A History of Myanmar since Ancient Times by Michael Aung-Thwin

Author:Michael Aung-Thwin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Reaktion Books

THE ‘IMMEDIATE’ ORIGINS OF THE THREE ANGLO–BURMESE WARS

The First Anglo–Burmese War of 1824–6 had to do with a border dispute in western Myanmar where the ‘inviolable’ and scientifically defined boundaries of British India collided with the ‘porous’ and ‘casually’ defined ones of the Kingdom of Ava. These differences were essentially cultural, based on dissimilar systems, environments, histories, world views, values and beliefs, but also a matter of power. Myanmar lost that war, and had to pay an indemnity of a million pounds sterling, much more than it had in its treasury at any one time. The reader might remember the nature of the Burmese economy whereby only about 10 per cent of production was taxed in silver while the other 90 per cent remained on the land as padi to pay for the rest of the state’s expenses at harvest time. The British also demanded and took the provinces of Tenasserim, Arakan and Assam, the first two of which could have provided the monarchy with the trade revenues needed to pay the indemnity. But because the coastal areas surrounding the kingdom were now blocked (or controlled) by the British, the king had no choice but to levy a surcharge on the people to pay the indemnity, an extraordinary burden, especially for the ordinary cultivator.

The immediate origins of the Second War of 1852–3 had more to do with personalities and displays of power and less with different world views and cultural misunderstandings. All but the staunchest pro-British historian would blame British Commodore George R. Lambert for starting the war.1 Not surprisingly, the Burmese lost this war as well and, once again, Britain took another large piece of territory, this time all the way up to Prome, the entrance to the Dry Zone and the ‘heartland’ of Myanmar. The new British map now included a British ‘Lower Burma’.

By the end of the Second Anglo–Burmese War, then, Britain had completely landlocked the kingdom of Myanmar, leaving it with only its ‘heartland’, the Dry Zone. Its territory was reduced to where it was during the First Ava Kingdom of the fifteenth century. Lower Burma’s traditional role – as window to the outside world through which came many intellectual and commercial influences – was now gone or filtered through a British ‘sieve’.

The kingdom of Myanmar survived in this manner until 1885 when the last Anglo–Burmese War ended and Britain took the capital, Mandalay. It was sacked, most of its records were burned in a bonfire that lasted three days, and its treasures looted. This last war also had nearly everything to do with economic and political concerns. The British wanted access to the mythical ‘back door’ of China that led to an imagined large Chinese market, to exploit the country’s rich natural resources along the way – the ruby mines district north of Mandalay produced the best rubies in the world – and harness the bulk of Myanmar’s cultivator population to meet Britain’s export designs concerning rice and other agricultural products. Politically, the British claimed

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