Myanmar History
Bygone Leaders of Myanmar
King Anawrahta, also spelled
ANIRUDDHA (fl. 11th century AD), the first king of
all of Myanmar, (reigned 1044-77), who introduced
his people to Theravada Buddhism. His capital at
Pagan on the Irrawaddy River became a prominent city
of pagodas and temples.
During his reign Anawrahta united the northern
homeland of the Myanmar people with the Mon kingdoms
of the south. He extended his dominion as far north
as the kingdom of Nanchao, west to Arakan, south to
the Gulf of Martaban (near what is now Yangτn
[Rangoon]), and as far east as what is now northern
Thailand.
In 1057 Anawrahta captured the Mon city of
Thaton, a centre of Indian civilization. Its fall
led the other Mon rulers to submit to Anawrahta; for
the first time, a Myanmar ruler dominated the
Irrawaddy River delta. Contact with the Mons
enriched Myanmar civilization. The Mons gave the
Myanmar an artistic and literary tradition and a
system of writing. The earliest extant Myanmar
inscription, written in Mon characters, appeared in
1058.
Anawrahta was converted to Theravada Buddhism by
a Mon monk, Shin Arahan. As king, Anawrahta strove
to convert his people from the influence of the Ari,
a Mahayana Tantric Buddhist sect that was at that
time predominant in central Myanmar. Primarily
through his efforts, Theravada Buddhism became the
dominant religion of Myanmar and the inspiration for
its culture and civilization. He maintained
diplomatic relations with King Vijayabahu of Ceylon,
who in 1071 requested the assistance of Myanmar
monks to help revive the Buddhist faith. The
Ceylonese king sent Anawrahta a replica of the
Buddha's tooth relic, which was placed in the
Shwezigon pagoda at Pagan.
He was also called MOGADO, or CHAO FA
RUA (fl. 1300), famous king of Hanthawaddy
(Hansavadi, or Pegu), who ruled (1287-96) over the
Mon people of Lower Myanmar. Wareru was a Tai
adventurer of humble origins who had married a
daughter of King Ramkhamhaeng of Sukhothai and had
established himself as overlord of Martaban on the
Salween River in 1281. Since the reign of King
Anawrahta of Pagan (1044-77), the Mon had been under
Myanmar rule; but after the Mongols sacked Pagan in
1287, Wareru and his ally, Tarabya, a Mon prince of
Pegu, drove the Myanmar out of the Irrawaddy Delta
and reestablished the independence of the Mon.
Subsequently, Wareru killed Tarabya and made himself
the sole ruler of the Mon, with his capital at
Martaban. Although he was nominally a vassal of
Ramkhamhaeng, he conducted independent diplomatic
relations with the emperor Kublai Khan in China. A
legendary achievement of his reign was the
compilation of the Dharma-shastra, or Dhammathat,
the earliest surviving law code of Myanmar. Wareru
was murdered by his grandsons.
King Narameikhla also called MENG SOAMWUN (fl.
early 15th century), founder and first king (reigned
1404-34) of the Mrohaung dynasty in Arakan, the
maritime country lying to the west of Lower Myanmar
on the Bay of Bengal, which had been settled by the
Myanmar in the 10th century.
When Arakan became the scene of a struggle
between rival centres of power in the 15th century,
Narameikhla, the son of King Rajathu (reigned
1397-1401), was forced in the first year of his
reign to flee to Bengal, where he became a vassal to
King Ahmad Shah of Gaur. With the aid of Ahmad
Shah's successor, he regained control of Arakan in
1430. In 1433 he built at Mrohaung a new capital,
which remained the capital of Arakan until the 18th
century. As a nominal vassal of the Muslim kings of
Gaur, Narameikhla employed Muslim titles in his
coins and inscriptions, though he and his subjects
were Buddhists. He was succeeded by his son, Ali
Khan (reigned 1434-59), who had adopted a Muslim
name.
King Tabinshwehti (b. 1512, Toungoo, Myanmar
[Myanmar]--d. 1550, Pegu), king who unified Myanmar
(reigned 1531-50). He was the second monarch of the
Toungoo dynasty, which his father, Minkyinyo, had
founded in 1486.
In 1535 Tabinshwehti began a military campaign
against the kingdom of Pegu in southern Myanmar,
capturing the city of Bassein in the Irrawaddy
delta. Four years later Pegu fell, and Takayutpi,
the Pegu king, fled to Prome (northwest of the
present Yangon [Rangoon]). Employing Portuguese
soldiers of fortune, Tabinshwehti captured the towns
of Martaban and Moulmein in 1541, and in the
following year he took Prome. With most of the
southern princes his vassals, he dominated southern
Myanmar as far south as Tavoy on the border of Siam
(Thailand).
Although Tabinshwehti's campaigns in southern
Myanmar were extremely savage, he adopted many Mon
customs, incorporated Mon soldiers into his army,
and made the ancient city of Pegu his capital in
1546. The king planned to use Myanmar as a base from
which to invade Siam. His first campaign outside of
Myanmar, however, was in Arakan, the kingdom to the
west of the Irrawaddy delta, where he attempted to
place a subservient local prince on the throne; his
siege of the capital at Mrohaung was suspended after
the Siamese attacked Tavoy, forcing him to return
home. In 1548 he besieged Ayutthaya, the Siamese
capital, but was forced to make an ignominious
retreat to Myanmar.
Suffering defeat in two campaigns, Tabinshwehti
gave himself up to drink, leaving to his
brother-in-law, Bayinnaung, the task of suppressing
a southern revolt. In 1550 Tabinshwehti was
assassinated by a rival prince, who proclaimed
himself king at Pegu. Bayinnaung crushed the revolt
and carried on his brother-in-law's work of unifying
Myanmar.
King Bayinnaung also called BRAGINOCO or
Barinnaung (fl. late 16th century), king of the
Toungoo dynasty (reigned 1551-81) in Myanmar
(Myanmar). He unified his country and conquered the
Shan States and Siam (now Thailand), making Myanmar
the most powerful kingdom in mainland Southeast
Asia.
In 1550 a revolt broke out among the Mons of
southern Myanmar, and Bayinnaung's brother-in-law,
Tabinshwehti, was assassinated at Pegu in 1551 by a
Mon prince. Bayinnaung marched to Toungoo,
eliminated a pretender to the throne, and proclaimed
himself king; then he marched south, captured the
city of Pegu, and executed the rebel leader, Smim
Htaw. The other Mon rulers then surrendered, and the
revolt was at an end. Bayinnaung made Pegu his
capital, as Tabinshwehti had.
In 1554 Bayinnaung set out against Shan chiefs,
who occupied the ancient Myanmar capital of Ava. He
captured it the following year. The Shans were
placed under Myanmar suzerainty, and Bayinnaung was
consequently in a position to attack his most
powerful enemy, Siam.
In 1563 Bayinnaung took as a pretext for war the
refusal of the Siamese to acknowledge his
suzerainty. The following year he captured the
Siamese capital of Ayutthaya and brought the Siamese
royal family to Myanmar as hostages. In 1568, when a
revolt flared up, Bayinnaung again invaded Siam.
Because the Siamese put up fierce resistance,
Ayutthaya was not captured until August 1569. The
Myanmar king installed a new vassal on the throne
and deported thousands of Siamese into Myanmar as
slaves. The Myanmar dominated Siam for more than 15
years; they were expelled by a liberation movement
led by a Siamese prince, Naresuan (reigned
1590-1605).
Bayinnaung was a patron of Buddhism; he built
pagodas, gave generous donations to monasteries, and
maintained extensive diplomatic relations with the
Buddhist kingdom of Ceylon. When Pegu was burned in
a Mon revolt in 1564, he rebuilt it on an even
grander scale, making one of the richest cities in
Southeast Asia.
King Nanda, also spelled NANDABAYIN (fl. late
16th century), king of the Toungoo dynasty of
Myanmar whose reign (1581-99) ended with the
dismemberment of the empire established by his
father, Bayinnaung.
Upon coming to the throne, Nanda Bayin was faced
with a rebellion of his uncle, the viceroy of Ava,
whom he defeated three years later. In December 1584
Nanda Bayin marched into Siam, which had been a
vassal of his father, to subjugate the Siamese
patriot Naresuan. For the next three years he sent
several armies into the Chao Phraya river valley,
but Naresuan defeated all of them. The Siamese then
went on the offensive, taking Tavoy and Tenasserim
in 1593. Nanda Bayin's troubles were compounded when
another group of his father's subject peoples in
southern Myanmar revolted and invited the Siamese to
occupy Martaban and Moulmein on the Salween River.
In 1595 Nanda Bayin was obliged to retreat to Pegu
and defend the city from a Siamese attack.
In 1599 Nanda Bayin's brothers, the viceroys of
Toungoo, Prome, and Ava, revolted and, after
inviting the king of Arakan to join in the fray,
besieged Pegu, took Nanda Bayin prisoner, and
dismembered the last remnants of Bayinnaung's
empire. Nanda Bayin's reign had been a series of
catastrophes, but this was due less to a lack of
energy and initiative on his part than to the
overreaching ambition of his father, who had built
an empire too large to govern.
King Binnya Dala (d. 1774), last king (reigned
1747-57) of Pegu in southern Myanmar (Myanmar),
whose independence from the northern Myanmarns was
revived briefly between 1740 and 1757.
In 1747 Binnya Dala succeeded Smim Htaw
Buddhaketi, who had seven years earlier been set up
as king of the Mon in the new capital of Pegu after
their successful revolt against the Myanmarns.
Binnya Dala, who was his predecessor's chief
minister and a more capable military leader, made
numerous raids into northern Myanmar, penetrating
beyond Ava, the capital. In 1751 he raised a large
army for the conquest of northern Myanmar, capturing
Ava in April 1752. Two years later he executed the
last king of the Toungoo dynasty, which had been
founded in 1486.
Binnya Dala was eventually deposed by Alaungpaya,
the founder of the Myanmarn Alaungpaya dynasty, who
captured Pegu in 1757. He was kept captive and was
executed by Alaungpaya's son, Hsinbyushin, in 1774.
Alaungpaya (Myanmar: "The
Victorious"), also spelled ALAUNG PHRA, ALOMPRA, or
AUNGZEYA (b. 1714, Moksobomyo [Shwebo], Myanmar--d.
April 13, 1760, Kin-ywa, Martaban province,
Myanmar), king (1752-60) who unified Myanmar
(Myanmar) and founded the Alaungpaya, or Konbaung,
dynasty, which held power until the British annexed
Upper (northern) Myanmar on Jan. 1, 1886. He also
conquered the independent Mon kingdom of Pegu (in
the Irrawaddy River delta).
Of humble origins, Alaungpaya was a village
headman from the small town of Moksobomyo
(present-day Shwebo), north of Ava, the Myanmar
capital, when in April 1752 Binnya Dala, the Mon
king of Pegu, captured Ava and put an end to
Myanmar's ruling Toungoo dynasty. Refusing to become
his vassal, Alaungpaya organized a resistance
movement. Claiming descent from a 15th-century
Myanmar king, he established a new Myanmar capital
at Moksobomyo. In 1753 he recaptured Ava and went on
the offensive in southern Myanmar. In 1755, at the
end of a lightning campaign into the Mon country, he
founded a new port, to be called Yangτn (Rangoon),
at the site of the Mon fishing village of Dagon. In
1757 he captured the city of Pegu, and took Binnya
Dala prisoner. Alaungpaya established effective
control over the whole area previously under the
rule of the Toungoo dynasty.
Because the French had allied themselves with the
Mon, Alaungpaya was eager to gain British support.
In 1757 he concluded a treaty with the British East
India Company, granting it generous trade
concessions. But the company, at war with the French
in India, was unwilling to involve itself on a
second front in Myanmar. In October 1759 the king's
troops massacred British merchants at Negrais who
were suspected of aiding a local revolt. After that
action, relations between Britain and Myanmar were
suspended.
Alaungpaya's last campaign was an invasion of
Siam (Thailand). He led an army through the town of
Tavoy southward to Tenasserim and then northward to
Ayutthaya (Ayuthia), the Siamese capital, which he
surrounded in April 1760. During the siege he was
wounded, and he died while his army was in retreat
to Myanmar.
King Hsinbyushin (d. 1776, Ava, Myanmar), third
king (1763-76) of the Alaungpaya, or Konbaung,
dynasty in Myanmar (Myanmar). He pursued a policy of
expansion at the expense of practically all his
neighbours.
Hsinbyushin's most important single project was
the subjugation of Siam (now Thailand). In 1764 he
campaigned eastward, taking Chiang Mai (Chiengmai)
and Vientiane before invading the Chao Phraya River
valley. When the Siamese capital of Ayutthaya fell
in April 1767, he deported thousands of prisoners to
Myanmar. According to the Siamese chronicles, "the
King of Hanthawaddy [Bayinnaung] waged war like a
monarch, but the King of Ava [Hsinbyushin] like a
robber." Myanmar control of Siam, however, was very
brief; the Siamese general Taksin soon expelled
Hsinbyushin's armies. Not content with conquering
Siam, Hsinbyushin invaded the Hindu kingdom of
Manipur (in present-day Manipur state, India) three
times for slaves and plunder. When the king claimed
suzerainty over the country in the third invasion,
he could then threaten British India.
The greatest threat to Hsinbyushin's power came
from China. Myanmar aggressiveness in the Shan
states, Laos, and Chiang Mai (then the capital of
the kingdom of Lan Na) led the emperor of China to
launch four expeditions against Myanmar in 1765-69,
all of which were defeated by Hsinbyushin. In 1769 a
treaty was signed that provided for trade and
diplomatic missions between the two countries.
In 1773 a revolt broke out in southern Myanmar,
which Hsinbyushin suppressed. On his death three
years later, he was succeeded by his son, Singu Min.
King Bodawpaya (b. 1740/41--d. 1819, Amarapura,
Myanmar [Myanmar]), king of Myanmar, sixth monarch
of the Alaungpaya, or Konbaung, dynasty, in whose
reign (1782-1819) the long conflict began with the
British.
A son of Alaungpaya (reigned 1752-60), the
founder of the dynasty, Bodawpaya came to power
after deposing and executing his grandnephew Maung
Maung. In 1784 Bodawpaya invaded Arakan, the
maritime kingdom on the eastern coast of the Bay of
Bengal, captured its king, Thamada, and deported
more than 20,000 people into Myanmar as slaves. When
Arakan was made a Myanmar province in 1785, the
borders of Myanmar and British India were contiguous
for the first time. The king's success in Arakan led
him to invade Siam (Thailand) in 1785, but his army
was defeated.
Bodawpaya's rule in Arakan was so oppressive that
the people revolted in 1794. When the king sent an
army to crush the revolt, thousands of refugees fled
to British territory, with Myanmar troops crossing
the border in pursuit of the rebel leaders.
Conditions on the border became so unsettled that in
1795 the British sent a representative to Amarapura,
the Myanmar capital, to negotiate with Bodawpaya.
The disturbances continued, however, and Bodawpaya's
campaigns in Assam added to the tension. Open
conflict was narrowly avoided.
Bodawpaya was a fervent Buddhist who proclaimed
himself Arimittya (i.e., noble maitreya), the
messianic Buddha destined to conquer the world. He
persecuted heterodox sects; made drinking, smoking
opium, and killing animals punishable by death; and
built many pagodas. His most ambitious project was
the Mingun pagoda, which, if completed, would have
been 500 feet (150 m) high. During his reign, he
made a major economic survey of the entire kingdom
(1784).
Bagyidaw (d. October 1846), king of
Myanmar (Myanmar) from 1819 to 1837. The seventh
monarch of the Konbaung, or Alaungpaya, dynasty, he
was defeated in the First Anglo-Myanmar War
(1824-26). As a result of his defeat, the provinces
of Arakan and Tenasserim were lost to the British.
Bagyidaw was the grandson of King Bodawpaya, who
had narrowly avoided war with the British over the
frontier between Bengal and Arakan. Bagyidaw was an
ineffectual king, but his general, Maha Bandula,
influenced him to follow Bodawpaya's policy of
aggressive expansion in northeastern India. He
conquered Assam and Manipur, making them Myanmar
tributaries. The border with British India thus
extended from Arakan on the Bay of Bengal northward
to the foot of the Himalayan Mountains. The British,
angered over Myanmar border raids in pursuit of
rebel forces, launched a war on March 5, 1824.
Bagyidaw's armies were driven out of Assam,
Arakan, and Manipur. British forces occupied
southern Myanmar and advanced toward the capital,
Amarapura (near present-day Mandalay). On Feb. 24,
1826, Bagyidaw's government signed the Treaty of
Yandabo; its terms included cession of Tenasserim
and Arakan to the British, payment of an indemnity
equivalent to Pound 1,000,000 (10,000,000 Kyat
silver coins), and renunciation of all Myanmar
claims in Assam and Manipur, which became British
protectorates.
During the remaining years of his reign, Bagyidaw
attempted to mitigate the harsh terms of the treaty.
In 1826 the king negotiated a commercial treaty with
the British envoy, John Crawfurd, but refused to
establish formal diplomatic relations unless he
could deal on an equal basis with the British
sovereign, rather than through the East India
Company at Calcutta. Bagyidaw failed to persuade the
British to give Tenasserim back to Myanmar, but a
deputation that he sent to Calcutta in 1830
successfully reasserted the Myanmar claim to the
Kale-Kabaw Valley, which had been occupied by the
Manipuris. After 1831 Bagyidaw became increasingly
susceptible to attacks of mental instability, and in
1837 he was succeeded by his brother, Prince
Tharrawaddy Min.
General Maha Bandoola, also
spelled MAHABANDULA (b. 1780?--d. April 1, 1825,
Danubyu, Myanmar [Myanmar]), Myanmar general who
fought against the British in the First
Anglo-Myanmar War (1824-26).
In 1819 Maha Bandula served in the Myanmar army
occupying Manipur, and two years later he commanded
a second Myanmar force in the conquest of Assam.
King Bagyidaw subsequently appointed him governor of
Assam and minister at the court of Ava. In January
1824, because of increased tensions along the
Bengal-Arakan border, he was sent with 6,000 troops
to Arakan. When the British declared war in March,
he immediately invaded Bengal, occupying
Ratnapallang and defeating a British force at Ramu.
His objective was to seize Chittagong and Dacca in a
lightning thrust and, with the aid of a second
Myanmar army marching from Assam, to expel the
British from Bengal. His plan was frustrated,
however, when the British landed a force at Yangon
(Rangoon) in May. The opening of a second front
obliged him to call off the campaign and make a
difficult retreat over the Arakan Yoma to Ava.
After raising a large army in northern Myanmar,
Maha Bandula marched to Danubyu, on the Irrawaddy
River, where he established his headquarters in
October 1824. In December he attempted,
unsuccessfully, to encircle the British, who were
entrenched in the neighbourhood of Yangon. When his
headquarters fell to the British, he retreated to
prepare for the defense of Danubyu.
In March 1825 the British attacked Danubyu, which
Bandula defended courageously. After he was killed
in battle, resistance collapsed, Danubyu fell, and
the British advanced to Prome, signaling defeat for
the Myanmar.
King Tharrawaddy (d. October 1846), eighth king
(reigned 1837-46) of the Alaungpaya, or Konbaung,
dynasty of Myanmar (Myanmar), who repudiated the
Treaty of Yandabo and nearly brought about a war
with the British.
Tharrawaddy in 1837 deposed his brother Bagyidaw
(reigned 1819-37), who had been obliged to sign the
humiliating treaty that ceded the provinces of
Arakan and Tenasserim to the British. Upon his
accession, Tharrawaddy declared the treaty invalid
and refused to negotiate with representatives of the
government of India, demanding the right to deal
directly with the British monarch. The British
resident at Amarapura, the Myanmar capital, was
forced to leave in June 1837, and Tharrawaddy
refused to deal with his successor in 1838 because
he too was merely a representative of the Indian
governor-general. In 1840 the British suspended the
residency, and diplomatic relations between Myanmar
and the British remained broken for more than a
decade.
Tharrawaddy nearly brought Myanmar to renewed war
when, in 1841, he went to Yangτn (Rangoon) on a
pilgrimage to the Shwe Dagon pagoda, bringing with
him a large military escort. The British interpreted
this as a warlike act and refrained from starting
hostilities only because of their entanglements in
Afghanistan. After 1841 Tharrawaddy became
increasingly subject to fits of mental instability;
he was dethroned and, on his death, succeeded by his
son Pagan (reigned 1846-53).
King Mindon (b. 1814, Amarapura, Myanmar
[Myanmar]--d. Oct. 1, 1878, Mandalay), king of
Myanmar from 1853 to 1878. His reign was notable
both for its reforms and as a period of cultural
flowering in the period before the imposition of
complete colonial rule.
Mindon was a brother of Pagan (reigned 1846-53 ),
who had ruled during the Second Anglo-Myanmar War in
1852. As soon as he became king, Mindon sued for
peace and began negotiations with the British on the
status of Pegu (in southern Myanmar), which the
British had occupied during the war. Frustrated in
his attempts to persuade them to return Pegu, the
king was obliged to accept a much-reduced dominion,
cut off from the sea and deprived of some of the
richest teak forests and rice-growing regions. To
avoid further trouble, he signed a commercial treaty
in 1867 that gave the British generous economic
concessions in the unoccupied parts of Myanmar. In
1872 he sent his chief minister, the Kinwun Mingyi U
Gaung, on a diplomatic mission to London, Paris, and
Rome to secure international recognition of
Myanmar's status as an independent country and to
appeal for restoration of its lost territory.
Mindon's reign is sometimes considered to have
been a golden age of Myanmar culture and religious
life. In 1857 he built a new capital, Mandalay, with
palaces and monasteries that are masterpieces of
traditional Myanmar architecture. The king also
sought to make Mandalay a centre of Buddhist
learning, convening the Fifth Buddhist Council there
in 1871 in an effort to revise and purify the Pali
scriptures.
Despite conservative opposition, Mindon promoted
numerous reforms. The most important were the
thathameda, the assessed land tax, and fixed
salaries for government officials. He standardized
the country's weights and measures, built roads and
a telegraph system, and was the first Myanmar king
to issue coinage. Mindon's reign compares favourably
with that of Mongkut of Siam (Thailand), even though
Siam enjoyed the privileged position of a buffer
state between British and French possessions, while
the continued existence of an independent Myanmar
kingdom was a hindrance to British interests.
Mindon was succeeded by his son, Thibaw (reigned
1878-85), who was to be the last king of Myanmar.
King Thibaw, also spelled THEEBAW (b. 1858,
Mandalay,
 Myanmar--d. Dec. 19, 1916, Ratnagiri Fort,
India), last king of Myanmar, whose short reign
(1878-85) ended with the occupation of Upper Myanmar
by the British.
Thibaw was a younger son of King Mindon (reigned
1853-78) and studied (1875-77) in a Buddhist
monastery. As king he was strongly influenced by his
wife, Supayalat, and her mother, and his accession
to the throne was accompanied by much violence and
civil strife.
In an attempt to enlist the aid of the French
against the British, who had annexed Lower Myanmar
during his father's reign, Thibaw's government sent
a mission to Paris in 1883. Two years later a
commercial treaty was concluded, and a French
representative arrived in Mandalay. Rumours
circulated that Thibaw's government had granted the
French economic concessions in exchange for a
political alliance, and British officials in
Rangoon, Calcutta, and London began demanding
immediate annexation of Upper Myanmar.
An occasion for intervention was furnished by the
case of the British-owned Bombay-Myanmar Trading
Corporation, which extracted teak from the Ningyan
forest in Upper Myanmar. When Thibaw charged it with
cheating the government, demanding a fine of Pound
Sterling 100,000, the Indian viceroy, Lord Dufferin,
sent an ultimatum to Mandalay in October 1885
demanding a reconsideration of the case. Thibaw
ignored the ultimatum, and on Nov. 14, 1885, the
British invaded Upper Myanmar, capturing Mandalay
two weeks later. Thibaw was deposed and Upper
Myanmar incorporated into the province of British
Myanmar. Thibaw was exiled to India, where he
remained until his death.
Saya San also spelled HSAYA, original name
YA GYAW (b. Oct. 24, 1876, East Thayet-kan, Shwebo
district, Myanmar [Myanmar]--d. Nov. 16, 1931,
Tharrawaddy), leader of the anti-British rebellion
of 1930-32 in Myanmar (Myanmar).
Saya San was a native of Shwebo, a centre of
nationalist-monarchist sentiment in north-central
Myanmar that was the birthplace of the Konbaung (or
Alaungpaya) dynasty, which controlled Myanmar from
1752 until the British annexation in 1886. He was a
Buddhist monk, physician, and astrologer in Siam
(Thailand) and Myanmar before the rebellion. Saya
San joined the extreme nationalist faction of the
General Council of Burmese Associations led by U Soe
Thein. Saya San organized peasant discontent and
proclaimed himself a pretender to the throne who,
like Alaungpaya, would unite the people and expel
the British invader. He organized his followers into
the "Galon Army" (Galon, or Garuda, is a fabulous
bird of Hindu mythology), and he was proclaimed
"king" at Insein, near Rangoon (Yangon), on Oct. 28,
1930.
On the night of December 22/23 the first outbreak
occurred in the Tharrawaddy district; the revolt
soon spread to other Irrawaddy delta districts. The
Galon army rebels, like the Boxers of China, carried
charms and tattoos to make themselves invulnerable
to British bullets. Armed only with swords and
spears, Saya San's rebels were no match for British
troops with machine guns.
As the revolt collapsed, Saya San fled to the
Shan Plateau in the east. On Aug. 2, 1931, however,
he was captured at Hokho and brought back to
Tharrawaddy to be tried by a special tribunal.
Despite the efforts of his lawyer, Ba Maw, he was
sentenced to death in March 1931 and was hanged at
Tharrawaddy jail. The revolt was crushed, but more
than 10,000 peasants were killed in the process.
Although Saya San's revolt was basically
political (it was the last genuine attempt to
restore the Burmese monarchy) and possessed strong
religious characteristics, its causes were basically
economic. The peasants of southern Myanmar had been
dispossessed by Indian moneylenders, were burdened
with heavy taxes, and were left penniless when the
price of rice dropped in an economic depression.
Widespread support for Saya San betrayed the
precarious and unpopular position of British rule in
Myanmar.
Aung San (b. 13 Feb 1915,
Natmauk, Myanmar [now Myanmar]--d. July 19, 1947,
Rangoon [now Yangτn]), Myanmar nationalist leader
and assassinated hero who was instrumental in
securing Myanmar's independence from Great Britain.
Before World War II Aung San was actively
anti-British; he then allied with the Japanese
during World War II, but switched to the Allies
before leading the Myanmar drive for autonomy.
Born of a family distinguished in the resistance
movement after the British annexation of 1886, Aung
San became secretary of the students' union at
Rangoon University and, with U Nu, led the students'
strike there in February 1936. After Myanmar's
separation from India in 1937 and his graduation in
1938, he worked for the nationalist Dobama Asi-ayone
("We-Burmans Association"), becoming its
secretary-general in 1939.
While seeking foreign support for Myanmar's
independence in 1940, Aung San was contacted in
China by the Japanese. They then assisted him in
raising a Myanmar military force to aid them in
their 1942 invasion of Myanmar. Known as the
"Myanmar Independence Army," it grew with the
advance of the Japanese and tended to take over the
local administration of occupied areas. Serving as
minister of defense in Ba Maw's puppet government
(1943-45), Aung San became skeptical of Japanese
promises of Myanmar independence, even if an
unlikely Japanese victory were to occur, and was
displeased with their treatment of Myanmar forces.
Thus, in March 1945, Major General Aung San switched
his Myanmar National Army to the Allied cause.
After the Japanese surrender in August 1945, the
British sought to incorporate his forces into the
regular army, but he held key members back, forming
the People's Volunteer Organization. This was
ostensibly a veterans' association interested in
social service, but it was in fact a private
political army designed to take the place of his
Myanmar National Army and to be used as a major
weapon in the struggle for independence.
Having helped form the Anti-Fascist People's
Freedom League (AFPFL), an underground movement of
nationalists, in 1944, Aung San used that united
front to become deputy chairman of Myanmar's
Executive Council in late 1946. In effect he was
prime minister but remained subject to the British
governor's veto. After conferring with the British
prime minister Clement Attlee in London, he
announced an agreement (Jan. 27, 1947) that provided
for Myanmar's independence within one year. In the
election for a constitutional assembly in April
1947, his AFPFL won 196 of 202 seats. Though
communists had denounced him as a "tool of British
imperialism," he supported a resolution for Myanmar
independence outside the British Commonwealth.
On July 19, the prime minister and six
colleagues, including his brother, were assassinated
in the council chamber in Rangoon while the
executive council was in session. His political
rival, U Saw, interned in Uganda during the war, was
later executed for his part in the killings.
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