An earlier version of this paper was read at the Society for the Humanities, Cornell University, in April 1979. I am grateful for research support from the United States Public Health Service (MH38122 and MH11765), the British Social Science Research Council (HR5549/1 & 2), the Smuts Memorial Fund and the Travelling Expenses Fund of Cambridge University, and the Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship Program of Cornell University. I am also indebted to Ian R. Smith, to K. David Jackson, and to the late Father J. W. Lange, S.J., for their help in providing data; to Nilam Hamead and to K. Kanthanathan for their assistance with fieldwork; and to H. A. I. Goonetilleke for having compiled his exhaustive Bibliography of Ceylon (Zug: Inter Documentation Company, 1970), without which I would never have attempted this article.

¹ Sri Lanka became the official name for Ceylon in 1972.

² The Kandyan kingdom, situated in the central highlands of the island, remained independent until 1815.

³ Boxer, Charles R., Race Relations in the Portuguese Colonial Empire, 1415–1825 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1963).Google Scholar

⁴ Boxer, Charles R., “An Introduction to Joao Ribeiro's ‘Historical Tragedy of the Island of Ceylon’ 1685,” Ceylon Historical Journal, 3:3, 4 (1954), 247.Google Scholar

⁵ Boxer, , Race Relations, 61.Google Scholar

⁶ Ibid., 62–63.

⁷ The etymology ofthis word has generated much debate. See Goonetilleke, William, “Dubāsh and Tuppahi,” Orientalist, 3: (1888–89), 212–13Google Scholar; and Temple, R. C., “Topaz-Topass,” Ceylon Antiquary and Literary Register, 7:4, (1920), 210–17.Google Scholar For once, Yule, Henry and Burnell, A. C., Hobson-Jobson (reprint of 2d edition, Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1968, pp. 933–34) is wrong.Google Scholar

⁸ Fernando, C. M., “History of Ceylon, ”in Twentieth Century Impressions of Ceylon, Wright, Arnold, ed. (London: Lloyd's, 1907), 51.Google Scholar

⁹ Today approximately 8 percent of Sri Lanka's population is Catholic.

¹⁰ De Silva, Chandra R., The Portuguese in Ceylon, 1617–1638 (Colombo: Cave, 1972)Google Scholar; Winius, George D., The Fatal History of Portuguese Ceylon: Transition to Dutch Rule (Cambridge: Harvard, 1971).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹¹ In the words of the Reverend Fellowes, Robert [Philatheles, pseud.], The History of Ceylon from the Earliest Period to the Year 1815 (London: Joseph Mawman, 1817)Google Scholar, quoted in Knighton, William, The History of Ceylon from the Earliest Period to the Present Time (London: Longman, Brown, Green, & Longman, 1845), 300: “The Portuguese were under the influence of a system of bigotry, which, when it becomes a predominant feeling in the human breast, equally disregards the suggestions of caution, the admonitions of prudence, and the higher considerations of humanity. The Dutch did not bend down before the grim Moloch of religious bigotry, nor did they worship at the shrine of superstition, but cent, per cent, was their faith, gold was their object, and Mammon was their god. …”Google Scholar

¹² Pieris, Paulus Edward, ed., Some Documents Relating to the Rise of the Dutch Power in Ceylon, 1602–1670, from the Translations at the India Office (Colombo: Colombo Apothecaries, 1929), 280.Google Scholar In fact, one of the conditions imposed at the time of the Portuguese surrender was that widows and unmarried daughters of the Portuguese were to remain in the colony as wives of Dutch personnel, and these women were all either natives or mixed-bloods. See De Vos, F. H., “Dutch Colonisation of the East,” Journal of the Dutch Burgher Union of Ceylon (hereafter JDBUC), 12:1–4(1920), 2.Google Scholar

¹³ Digby, William, “The Eurasians of Ceylon,” Calcutta Review, 63:125, (1876), 178.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Goonewardena, K. W., The Foundations of Dutch Power in Ceylon, 1638–1658 (Amsterdam: Djambatan, 1958), 210.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Anthonisz, R. G., “Lansi,” JDBUC, 14:3 (1925), 87Google Scholar; idem, “The Dutch in Ceylon: Glimpses of Their Life and Times,” JDBUC, 24:3 (1935), 87–92Google Scholar; JDBUC, 24:4 (1935), 129– 32Google Scholar; JDBUC, 25:1 (1935), 6–14Google Scholar; JDBUC, 25:2(1935), 63–71Google Scholar; Toussaint, J. R., “The Burghers in Early British Times,” JDBUC, 25:2 (1935), 41–55.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Goonewardena, K. W., “A New Netherlands in Ceylon: Dutch Attempts to Found a Colony during the First Quarter Century of their Power in Ceylon,“ Ceylon Journal of Historical and Social Studies, 2:2 (1959), 203–44.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Arasaratnam, Sinnappa, Dutch Power in Ceylon, 1658–1687 (Amsterdam: Djambatan, 1958), 197–206Google Scholar; Haafner, Jacob G., Travels on Foot through the Island of Ceylon (London: Sir Richard Phillips, 1821), 83.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Smith, Ian Russell, ”Sri Lanka Creole Portuguese Phonology,“ (Ph.D. diss., Cornell University, 1977), ch. 1.Google Scholar The dissertation is also published in International Journal of Dravidian Linguistics, 7:2 (1978), 248–405.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Schweitzer, Christopher, “Journal and Diary,” in Germans in Dutch Ceylon, Raven-Hart, Roland, ed. and trans. (Colombo: National Museums of Ceylon Translation Series, 1953), I, 74–76. Schweitzer was not kidding about ear-jobs: he reports that a baptized Jew named Moritz persuaded his Sinhalese mistress to have her carefully elongated earlobes clipped, and that he married her shortly thereafter.Google Scholar

²⁰ Probably no one has stated this case with more apocalyptic gusto than De Silva, Colvin R., in his Ceylon under the British Occupation, 1795–1833, 3d ed. (Colombo: Colombo Apothecaries, 1953), I, 14. “A society permeated by Portuguese influences produced no healthy public opinion, and an underpaid officialdom which had become lethargic and corrupt displayed no vigorous public spirit. … The system of pay encouraged peculation and private trade; the recruits from Holland were of the wrong type, nepotism and favouritism were rife; and the Burgher in Ceylon, condemned to permanent exile, succumbed to greed and degenerated in the adulatory atmosphere of a slave-ridden home.”Google Scholar

²¹ Cordiner, James, A Description of Ceylon (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, & Orme, 1807), I, 87–89.Google Scholar

²² Their counterparts, the Anglo-Indians of India, fared worse, being excluded from education and employment after the 1780s out of fear of their possible mixed allegiance, and regaining favor only after they proved their loyalty in the Mutiny of 1857. See Grimshaw, Allen D., “The Anglo-Indian Community: The Integration of a Marginal Group,“ Journal of Asian Studies, 18:2 (1959), 227–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Gist, Noel P. and Wright, Roy Dean, Marginality and Identity: Anglo-Indians as a Racially Mixed Minority in India (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1973).Google Scholar

²³ Cordiner, , Description, 87.Google Scholar

²⁴ Percival, Robert, An Account of the Island of Ceylon, 2d ed. (London: C. & R. Baldwin, 1805), 158–65.Google Scholar

²⁵ Selkirk, James, Recollections of Ceylon (London: J. Hatchard & Son, 1844), 72Google Scholar; Pridham, Charles, An Historical, Political, and Statistical Account of Ceylon and Its Dependencies (London: T. & W. Boone, 1849), I, 480–82.Google Scholar

²⁶ Tennent, James Emerson, Ceylon: An Account of the Island, 3d ed. (London: Longman, Green, Longman & Roberts, 1859), II, 156.Google Scholar

²⁷ Digby, William, “The Eurasians of Ceylon,” Calcutta Review, 63:125 (1876), 173–206Google Scholar; idem, “Eurasians as Leaven in India and Ceylon,” Calcutta Review, 64:127 (1877), 180–208Google Scholar; idem, “The Burgher Community,” in Forty Years of Official and Unofficial Life in an Oriental Crown Colony (Madras: Higginbotham; London: Longmans, Green, 1879), I, 1–65.Google Scholar

²⁸ Digby, , “Eurasians of Ceylon,” 188, 192.Google Scholar

²⁹ Ibid., 185; Digby, , Forty Years, 54.Google Scholar

³⁰ Percival, , Account, 73, 167.Google Scholar

³¹ Cordiner, , Description, 88.Google Scholar A more complete theory of racial contamination and degeneration is expounded by MajorForbes, Jonathan in his Eleven Years in Ceylon (London: Richard Bentley, 1840), II, 162–163. “They are seen of every shade, from deadly white to burnished black: those who are of Cingalese blood, free from exotic mixture, have the most pleasing colour; while the slightest mixture of native blood with European can never be eradicated and in some cases seems to go on darkening in each succeeding generation, until, as in many of the Portuguese descendants, we find European features with jet-black complexions. The Dutch descendants, with native blood, are now undergoing the blackening process, although in general they have only reached as far as a dark and dingy yellow.”Google Scholar

³² For example, Sirr, Henry C., Ceylon and the Cingalese (London: William Shoberl, 1850), II, 40Google Scholar, quoted in Digby, , “Eurasians of Ceylon,” 182.Google Scholar

³³ Digby, , “Eurasians of Ceylon,” 183.Google Scholar

³⁴ Selkirk, , Recollections, 70.Google Scholar

³⁵ Bates, Henry W., “Four Months in Ceylon, ” in his Illustrated Travels: A Record of Discovery, Geography, and Adventure (London & New York: Cassell, Petter, & Galpin, 1869–1875), IV, 366–67.Google Scholar

³⁶ An early British poetic account of the island reviles first the wasted Portuguese:

Here from this elevated ground

I view the Pettah, stretching round!

With every narrow lane and street,

Where men of many nations meet,

Moormen, Gentoos, and Cingalese,

Mix'd with those mongrel Portuguese,

Who boast indeed the Lusian name,

But recreant to their fathers’ fame;

Their torpid breasts no virtue fires,

Degenerate sons of valiant sires!

And then lauds the phlegmatic but virtuous Dutch:

Those houses closely wedged in rows,

Where faint and weak the sea-breeze blows,

And heat reflected doubly glows,

While clouds of smoke from every room,

The stiffening atmosphere perfume,

The Hollanders’ abodes declare,

Those sons of patience, thrift, and care!

From Anderson, Thomas Ajax, The Wanderer in Ceylon: A Poem in Three Cantos (London: T. Egerton, 1819)Google Scholar, quoted in Toussaint, J. R., “Ceylon's Soldier Poet,” JDBUC, 27:1 (1937), 22–23.Google Scholar

³⁷ Fernando, Tissa, “The Burghers of Ceylon,” in The Blending of Races: Marginality and Identity in World Perspective, Gist, Noel P. and Dworkin, Anthony Gary, eds. (New York: John Wiley, 1972), 61–78.Google Scholar

³⁸ ‘The Dutch Burgher Union of Ceylon,“ JDBUC, 1:1 (1908), 1–11Google Scholar; ”The Constitution and By-laws of the Dutch Burgher Union of Ceylon, “JDBUC, 1:1 (1908), 52–60Google Scholar; ”Proceedings of a Special General Meeting, 18 January 1919,“ JDBUC, 11:3–4 (1918), 72–76.Google Scholar

³⁹ ”Constitution,” 53.

⁴⁰ Sir Richard Ottley's testimony before the Commission of Eastern Inquiry, 1830, quoted in Arunachalam, Ponnambalam, “Population,” in Twentieth Century Impressions of Ceylon, Wright, Arnold, ed. (London: Lloyds, 1907), 343.Google Scholar

⁴¹ Anthonisz, R. G., “Lansi,” JDBUC, 14:3 (1925), 78Google Scholar; idem, “A Hundred Years Ago,” JDBUC, 14:4 (1925), 102–3Google ScholarPubMed; idem, “The Burghers of Ceylon,” JDBUC, 17:1 (1927), 5.Google Scholar

⁴² De Vos, , “Dutch Colonisation,” 4.Google Scholar

⁴³ “Proceedings of the Special General Meeting, 18 August 1939,” JDBUC, 29:2 (1939), 77–79.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ “The Burghers of Ceylon: A Flash-back,” JDBUC, 47:1 (1957), 26 [reprint of a 1903 Colombo newspaper article]; De Vos, “Dutch Colonisation,” 2.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Anthonisz, R. G. in “Proceedings of the Annual General Meeting, 23 February 1918,” JDBUC, 11:1–2(1918), 4.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Anthonisz, , “Lansi,” 87–89Google Scholar; “Dutch in Ceylon,” JDBUC, 24:4 (1935), 129–132Google Scholar; Grenier, G. V., “Earlier Colonisation and Later Developments,” JDBUC, 50:3–4(1960), 103–8.Google Scholar There are also parallels here with the Anglo-Indians of the subcontinent, whose largest organization refuses to admit the Indo-Portuguese “Feringhees” of the Malabar Coast (Gist, and Wright, , Marginality and Identity, 97–98).Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Grenier, G. V., “The Union: Are We Fulfilling Its Objectives?” JDBUC, 48:1 (1958), 16.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Grenier, G. V., “ ‘Burgher’ Etymology and Some Relevant Reflections,” JDBUC, 56:1–4 (1966), 26.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Ibid.

⁵⁰ “Johnston Manuscripts,” JDBUC, 47:2–3 (1957), 33–42.Google ScholarPubMed

⁵¹ Pereira, Robert J., “The ‘Koronchi’ Ceremony,” Ceylon Antiquary and Literary Register, 8:2 (1922), 155–56Google Scholar; Nell, Louis, “The Archaeology of Ceylon Eurasian Gastronomy,” Orientalist, 3 (1888–89), 167Google Scholar; Buultjens, Alfred E., “On Some Dutch Words Commonly Used by the Sinhalese,” Orientalist, 3 (1888–89), 104–7Google Scholar [reprint in JDBUC, 19:1–2 (1929), 96–101].Google Scholar A survey of other legacies, including Ceylon Dutch civil engineering, architecture, furniture, law, land administration, and archival resources, is contained in Brohier, Richard L., Links between Sri Lanka and The Netherlands: A Book of Dutch Ceylon (Colombo: The Netherlands Alumni Association of Sri Lanka, 1978).Google Scholar

⁵² Anthonisz, , “Proceedings of 23 February 1918,” 4.Google Scholar

⁵³ Schweitzer, , “Journal and Diary,” 76.Google Scholar

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⁵⁷ Smith, , “Sri Lankan Creole Portuguese Phonology,” ch. 1.Google Scholar See also Hettiaratchi, D. E., “Linguistics in Ceylon, I.,” in Linguistics in South Asia, Sebeok, Thomas A., ed., Vol. V of Current Trends in Linguistics (The Hague and Paris: Mouton, 1969), 747–48.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ Van Winkle, Rip [pseud.], “An Afterword on ‘Some Exquisite Nonsense,’ ” JDBUC, 18:4 (1929), 184–86.Google Scholar See also Fernando, C. M., “The Music of Ceylon, I. The Music of the Mechanics of Ceylon,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Ceylon Branch, 13:45 (1894), 183–89Google Scholar; and Corner, Caroline, Ceylon, the Paradise of Adam: The Record of Seven Years’ Residence in the Island (London and New York: John Lane, 1908), ch. 16.Google Scholar In the 1940s, the staid DBUC sought to institute historical pageants in place of what they considered to be the overly popular monthly dance parties, with their “jazzy ‘Carmen Miranda’ sort of songs.” See “Report of the Special Committee to Review Matters of Social Recreation, Entertainment, and Sport,” JDBUC, 33:1 (1943), 1–12.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ Jackson, Kenneth David, “ ‘Bela Infanta’ of Sri Lanka: Ballad Fragments in Portuguese Creole Communities,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Sri Lanka Branch, NS 19 (1975), 17–25.Google Scholar

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⁶¹ Schweitzer, , “Journal and Diary,” 76; compact edition of the Oxford English Dictionary (Oxford University Press, 1971), II, 290; and Thomas R. Trautmann, personal communication.Google Scholar

⁶² The prescribed ritual of a Dutch Burgher ladies’ tea party in eighteenth century Ceylon consisted of the following: (1) Arriving and kissing the hostess three times on the mouth, while continuing to chew betel and spices (Portuguese, cheira boca, “to sniff the mouth”), (2) rinsing the mouth graciously with a tumbler of water offered on a polished salver, then spitting into a spittoon, (3) drinking precisely three cups of tea, with confections, (4) repacking the mouth with betel, areca nut, quicklime, and spices, (5) retiring to a separate room for ladies’ gossip, (6) reemerging and rinsing the mouth a second time, (7) consuming a second round of tea and confections, (8) repacking the mouth with betel for a third time, (9) offering a final exchange of betel-kisses at the doorway, (10) departing with one's retinue of slave girls, who carry the betel boxes and umbrellas. Wolf, John Christopher, The Life and Adventures of John Christopher Wolf, Late Principal Secretary of State at Jaffanapatnam in Ceylon (London: Robinson, G. & J., 1785)Google Scholar, quoted in Toussaint, J. R., “Dutch Ladies Who Lived in Ceylon,” JDBUC, 29:2 (1939), 31–42.Google Scholar

⁶³ de Silva, Manik, “The Dutch connection of Burghers and Breeders,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 111 (01 2–8, 1981), 60–63.Google Scholar

⁶⁴ Niemand, [pseud.], “Notes by Niemand,” JDBUC, 5:1 (1912), 22Google Scholar; Anthonisz, R. G., “Presidential Address,” JDBUC, 13:1–2 (1921), 27–29Google Scholar; “Remarks,” JDBUC, 15:4 (1926), 132.Google Scholar

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⁶⁷ There have been notes and queries published on the Portuguese traditions of the African-descended Kaffirs of Puttalam, the Portuguese-Canarese Kannadiyars of Mannar, and tbe exiled Catholics of Wahakotte. Brohier, Richard L., “The Ceylon Kaffir-Their Kafferinhoe and Chikothi,” in his Discovering Ceylon, (Colombo: Lake House, 1973), ch. 5Google Scholar; Pieris, Edmund, “An Interesting Ethnical Group from Mannar,” Ceylon Historical Journal, 3:1 (1953), 13–17.Google Scholar

⁶⁸ Toussaint, J. R., “The Dutch Connection with Batticaloa,” JDBUC, 19:2 (1929), 82–84.Google Scholar

⁶⁹ A Dutch Burgher historian admits as much. Toussaint, J. R., “Batticaloa between 1766 and 1796,” JDBUC, 20:3 (1931), 103.Google Scholar

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⁷⁴ This is a local association based in Batticaloa.

⁷⁵ Tutein-Nolthenius, A. C., ”Old Dutch Custom at Batticaloa,“ Ceylon Antiquary and Literary Register, 3:2(1917), 138.Google Scholar

⁷⁶ Some surnames remain obscure or ambiguous in origin. The name of the Burgher sacristan, for example, is pronounced ”dí-lí-má,” which means it might be the Dutch (Fresian) name Dillema, or possibly a Tamrlized pronunciation of the Portuguese name De Lima. Some other ambiguous names are Ragel, Sellar, and Balthazar. The “Batavia Money” surnames are still extant.

⁷⁷ Smith, Ian R., “Convergence in South Asia: A Creole Example,” Lingua, 48:2/3 (1979), 193–222CrossRefGoogle Scholar; “Substrata vs. Universals in the Formation of Sri Lanka Portuguese,” Papers in Pidgin and Creole Linguistics 2, Pacific Linguistics, series A, no. 57, forthcoming, 183–200.Google Scholar

⁷⁸ As with the Catholic Tamils, baptism creates such strong ties of godparenthood that marrying a godparent's child is tantamount to sibling incest. For comparable data on Sinhalese Catholic godparenthood, see Stirrat, R. L., “Compadrazgo in Catholic Sri Lanka,” Man, NS 10:4 (1975), 589–606.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁷⁹ Smith, , “Sri Lanka Creole Portuguese Phonology,” 32.Google Scholar

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⁸¹ McGilvray, Dennis B., “Mukkuvar Vannimai: Tamil Caste and Matriclan Ideology in Batticaloa, Sri Lanka,” in Caste Ideology and Interaction, McGilvray, D. B., ed. (Cambridge Cambridge University Press, forthcoming 1982)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem, ”Sexual Power and Fertility in Sri Lanka: Batticaloa Tamils and Moors,“ in Ethnography of Fertility and Birth, MacCormack, Carol P., ed. (London: Academic Press, forthcoming 1982)Google Scholar; idem, ”Paraiyar Drummers of Sri Lanka: Consen- sus and Constraint in an Untouchable Caste,“ American Ethnologist (in press); Dumont, Louis, Homo Hierarchies (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970).Google Scholar

⁸² The pattern of intermarriage between Burghers and local Tamils in the Batticaloa region may allow some useful flexibility in ethnic labeling. The Tamils and Moors reckon caste and clan descent matrilineally, while the Burghers are patrilineal (i.e., patronymic), so the offspring of mixed marriages might choose whichever identity seemed politically most advantageous.

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⁸⁴ This account is based upon material contained in an unpublished history of the Catholic missions in Batticaloa, written and made available to me by the late Father J. W. Lange, S.J.: “The Secluded Coast: The Story of the Diocese of Trincomalee-Batticaloa, Ceylon, 1895–1970,” ch. 9.

⁸⁵ Arunachalam, , “Population,“ in Twentieth Century Impressions of Ceylon, Wright, ed., 343.Google Scholar

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