However, the dispossessed peasantry were not employed on the plantations: The Kandyan villagers refused to abandon their traditional subsistence holdings and become wage-workers in the nightmarish conditions that prevailed on these new estates, despite all the pressure exerted by the colonial state.

An infamous system of contract labour was established, which transported hundreds of thousands of Tamil 'coolies' from southern India into Sri Lanka for the coffee estates.

On 1 July 1848, license fees were imposed on guns, dogs, carts, shops and labour was made compulsory on plantation roads, unless a special tax was paid.

The masses were without the leadership of their native King (deposed in 1815) or their chiefs (either crushed after the Uva Rebellion or collaborating with the colonial power).

On the same day Dines, his brother was declared the sub-king and Dingirala as the uncrowned king of the Sat Korale (Seven Counties).

Veera Puran Appu was appointed prime minister and the sword bearer to Gongalegoda Banda and attended his consecration ceremony with 4000 others.

Subsequently, a proclamation was issued to amend the death sentence to flogging 100 times and deportation to Malacca (Malaysia).

Gongalegoda Banda, the son of Wansapurna Dewage Sinchia Fernando was the leader of the 1848 Rebellion and King of Kandy.

Weerahennedige Francisco Fernando alias Veera Puran Appu is one of the most colourful personalities in Sri Lanka's history.

He left Moratuwa at the age of 13 and stayed in Ratnapura with his uncle, who was the first Sinhalese proctor, and moved to the Uva Province.

The masses were without the leadership of their native King (deposed in 1815), or their chiefs (either crushed after the Uva Rebellion or collaborating with the colonial power).