“LANKAN DUTCH BURGHERS” – by Des Kelly A comprehensive mini-history of the Dutch Burghers in Sri Lanka today, this particular story has been excellently portrayed, will take quite a lot of reading, but will be enjoyed by any avid Dutch Burgher, anywhere. This writer is only part Dutch Burgher though, primarily on my Maternal side.  My Mum was a Miss Kriekenbeek whose ancestors were actually Founder members of the famous Dutch East Indian Shipping Co., who originally set foot on the Island of Ceylon, that, everyone knows, was “ruled” by the Dutch, for a period of time. ...

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The Dutch Burghers in Sri Lanka Today-by Michael Roberts Source:Thuppahis PRABATH DE SILVA, IN DAILY MIRROR, 21 JANUARY 2021, WITH THIS TITLE “THE DUTCH BURGHERS IN SRI LANKA”  “WE ARE A VANISHING TRIBE IN SRI LANKA. THE FIRST PATERNAL ANCESTOR OF MY FATHER’S FAMILY WHO ARRIVED IN SRI LANKA IN 1774 WAS PIETER SCHARENGUIVEL. HE WAS A QUARTER MASTER IN THE SERVICE OF THE UNITED DUTCH EAST INDIA COMPANY WHICH RULED THE MARITIME PROVINCES OF SRI LANKA FROM THE MIDDLE OF THE 17TH CENTURY TO 1796. THE DUTCH BURGHER IDENTITY AND CONSCIOUSNESS WITHIN THE FAMILY I GREW UP IN WAS EXTREMELY SIGNIFICANT. IT PLAYED A ROLE  IN THE CONVERSATIONS, TRADITIONS, CUSTOMS, FOOD, PERCEPTIONS AND SOCIAL INTERACTIONS. DURING THE BRITISH COLONIAL RULE, OUR COMMUNITY PRODUCED EMINENT SURGEONS, DOCTORS, LEGAL LUMINARIES, JUDGES, ENGINEERS, SPORTSMEN, MUSICIANS , HISTORIANS AND ARTISTS ETC.” , SAID ANNE-MARIE SCHARENGUIVEL (65), A MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTANT AND A MEMBER OF SRI LANKA’S TINY  ...

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A race battling anxiety-by Prabath de Silva Source:Dailymirror The Dutch  Burgher community is dwindling at present with the vast increase in migration and inter marriages taking place. Further, with racist ideologies rising once more, the future for the minorities seem bleak  The descendants of the European servants of the Dutch East India Company and Mestico women and native  women ( Sinhalese and Tamil) became known as ‘Dutch Burghers’ If the legal formula of racial mother tongue was applied to these ethnic groups, the mother tongues of Muslim, Burgher and Malay children would respectively be Arabic, Portuguese/ Dutch/English and Malay ...

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The Dutch Burghers and English; Voices of Survivors Continued from last week Source:Island From the beginning of British colonial rule, primary and secondary education in the Sinhalese and Tamil medium was free from the kindergarten to the Senior School Certificate level (equivalent to today’s GCE ‘O’ in Grade 11) . But the English medium schools constituting about 10 -15 percent of the schools in Sri Lanka charged fees. The best the children educated in the native languages, namely Sinhalese or Tamil, could reach was the teaching profession or becoming notaries, village headmen or ayurvedic physicians. The better jobs and access to tertiary education and the learned professions of law and western medicine, judicial positions, executive appointments in the public service as well as the better private sector jobs were only to those who attended the fee levying English medium schools. The official language of the government was English till 1956. ...

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