The first assault was beaten back with loss, but Kattabomman left the fort by night; he was taken weeks later and hanged at Kayathar.
01The fort that would not pay
Panchalankurichi was the seat of the Kattabomman family, palaiyakkarars of the black-soil country north of Tuticorin. Veerapandiya Kattabomman had quarrelled with the Company’s collector Jackson at Ramanathapuram in 1798 and refused the arrears of tribute. In September 1799 Major Bannerman brought troops and guns from Palayamkottai and summoned him to surrender. Kattabomman refused. The fort was of mud, with thick walls and a thorn hedge, and the Company’s first storming party was driven back from the walls with officers and men killed.
02Escape, capture, the tamarind tree
With heavier guns coming up, Kattabomman and his followers slipped out of the fort at night and went north. The Company occupied Panchalankurichi. The Raja of Pudukkottai’s men caught Kattabomman in the forests, and on 16 October 1799 Bannerman had him hanged from a tamarind tree at Kayathar, before the assembled palaiyakkarars. His brother Oomaithurai later broke out of prison and rebuilt the fort, which the Company razed for good in 1801.
The siege made Kattabomman the first hero of the Tamil resistance to the Company, remembered in ballads and in the rebuilt fort memorial at Panchalankurichi.