Michael Roberts
These comments are ‘buried’ within the several responses to an article I placed in my site in my site in 2021: viz, https://thuppahis.com/2021/11/19/anglo-ceylonese-a-missing-dimension-in-british-ceylon/#comment-152788
The comments are by friends: one who had identified himself as “Eurasian” when we met for the first time [a rare self-appellation];** and a longstanding pal from Pera-Uni days, Earlson Forbes, who expressed shock more recently in Sydney when he learnt that I was not Burgher [assumed because of my name].***
** Referring here to Richard Simon …. *** Just prior to an Event in Sydney where I was billed as one speaker on a topic bearing on Ethnicity.
September 20, 2025 at 4:14 pm Edit
Not sure what the picture was in 1871. I do believe that by 1912, when the Dutch Burgher Union was founded, the category ‘Burgher’ was being officially applied to all Lankans of mixed race, whatever their parentage; this included people who should otherwise be categorized as Anglo-Ceylonese. This was, in fact, the reason why the DBU was formed; it grew out of a movement for separate recognition of those who could claim descent (on the male side) from European officers of the VOC. The intent was not to distinguish between ‘Dutch’ Burghers and Anglo-Lankans but between ‘Dutch’ and ‘Portuguese’ Burghers. The latter had largely assimilated with the Sinhalese and Tamil populations and sported, as a rule, darker complexions and occupied a lower rung on the ladder of colonial society.
Anglo-Lankans, as we should rightly call them today, have had a rather different history from Anglo-Indians. During roughly the period referred to in the blog post above, a major effort was under way in India, led by the Archdeacon of Calcutta, Joseph Baly, to recognize and elevate what were called ‘British families domiciled in India’. These were, in fact, the families of British military and civilian officers who had taken up with native women. I don’t know exactly what special treatment they received – access to education was certainly one benefit – but it was enough to raise the profile of the community a little higher than it was in Ceylon, where ‘Eurasians’ (Anglo-Lankans) were despised by all other communities, and would often claim to be Burgher in order to avoid the stigma of being the products of sexual collaboration with the occupying power.
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September 20, 2025 at 8:31 pm Edit
RICHARD, this set of Comments is, as usual, a helpful addition to our store of pertinent data. Thanks.
It may be useful if you and others inspired by your NOTE explore (B) the deployment of the term “Sapaththu Lansi;” and (C) examine the early 19th century statistical data and “categories bearing an ethnic implication” [my phrase] in the British Blue Books and other compilations in the 19th century — see Table 18-21 in PEOPLE INBETWEEN (1989). ……. especially 18 entitled “The Creole and European Population in The Maritime Provinces,1824-27”.
September 20, 2025 at 8:38 pm Edit
PLUS: another extension could be the use of the Term “sapathtthu lansi,” whether descriptively or in sharp derogatory put-down: see pages …. xx, 6, 66 in PEOPLE INBETWEEN.
This term derived from the fact that quite a few working-class Burghers in towns owned shoe making establishments. I certainly recall some from my teenage days in the 1940-1950s. This form of social distancing was sometimes driven home by the reference to “backdoor Burghers”……marking the expectation that the working-class Burgher person was expected to seek entry into a pukka middle-class home via the entrance at the back or the side of the house.
NOTES
The Eurasians were also referred in derogatory intonation as “tea bushes” – indicating that they were the outcome of fornication between planters and working class plantation workers.
ADDENDUM = ALSO SEE
https://nickledanddimed.com/2025/02/12/colonial-cartoons-drawing-the-line-between-oppressor-and-
