vimaladharmasurya I receiving Joris van Spilbergen, 1603
exif: {}