From their first arrival in 1505 to Sri Lanka’s independence in 1948, European empires shaped the island, and the rest of Asia.
This video looks at Sri Lanka’s colonial experience, how it was transformed and what stayed the same.
Sources:
-A History of Sri Lanka, K. M. de Silva
-Elephant Complex; Travels in Sri Lanka, John Gimlette
-The Cage: The Fight for Sri Lanka and the Last Days of the Tamil Tigers, Gordon Weiss
-The Ocean of Churn: How the Indian Ocean Shaped Human History, Sanjeev Sanyal
-This Divided Island: Stories from the Sri Lankan War, Samanth Subramanian
+ Various news sources, especially The Economist
00:00 Intro
01:00 Portuguese arrival
02:23 Portuguese Ceylon
04:12 Dutch Ceylon
07:00 Colombo to Hikkaduwa
11:00 British arrival
12:14 ‘Indian’ Tamils
13:15 British Ceylon
16:33 Independence
17:27 Hikkaduwa to Galle
18:37 Galle Protest
21:39 The President resigns
23:21 Next video
source
I've been eagerly waiting for your video. Well done
The significance of the tooth of Buddha is it mostly functions like the Excalibur. Who ever has the tooth is the ruler
For anyone who's considering coming to Sri Lanka now it's totally safe. There's fuel. The only minor inconvenience would be daily power shortages that might last an hour or two. You as a visitor can have a great time for a very affordable price( due to currency's worth plummeting, which is bad for the locals. But won't effect you as a tourist who has dollars).
03:00 Don't know where you found this story from. As a 🇱🇰🇱🇰 Buddhist I can confirm there is enough archeological evidence that the tooth relic was never captured by Portuguese.
Hey, I'm a Buddhist and that (3:02) never happened, the Portuguese didn't get their hands on the Tooth Relic. The relic's duties were entrusted with the Sinhalese king therefore it was almost impossible for the Protugese to steal the relic
15:07 They're not even close to all the "Posh" kids from private schools
First of all, I LOVE your vedios, and THANK YOU for taking about Sri Lanka!!! While the colonial rule of course was not the ideal, I believe the post-independence era was much worse. I am eagerly waiting to see the next video!!!
Great video as usual. Looking forward for your next video and I know this is nigh impossible but I hope you will be able to portray the civil war and insurrection without enraging either party lol
Love your videos man♥
What a legend you're. This is so inspiring. Imagine doing this much research on a foreign country, capturing the best shots possible and producing a superb video.
Man if you're going to form a team, I would totally join!
Once again, you nailed nit man. Love the content. You are much better than a Sri Lankan making these content. So much of knowledge Keep up the good work.
The most underrated creator on YouTube! I'll fight anyone who disagrees
I stopped my busy schedule for a while and watched the full video. it's unfolded well researched great content through out the video with background soothing voice. All together we should save Sri Lanka with the support of foreigners like you. We should preserve the Sri Lanka as a world heritage.
Your content is so well-made; you deserve more subs than this! It's great to work perfectly through the flow of our history; I have learned a lot from your videos, so thank you.
For the following video of this series, I literally cannot wait. Please touch these, if possible, or keep them in mind. Feel free to ignore this comment if I am asking too much of you. It's regarding ignorance. Usually done systematically in the education system.
If possible, may I give a suggestion for your next video regarding the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka…Please try to address the fact that schools in Sri Lanka do not even touch it; though "winning the war" celebrations have mostly died out with the hatred for those once war heroes like Gotabaya, the fact that it existed at all is disappointing. The education system for Sinhalese students fails to give correct information, if any information regarding all of the conflicts in an unbiased manner, and even in history textbooks of Sinhala medium kind, they will often refer to Sri Lankans as the Sinhalese, which changes the way we observe our history. Lots of history is plainly either colonisers or random kings who built tanks, both are great to learn about, but modern history is scarce.
There's a lot of deep-rooted nationalism in our systems that keep most Sinhalese of the country's future citizens in the dark about everything. The conversation about the LTTE is controversial; I don't think the word controversial is strong enough to describe it, but that conversation has to be had. It is one filled with generations of trauma and generations of misguidance. Sinhalese tend to ignore crimes of the government, and Tamils tend to ignore crimes of LTTE, but this is a rough generalisation. It would also be valuable if you could provide insight into how people we now consider Sinhalese and Tamil worked together in the pre-colonial times, certainly not without their own conflicts. Still, it was never about religion or based on their identity; it was regarding the territory. Post-colonisation, with the emergence of universal suffrage, everything changed. The Sinhalese government discriminated against Sinhala-speaking Sinhalese, which led to the JVP? Anyways, I think the starting point of legislative discrimination against minorities begins with the Official language act of 1956 by SWRD, which changes the sole official language of Sri Lanka from English to Sinhala, ignoring the Tamil language. Especially for university entrance, which I think affected education access. The series of policies based on nationalism to gain votes from Sinhalese led to consequent discrimination against Tamils. This was still a war; there were crimes on all sides. Suppose textbooks were more accurate and tried to portray history instead of the glorification of the majority Sinhalese ethnic identity (which is entirely bullshit as ethnicity isn't actual). In that case, I think we could easier go into acceptance about what happened in the war. Everyone is so busy thinking about which side was right and which was not, but this exact mindset will always keep us at arm's length from understanding each other when we co-existed for so long. Acceptance can lead to so many things.
Of course, I am still a student preparing for O/Ls, which is why I still do that godforsaken subject called history; I can't stand it. Watching your content along with studying is far more intriguing. I sincerely hope this is legible.
You don't have to do anything. I wanted to put it out there as it is a severe issue of purposeful ignorance, and you are bringing so much awareness about our country; it would be great to see you touch this if you can. Thank you so much for your hard work; I hope this is not rude or offensive.
As your mentions during Portuguese and Dutch Colonial times they distroyed lot of Temples. But they are highly influence with singhales and many of them got married and cultural changes who the today singhalese it is Happined those part of island. That's why modern singhalese many of those names such as you said like silva and perrara. Also singhala language influenced with these two languages already Tamil as well.
During there Colonial time tamils people didn't intergrated with either Portuguese or Dutch. Only they able to spread small percentage of Christianity along the costal area.. Unlike singhalese area.
Until today in Srilanka history Tamils pure races.
British brought up Indian Tamils for Tea plantation and settled them those upcountry area where tea plantation. But after British left these people have been discrimination by the Government even they sent out without issued citizenship during 1970. Not only these people original Srilankan Tamils who are the oldest living people in the Island. This is systematic discrimination.
When you said they brought buddah tooth which wasn't true story there weren't any buddah tooth in Srilanka they may have some elephant tooth 😄.
Love these videos! As an overseas Sri Lankan, I find it so hard to connect with my culture, but these videos really help me to learn more about Sri Lanka!
Wonderful and accurate content. Extremely well researched and nicely organized as well… eagerly waiting for the next video
Incredible and informative video about Sri Lanka, thank you.
11:48 i don't thats a good comparison because those sri lankans aren't living in the uk as apart of colonial administrative system
11:32 i know you say "who you ask" but Kingdom of Kotte was able to control of the whole country with the support of Ming China. Even jaffna kingdom was just paying tributes i think u should've mentioned it
The good people of Sri Lanka deserve so much more.
Great content. Keep up the good work
Wow, excellent video. You deserve more views
Very insightful. Thank you for your amazing research. Just a small thing, the description says 1905 to 1948, shouldn't it read 1505 to 1948?
Stupid Portuguese took a replica of the tooth relics made with elephant tusks. Sinhalese at that time were clever in creating ornaments from elephant tusks. They made this kind of replica once even for a Burmese king who demanded to hand over the tooth relic.
The forex crisis hit fuel & other shortages have pretty much vanished now. You should update the situation to new tourist which is right now prevailing 😊❤ Sri Lanka is Totally safe right now
I was waiting for this video for the past month. Amazing story and perfectly filmed, Mr Alex you never disappoint)))
W vid
W person
9:53 just realised the orange boat has my name written in Sinhalese, which is translated as “Mahiru Son”! What a coincidence dude 😂
The independence struggle wasn't totally smooth. There were bloody rebellions in the past 1815 in particular, that was brutally suppressed by the British
Europeans did lot of atrocities also. Should ve included that part also. Anyhow great effort creating this video
Alex you are a great traveller..not a tourist..your videos have great research and depth..
bahaha st thomas joseph eyun got draaaaaged
Amazing.
Love Sri Lanka ❤
I must say, I thoroughly enjoyed watching your video.
It provided a clear and concise perspective on the matter at hand, which I found to be highly informative and enlightening. Grateful for the time and effort you put into creating such a well-crafted piece of content ✨️
The quality of your videos far exceeds the "history" we are taught, mostly in school books written about kings of the past and by word of mouth, never before have I seen a proper recounting of recent events, only your content has done any justice to the matter.