Proud and prejudiced - Ferdinandus

THE PORTUGUESE 11
Captain-General Dom Constantino de Sà
In 1618 de Sà was appointed captain-general. Like other fidalgos (nobleman) high in the
service of their king, Dom Constantino de Sà had all those ideals of a seventeenth-century
gentleman-at-arms. He espoused courage, loyalty to king and country, piety, openness of
manner, pride, unquestioning trust in comrades, complete loyalty in battle, and sensitivity. He
fought his battles by the old rules and assumed his enemies knew these rules and would abide
by them. He was to be disappointed.
De Sà was honest, vigilant, well-liked and respected by the Sinhalese in the areas under
Portuguese control. During his period in Ceylon he became convinced that the Kandyan king
was violating the treaty he had signed and plotting to eject the Portuguese with help from the
Dutch. De Sà therefore decided to fortify Trincomalee and Batticoloa to isolate the Kandyan
kingdom from external contacts.
In 1624 his troops destroyed an ancient Hindu temple, used part of it for their
fortifications, and pushed the rest down a steep cliff into the sea. In 1628 de Sà built a fort at
Batticoloa. The Kandyan king was furious. He offered de Sà a fortune in jewels but de Sà
instead raided Kandy, burned the palace and forced the king to flee to the remote mountain area
of Uva. The next year, on his way back from reinforcing Batticoloa, de Sà diverted to Uva and
destroyed that area. All trust had been lost between the Portuguese and Kandyans and coexistence
was no longer possible.
Sinhalese lascarins served as soldiers in return for the right to cultivate land and were
under the command of Sinhalese chieftains known as mudaliyars and aratchis. The dissawe was
the local commander of the Portuguese troops and most of the dissawes were Portuguese. By
this system de Sà was able to muster 4500 troops of whom about 400 were Portuguese. In 1630
he decided the time was opportune to do battle with the Kandyans. He had been warned that
four mudaliyars were traitors but when he repeated the accusation to the mudaliyars they denied
it and he believed their denials.
The jungles of Ceylon are among the most dense in the tropics. Huge trees tower
overhead and are covered with vines and creepers seeking the sun. At lower levels bushes grow
in profusion and cover every vacant space. The tropical jungle is a noisy place and completely
different to the silent forests of Europe and the bush country of Australia. The jungle is home to
leopard, bear, deer, elephant, buffalo, monkeys and many other animals. There are birds of
every variety and colour, butterflies and snakes. On the ground, and on the plants, are leeches
and poisonous insects. To those used to the tropics the jungle is not a place where one need be
frightened when in a large group, but to the Europeans, unused to the humidity, the heat, the
rain, the insects and the snakes, it must have been a terrifying ordeal. The Portuguese were
completely dependent on the Sinhalese lascarins, aratchis and mudaliyars.
The army marched higher and further into the Kandyan hinterland. It was hard and
risky work and they knew they could be ambushed. They went across valleys, and streams,
wound their way up the other side, and crossed over into the next valley where the process was
repeated. After a climb of a thousand metres, the dense jungle was behind them and before
them were the grassy plains of Uva.
The Portuguese sacked and burned the palace, the town, the temples, the fields of
ripening rice, the thatched homes of the peasants, the cattle and the harvested rice. The once
peaceful and beautiful district was left a smouldering heap of ashes.
The day before de Sà was to strike camp, he was told by dissawe Luis Gomes