British Ceylon Plantations
Kandyan conquest and estate labor
British rule completed the conquest of Kandy, dismantled indigenous land systems in the highlands, and installed a plantation economy. South Indian Tamil labor under indenture and Kandyan dispossession together financed Ceylon's export boom.
Damage
Britain conquered Kandy and rebuilt Ceylon as a coffee-then-tea plantation colony on coerced and migrant labor.
Lives lost
War, repression, and plantation mortality in the tens of thousands (order-of-magnitude)
Value lost
Coffee, tea, rubber, and cinnamon surplus to British capital
Record Points
- The 1815 Kandyan Convention and 1818 rebellion repression ended highland independence.
- Crown land ordinances freed highland forests for coffee and later tea estates.
- Indentured Tamil labor from South India staffed plantations under harsh contracts.
- Grain and cinnamon monopolies earlier phases already oriented the island to export.
- Plantation profits flowed to British agency houses while rural Sinhalese and Tamil workers remained subordinated.
Perpetrator(s)
Victims
Sri Lanka