Ceylon Malays
This short note by Captain H. M. Said, S.M.J., examines the origins of the Malay community in Ceylon, arguing that they derive from both Javanese banished by the Dutch and earlier Malay captives brought by the Portuguese.
Summary
Said traces the Javanese component to the 1722 banishment of forty-four Javanese princes and chiefs to Ceylon and the Cape of Good Hope, as recorded in Crawfurd’s Indian Archipelago, and corroborates this with the Ceylon Malay tradition of Tuan Pengiran’s burial at Fir Shahib Makam in Colombo and the subsequent transfer of his body to Java with Dutch salutes (p. 266). He then argues for an earlier Malay presence, noting that the Portuguese conquered Malacca in 1511 and that Alphonso de Sosa’s 1523 campaign against the Laksamana resulted in the capture of large numbers of slaves, some of whom were likely brought to Ceylon and settled at what became known as “Slave Island” in Colombo (p. 267). The intermarriage of these Malay and Javanese groups, and their shared pride in the Malay identity, explains the mixed physical features and naming conventions observed among Ceylon Malays (p. 267).
A substantial appended note summarises a 1924 lecture by E. Reimers, Government Archivist of Ceylon, which documents Malay military service in Ceylon from the 13th century through the disbandment of the Malay regiment in 1873, including their role in the defence of Colombo in 1795–96 and the execution of three Malay officers in 1803 who refused to desert the British (p. 268).