පෘතුගීසීන් යටතේ ශ්‍රී ලංකාවේ මුහුදුබඩ ප්‍රදේශවල ඉඩම් අයිතිය හා භුක්තිය

Abstract

As to the Portuguese, with perhaps a few exceptions, they did not take over lands and villages previously held by Sinhalese people. Their introduction to land ownership in Ceylon came almost exclusively from the allotment of royal villages (gabadagam) and temple villages (devalagam and viharagam), and probably the main beneficiaries were those in charge of distributing lands and their protégés: the governors, the military commanders and other soldiers, the crown’s local representatives, the religious orders and a few casado settlers. However, the sum total of Portuguese who took possession of Ceylonese lands must not have been more than a few hundreds. The plans to attract a mass of settlers from Portuguese descent or origins to Ceylon proved a utopia. Thus, a massive transfer of land to Portuguese hands never took place, although they would get many of the best villages in certain areas, besides enjoying some tax privileges and other benefits. Those thousands of villages that used to be held on a service tenure basis (nindagam) were kept in Sinhalese hands, even if not necessarily the same.