Sri Lanka It's Happening

May 22, 2004

On friday I had the pleasure of meeting the last of the fort burghers of Galle. This venerable old gentlemen is a descendent of the portugese surveyor who studied the lay of the land in Galle 500 years ago to build the first portugese garrison at point de galle.

So who is a burgher anyway? First of all a burger is not a derogatory term. A burger is a person who is a descendent from a portugese, dutch or british national, the three European powers who invaded and controlled much of the country from 1505.

When the Dutch came 200 hundred years after the portugese, they expanded the garrision into what became the largest remaining dutch fortress in the whole of asia. Though the dutch and portugese were both christians their beliefs are said to have been different and the dutch invaders are said to have persecuted the portugese burgers and other natives with equal zeal.

It should also be noted that all these things took place many years ago and Sri Lankans do not hold a grudge against any of these European countries. Indeed we welcome hundreds of thousands of British, Dutch and Portugese tourists each year with open arms.

These persecutions forced the portugese burgers to move out of Galle into other areas but some of them returned when the British took over the from the dutch. Mr Anton Ferreira's great great grandfather was one of them.

The burgers started moving out of the fort, galle and Sri Lankan due to the short sighted policies of the successive Sri Lankan goverments since independence. Sadly there are only 50,000 burgers left in the country and in the fort itself not a single fort burger remans. Mr Anton Ferreira himself lives two kilometers outside the fort in a hundred and fifty year old house. He is said to be the only fort burger in Galle. In his own words, everyone else has moved out or died.

He lives alone but isn't lonely. The former teacher of St. Aloysius College considers all his students to be his children. My father was a favourite student of his, and I am proud to say he considers me as one of his grand children.

Posted by raditha at May 22, 2004 3:13 AM