First recorded Sri Lankan immigrants to Australia: Drum Major O’Deen and his family – By Chandani Panditharatne
Source : AUSTRALIA SRI LANKA ASSOCIATION INC NEWSLETTER
When Australia was a Penal Colony of the British kingdom, convicts banished from Sri Lanka (Ceylon) too were sent here. The first convicts from Ceylon to arrive in Australia apparently drew considerable attention from the press. Australia’s first newspaper – The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, gave a prominent place to record the landing of the first ‘convicts’ from Ceylon – Drum Major
O’Dean and his young family, in February 1816. O’Dean arrived in Australia as a ‘convict’ but his wife and three children landed in Australia as free settlers.
Image Source : wikiwand
This is the first recorded arrival of a Ceylonese (Sri Lankans) to the continent of Australia. The arrival of these first migrants took place in February 1816, when the SS Kangaroo brought Drum Major O’Deen, his wife and three children to Australian shores. O’Dean and his family were banished to the Penal Colony of Australia by the British Governor of Ceylon, Robert Brownrigg.
In its issue dated 17th February 1816, Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser reports in its page 1, that Drum Major O’Dean, his wife and three children were convicted of treason to the British King because O’Dean deserted the British army to join the service of the last king of Sri Lanka – King Sri Wickrama Rajasinghe.
O’Dean was ‘given’ a wife by the king. She was later called Eve and could be Sinhalese – as Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertise describes her as “His wife who is a Cinglasse, being a true descendant of the aboriginal inhabitants of the island, is of a small stature, handsomely formed, of a dark olive complexion, and agreeable features, as are also her three children, of whom the two youngest are boys”.
Image Source : fineartamerica
O’Dean is apparently the first Muslim to come to Australia. Later on while working as an interpreter, he is said to have lent his Qu’ran to people on trial so that they could swear on it.
According to this article published in the Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, by the time of O’Dean’s landing in February, the last king of Sri Lanka – King Sri Wickrama Rajasinghe, was still held prisoner in Colombo. This information contradicts common knowledge that the 36-year old Kandyan monarch and his queens were banished to Vellore aboard the HMS Cornwallis a month earlier – on
24th January 1816.
Reception of the envoys of the king of Kandy by governor Iman Falck, Carel Frederik Reimer, 1772 (Source: https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/nl/collectie/RP-T-1904-18)
