Portuguese Burghers

ORIGINS

The Portuguese Burghers are largely descendant from the Sri Lanka Mestiços , the people of mixed Portuguese and Sri Lankan descent who appeared in the 16th century, after the Portuguese exploreres found the sea route to the Indian Ocean .

When the Dutch took over Coastal Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon ), the descendants of the Portuguese took refuge in the central hills of Kandyan Kingdom under Singhalese rule.

After a while, the Dutch and Portuguese descendants started to intermarry. Though under Dutch rule Portuguese was banned; the Portuguese speaking community was so widespread that even the Dutch started to speak Portuguese.

In the 18th Century , the Eurasian community (a mixture of Portuguese, Dutch, Sinhalese and Tamil ), known as the Burgher , started to grow and they spoke Portuguese or Dutch .

The Portuguese Burghers were more mixed, were Catholic and spoke a Portuguese creole language. Despite the socio-economic disadvantage, the Burghers maintained their Portuguese cultural identity. In Batticaloa , the ''Catholic Burgher Union'' reinforced this. The Portuguese Creole continued to be used amongst the Dutch Burghers families as the informal language until the end of the 19th Century .

In today's Sri Lanka, the Creole is limited to the spoken form. Most of the speakers are the Burghers in the Eastern province ( Batticaloa and Trincomalee ). But there are also the Kaffirs (people of African origin) in the Northwestern province ( Puttalam ). The Portuguese, Dutch and British brought the Kaffirs to Sri Lanka, for labour purposes. They have assumed Portuguese culture and religion; later, there was intermarriage between them and the Portuguese Burghers.

At the 1981 Census, the Burghers (Dutch and Portuguese) were almost 40,000 (0,3% of the population of Sri Lanka). Many Burghers and Kaffirs emigrated to other countries. There are still 100 families in Batticaloa and Trincomalee and 80 Kaffir families in Puttalam that still speak the Portuguese Creole; they have been out of contact with Portugal since 1656 .

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Portuguese Burghers

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